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Issue 13.1 of the Review for Religious, 1954. ; A. M.D. G. Review for Religious JANUARY 15, 1954 Apparitions and Revelations . Aucjusffne ~. Ellard Screening of Candidates . WilliemC. Bier ¯Reading for Religious . Edward F. ~aresch6 Aurelian Spirituality . Sister Mary of Carmel Book Reviews Questions and Answers Communications VOLUME XIII NUMBER 1 RI VII:::W FOR RI::LIGIOUS VOLUME XIII JANUARY, 1954 NU/vlBER 1 CONTENTS APPARITIONS AND REVELATIONS: ATTITUDES TOWARD THEM Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. 3 PRACTICAL REQUIREMENTS OF A PROGRAM FOR THE PSY-CHOLOGICAL SCREENING OF CANDI-DATES- William C. Bier. S.J .13 COMMUNICATIONS . 27 READING FOR RELIGIOUS---Edward F. GareschL S.J .2.9. SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS . 34 AURELIAN SPIRITUALITY~ister Mary of Carmel, R.P.B .3.5. "APPARITIONS" OF OUR LADY . 45 PAMPHLETS AND BOOKLETS . 46 BOOK REVIEWS-- The Spiritfiality of St. Ignatius Loyola . 47 BOOK NOTICI~S . - . 48 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 49 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 1. Special Confessor for Individual Sister .53 2. Special Spiritual Director, Not Confessor .53 3. Blessing by Mother Superior' . . 54 4. Successive Terms in Different Houses .54 5. Length of Years in Office for Superior General .55 6. Terms of Office for Superior General . 55 VOCATION INSTITUTE . 56 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, January, 1954. Vol. XIII, No. 1. Published bi-monthly: January, Ma~ch, May, July, September. and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J., Adam C. Ellis, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J., Francis N. Korth, 8.3. Copyright, 1954, by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U. S. A. Before wrltlncj to us. please consult notice on Inside back cover. Review for Religious Volume XIII January--December, 1954 Published a÷ THE COLLEGE PRESS Topeka, Kansas Edited by THE JESUIT FATHERS SAINT MARY'S COLLEGE St. Marys, Kansas REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is in~lexe¢l in the GATHOLIG PERIODIGAL INDEX Apparit:ions and Revelat:ions: At:t:it:udes t:oward Them Augustine G. Ell~ird, S.J. ASIDE perhaps from fully cloistered nuns, one could hardly be so ill informed about what is going on in Catholic circles as not to notice how often in recent years apparitions and reve-lations from heaven have been reported and what a great stir they make among the people. Troublesome times were always wont to bring, forth a multi-tude of such prodigies. Our days, after the two world wars, the attacks of communism, the threats of atomic catastrophes, and all the disturbing effects of these great movements, are unsettled in a high degree. Moreover--a point in which we differ markedly from previous generations--the means of communication now are so fast and far-reaching that any extraordinary occurrence can become known almost immediately throughout the widest areas. One might suppose that in our enlightened and skeptical and materialistic century a rumor of marvelous happenings would create doubt and cynicism rather than eager enthusiasm to participate in whatever appears supernatural. The contrary, however, seems really to be the fact. At least in one case the excitement became so great and disor-dered that it was necessary for tbe ecclesiastical authorities to launch an excommunication against tbose who were letting their feelings run away with their reason (Heroldsbach, near Bamberg, Germany: nineteen persons were excommunicated: July, 1952). Throughout the whole Catholic world there seemed to be so much excessive credulity toward reported celestial visitations that it was felt im-perative to publish an emphatic warning in the semi-official paper of the Holy See, L'Osseruatore Roneano (February 3, 1951). Some of the best-known of these real or alleged celestial interventions are listed on pages 45-46 of this number of the REVIEW. If one is to distinguish true from false and to preserve an intel-ligent and balanced attitude toward what he hears recounted, it is necessary to have some little acquaintance with what a well-instructed Catholic should think about apparitions and revelations. AUGUSTINE G. }~LLARD ¯Importance of the Right Attitude The importance of taking the proper attitude toward apparitions and revelations can be very great. If Christ our Lord should deign to appear and speak to one, it is clear that He should be received and heard with the great.est rever-ence. Simi!arly if some other person from heaven, say the Blessed Virgin, should honor one with a visit or message, one ought to re-spond with becoming respect and gratitude. God would be singling one out individually for a favor, and even working a miracle to cbnvey it. If the apparitions and revelations be objective and one's reaction right, they sometimes turn out to be the most significant graces for one's own personal sanctification. On the other h.and, one can also make poor use of them, or even let oneself become, the dupe of hal-lucinations, and then the evil consequences can be disastrous. Good Effects The lives of the saints are full of examples of favors of this kind that led later on to other and greater graces. To say nothing of St. Paul's experience on the road to Damascus--because one might argue that it was not merely a private apparltion--we could instance such cases as the following. St. Teresa of Avila experienced very many visions and revela-tions and was much helped by them in becoming the great saint and apostle that she was. Once she beheld a seraph lancing a fiery dart into her heart and she heard Christ Himself ~ay, "In future you will be jealous, for My honor not only because I am your creator and your king, but as My true spouse. My honor is yours: your honor is Mine." Such an experience could not but have a most potent in-fluence upon her subsequent spiritual development. Referring to a number of her visions, she wrote: "I could never regret baying seen these heavenly visions and I would not exchange them for all the good things and delights of this world. I always considered them a great favor from the Lord, and I think they were the greatest of treasures; often the Lord Himself would reassure me about them. I found my love growing exceedingly" (Life, chap. 19: Peers's translation of the Comptete~ Works of St. Teresa, I, 188). St. Catherine of Siena could not be formally and visibly espoused to Christ with a ring and other ceremonies withou,t being powerfully stimulated to advance in sanctity and in the service of 4 danuarg, 19~¥ APPARITIONS AND REVELATIONS the Church. A succession of visions helped Joseph of Cupertino, the great Italian Franciscan miracle-worker of the seventeenth cen-tury, to become the incredible .saint that he was. Several of the great religious, orders are indebted in greater or lesser measure for their origin, or at least for their actual historical course of development, to" apparitions and revelations. Saudre~u lists numerous.examples of this fact (L'Etat M~tstique, 1921, p. 221). It is said that the confirmations of both the Franciscan and the Dominican orders were owing in part to visions granted to Pope Innocent III. When St. Francis asked for approbation for his nascent order, the Pope seemed unwilling to give it, and many ~of the cardinals were actively opposed to the move. Then the Pope had a dream in which Francis appeared supporting the Lateran Church which seemed to be in danger of collapsing. Something similar hap-pened five years later in favor of St. Dominic and his order. Ac-cording to t~adition, the founders of the Servite order (seven young men of Florence, in the early part of the thirteenth century) had a vision of the Blessed Virgin and were inspired by her to give tip the secular life and devote themselves to God ,exclusively. Later on, in another vi.sion, she gave them their habit, their name, and an indi-cation as to what rule they should adopt. ' The history of the Church, especially of its devotional life, abundantly illustrates what a mighty influence apparitions and revelations can have for the faithful generally. Outstanding instances that occur to the mind at once are the mission of St. Juliana of Liege (i 193-1258) in bringing about the institution of the solem-nity of Corpus Christi; St. Simon Stock (c. 1165-1265) and the devotion of the scapular; the apparitions of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary and the tremendous force now of the cultus of the Sacred Heart; Lourdes and all the pilgrimages to that shrine; and lastly, Fatima and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Without apparitions and revelations there .would have been no St. Jeanne d'Arc; without her, Frefich and European history would be very different. Owing in part at least to a special revelation St. Catherine of Siena was able to induce Pope Gregory XI to re-store the papal curia from Avignon to Rome. Evil Results On the other hand, private revelations or apparitions, and their counterfeits especially, can also have very serious evil consequences. AUGUSTINE G. I~LLARD Reaie~u for Religious Those that are really genuine a~e at best and in themselves graces of an inferior sort. They belong to the extraordinary phenomena that occasionally mark the pursuit of virtue. Like other miracles, they are not'supernatural in the absolute sense. Of themselves they do not give one a greater participation in the divine life and a Fight to a higher degree of beatitude in eternity. One can be favored with miracles, or even work them, and still in the end find oneself ex-cluded from the company of the elect. "Many will'say to me in that day, 'Lord! Lord! did we not prophesy in Thy name, and cast out demons in Thy name, and do many miracles in Thy name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of iniq.uityV " (Matthew 7:22.) Some good people are like the ancient Corinthiafis whom St. Paul had to instruct about the relative values of "spiritual gifts" and charity: "Now, earnestly desire the grdater gifts; and yet I will point out to you a far more excellent path," namely that of charity. Then follows the celebrated passage in praise of charity: "If I spoke With the languages of men and of ~ingels: . . . But the greatest of these is love" (I Corinthiaris 12:31-13:13). Moreover the spiritual masters always call attention to the fact that there are many great dangers and difficulties connected with this unusual type of divine favor. It is quite possible to make bad use ~)f good graces. True apparitions and revelations may be misunder-stood and misinterpreted. Instead of being used for the purposes for which they are given, they may be diverted to faulty human ends. They may lead to pride and presumption, and thus eventu-ally to spiritual catastrophe. They are peculiarly apt to lessen the purity of one's faith and charity. At the very least they may dis-tract one from the greater and better graces of the .supernatural life. False visions and revelations, besides playing havoc with the lives and virtues of those who imagine that they receive them, can lead whole multitudes astray, deprive them of the benefits of the proper practice of their religion, and make religion' itself a mockery to outsiders. For thes~ reasons theologians and enlightened spiritual directors always try to discourage people from developing too much interest in these minor, though indeed more spect.acular, manifestations of divine favor. APPARITIONS AND REVELATIONS Wrong I, nitial Attitudes . . Among the generality of 'lthe faithful, e~pecially those who ar, e less intelligent or less well educated, there will always be the ineradi- . cable human tend.ency to get e.xcesslvely excited over-fresh reports of supernatural occurrences." There will always .be some who are gul-lible enough to accept almost any rumor. They are curious to have some experience of what is mysterious and weird.-. They are eager. to obtain some divine favor or other. Influencing one another and exemplifying the faults of crowd psychology, they almost inevitably go beyond the limits of sound reason and the cautions of their ec- Clesiastical superiors. Devout individual souls of some proficiency or ambition in the spiritual lif~ often succumb to an inordinate interest in private ap-paritions and revelations, but in a different way. They would dearly love to receix~e some special personal attention from God or the Blessed Virgin or the saints in heaven~ ~It would be wonderful to have ~ real experience in som~ way of the supernatural. They appreciate the joys of spiritual, consolatiori a'nd would gladly enjoy the maximum of them. An unusual sign :from God, actually vis-. ible or audible, could miraculously facilit;ite their efforts to make progre.ss in the interior ways. They would feel more like the saints, who, they imagine, lived in a world of supernatural phenomena. Aiming 'too muchat extraordinar~r ex.periences, rather than at the more prosaic practice of virtue, they would find some of their fondest desires gratified.' Such tendencies appear at times in very pibus and excellent souls. Nevertheless all spiritual authorities are unanimous and urgent in counseling people who are cultivating the interior, life not to desire or seek anything of the kind. Instead of occupying themselves with favors that are of inferior worth and sometimes positively danger-ous, they should concentrate on the more desirable graces, those that properly sanctify one and enhance one's solid virtoe. Otherwise they may fall victims to various hazards and deceits. A very humble man would be preoccupied, not with looking for special, extraordinary favors, but irl endeavori~ag to lessen his unworthiness of'aug favor. A-prudent'man would be wary "about getting himself into many distractions from what he should really be about; One who is on the watch for marvelous phenomena may indeed get them, not from above, but from the insidious evil spirits, ever-ready to turn to their purposes a c.ravir~g that is not wholesome.~ ' " 7 AUGUSTINE G. ELLARD Reuiew for Religious No 'one is more emphatic in cautioning good people not to seek apparitions and revelations of their own, or does it with more au-thority, than the great mystical doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross. Reading. what he has to say about such phenomena should cure a sensible person of any hankering that he may have for the marvelous element in ~he spiritual life "Ascent of Mt. Carmel, II, chapters XVI-XXXII). - Thus, for example, he writes: "In order to come to this essential union of love in God [that is, the state to which St. John is guiding his readers], the soul must have a care not to lean upon imaginary visions . for these cannot serve it as a proportionate and proximate means to such an end; rather they would disturb it, and for this reason the soul must re-nounce them and strive not to have them. For if in any circum-stance they were to be received and prized,, it would be for the sake of the profit which true visions bring to the soul and the good effect which they'produce upon it. But i~ is not necessary, for this reason, to receive them; rather it is Well always to reject them for the soul's benefit" (op. cir., Peers's translation, I, 134). The best effects of such divine communicati'ons are received in souls that resist, rather than seek, them. "Let confessors direct their penitents in faith, instructing them frankly to turn away their eyes from all such things, teachingthem how to avoid the desire and the spirit of them that they make progress, and giving them to understand how much more precious in God's sight is one work or act ~f the will performed in charity than are'all the visions and communications that they may receive from Heaven, since these imply neither merit nor demerit" (op cir., I, 184). Recipients" Attitudes But suppose now, no matter what a person's previous attitude toward visions and r~velations has been, that one really occurs, or at least seems to occur. What i~ one to think? What should one do? If it is not quite evident at once, without any examination at all, that what one seems to see or hear is from above, one should try to disregard it arid pay no attention to it. One should rather en-deavor to 'busy oneself with something else. Such is the advice of the saints and theologians. Thus St. Teresa writes: "Both with infirm and healthy souls .there is invariably cause for misgivings about theke things until it becomes clear what kind of spirit is responsible. I Januar~l, 1954 APPARITIONS AND REVELATIONS believe, too, that it is always better for them to dispense with such things at first, for, if they are of God, dispensing with them will help us all the more to advance, since, when put to the proof in this way, they will tend to increase" (Interior Castle, "Sixth M~insions," chapter III; Peers's translation, II, 280). Soon after such an occurrence one should of course consult a prudent director, give him a full account of the whole matter, and then be sensible enough to abide by what he says. In c~se it is immediately and perfectly evident that one has to do with a visit or message that is really of divine origin, then one should receive it with becoming courtesy. What this' will consist in will depend upon who has appeared or who' is speaking. If, for instance, it be Jesus Himself, as happened to St. Margaret Mary, or the Blessed Virgin, as at Lourdes, one would show the utmost rev-erence and respect. If an angel or a saint from heaven or a soul from purgatory should be the visitor, one's reception would be what is fitting under the. circumstances. Any communication would be listened to. The next thing by all means is to see one's director "and let him know just what happened. Then, with becoming docility a'nd humility, one should be guided entirely by his judgment. Patience also may be necessary; it may not be possible for him to come to a conclusion at once. This is exactly what the saints did themselves, and what they recommend for others. Thus one submits to the Church, and is safeguarded from following in the devious ways that history records of many deluded visionaries. What is private and unofficial is sub-ordinated to what is public and official. Care to keep in agreement with the infallible Church is the only sure means of avoiding illu-sion, not to say hallucination. Even if for a time there should seem to be a contradiction between God giving directions immediately in a revelation and God directing through the Church, one should fol-low the Church's rep, resentatives. It is thus that God is truly pleased. One time St. Teresa was instructed in a revelation from the Lord to make a certain foundation. Her superior, Father Gratian, desired that she should make another one instead. She obeyed promptly and simply. Father Gratian was aware of the difficulty, and being surprised that she did not object, later on questioned her about the matter. Teresa answered that she acted as she did "because AUGUSTINE G. ELLARD' '"::: ' '." ~', Reoieto for Religious faith tells me that the orders of Your Reverence are the expression of the will of God, whereas I am never sure of my revelations." Showing the proper diffidence in oneself and docility toward au-thority is a sign in favor of one's vision or locution, and may be a means of promoting its acceptance. On the contrary, excessive in-sistence on having a direct personal communication from God might lead to suspicions against one and resistance. One may feel that something divine and very excellent is being neglected or lost, and to bear this trial well may test one's patience and humility. But if it r.eally be from God, in His own good time He will make it tri-umph. Thus it was on13i after the death of Blessed Juliana of Liege that her divine commission to help bring about the feast " : Corpus Christi achieved the desired result. Sometimes a person gets some practical injunction in a private revelation; for example, to promote a certain devotion, to take steps toward raising a shrine, to make a pilgrimage, and so forth. Here the first great rule is to begin by seeking prudent ,counsel from one's director or superiors, and to conform to it. The second general principle is not to do anything of the kind unless independently of ¯ the supposed revelation there seem to be good reasons for it. Thus one follows both supernatural good sefise and the revelation. Then the suggestion from above becomes the occasion rather than the principal cause of what is done. The more extraordinary the un-dertaking appears, the greater must be the reasons otherwise known which justify it, the greater one's care in considering the whole mat-ter, ands the more cautious one's general attitude. Humility and amenability to direction are both excellent signs of union with God and means of getting co-operation from others in doing the work of God and of the Church. Reported Apparitions and Revelations The great practical problem for most of us is what attitude we should take, not toward visions or locutions of our own--most of us do not have very many!--but toward the apparitions or revela-tions that we hear or read about. In Catholic spiritual literature there are volumes and volumes from the saints and other devout persons purporting to give new re-vealed knowledge On the life of Christ, for instance, or on His Pas-sion, or on the experiences of the Blessed Virgin. Moreover the public press nowadays very frequently has news 10 danuar~l, 1954 APPARITIONS AND P~EVELATIONS reports about alleged recent revelations. The Scapular, for Septem-ber- October, 1950, gives an account in particular of fifteen appari-tions, of the ]31essed Virgin since Fatima, and it adds, "There are reports of others in Spain, Poland, Roumania, and Sicily, but so far the news is sketchy and incomplete" (pp. 3 ft.). There are also the apparitions listed by the Clergtl Montbtv (Ranchi, India) and re-ferred to at the beginning of this.article (see pp. 45-46). The query what stand-we should adopt toward such reports affects all of us and nearly all- the time. To disregard true messages from heaven would be unbecoming, displeasing to" God, and inju-rious to ourselves. But neither do we wish to be duped by the vic-tims of hallucination. Here we may consider a simple and obvious solution of the problem. It will be very easy. to apply and very safe. But unfor~ tunately it will not always be available, especially in the beginning when popular interest and excitement are at their height. In an-other article we.can discuss the distinctions and difficulties that meet one who inquires into these matters more thoroughly. For the pres-ent let us be satisfied with the simplest answer. This plain and facile solution is, "Follow the approbation or disapprobation of the official authorities in the Church, either the Pope or the bishops! If they have not spoken yet, by all means sus-pend judgment, and wait until they do!" , The Church can judge. The" supernatural is her special field, and in it she has a unique competence. She also has the accumu-lated ~xperience and wisdom of twenty centuries. Her theologians know the criteria by which to distinguish the supernatural from the natural, Her investigators can judiciously gather all the evidence for the facts. They can visit the place where the. vision is said to have occurred and interrogate the persons most intimately concerned. When appropriate, they can bring in witnesses that are expert in science, medicine, psychology, and other specialties. They go about their work calmly and critically, not excitedly and enthusiastically. Finally, they have the peculiar assistance of the Holy Spirit. Hence' they can come to a well-founded decision. It is never, however, proposed as infallible. We cannot judge. Of all .the people who hear or read of the apparitions and revelations that are currently reported not one in a hundred knows the principles on the basis, of which critical judg-ments about them are to be made. Even if everybody did know 11 -AUGUSTINE G. ELLARD those criteria well, still practically they could not ascertain the ~acts reliably. Because of distance and remoteness, or lack of opportunity to inquire carefully, 0r--perhaps most of all--want of sufficiently trustworthy a, ccounts, it is really impossible for nearly all persons who merely read or hear such reports to get a critically certain, fac-tual foundation for judgment. Hence, for want of evidence, they are not in a position to pronounce. Therefore, the sensible thing to do is to follow the official deci-sions of the Church~ whether episcopal or papal. One alw.a.ys does best precisely in agreeing with the Church. She does not expec.t what is proposed as divine revelation to be received as such without miraculous intervention demonstrating that God corroborates what His messenger says. She does not go to either of the two extremes of roundly denying in advance all private visions or locutions or Of readily admitting those that are being bruited about. With the competence of a.specialist in the domain of the supernatural, and with absolutely unique promises of aid from the Holy Spirit, she investigates individual cases with great care and pro-nounces decisions that should command the respect of all. Besides, one who thinks with the Church will preserve his sense of perspec-tire and attach relatively little importance to private revelations as compared with the great official public revelation entrusted long ago to her by Christ and the Apostles. During the interval that elapses between the first report o~ a new vision and the approbation or disapprobation of the ecclesiastical au-thorities, the best and the most prudent thing that one can do is to be patient, hold one's opinion in abeyance, and await the official judgment. Otherwise one runs the risk of rejecting, what is au-thentically of divine origin-or of sharing in the evil consequences of hallucination or downright imPosture. To be intelligent about the whole matter in a very general way, one 'might well review, the principl.es that should guide one's thinking by reading the pertinent pages in some such work as Tanquerey's The Spiritual Limb, pages 700 ft., or Poulain's The' Graces of Inte?ior Prayer, pages 299 ft. "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world". (I John 4:1). ."Test everything; hold fast to what is good" (I Thessalonians'5:21). 12 Prac!:ical Requiremen!:s of a ¯ Program for t:he Psychological Screening ot: Candidat:es William C. Bier, S.3. [EDITORS' NOTE: This is the second of two articles adapted from papers presented at the Fordham Institute on Religious and Sagerdo~al Vocations, duly, 1953.] THIS article begins with a premise established previously,I name-ly, that psychological' testing has a role to perform and a con-tribution to make in the selection of candidates for the reli-gious life; in other words, that such a program is theoretically de-sirable. The purpose of the present article is to consider the practi-cal feasibility of such a procedure. In other words, would the in-auguration of such a program at the present time be a prudent step? Prudence of Such a Program Father 'A. Pl~, O.P., in a rather remarkable paper bearing the significant title, "Unconscious Attraction to the Religious Life," writes as follows: "If the psychologist can give us warning at the outset, it would surely be a sin not to ask for his services. The sacred character of grace, especially the grace of vocation, as well as respect for the hu-man person make it a serious olSligation for us to use every possible means to avoid mistakes about vocation.''2 With this statement I think that few would be in disagreement. The crucial question, however, remains: Can the psychologist give us warning of unsuitability in the case of an applicant? There is difference of opinion on the answer to the above que.s-tion. Father Felix Duffey, C.S.C., has written an over-all excellent book on this general subject, called Testing the Spirit.3 At the be.- ginning of his book, he gives a scriptural quotation which might be taken as a very apposite motto for any whose work involves the dis-cernment of vocation. The quotation from I Timothy 5:24 reads lWilliam C. Bier, S.J., "Psychological Testing of Candidates and the Theology of Vocation," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XII (1953), 291-304. 2A. Pl~, O.P., "Unconscious Attraction to the Religious Life," Religious Life: II Vocation. Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1952, p. 109. SFelix D. Duffey, C.S.C., Testing the Spirit. St. Louis: Herder, 1947. WILLIAM C. BIER Review [o~ Religious as follows: "Some men have faults that are plain to view; with others, discovery follows upon. the heels of ,inquiry." Although Father Duffey is much impressed by the need of sound mental health among applicants for the religious life and writes the book for this reason, he believes, nevertheless, that the use of mental aptitude tests for the examination of candidates for the religious life would be "imprudent.''4 When we inquire into the basis for this conclusion, we find that he assigns tw.o reasons. The first is this: psychometrics (psychological tests) are not infallibie. One may legitimately ask what method, particularly in so difficult a matter, is infallible? If the use of psychometrics is imprudent becat~se the tests are not infal-lible, then the use of any other method would have to be judged equally imprudent. Certainly the substitute solution proposed by Father Duffey is not infallible, whereby spiritual directors and supe-riors, with the aid of a series of questions proposed by the author and without any particular training in the field of psychology, are left to judge of the psychological suitability of candidates. In the course of explaining these questio.ns, Father. Duffey makes a large number of astute and helpful recommendations,, but it seems that the over-all res,ult of such a method would be a return to the "unscien-tific and haphazard experimentation" in determining the mental health of candidates to the religious life, against which the book is aimed. The second reason given by Father Duffey for the rejection of psychological tests in the evaluation of candidates is that no reli-gious aptitude tests exist. In this respect, Father Duffey is perfectiy correct; his supposition, however, may be questioned, because no specific religious aptitude tests are needed, as vcill be seen later in this article. The question which must be asked with respect to psychological tests and their use in 'the evaluation of candidates for religious life is th~s: Have the techniques of psychological testing advanced to a point where they are able to furnish us with helpful information relative to applicants before admission? To this question I give an unhesitatingly affirmative answer: they can furnish us' with such in-formation. Whether the actual use of them will be prudent or not depends on how they are used. At the present time there is great need to stress the importance of the proper use of psychological tests. I have had occasion to observe 4lbid.o p. 6. 1# danuartt, 1954 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCREENING the reaction of Catholics to the psychological-testing movement over a period of years, and I have frequently noticed an initial suspicion of these tests give way to enthusiastic endorsement when it is seen what these tests are able to do, for instance, by way of prediction in school work. Yet this enthusiasm for psychological tests is some-times extreme and riot sufficiently tempered by an appreciation of their limitations. This matter is mentioned here because it is pos-sible to discern something of the same process under way with re-spect to the use of psychological tests in ~he examination of candi-dates for religious life. An initial reluctance to employ such adjuncts seems to be growing in some quarters into an overenthusiastic and oversimplified acceptance. When it is bruited about that such tests have been used with a certain degree of success, there is a tendency to think that all that is necessary is to find out what tests have been used and to give them. A series of articles, published in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS during 1949, 1950, and 1951, may perhaps have contributed to the above viewpoint. In these articles .the use of psychological tests is recommended as a help in evaluating the fitness of applicants for the religious life; and in terms of the practical initiation of such a pro-gram it is suggested that, when nothing better is available, the pro-gram could be begun were dne of the members of the community to take certain courses in psychological testing. The following quota-tion is drawn from one of the above-mentioned articles: "The ideal prerequisite is that some member of the community be trained in the field of psychometrics. As a .preliminary step, sev-eral basic courses in tests and measurements may suffice. In lieu of trained personnel, the services of someone who is sympathetic to testing, who will conscientiously adhere to manuals of directions, and who will be extremely careful in interpreting results may be utilized."s It is evident that the above writer considers that a training in psychometrics is sufficient for the director of such a program. For reasons explained more adequately later in this article, I am unable to agree with these recommendations. It would be my opinion that a much broader training in psychology is needed to undertake the in-terpretation of psychological tests in such an important matter vocation and with a special-interest group, such as applicants for the SSister M. Digna, O.S.B., "A Tentative Testing Program for Religious Life," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, X (1951), 75-76. 15 WILLIAM C.'BIER ¯ Review [or Religious' priesthood and religious life. The recommendations offered in the above quotation assume that psychological testing is automatic to an extent which, in my opinion, cannot be supported in theory and which consequently is dangerous to apply in practice. It is clear that the present article assumes so .mething of a middle position in this matter. On the one harid, I fed that psychological testing has developed to a point where it can prudently be used in the selection, of candidates for religious life. On the other hand, I consider it essential that such a program be set up in an adequate manner. With the wrong approach, more harm than good can re-sult from the attempt. The crux of the matter, from a practical point of view, is how the program would be developed. The re-mainder of this article will consider the practical requirements for the adequate inauguration of such a program. Once the principle is accepted that psychological tests have a con-tribution to make in judging religious vocation, it becomes dear that there are different ways in which this principle may satisfactorily be applied in practice. The program suggested below is only one wa3', and it is certainly not the only way, in which the above principle can .be applied. The main advantage in outlining a program of applica-tion is to illustrate the level upon which the work needs to be done, and to ~all attention to certain requiremdnts which must be met in any application of psychological testing to candidates for the reli-gious life. Requirements of the Program What is necessary" above all else is that a p~ogram for the psy-chological testing of applicants for the religious life should be put in the hands of the right person, and this person is, ideally at least, a member of the religious institute in question, who has had adequate psychological training. This combination is particularly desirable and advantageous; but if it cannot be had, then the first requirement .may be waived, but not the second. It is essential that this program be" in the hands of h competently trained psychologist. Such a per-. son will be able to make a maximum contribution if he has had the experience of living a religious life, but he can still make his essential contribution even if this is not the case. What is needed is not merely acquaintance with psychological testing, but a general training in psychology. I would think it imprudent for anyone to undertake the administration of such a program who does not have at least a 16 January, 19.~4 PSYCHOLOGICAL ~;CREENING ' master's degree in psychology; and it would be highly desirable that the director haxle'more training than that, not only thebretical, in terms of courses, but practical, in terms of experience. This sort of testing is not a field for novices and beginners in psychology; it re-mains a difficult task even when one is able to bring to it the maxi-mum which modernlpsychology can offer in training and experience. The director assumes responsibility for the prog.ram in the.sense of,select~ing the tests-and procedures to be employed, supervising if not actually.admin!stering the tests, and above all interpreting the' test results. The interprethtion of.the test result~ is the ~rucial part of the program, and this is the portion which is far from ahtomatic and makes the fullest demands in terms of psychological, tra.ining,' understanding, a'nd i.nsight. As a result of the testing prggram,.th~ director will offer to the" religious superior ~ re~ofiarfi~ndation 0ri each candidate ~e~ted. Tl~e' prog.ram director serves as a. spec.ial consultant to the superigr in tile s~lection of candidat'es'. 'In this respect, the role of the program ad-i .ministrator i.s pur~ely ,advisory, so that the sgperior loses none of his l!berty of actidn. He does, .however, secure more information aboi~t each candidate than would otherwise be available to him, so that hisi judgement of suitabilitylmay have a more adequate foundation. A program, such as the one suggested, supplements, but in no way sup~ plants, the traditional sources of information oh the suitability, of candidates. This aspect will be most adequately achieved if the recommendation of the program director on tile suitability of each candidate b~ made independently of these traditional sources of in-formation. The shperior will then have at his disposal, when he comes to make a judgement on the suitability of the candidate, both' sources of information, so that his decision may be truly as well founded as it is possible to make it. Tests Prior to Admission " My recommendation would be that these tests should be given" to the applicants prior to admission, as it is only in this way that the information derived from them Jan possibly aid the superior in determining the application of candidates. There may be some diffi-culty in arranging for the testing of candidates prior to entrance, but, the benefits of so doing repay whatever effort is involved. It may be noted that it is not necessary that all the candidates be brought to-gether in one place for such testing. It is quite feasible to have sev-, 17 ~¢II~LI.~I C. BIER eral testing centers, and since the first tests are group tests;'as will be explained, it is entirely possible to have them administered by some one else, Who can be easily trained for this limited purpose, and the test results sent to the program director. The only other alternative would be to wait until after admission and to give them during postulancy or noviceship. This is not only a second-best solution, but one which Icould not recommend at all. A number of reasons combine in pointing to the desirability of conducting the tests prior to admission. In the first place, it is easier at that time for the applicant to cooperate in taking the tests to the extent needed for their validity. It must be recognized that most psychological tests of personality rely for their validity upon the co-operation of the respondent and must assume that the questions are answered frankly and honestly. There are very few personality tests whose rdsults are unaffected by deliberate attempts at falsification. This is a limitation in the use of most personality tests which must be appreciated and. faced. Prior to admission, the proper atmosphere of cooperation can more readily be created by letting the applicant see that no favor would be done him by accepting him into rel{gion if he were not suited for such a way of life. He can be led to accept this viewpoint on natural grounds (a misfit in life is a misfortune at any time, but doubly so in religion) and for supernatural motives (he .wishes.to enter religion only if such is God's will for him). It is not implied that it is impossible to obtain such a measure of co-operation after admission, . but it is then more difficult because the individual already has a position to protect. To leave religion, even shortly after admission, involves a loss of self-esteem, fear of criti-cism on the part of others, the thought of failing one's family and one's friends, and many other intimate and personal considerations, all of which operate as a temptati6n to reply to tests in a manner calculated to make oneself appear in a favorable light rather than to give an accurate picture of oneself. The judicious applicant usually keeps the fact of his application to himself until after he has actually been accepted, precisely in order not to create for himself the kind of pressures mentioned above. It is well known that it requires much more courage to leave religion, when one finds that one is unsuited, than it does to enter; but what may not be so readily appreciated is how quickly after admission these defenses mobilize, and their mo-bilization, perhaps in ways so subtle as to be hardly appreciated by the individual, would interfere with the test results. 1"8 danuarg, 1954 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCREENING Closely allied to the above reason for holding the tests prior to: admission is the added advantage to the applicant that his unsuit-ability for religious life be made known to him as soon as possible. The difficulty of readjustment to life in the ~vorld after a period in religion is well known; and, if this readjustment can be spared the applicant, it is clearly beneficial. From the point of view of the religious institute, when the tests hre given only after admission, there will be an inkvitabletendency to let the doubtful candidates stay and give them a trial, since they have already entered. Experience proves that this is the precise trouble with doubtfully suitable religious. They are accepted in the first place because they are doubtful and hence not clearly excluded. For the same reason, they.are passed on from the postulancy to the novitiate, and from the novitiate to temporary and perhaps final vows. At each stage it becomes more difficult to reject them, not because they are any more suited for religious life, but simply because they have been in.religion for such and si~ch a length of time. The place to eliminate doubtfully suitable c~indidates is at the time of ap-plication. The attitude to be adopted in the case of doubtful candi-dates has been discussed in the previous article.6 The final reason for recommending that the tests be given prior to admission is a technical one but, in some ways, it is the most compelling reason of all. It is this: Were the tests given during tulancy or noviceship, it would be impossible to interpret the re-sults. Introduction to the religious life is a profound experience, and it seems that such an experience would have inevitable repercussions in the psychological make-up of the individual. However, at the present time we know next to nothing of the impact of religious life on psychological functioning, and hence we have no base line where-by to interpret the results of psychological testing given during a time of intense religious experience, such as the postulancy and nov-iceship certainly provide. It may be objected that part of the function of the novitiate is to determine the suitability of novices for life in religion. While such is undoubtedly true, it would seem that this principle is some-times misunderstood. Primarily, the function of the novitiate is a positive one: to train the young person in the following of Christ through the practice of the evangelical counsels and the particular rules of the religious institute. The novitiate assumes the suitability 6REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XII (1953), p. 291. 19 WILLIAM (2. BIER Review for, Religious "of its novices; its fundamental function is to train them. Second-arily, it is true, the novitiate tests suitability, but only as the latter develops as a. corollary flowing from novitiate training. Suitability is essentially an admission problem, and /'/arm results when admission problems are passed on to the novitiate. They then become novitiate problems, to the detriment of the essential function of the novitiate, which is training in the religious life. When unsuitability develops in the novitiate, it should be an unsuita.bility which was not ap-. parent upon application, and which only appeared under the more protracted and more penetrating scrutiny of the novitiate. Kind of Tests Ernploged At this point consideration may be given to the kind of psycho-logical tests which would be employed in the evaluation of candi-dates for the religious 'life. The specific tests to be employed is a technical question for psychological experts, and in a general discus-sion it is advantageous to refer only to the kind of psychologic~il tests to be used. Specific tests "can only be chosen in the last analysis with respect to a specific situation--hence in terms of a speqified r~ligious institute--and this is an additional reason why the ques-tion of specific psychological tests cannot be introduced into a gen-eral discussion. In order, however, to discuss even the kind of psychological tests to be employed, it is necessary to introduce, some specification with respect to the type of religious institute concerned. To illustrate the principles involved, the instance of a religious institute accepting candidates for the priesthood will be chosen. This case is sufficiently general to provide considerable immediate application,, and to make it possible for other religious groups to consider the application of these principles to. their own specific-situations. Among psychological tests there are what are referred to as group tests, i.e., tests which can be administered to a group of people at the same time. It is recommended that the program of.psychological' tests for applicants for .the religious life start with tests of this kind. All applicants would be required to take these tests prior to admis-sion, and they could be administered in smaller or larger groups de-pending upon circumstances, and in whatever, way would prove generally most convenient. These tests would be chosen and de-signed to furnish information on the suitability, of candidates in two general areas: academic or intellectual suitability, and psychological 2O danuar~l, 1954 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCR~NI~q~/ or personality suitability. In the area of academic suitability, investigation would be madd~ of intellectual ability and academic achievement. It is rec~inmended that ability be measured by two tests, preferably two tests taking different approhches to the matter, e.g,, a spe,ed test and a power test, thecomposite of the two tests being taken as an over-all index of-academic ability." One or more achievement tests may be. given, and their function wo~il~l be to determine the relationship between abil-ity and performance. Ideally, achievement should be on a par wi~b" ability, and notable discrepancies between the two become helpful, and someti~m~s important, interpretative factors. It is evident that a certain level of ability and academic per-formance is needed for the course of studies leading to the priesth, ood and 'for the subsequent work of the ministry. It is true, however, that various indices of such ability and performance are already available, for instance, in school marks. It might be thought, there-fore, that psychological tests for these attributes are an unnecessary duplication. Tests in these areas are not, perhaps, essential; but they are desirable, and they can be very helpful. In school marks, ability and application are mixed in unknown degrees, and in terms of preparation for the priesthood, it becomes important' to sift out the relative roles of each. Religious training can furnish the moti-vation needed for appIication to study, but it cannot supply ability, where the latter is lacking. Added application can compensate for deficient ability, but only within quite narrow limits. It is a fre-quent fallacy .to assume that, with an individual of limited ability, the same amount of extra application and diligence will spell success higher up on the academic ladder as it did earlier, for instance in col-leg~ as it did in high school. It cannot, do so, however, because an equivalent performance at the higher level requires greater abifity, and an individual who has already been achieving only by reason of added application is overwhelmed on reaching the higher level of academic work. Consequently, a reliable estimate of ability, as distinct, from" application, is needed in order properIy to evaluate the academic suitability of candidates for the priesthood. Furthermore, applicantscome from different schools; and unless one is familiar with each school, it is difficult to evaluate the significance of the grades attained. There is the further advantage of comparing all of the applicants, from whatever school, according to the same cri-terion, and this aim is achieved when all of them take the same psy- WILLIAM (~. BIER Review/~or Religiou.s chological tests. It must be remembered that selection in'this case is not merely for the work of a few years, as for entrance to college,but for a lifetime undertaking; and in a matter of such importance, it would, be more appropriate to speak of checking and re-checking, rather than of unnecessary duplication. Recall, too, the general role suggested above for these tests, namely, to furnish an independent estimate of suitability. An applicant's school grades, °for instance, may be so low as not to recommend him, but hi~ teachers explain this fact as due to the necessity of work outside of school or to an unusual amount of extracurricular activities. The superior wishes to know whether this report is accurate, or whether it is rather a charitable interpretation on the part of his teachers, influenced per-haps by.their opinion.of the applicant as a person and, it may be, as one judged by them .to be a desirable candidate in all other respects. The psychological tests will furnish the superior in a case of this kind with exactly the independent estimate which is needed. Finally, since suitability must be judged on a total basis, the ability level of the applicant may be important in terms of his personal tendencies, as will presently be explained. Since the over-all function of the program of psychological tests is ~o offer supplementary information on'the suitability of candi-dates, the information furnished in the area of psychological suit-ability is the most important, because it is'in this area that the least :information is usually available. It~will be recalled that" Father Duffey, quoted at the beginning of this article, felt that' the psycho-ilogical testing of applicants for the r~ligious life was not currently :feasible because no religious'aptitude tests are a;cailable. I should like .at this point to develop the notion suggested earlier that no specific~ :religious aptitude tests are needed. What we wish basically to discover with respect to the applicant :is whether he is a mature, stable, well-integrated person: in a word, a fundamentally normal person. If he is such, the~a he is, psycho-logically speaking, a good prospect for the religious life. Some per-sons by reason of their psychological dispositions will.find religious life naturally more congenial than others~ but it must be appreciated that. what is needed in terms of the evaluation of candidates is an estimate, not of congeniality, but of fundamental compatibility and suitability. The individual who is psychologically unsuitable for religious life is such because he.,is, in general, not a psychologically well:integrated and well-balanced individual. He would not,.be toa January/, 1 ~,5 4 I~SYCHOLOGIC~tL SCREENING well suited for many other things as well; .religious life is only one of them. However, he is more unsuited for religious life than for cer-tain other things because of the added psychological demands of ligious life. The conclusion to be drawn from this premise with respect to psychological tests for applicants for religious life is evi-dent. Specific religious aptitude tests are not needed; what is needed is an estimate of the general maturity, integration, and balance of the personality. Hence we are able to employ psychological tests which give us this sort of information. It must be recognized that the only basis for estimating the likelihood of psychological adjust.- ment to religious life is the previous adjustment manifested by the individt~al. It may be taken as a fundamental principle in this mat-ter that there is no reason to expect an individual successfully tO adapt himself to the demands of religious life if he ~has nbt anteced-ently been able to adjust to the .ordinary problems of life. -Thus, the psychological tests employed are aimed at providing a reliabl~ estimate of the psychological adjustment of. the, individual, as veal, d in previous inter;personal relationships and life .situations~ Here, even more than in the area of intellectual testing, reliance. should not be placed upon any single test, but several should be em-ployed and the composite result of all considered in arriving ~it .a decision. The questionnaire type of personhlity tests, when admin-istered in the proper atmosphere where the answers will be given frankly and honestly, can furnish very. helpful and reliable informa-tion about personality maturity and integration; but they can well be supplemented by certain of the less-structured, i.e., in technical terms, the projective personality tests. From the several, personality tests which are administered comes the basis for the judgement of psychological maturity, stability, and integration. Such an indi-vidual is, from the psychological point of view, .in the words of canon 538, ". fit to bear the burdens of the religious state," Another factor v~hich must be considered, however, is attraction for the religious life. Not everyone who is suited for religious life is attracted to it. Granted that this attraction is fundamentally a grace, is it not likely that it builds on a certain.natural disposition of cl-;ar-acter and personality? Since the priesthood and religious life make an effective appeal to only a relatively small portion of our Catholic young people, most of whom would be psychologically suited, there must be something different about them, and it seems quite likely that such differences would descend into the psychological compo- 23 .WILLIAM C. BIER Reoie~o ~:or Religious nents of personality. When we a~tually administer psychological tests to groups of candidates applying to enter religious life, we find that. they do score somewhat differently on these tests than other comparable groups. The earliest findings in this respect were mis-interpreted, and it was concluded that religious and seminarians as a group were characterized by marked abnormal and neurotic tenden-cies. Actually, of course, these findings simply meant that these groups were different from the population at large, and that the psy-chological tests were sensitive enough to pick up these differences. These findings do have one important bearing, however, on the use of psychological tests in the screening of candidates, and it is this: serious mistakes in interpretation will almost surely be made if test resul~s, with a special group of this kind, are accepted at their face value. Any personality test which is employed, whose norms are based upon the general population, will have to be adapted for use with candidates to the religious life. The degree of adaptation is ' something which can only be determined through actual use, and this clearly reinforces the viewpoint presented earlier 'chat the use of these tests is not automatic, and cannot be. made so at the present time. This is unquestionably work for the psychological expert, and for him alone. Results so far obtained in the use of psychological tests with religious men and women indicate that psychological adjustment as applied to life in the world and life in religion is an analogous con- Cept, meaning that it is partly the same, and partly different, in the two cases. It is partly the samebecause the same psychological re-sources at the disposal of the individual are employed in the two cases but adjustment is partly different because the demands are different, and so too are the psycholbgical satisfactions involved. A word on the interpretation of test findings may be in order at this point. It is evident that some .applicants would exclude them-selves on intellectual grounds alone, no matter how stable and well-integrated their personalities. It must be remembered that we are .considering the case of an applicant for the religio~s priesthood, and a certain level of intellectual ability is clearly required in such.,a case. .On the other hand, some applicants would exclude "themselves on .personality grounds, no matter how.high their level of intellectual ¯ .ability. In certain other instances, however, the interrelation of .ability and personalit~ proves decisive. A man of somewhat limited .ability but well-integrated personality might be judged suitable, PSYCHOLOGICAL SCREENING while a second applicant of the.'same ability, but of a less-balanced personality, could be judged unsuitable. In such a case, it is neither ability alone (which presumably is low, but not impossible) nor personality integration alone (which while poor is not itself pro~ bibitive) which is judged unfavorable, but the combination of the two. An applicant of limited ability would find the course of s~udies for the priestl~ood a constant strain, and prolonged stress of this kind is calculated to accentuate any personality.difficulties which might already be present. Final Portion of the Program Thus far, reference has been made only to group psychological tests in the evaluation of candidates. It is necessary that the group-testing progr~am be supplemented by a certain amount of individual testing. Depending upon the size of the group of candidates to b~ examined, individual intelviews may be feasible. If it is possible "to make arrangements for them, they are very helpful. Such inter-views will be most advantageous if held after the group testing, be-cause they can then be made to supplement the information derived from the general test results in a most helpful way, and can prevent misinterpretation which might possibly result from the use of test results alone. Whether it is feasible to arrange individual interviews or not, it will sometimes be necessary to resort to supplementary in-dividual testing. There will always be some cases in which the group tests will give inconclusive results, and it would be unwise, if not unjust, particularly in the earlier stages of a testing program, to settle the matter on the basis of group tests alone. At this stage, it is my recommendation that the program should have consultants. I would suggest that one consultant be a clinical psycholggist and the other a psychiatrist. Only those candidates would reach this stage of the program in whose case the group tests ¯ gave positive reasons for doubting their suitability for religious life. It is not necessary, nor, as far as I can s~e, is it desirable that every candidate for religious life be interviewed by a psychiatrist; but ~ucl~ is necessary in some cases. The group testing reveals the cases in which such a psychiatric judgement is needed. Thus, in the difficult and doubtful cases, the director of the testing program has the inde-pendent judgement of two experts to guide him. It would be my conception that the clinical psychologist and the psychiatrist serve as. consultants to the program director, and even in these cases the latter 25 WILLIAM C. BIER .assumes the responsibility for the bver-all recommendation on the candidate which is given to the superior. The .final recommendations on each candidate which are made to the superior may profitably be divided into those which are favor-able, unfavorable, and doubtful. Sometimes even when group and individual testing is complete, the only judgement which can be made on a candidate, in fairness both to the applicant and to the reli-gious institute, is that he is a doubtful prospect for religious life. Yet everi here, which is the least satisfactory outcome, the program has something to offer, because the doubt is in all cases a positive one and the superior knows the reasons why the candidate is a doubtful prospect. In work of this kind humility is by all means necessary. Indeed, any other attitude would be preposterous in a matter where the outcome depends on the interplay of God's grace and man's free will. It.is clear, therefore, that a program such as the one described in this article will not solve all admission problems, nor can it be expected to do so. Its contribution, though genuine, is limited. Even with 'the help of such a program, mistakes in admissions will be made, but almost surely there will be fewer mistakes and they will be less seri-ous. One of the great advantages of a program such as the one out-lined above is that it makes it possible to profit to the utmost from the mistakes which are made. It is assumed that the records of the tests will be kept. If the program director will then study the progress of the applicants in religion, he will learn much, both about his tests and about his predictions based upon them, and this is in-formation which can be gathered in no other why. Some of the tan-didates tested will leave after admission, and it is evident that infor-mation about such candidates, as far as it is obtainable, will con-tribute substantially to the improvement of the program. It would seem that a sustained program of admissions and follow-up, such as that projected here, would be a particularly valuable adjunct to reli-gious admissions which depend ultimately upon the superior, and superiors change frequently according to the provisions of canon law. A program of this kind can help a new superior avoid some of the mistakes of his predecessor. A program of psychological tests such as that envisioned here can be of some immediate assistance in the selection 6f candidates. It is clear, however, that such a program must be considered to be in 26 danuar~!, 1954 COMMUNICATIONS an experimental stage for some years, while the test results are per-mitted to validate themselves against time and against the progress of the candidates in religion. A judicious use may be made of the test results even in these early years. The tests will, however, be-come more valuable in time, when their, validity has been verified. In conclusion, .I would stress the fact.that psychological testing can touch only the natural foundation for religious vocation, which in its essential aspect is the work of God's grace. Its role, therefore, though genuine, is limited; but when applied prudently, it will al-most surely be a helpful adjunct in the most difficult task of scru-tinizing the suitability of those who, inspired by'a right intention, present themselves as applicants for admission to religious life. 'ommun{cal:{ons Reverend Fathers: The article on the particular examen in theJuly, 1953, issue of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, entitled "A New and Vital Approach," by Father De Letter, S.2., was thought-provoking. You invited com-ment. It'seems to me that there really are. religious (and let's hope there are many) who after years of striving after perfection cannot derive much help from the particular examen if they merely try to break an unwanted habit or work against their pet sin. There are even some, perhaps many, who cannot for the life of them find out what their predominant fault is; And this is not to be wondered at. Surely fervent religious can be expected to reach a certain stage of perfection beyond which it is hardly possible perceptibl~/to go, though they do advance in holiness continually as they increase in sanctifying grace, even without their knowing it. Should such drop the particular examen? By no means. Also for them it is a great aid to perfection. But for them especially is the new and vital approach suggested by Father De Letter. . I don't know just how new this is. It is certainly new in its presentation in that issue. But it has long been practiced in many different ways by religious here and there. And it is the only sen-sible way of handling the particular examen for those who have made such progress in the spiritual life as suggested above. 27 (~OMMUNICATIONS Now, to be practical. Take a good religious who wishes to prac~' rice the particular examen and has no special fauIt to overcome. This religious wants to be very close to God always. But he is extremely busy all the day long in the various tasks assigned to him. He is prone to forget God's presence. Looking about for ways and means of remaining in the presence of God, of being intimately united with Him always, he recalls that the saints and ascetical writers tell us that 6he of the best means is the fervent utterance of ejaculatory prayers or aspirations, made either' orally or mentally. He makes it the subject of his particular examen to keep close to God by saying such prayers often during the day. Between tasks, as he goes about from place to place, etc., etc., he quietly (and always fervently) says some little prayers. To make the matter doubly meritorious, he learns scores of indulgenced ejacu-lations and makes it a point to use only those and thus be a constant helper of the holy souls. Any prayers, different prayer~ remember. The purpose is recollection, walking in the presence of God. The means, the prayers, mental or oral. He calls twenty prayers said a unit. For each unit he marks one. If in the evening he has ten units, he marks simply 10 in'his booklet (which must always be' around and never neglected). That means 200 ejaculations during the day. ' It is almost'unbelievable hbw one can grow in union with God by means of a particular examefi like that. --"UNLESS YOU BECOME." Reverend Fathers: On what authority the price df Lex Propria was given (in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Nov., 1953, p. 330), we.do not know. However, this particular work was a one-printing edition solely for' Benedictine Abbeys and Convents. Notices to this effect were sent to Benedictine superiors and .an order card was included on which the only price given was 75 cents per copy, plus postage. Furthermore, all orders had to be placed before July 15. We have received a num-ber of orders since you p.ublished the wrong price (50 cents). We trust you will correct this in your next issue. --THE ABBEY STUDENT DRESS. 28 Reading J:or Religious Edward F. Garesch~, S.J. RELIGIOUS life remains the same in its essentials througl'i the ages, but how different are the circumstances in which the reli-gious of different periods have to live. This is notably true in regard to the supply of reading matter and the choice which religi6us of this time have to make among a multiplicity of books. In more simple ages. the volumes which religious read were few and preci6us.~° "In the days when everything was written by hand, books weke of great price and value. Now, the many devices for the multiplicatidn of print have d~luged the world with.books arid booklets and peri-odicals. On the one hand religious are offered volume after volume composed especially for their own use; on the other hand the eno?- mous quantity~of.secular publications intrudes even into the cloister." It is interesting to note.that, ifi spite of the great development of forms of entertainment, read, ing still holds its place as a popular: amusement. Hence the greater number of books and periodicals have this as their primary, purpose. They seek to tempt, readers to buy and' read for the motive of interest and amusement. "Serious and factual book~ are alsomultiplied withc~ut end. Every issueof the weekly book supplements contains a surprising number of titles; and of course not nearly all the published books can be reviewed. Many o~ them are not even mentioned. Through school libraries and the like, many religious have access to some of these current pub-lications. As to magazines, the revenue publishers secure from ad-vdrtising or from immense sale of copies makes them publish editions so large tfiat hardly anyone reads them thr6ugh. A Real Problem Now all this presents a real problem tothe devoted religious who wishes to love and serve God and to help his ffeighbor to.the'best of his powers. He knows that reading is a great means of instruction and of advancement in the spiritual life, that it is a source of infor-. marion useful in his work. But how shall he choose among so many books and periodicals? How shall he solve the problem of what is best for him to read? Someone may say that obedience will solve the problem for him. But the older religious especially, and those employed in important 29 EDWARD F. GARESCHI~ \ Reuiem for Religiou~ and responsible positions, are given a great deal of liberty in the choice of what they read. Even the younger members cannot always secure personal and specific guidance in this matter. Thus one may fall into a desultory habit of reading which deprives the mind and the heart of much precious sustenance and guidance, and wastes time which might be much better used. A careful consideration of this subject of what is best to read or leave unread ought to be helpful for many religious who sincerely wish to be as wise and holy as they can. To read is to feed one's mind, imagination, memory, and feelings. One can draw a close parallel therefore between the proper selections of mental and bodily food. A great deal is written and said nowadays about the importance of choosing .the right nourish-ment. Everyone is alert to the dangers of infected or contaminated food. The right proportion of hydrocarbons and proteins, of vita-mins and minerals, is known to b~ important for the preservation of health and strength. The danger of overweight and underweight, of a deficiency or excess of the elements of nutrition, is generally known. Importance of Reading But good spiritual, mental, and even emotional nourishment is no less important: indeed, it is far more essential to one's w~ll-being because the soul is so much superior to the body. Our happiness and holiness depend in gr~at measure on the nourishment we give our spiritual selves. Though conversation and experience are also very important, one of the great means by which we nourish our soul properly is the correct choice of our reading. Food ought to be appetizing in order to be more easily digestedl Similarly, reading that holds our attention and interest is usually more readily assimilated. To read out of custom or out of a sense of duty is meritorious, but things so read are not as likely to impress us and stay with us as those in which we are interested. Hence, when we choose books that appeal to us, they are more likely to help, everything else being equal. But these interesting books ought to be solid, important, and of special help to us. The great variety of spiritual books now available ought to make a choice easy. Superiors surely will be desirous to provide fo~ every religious what he most likes and needs in the way of spiritual nourishment. One plan that seems good and practical, for the large communi- 30' January, 1954 READING FOR RELIGIOUS ties, is to have a community library, with a librarian who will see to it that the worth-while spiritual books are quickly secured. Any religious, even from another house, can write to the librarian for the books he wishes to read, to be mailed to him in a special cover and returned in the same cover within a specified time. In this way, without too much expense, many religious can have the benefit of the community library. The community librarian will also become expert in advising religious about their reading. Several small com-munities might group together to support a central library; or the large communities might let the smaller ones share, perhaps for a small fee, in the facilities of their central library. These are means of ensuring that each religious may have the book he likes and needs. Life is so short find the good books are so numerous that we shall never be able to read them all even if we use every moment of our reading time. Why waste the precious hours, therefore, on use-less or inferior reading when the best is none too good for the hour-. ishment of mind and heart? Foremost among worth-while books are good lives of the saints. What could be more interesting in itself to the follower of Christ, who aspires t9 close and perfect union with Him, than to read how other souls attained that union? For-tunately, modern lives of the .saints try hard to tell the truth about the subjects of their stories, and so it. is possible for the religious who reads to learn a. great deal about holiness-in-action. Books of Devotion There are also many books of devotion, written from various ~iewpoints and about many subjects. Some of them are very old, written centuries ago, but are now appearing in new editions. There are also excellent modern books, whose style and manner are espe-cially adapted to the present-day mind and taste. It is to be noted, however, that these books, though they all beaf the imprimatur of the Church, are not all of equal value or authority. In fact the imprimatur means merely that there is nothing in th~ book against faith and morals. It does not mean that the authority issuing the imprimatur agrees with all the statements and ideas in the book. Each book has as much authority as its author can command. Even of the saints it is said that not everything they wrote was necessarily holy. Still more is it true that not everything in Cath-olic books of devotion is necessarily wise and prudent. Some empha-size one phase of piety, some another. Some recommend one devo- 31 EDWARD F. GARESCHi~ : tion and others insist dn quite different ones. Some good.souls inclined to be like ~he man who leaped on horseback and rode off rapidly' in all directions. They want to practice all devotions at once, .to follow all the different systems of asceticism. By .assimi-lating so many different spiritual ideas, good in themselves but gulped down indiscriminatingly, they contract a spiritual indiges-tion. Good spiritual books come under the second and third classes in Bacon's statement that some books are merely to be tas~ed, others to be chewed and swallowed, and still others to be digested thor-oughly. To read the Gospels or the Imitatibn of Christ, slowly and thoughtfully, may bring more spiritual benefit and solid nourish-ment than many times the hours passed in reading hastily less-abiding spiritual books~ Recreational Reading But nowadays the mind craves lighter and more recreational food, just as the bodily taste demands sweetmeats a~ad hors d'oeuvres. StiII,°even in recreational reading, the religious owes it to himself to exercise a prudent choice. How extremely foolish it.is, to ~ay nothing. worse, if one who is vowed to Christ takes up w?rldly and tainted .stories, magazines, and books. If be has no business with such books and periodisals, he freely opens his mind and imagination and feelings to the contamination of the world--an act of great unwis-dora, to say the least. Newspaper reading is almost needful for religious who teach, who write, or who have to deal with others. But what a difference there is between reading and reading when it comes to the news. Here a great waste Of time is possible when the reader wants to pore. over every item. SeIective reading will give, in a few moments, all that is worth-while in the daily papers. One can become accustomed also to very rapid reading which gathers the gist of the article in a frac.tion of time. About magazines and papers, nearly everything may be repeated that was°said about books. There are so many good ones; why waste time on the tainted and the trivial? Some experienced readers refuse to read any book that is less than a year old, because within a year the value of some books, if they ever had any, has quite disap-peared. Time is so precious and life is so short that when you do read a magazine be sure it i~ Worth-while. One way to insure the right sort of reading is to have it conven- Januar~t, 1954 RE!~DING FOR RELIGIOU~ iently at hand. We have said a great deal, in writing for lay folk. about the "book at the elb0,w." When we have a few moments to spare, we are not likely tb'go very far for what we reid. Rather, we pick up the book oh' periodicM that is nearest and begin to read it. Hence, to have good books and periodicals at hand is a great step towards getting them read. On the other hand, to keep worthless and trivial literature at a distance i~ the' best way to avoid wasting the precious moments we have for reading. The publishers, whether of books or magazines or newspapers, know this principle well, and they act:upon it to get their publica-tions bought and read. Wherex~er we turn, we see newsstands, book departments in stores, book and magazine counters even in drug-stores. It is the easiest thing in the world to pick up one's reading matter from all these sources, wherever we go. Henc.e, even into the Catholic home there pours a flood of best sellers and of popular magazines and newspapers which carry the world and the flesh into the sacred family circle. People wonder why they have so many distractions ~nd temptations, why their thoughts are often so trivial, why they dwell so little on th~ things of God and the interests of the Church. The reason is that they are victims of the powerful and ceaseless propaganda of high-salaried circulation managers and book agents. "'Dieting" Required Even into religious institutions some of these worldly and often- 'tainted publications find their way, and they are dressed up and flavored so as to deceive even the elect. But the poison for the soul is more deadly than that which ~nly affect~ the body. And, after years of reading these worldly publications, even religious need a strong antidote to keep them firm in faith and hope and love. It is hard and sometimes trying to .confine one's reading to what is best and noblest. Yet it is the o,nly reasonable course for a reli-gious to take. So also it is difficult at times for those who have to go on a reasonable and normal diet in order to preserve their health to keep strictly to what the doctor orders. In the one case as in the other, the reward is great. It is good to be healthful and vigorous, well nourished and of normal girth of body. But it is still" a hap-pier thing to be clean and strong of spirit; to have a mind, a heart, a will helped and nourished by a great faith, a burning hope, a vig-orous charity. Our conscious life of the mind is made up of a succes- EDWARD F. GARESCHI~ sion of thoughts, memories, impressions. If these are pure and joy-ful, holy and clean, then our life itself is so, because our thoughts color our days and bring them their sunshine or shadow. The ino ward life of thoughts, of will, of motives and desires is what makes us happy or unhappy, and we cannot readily perceive how much this is affected by what we read. ~,rhile thd religious ponders these things for his ownspiritual good and inner happiness, his charity will make him desire to help others also to choose well what they rea'd. ~vrhen you conceive an enthusiasm for a good and holy book, y.ou will be able to recom-mend it to others with more genuine interest, x~rhen you yourself choose your reading wisely and well, you will have more influence on the laity and even on your fellow religious to promote good reading. SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS We have received, with the compliments of The Most Reverend John Mark Gannon, Bishop of Erie, a beautifully bound and printed volume entitled l~VIemoirs¯ --The Semlrlarg 01: Montezuma. It contains the documents and writings of Bishop Gannon, Chairman of the Bishops' Committee for Montezuma Seminary, and of. his episcopal associates. The volume was prepared by The Very Reverend James M. Powers, Director of Charities in the Diocese of Erie. The book has not been placed on the market at this time; the present limited edition was subsidized by Bishop Gannon. This story of superb American Catholic charity which con-. tributed upwards 9f $1,500,000 to the education of Mexican priests, and of the seminary which to date has trained some 770 priests for the ministry in Mexico deserves wider dissemination. Cahiers de dosdphologie is a new periodical founded l~y the Research and DocL umentation Centre at St. Joseph's Shrine, Montreal. The Centre, which was estab-lished 'a few years ago, purposes to collect microfilms and publicatlons on St. Joseph and to promote various kinds of research, "to foster Josephology." It will be p.ublished twice a year. Price in American countries: $2.50 per year: $1.25 per copy. Address: Centre of Research and Documentation, St. Joseph's Shrine, Mon-treal 26, Canada. San Juan de la Cruz: Valor Psicologico de s& Doctrina, by Ft. Victorino Capanaga de San Agustln, won first prize among all the competitive works sub-mitted to the Spanish Universities on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the birth of St. John of the Cross. This study of the psychological value of St. John's mystical doctrine contains a long introduction, a section on the "structure of the soul," and a final section on "mystical phenomena." We received it from: Imp. Juan Bravo, 3, Madrid, Spain. No price given. 34 Aurelian Spiril:ualit:y Sister Mary of Carmel, R.P.B. [EDITORS' NOTE: The institute of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood was founded at St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, by Mother Catherine Aurelia in 1861. It is a contemplative institute and should be distinguished from the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood, an active congregation. The present article concerns the con-templative institute, which has monasteries in Canada and the United States, as well as in Rome, Cuba, and 2apart. A monastery flourished in China until it was suppressed by the Com.munists. The mother house for the French-speaking section of the institute is at St. Hyacinthe: for the English-speaking section, at London, Ontario. ] BECAUSE of the centuries of Christian thought behind its intro-duction into the schools of spirituality, the teaching of Mother Catherine Aurelia of the Precious Blood, embodied in the Rule of her institute and in her writings, is enriched with the spiritual treasures of these schools and influenced by them, while presenting and maintaining individual characteristics. It hol~ls a reflection of the dignity and glory of its elder brothers and sisters in the history of the Church and from its lowlier place among them radiates a new light. If it is young in its almost one hundred years of existence, it is old in its devotion, the Precious Blood. This devotion extends to the age of the Apostles. Saint Paul writes of it in a sublime manner ¯ in his Epistle to the Hebrews, and Saint Peter associates with it the adjective which has become almost a part of the word. "Precious Blood" was written for the first time by the Prince of the Apostles in his first Epistle. The' devotion goes back further, to Calvary and the.sacred Passion of Our Lord, even to Hi~ infancy when, in the mystery of the Circumcision, He shed the first drops of His ,blood. Still further back through the centuries preceding the comii~g of Our Redeemer, His blood was prefigured in that of the sacrificial animals of the Old Law. Father Faber, in his excellent work on the Precious Blood, would take us in contemplation to the ageless now before the creation of the world and show us in his inimitable way the unbe-ginning procession of the Precious Blood emerging from the mind of God. With these ancient and sacred realties arching the edifice of her life of prayer, the Sister Adorer of the Precious Blood has an obliga-tion of nobility. She must be marked with the characteristics of a 35 SISTER MARY OF CARMEL Reoieto for Religious family that posesses an eternal crest--the shield of the Precious Blood of 3esus. In a world of great and worthy exterior activity, in an age of actionists, insignificance lends to the hiddenness of the life of the daughters of Mother Catherine Aurelia.In this they possess a s~trong bond with her and her cofoundresses to whom the Most Reverend Joseph LaRocque, Bishop of St. Hyacinthe and founder of the in-stitute, could say, "Nothing could surpass, beloved Daughters, the insignificance of your origifi . " Influences~ In the direction of Monsignor 2oseph Raymond, later to become cofounder of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blbod, we.find the earliest and the most prolonged notable influence on the soul of Aurelia Caouette, latdr Mother " Catherine Aurelia of the Precious Blood. The importance of that influence is brought before us in the wo~ds of Bisfiop 3oseph LaRocque which he spoke to the members of the community shortly after Monsignor Raymond's death' on the feast of the Precious Blood in 1887. "My. dear children," said the founder, "read the writings of your Father who had such great zeal for the sanctification of your souls; you will find therein the sub-stance of his piety and his heart." While still very'y~ung, Aurelia Caouette received, in the words of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the inspiration which was the first indication of her vocation in life: "I feel in my soul all tl~e energy of tfae Divine Blood. It is a generous Blood which aspires o~ly to be shdd." In the fact that she was a tertiary in the order of Saint Dominic can'beseen the.,early influence of the Dominican Rule on her soul-li~e. Her attraction to the great Dominican, Saint Catherine of Sienal remained with her throughout the futhre years, although it is possible that the saint's outstanding devotion to the Precious Blood was its power. A Carmelite influence may be found in the modified similarity of the cloistered life of her spiritual daughters to that 6f their eider sisters of Carmel and in the blending of austerity with the lighthear~e~lness and joyful gaiety characteristic of Saint Teresa of Avila. That the spiritu.ality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola notably affected that of. Mother Catherine Aurelia and her spiritual datighters IAny" influences which came to the foundress in an e'xtraordinary manner have been omitted. da.nttary, 1954 AURELIAN SPIRITUALITY ! is evident. In chapter three of the Rule, which treats of mental prayer, we read, "The Adorers will therefore apply themselves with the greatest diligence 'to this holy exercise using principally the method o,f Saint Ignatius of Loyola." Here it is well to emphasize that, contrary to a general misinformed opinion, the "'method" of Saint Ignatius is not a set mould depriving the soul of that liberty of spirit in .which God delights; and to safeguard the religious against this error, she is cautioned: "Undoubtedly when the Holy Spirit makes His Divine operations felt in the soul, instructing ~nd directing her, she has only to abandon herself to the attractions and impressions which He communicates, without restricting herself rigorously to a method.': AlWays concerned with the prayer-life of the religious, the insti-tute provides advice for all. The beginner is encouraged by this prac: tical directive: "For the use of persons unable to meditate easily, Saint Ignatius toward the end of.his Spiri.tua.1 Exercises proposes three ways of praying appropriate to the dispositions and cap, ac.ity of those lea~t accustomed to prayer." There follows a detailed expla-nation of these in an extract from the Spiritual Exercises by Bel-licius. And through t'he pages of her Spiritual Directory, the Adorer is. guided in her conduct to the h.eighlts of contemplation, should God favor her with this gift. It is worth noting the co'nclu.din~ sentence in this section: "The soul should commit herself with docility to the direction of a wise and enlightened man and faith-f. ully obey him." The importanc~ rightly attached to the particular examen by the founders and foundress of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood marks a further influence by the Saint of Loyola. An echo of his military strategy is held .in "Experience never fails, to prove these happy results in favor of souls who. make good use of the arms and method of the particular examen." The annual retreat is also to be made, as far as possible, after the method of Saint Ignatius. Lastly it is interesting to note that the Ignatian influence affects not only the prayer-life of the Adorer but extends to all her 'em-ployments: "No matter what employment is given her, she shows neither sadness, discontent, disquiet nor unhappiness." Saint Ignatius regarded all things as means to the glory and service of God, and the daughters of Mother Catherine Aurelia are urged to become ac- 37 SISTER MARY OF (~ARMEL Review for Religious quainted with¯ this holy indifference as it was understood by Saint Ignatius. The reciprocal influence of Bishop LaRocque and Mother Cath-erine Aurelia, founder and foundress of the institute,.is summarized in the words which he used when distributing the Rule books to the young community: "I must present the first copy to your Mother Foundress, as the representative of the whole Institt~te, of which she is truly the Mother, as I am the Father. I could have done ¯ nothing without her, as she would have done nothing without me." These lines also evidence the submission of the foundress, who penned the following excellent tribute: "O Father of our religious life, what do we not owe thee for the past! What do we not owe thee for the future--for the doctrine, the spirit you have left us: for the blessed pages that your hand has traced for us." Essential Principles The essential principles which gave birth to Mother Catherine Aurelia's requirements of her spiritual daughters, as found in the Rule and customs and in her writings, are worthy of consideration. There was a definite sense of balance evident in the outlook of the foundress. We can remark this first in her conception of God as holy and merciful. Her realization of His holiness is emphasized in her imposition of adoration and reparation as prima~y duties: and the religious are invited to represent to themselves the greatness, the pow.er, the infinite.majesty of God and their own misery, extreme in-digence, and profound baseness as motives for remaining annihi-lated in the divine presence. God, Who is infinite holiness, is out-raged by the sins of mankind, and Mother Catherine Aurelia calls upon her .daughters to make reparation and, as it were, places in their hands uplifted in prayer the expiatory chalice of the Precious Blood. The infinite mercy of God gives confidence to the religious of the Precious Blood in their intercession for sinners; and day after day, year after year, they plead for them, untiring in their ceaseless quest for souls. How could their efforts wane, with these words of their foundress and leader echoing in their hearts: "Beloved virgins, I conjure you to be holy! To become so, fix your feet on the rock of Calvary. It is ~here you will find the swiftness of the stag in order to run to the conquest of souls without ever deviating from the path which God for this purpose has traced out for you. It is there you will find the strength to fight valiantly and generously. For your 38 ,January, 1954 AURELIAN SPIRITUALITY armour you will have prayer, penance, separation from the world and the mortification of your body, heart and soul." Participating in Mother Catherine Aurelia's conception of Christ, her spir.itual daughters regard Him principally in His charac-ter of Redeemer accomplishing redemption by the shedding of His blood. Each day at the moment which marks the time of His death on Calvary, the religious, prostrate before Him, say: "Jesus has shed all His Blood for love of us and died on the cross. Let us adore Him and thank Him." The approach to Christ is one of reverence and of confidence, from which emanates desire. The intensity of that de-sire bursts forth in sincere efforts to bring to souls the fruits of the Precious Blood shed so fully for all. Christ, the High Priest, by His own blood obtained for us an everlasting redemption, as Saint PauI tells us. In her Rule, in the conferences of her Father Founder and in the counsels of her Mother Foundress, the Sister Adorer of the Precious Blood is invited to regard Christ as her Spouse also, "united with Him no less by sentiments of tender love and persevering piety than they are closely and especially consecrated by the Vows of Religion." Mother Catherine Aurelia's outlook on human nature was a recognition of its potentialities. She saw ir capable, as it is, of op-posites-~ its power to sin, its power to love God. She beheld the sublime possibilities of the human soul aided by grace, never effaced by the greatness of sin because of the power of the redeeming Blood ba treasure of which the Adorers are, in a sense, administrators in the interests of those who are not of the perfect age of grace, retarded by ignorance, indifference, or sin. "By dwelling on creatures the mind is kindled into loving divine goodness. For all the perfections scattered throughout thff universe flow together in him who is the spring of all goodness. If therefore the goodness, beauty and freshness of creatures so draw our hearts, how much more then God who is their source? Creatures are but rivulets, he is the main stream.''~ Thus teaches Saint Thomas Aquinas, and these dispositions towards created things are evident in the writings of Mother Catherine Aurelia. She was conscious of the beauty of nature. By it her thoughts were lifted to heaven and to the omnipotence of God, not to creatures, for even in the most per-fect of them she found inadequacy. 2Thomas Gilby, Philosophical Texts, n. 127. 39 SISTER MARY O1~ CARMEL Review [or Religious' _Perfection Having briefl~r considered these conceptions, it is interesting to observethe ideal ofperfection as it is understood by the members of the.community, an ideal handed down by the founders and fdundress. For their, spiritual daughters, perfection consists in ui~ion with God. They know that religious perfection must built on the foiafidation of Christian perfection'; that all Christians share the obligation to fulfill our divine Lord's command, "Be you therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"i that the duties coinmon to all the followers of Christ are to b~ fulfilled according to on'd's st~ite with intensity and exactitude. A )eligious must direct ti~i steps tothe perfection of love and in this consists the genera!. spi~!t Of the ~eligio'us state, while she must possess also the particular spirit of her community. For contemplative religious this consists in the" striving after, advancing in, and perfecting of the interior life and:in the faithful dbservance of the rules and constitutions of her c6fiamuni~y. 'Saifit Paul has saitl, "This is tl~e will of God, yotir' Sandtification."" The daughter of Mother Catherine Aurelia might v~ith all truth say, "This, my Rule, is the Will of God for me, the means of my sanctification." The. Rule is not mere letteri It is spirit too. The latter gives life and love and meaning to the former. Destiny In the preface of her Rule, the religious is given the glorious des-tiny. of the community--to retrace and reflect, as much as possible, the imag~ of the divine charity in the shedding of .blood. Christ loved His Father in a sublime act of reparation; He.loved mankind in offering to men redemption by His blood. The heart, of the re-ligious must b~, as it were, a replica of the love-filled heart of Christ, offering that-love in which hers is immersed by her fidelity to the obligations she has embraced. Her love for her fellow beings' com-mences in the cloister and reaches out to embrace the world and be-yond. Mother Catherine Aurelia, in the burning desire of her heart, had said that she would like to see the words, "Charity, Union ~nd Concord," written in letters of gold on the wails of all her monas-teries. That was a symbolism of her desire that the perfection of charity be inscribed in the thoughts, words, and deeds of all of her spiritual daughters in their associations with one another. The Crucifixion of Our Lord is the most silent and the most tre- 4O AURELIAN ,SPIRITUALITY mendous "I love y6u" ever known. It is a divine love song Written to the rhythm of blood softly falling from "His great wounds. What an exalted ideal of love is set before the religious! She must bring to souls the fruits of Christ's sacrifice--sanctification and salvation. In doing so she must, as has been stated, retrace and reflect as much as possible the divine charity. Her day is the Passion! Its dawn finds her prostrate in union with.Jesus in the Garden of 0lives. At dusk she is in hdoration of Jesus Christ in the mystery of His death and burial and in adoration of the eternal repose which God takes in Himself. How can she be happy with the weight of divine sorrow ~on-stantly within her? This is one of the delightful paradoxes of our holy faith. The daughter of Mother Catherine Aurelia experiences the indescribable happiness bf union with ~he Beloved. Than this, no greater happiness can exist on earth. Moreover she hag the flap: piness of proving her love by participation in His desires, His suf-ferings, and His sacrifice. She has the enviable certainty of knowin~ the willof the Bdloved at each moment of her life and in Him the strength to fulfill it. She enjoys the contentment of doing what she desires to do upon earth in following her ~tocation and has the well-founded hope of continuing in the perfection of her vocation of adorer thrqughout a joyous eternity. The silence of the divine charity which she endeavours to reflect is in her seclusion from the world and, in the cloister, more inti-mately in the hi.ddenness of her life with Christ in God. Particular Ends Sharing the common end of all contemplative religious, the Sis-ters Adorers o~ the Precious Blood have four special ends. (1) To render repeatedly their loving homage to the ~dorable blood of God made Man, poured forth for the sal3ration of the hu-man rude. "To adore[ Ah this is her unique element on earth," Mother Catherine Aurelia had written of each spiritual daughter, and her loving homage is a homage of adoration. Her whole life. is constituted to attain this end, and the means are prudently presented to her in her Rule and hdr Spiritual Directory. (2) To glorify and honor in a particular manner Mary Im-maculate in her Conception. This is a complement of the aim Of her religious life. Seven years after the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception fell from the lips of the Sovereign 41 SISTER MARY OF CARMEL Revieu~ [or Religious pontiff, young Catherine Aurelia and her cofoundresses assumed for themselves and for all generations of their .religious community the joyful obligation of paying special homage to the Mother of God in the exalted privilege of her Immaculate Conception. Long years before Our Lady came from heaven to the Cova da Iria to appeal to all her children to be mindful of bet heart, the foundress appealed to her religious to take their delight in that pure heart, urging them to learn how the holy Heart of Mary takes her greatest delight in the privilege of her Immaculate Conception. Through the Immaculate Virgin we have the Precious Blood. In view of the sbeddlng of the Precious Blood, Mary was given the privilege of immaculacy from the first moment of her conception. It is a necessity that the one devotion be associated with the other. Into the dovecote of Mary's Immaculate Heart, Mother Cather-ine Aurelia placed her daughters. She enkindled in them a courage .which cfin come only in having M~ry Immaculate as their co-worker and mediatrix, "that her daughters might be strengthened. To what purpose? ". to work for the glory of the Blood Divine!" (3) To assiduously adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. "Assiduously" gives to the religious some idea of the in-tensity of the adoration expected of her. It must be a painstaking, persevering adoration. She is in the presence of the Blessed Sacra-ment many times in the course of the day; but in the moments which constitute her hour of adoration of ,lesus in the Blessed Sacrament, her obligation is more specific, more personal; for then the entire community is depending on her to fulfill in a direct manner in its name the third principal end of its existence. It is then that she is expected to accomplish the desire of ~lesus by offering His blood and with it to unite the offering of her entire being for His service and glory. (4) To devote themselves (as victims), if God will accept them, and continually offer to the Lord the merits of the blood of Jesus Christ to obtain the conversion of sinners. It may be noted here that the Holy See cancelled the expressions "victim," "immolation" in the Rule and Spiritual Directory; and in keeping with the spirit of this directive the Sisters themselves changed the dialogue in the cere-monial of profession. However, since it is evident that Rome did not object to the idea of complete self-giving which the founders in-tended by such expressions as "victim" and "immolation," the founders' writings are kept unchanged. 42 danua~/, 1954 AURELIAN ~PIRITUALITY "Many souls go to Hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them." These words of Our Lady of Fatima remind forgetful mankind of the fecundity of sacrifice and of our duties towards our fellow beings. Meditation on them will bring a realization of the saneness of this particular end of the vocation of a Sister Adorer of the Precious Blood and of the necessity of this purpose. Because many do not make their share of sacrifices for sinners, there must be others who will assume the responsibility of filling up what is wanting on the part of the human race. The indifference, ingrati-tude, and sinfulness with which the Precious Blood is treated, the want of respon.se .to divine love, urge the daughter of Mother Cath-erine Aurelia to embrace her vocation as a reparatory soul, and over and dyer again she is reminded of this by her holy founders and foundress. She "offe.rs herself in union with Him, her.Model, and her Spouse of Blood." The merits of that blood are ransom which she offers for the conversion of sinners. F.rom.her fidelity to this purpose of her vocation emanates a consolidation of true interests, a solidarity which strongly unites her to her fellow creatures through-out the world although she is exteriorly separated from them by the nature of that vocation and the sacrifices she has embraced. Suffering Suffering is inseparable from man during his sojourn on earth. His attitude towards it affects his endurance of it, for endure it he must. A burden willingly assumed is a lighter burden. Mother Catherine Aurelia regarded suffering as an opportunity. Every occasion of it was grasped avidly because she had a true sense of its value. Her Redeemer and Spouse had taught her this and her life was a testimony of her appreciation of the cross. She called her spiritual daughters "Virgins of Calvary" and referred to sufferings as their jewels. To a woman, jewels are precious because of their value, and they are an adornment. See, then, what sufferings are to the Adorer of'the Precious Blood! They are not depressing, some-thing to be avoided. They are a precious adornment. Just as the wounds of Jesus are an eternal, glorious proof of His infinite love for us, sufferings willingly accepted are,. to the daughter of Mother Catherine Aurelia,' so many opportunities of imitating her Spouse, of making her like unto Him, and of testifying her love--small wounds indeed compared to the great wounds of Christ, and often,hidden; but wounds, nevertheless, telling Him of her responding love. On SISTER MARY OF (~ARME~L Review [or Religious the occasion of taking her departure from a daughter-house of her community, the foundress said, "I leave happy in the thought that we are going to suffer and' to suffer much." This was not an atti-tude occasioned by an isolated circumstance, but it was her constant regard for the cross. Labour "St. Thomas considered the contemplative life, to which are added exterior Works, the most useful and meritorious. This life is yours, for though contemplatives, you have your hours of work ac-cording to the Rules and obedlence. Thus wrote Bisl~op LaRocque and thus, too, did Mother Catherine Aurelia regard labour: "Wholly penetrated with sentiments imbibed from the pious ex~rcises of prayer, of Mass and of Holy Communion, the Sisters will each morning take up with holy joy the yoke of labour and observanc.es truly crucifying. They will submit thereto like humble sinners, dbing eveiytbing' in a spirit of expiation, and to accomplish the special end of our Institute, which is to save souls, not only by player but also by work, which our blessed Father Founder regarded a~ one of our principal penances." Again, Bishop LaRocque im-posed labour upon the members of the community as a compensation for the austerities of the great religious orders. A thirst for fruitful penance was expected of his spiritual daughters. This is to be satis-fied by the joyful acceptance of the work allotted to them; a gen-erosity in assisting the overburdened; a peace, calmness, 'and gravity in the performance of their ta~k~. The horary of t'he. community presents a well-ordered" day, gua.rding the hours of prayer from the " intrusion of ill-regulated manual duties, and instilling into the hours of Work the spirit of continual prayer. Glory to the Blood of Jesus . - Glory has been defined as knowledge to which is linked admi~a-tion, as splendour, honour, renown. In these definitions we per-ceive that the "heart-cry" of the daughter of Mother Catherine Au-relia, sincerely accepted, is weighted with a responsibility~a respon-sibility to do all within her power, assisted and enlightened by 'God, to increase her knowledge of the mystery of the Precious Blood; arid as that knowJedge becomes expansive, there emanates a relatively in-creasing admiration, . and the Sister Adorer is filled with the desire to give glory to the blood of Jes{as. It is her duty, as well as her de-sire, to pray incessantly that the Precious Blood may be known; 44 January, 1954 "APPARITIONS" OF OUR LADY loved, and received with ardent faith by all men: It is therefore ob-vious that the plan of Redemption, the Incarnation, the seven blood-sheddings, the Sacred Passion and death of Our Redeemer, and the Blessed Sacrament are subjects for meditative prayer dear to the heart of every Adorer, for in them her knowledge is increased and her zeal animated to radiate from the. confines of her hidden life to souls throughout the world; and for them her supplications become more fervent that their knowledge, too may increase and that fitting homage to the adorable Precious Blood ensue. These dispositions must impregnate each moment of the life of the Adbrer, and the very beginning of her foundress's sublime, "Remember, O my DaughtEr," bursts with startling suddenness into the words that bring an awareness of the obligation attendant on her throughout each moment of her life, "that the cry of thy heart should be, 'Glory to the Blood'," and in this is the unifying and culminating purpose of the varied duties of her particular vocation. The spirit of the community is a challenge that is taken'to, the extent of the individual's understanding and appreciation of the concept!ons of the founders and foundress and to the extent also of her own generosity aided by the grace of God. "APPARITIONU' OF OUR LADY° The August, 1952, number of The Clergy Monthly contains a list of alleged apparitions of Our Lady during the years, 1931-50. The list was first published. by a German magazine in Europe in December, 1951; and up ,to that time only two of the apparitions had been approved by ecclesiastical authorities, whereas four-teen had been rejected. Six were still undecided. Whether any further decision has been made on these six, we do not know. Following is the list as it appeared in The Clergy Monthly: Approved 1932/33 Beauraing, Belgium. 2 boys. 3 girls. 1933: Banneux, Belgium, 1 girl--12 years old. 8 apparitions. Rejected, 1931: Ezquioga, Spain. 2children: later up to 150 "seers." 1937/40: Heede, Westphalia. 4 girls--12-14 years, old. apparitions. 1944: Bergamo, Italy. 1 girl--7 years old.12 apparitions. 1947 : Bouxieres-aux-Dames, Belgium, 1947: Espis, France. 1947/49: Forstweiler, Wiirttemberg. 1 woman. 8 apparitions. 1948: Assisi, Italy. Crowd. A statue of Mary moves. 1948: Gimigliano, Italy. 1 girl--13 years old. More than 100 45 PAMPHLETS AND BOOKLETS 1948: Lipa, Philippines. 1 postulant in a convent¯ 1948: Aspang, Austria. 1 man~61 years old. 1949: Fehrbach, Palatinate. 1 girl--12 years old. 8everal apparitions. 1949: Hasznos, Hungary. Crowd. 1949: Lublin, Poland. Crowd. "Our Lady weeps." 1949/50: Heroldsbach, Bavaria. 4 girls and other children. Many apparitions. Undecided 1945: Codosera, Spain. 1 girl--10 years old; later up to 100 "seers." ¯ 1946: Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria. 1 girl--22 years old. 3 apparitions. 1947: Tre Fontane, Rome. 1 man, 3 children. 1947: Urucaina, Brasil. 1 priest. (Cures.) 1948: Cluj, Rumania. Crowd. 1950: Acquaviva Platani,. Sicily. 1 girl--12 years old. 7 apparitions. PAMPHLETS AND BOOKLETS THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin: The Chris-tian Life Calendar, by Rev. Gabriel W. Hafford and Rev. George Kolanda. $1.00. CATECHETICAL GUILD EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY, St. Paul 1, Minnesota: Mary Talks to Us, by Don Sharkey. 15 cents.--The Family Rosary, by Joseph A. Breig. 15 cents. FIDES PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION, Chicago 10, Illinois: Con[irmation, 25 cents, THE GRAIL, St. M~inrad, Indiana: From Five to Nine, by Bruno McAndrew, O.S.B. 25 cents.--Our Mother, by Emile Neubert, S.M. 25 cents.~ur Lady of the Hermit, by Paschal Boland, O.S.B. 5 cents.--Little Saints, by John and Margaret Moore. $1.50.---Friends Indeed, by Robert Wood, S.M. 15 ccnts.-~Be You Perfect, by Robert B. Eiten, S.J. 15 cents.--The Mass Year. 35 cents.--His Name Is desus, by Julia C. Mahon. $2.00. SCAPULAR PRESS, New York City 16, New York: Life with Mary, by Thomas McGinnis, O. Carm. 50 cents. SHEED AND WARD, New York 3, New York: Are We Really Teaching Relig-ion?, by F. J. Sheed. 75 cents. ST. JAMES FRIARY, Riverton, Illinois: My Spiritual Director, by Ft. Athana-sius Steck, O.F.M. 50 cents. TEMPLEGATE, PUBLISHERS, Springfield, Illinois: A Map of Prayer, by Fr. R. H. J. Steuart, S.J.--The Path of Prayer, by Ft. Vincent McNabb, O.P.-- Contemplative Prayer, by Pete de la Taille, S.J.--The One Thin9 Necessary, by Rev. Bruno Scott James.-~Detight In The Lord, by Fr. Daniel Considine, S.J.-- Fifty Meditations on the Passion, by Archbishop Goodier, S.J.--Wbat Is Contem-plation, by. Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O.--A Treatise on Interior Prayer, by Dom Innocent Le Masson.--Meditations on the Litany of the Sacred Heart, by Juliana of Norwich.--"A More Excellent Way," by Archbishop Goodier, S.J.--Treatise on the Religious Life, by Dom Innocent Le Masson. 35 cents for each booklet. 46 THE SPIRITUALITY OF ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA. By Hugo Rahner, S.J. Translated by Francis John Smith, S.J. Pp. xvll -I- 142. The Newman Press, Westm;nsfer, Maryland: 1953. $2.75. Although the title does not suggest it, Father Hugo Rahner's purpose in this book is "to present the development of the essential features and history of the spirit; of service in the Church." St. Ignatius Loyola was a man of the Church with an ideal of perfection essentially formed by service in the Church. Hence, the origin of his spirituality provides the author with a concrete ex-a, mple in which to study the development of the essential features of the spirit of service. Each of the three influences that went into the spirituality crystallized in the Spiritual Exercises is considered: first, the influence of Ignatius's family, country, and culture: then, the in-fluence of traditional Christian piety, especially as it reached Ignatius in the Imitation of Christ and in the spiritual readin~ of.his conva-lescence- conversion at Loyola (Ludolph of Saxony's The Life of Christ and Jacopo de Voragine's The Golden Legend); finally, the decisive influence of the mystical illumination granted to the saint at Manresa along the banks of the River Chrdoner. In this experience "Ignatius, the pilgrim and the penitent, was made over into the man of the Church"; here he became aware of how his limitlessly ex-pansive love for God was to be submitted to the service and given form within the visible Church. Turning from the development to the history of the spirit of service in the Church, Father Rahner merely indicates the historical continuity of this spirit by sketching its characteristics in a few key "men of the Church": the first St. Ignhtius, of Antioch (whose name Inigo de Loyola appropriated after his conversion), St. Basil, St. Benedict, St. Augustine ("the greatest of all the men of the Church"), the Sienese Saints Bernardine and Catherine. In this perspective St. Ignatius of Loyola appears as one of the long series of providential figures raised up by the Holy Spirit at critical times in history to re-emphasize the truth that there is no true service of God that is not service somehow in the visible Church. This study is as rich as it is brief. The text reads so easily (thanks to the fully satisfactory translation by Francis J. Smith, S.J.) that one needs to consider the twenty full pages of documenta- 47 BOOK NOTICES Reoietv for Religious tion in order to realize that Father Rahner has given us here nothing but the distilled essence of an immense work of research. All who love "that true spouse of ,Jesus Christ, our holy Mother, the hier-archical Church" will be grateful for the understanding of the spirit of service in the Church afforded by'this book. All to whom Ig-natian spirituality is important will find in Father Rahner's work a most penetrating insight into the meaning Of the Spiritual Exercises. --JOHN FRANCIS CLARKSON, S.,J. BOOK NOTICES REDEMPTIVE INCARNATION, by Albert L. Schlitzer, C.S.C., continues Notre Dame's University Religion Series, Theology for' the Layman. This book covers the matter usually treated under Christology, Soteriology, and Mariology in seminary manuals. The topics are proposed as questions in pleasing imit~ition of St. Thomas Aquinas. In each case the theological sources are cited: Sacred Scrip- " ture, Fathers of the Church, councils, papal decrees--all concluded by a clear statement of the theological development of doctrine. In-cluded at the end of each chapter are review questions and addenda showing the impact on daily life of the truth studied. Differences of opinion among theologians are sometimes indicated but generally not developed. Little space is given to modern speculative develop-ments. Thus the Blessed Virgin Mary as co-redemptrix in objective redemption is barely mentioned and hesitatingly so. No mention is made of human solidarity with Christ in His redemptive "work. Nothing is said of Mary's Queenship. But professors of college re-ligion may very, profitably examine this paper-bound book before selecting a~ text for their classes. It is a theological work, devoted to sources and an understanding of the faith, rather than a mere phi-losophy of religion. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University ~f Notre Dame Press, 1953. Pp. x -t- 337. $2.50). All religious should be interested in PROGRESS IN THE RELI~ GIOUS LIFE, by' Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp. The book is written with the priest-religious in mind, but everything in it is of val,ue to all re-ligious. Father Kelly's basic principle is that the religious life is a call to growth in perfection; in other words, the divine call which brings one to the novitiate does .not stop with the taking of vows~ We are all called to make progress, and the reading of this book will danuarg, 195 4 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS encourage us to answer the call. It gives an analysis of the meaning of progress and then in a very practical way shows how the mature religious can and does make progress through the use of the sacra-ments, prayer, the vows, and the other things that make up the life of a religious. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1953. Pp. 128. $2.50.) BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS [For the most part, these notices are purely descriptive, based on a cursory exam-ination of the books listed.] BRUCE PUBLISHING CO., 400 N. Broadway, Milwaukee 1, Wis-consin. , , The Quest ot: Honor. By E. Boyd Barrett. "Honor," writes the author, "calls for courage andindependence; it demands that a man be indifferent to what people may say or think. Honor is con-cerned about doing what is right, and not about winning p~aise." The short chapters in the' book contain much good advice on how to be honorable. Pp. xi ~ 122. $2.50. Character Calendar. By Sister M. Fidelis, S.S.N.D., and Sister M. Charitas, S.S.N.D. Revised edition by Sister M. Charitas. Con-tains a practical meditation, based on the liturgy, for each day of the year. Pp. viii + 280: $1.85 (paper). The Less Traveled Road. By Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. A memoir of Dom Frederic Mary Dunne, O.C.S.O., the first American Trappist Abbot. "I have found Him using the Trappist life to form Dom Frederic, and Dom Frederic to form the Trappist life. So I am going to try to give you a glimpse of the divine Smithy at work and to show how He hammers a soul on the anvil of time to shape it and temper it for eternity." This is the author's promise; the book is its fulfillment. Pp. viii ÷ 250. $3.50. Mg Monthlg Recollection Day. A compilation from the spir-itual treasury of Very Rev. William Gier, S.V.D., edited by Bruno. Hagspiel, S.V.D. Contain~ a meditation or conference for each monthly-recollection day throughout the year; also introductory and concluding spiritual thoughts and practices. Pp. x ÷ 177. $2.50. A Rich Young Man. By dohn E. Beahn. A partly fictional story of St. Anthony of Padua. Pp. 250. $3.25. Spiritual Steps to Christmas. By Very Rev. Msgr. Aloysit~s F. 49 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religious Coogan. "A thought a day through Advent to the glory and peace of Christmas morning is the substance of this book." Pp. 116., $2.25. Paul the Apostle. By Giuseppe Ricciotti. Translated by Alba Zizzamia. This author of a fascinating Life of Christ says: "It seemed I should continue for the disciple the work I had done on the Master." The present book shows that the life of the disciple may be summed up in his own words: "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." A scholarly study, with complete general index and special index of Scripture quotations. Pp. xi -[- 540. $7.50. THE FAMILY ROSARY, 432 Western Ave., Albany 3, N.Y. Father Pettton's Rosary Pra!ler Book. Contains 180 short reflec-tions pertaining to the Mysteries of the Rosary. Material "prepared by a Trappist monk at the request of Father Peyton. Pocket-size, beautifully printed, and well bound. Pp. xxviii+228. $1.00. FIDES, 25 est, rue Saint-Jacques, Montreal, Canada. Principes de Vie Sacerdotale et t~e[igieuse. By the Most Rev. AI-bert- F. Cousineau, C.S.C., former Superior General of the Congre-gation of the Holy Cross. Contains a brief biography and an expo-sition of the spirituality of Father Moreau, the founder of the Con-gregation of the Holy Cross. Pp. 262. $2.00 (paper). FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York 58, N.Y. The Training of Cor~verts. Contains the record of the first mis-siological conference ever held in the United States. Pp. vii -}- 165. $2.00 (paper). $1.50 in lots of ten or more. M. H. GII~L AND SON, LTD., 50 Upper O'Connell St., Dublin, Ire-land. A Guide for Catholic Teachers. By M. T. Marnane. In the Preface to this book, the Archbishop of Dublin says: "This book will show with cogent and persuasive warmth the method by which a Catholic teacher may, while striving for due professional excel-lence, achieve the goal of bringing the mind and will and body and emotions of every pupil into c,aptivity to the truth of Jesus Christ." Pp. xiv q- 164. 9s. 6d. THE GRAIL, St. Meinrad, Indiana. Nothing but Christ. By Killian McDonnell, O.S.B. A.Bene-dictine approach to lay spirituality, designed to help men and wom-en in the world to live a spiritual life according to the spirit 6f St. Benedict. Pp. xiv + 185. $2.00. .50 ,danuary, 1954 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS B. HERDER BOOK CO., 15 South Broadway, St. Louis 2, Mo. General Education and The Liberal College. By William F. Cunningham, C.S.C. The book is the fruit of much thought and discussion on the part of leading Catholic educators in the United States who had worked for more than a decade on the problem of Catholic liberal education. Pp. xvii -}- 286. $4.00. E. M. LOHMANN COMPANY, 413 Sibley St., St. Paul 1, Minn. Large Saint Andrew Dail~t Missal. An entirely new edition of this very popular missal, prepared by Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B. It contains the latest Masses; proper feasts for the United States; various feasts kept in some places or by certain religious communi-ties (e.g., St. Maria Goretti, St. Louise de Marilloc) ; larger type for notes, commentaries, and the English text throughout the Missal; the Easter Vigil; etc. Available in same bindings and prices as the previous edition with the exception of the cheapest binding, which is now $6.25 (formerly $6.00). MCMULLEN BooKs, INC., 22 Park Place, New York 7, N.Y. Light on the Mountain. By John S. Kennedy. The story of La Salette, told "with a freshness and charm that will delight all." Pp. 205. $3.00. The Story of Father Price. By John C. Murrett, M.M. This is an abridgment of the author's original biography of the cofounde~ of Maryknoll, Tar Heel Apostle. Pp. 116. $i.50. Come, Holy Ghost. By Bishop Francis Xavier Ford, M.M., D.D. Contains twenty short chapters, each developing some aspect of devotion to the Holy Ghost, especially with reference to one of the invocations of the "Veni, Sancte Spiritus." . Pp. xii -4- 113. $1.50. St. John of God. By Norbert McMahon. The story of the founder of the Hospitallers of St. John-of-God and patron of the sick and the dying. A very readable biography. Pp. 205. $2.75. Jesus, Son of Mar~ . By Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen. Illustrated by Rafaello Busoni. Bishop Sheen's only juvenil'e; first published in 1947. $I.00. MONASTERY OF THE VISITATION, Wilmington, Delaware. "'The Siloer is Mine." A brief history of St. Joseph's Monastery of the Visitation in Wilmington, Delaware, commemorating the first centenary of foundation from the Monastery of Montluel, France. Pp. xii q- 117. 51 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Maryland. ' John the Baptist. By Andr~ R~tif. A study of The Precursor, especially with reference to Scripture and the writings of the Fathers. Pp. x -b 122. $2.50. Wb~ I Entered the CoJ~oent. Edited by Rev. George L. Kane. In the Preface the editor aptly states: "There are scores of helpful books and pamphlets on the subject of religious vocation, but most of these are, of their nature, abstract and general. There seemed a need in vocational literature for case histories to show the applica-tion of the theological principles in specific instances and to manifest the workings of God's grace in individual souls. It is the hope of the authors and the editor that this book will help to supply that need." A random sampling of these accounts by twenty-one Sisters indicates that the hope is realized. A real contribution to vocational litera-ture. Introduction by the Archbishop of Boston. Pp. xvii q- 214. $2.50. PRENTICE-HALL, INC., 70 Fifth Ave., New York 11, N.Y. The Springs of Silence. By Madeline DeFrees (Sister Mary Gilbert, S.N.3.M.). Another story of a religious vocation and of life in the convent, told with simplicity, with delicate realism, with a fine sense for the humorous--without overdoing it or forcing it. Well written, well printed, and attractively illustrated by Hazard Durfee. Pp. x -t- 173. $2.95. FREDERICK PUSTET (20., 14 Barclay St., New York 8, N.Y. Trinitg Whom I Adore. By Dom Eugene V.andeur, O.S.B. The prayer of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, with a commentary. Translated from the French by the Dominican Nuns of Corpus Christi Monastery, Menlo Park, California. Pp. xxviii -f- 163. $2.75. SHEED ~ WARD, 830 Broadway, New York 3, N.Y. Shepherd's Tartan. By Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P. A man (meaning the male of the species) has to begin this book by looking up the meaning 6f "tartan." He finds that the

Issue 12.2 of the Review for Religious, 1953. ; The .Summa, t:or $is :ers Sister Mary Jude, O.P. EVERY good religious longs to perfect herself1 in the technique of that most divine of occupations--the salvation of souls. To that end vacations are sacrificed for "higher studies," precious holidays are spent attending workshops and teachers' meetings, and "free" time is consumed directing co-curricular activities. In this never-ending process the simple religious, as~well as superiors, super-visors, and superintendents may wonder whether they are not losing their perspective, whether the tail is 'not' wagging the dog. Those in authority repeatedly warn the Sister about the "danger" of studies, until she is given the impression that learning is some kind of neces-sary evil, and a uniyersity, an unavoidable occasion of sin. .Although no good religious has entered the convent with the idea of becoming merely a high-powered schoolteacher (or nurse of social worker), by the end of her first year of teaching she finds her-self involved in a complex system of aims and methods, classroom' management and educational devices. If she has time to think, she wonderswhere it all fits in with her longing to, be absorbed in Jesus Christ. The "points" at meditation, the spiritual reading books in the community bookcase, and conferences and retreats are lavish with warnings of all kinds. Sister ~an never say she has not been told the r'ight thing to do, but has anyone ever taught her how? , She marvels afresh at the insight of Pope Pius XII in his Holy Year message to religious: "To harmonize your~exterior work with your spiritual life and to establish a proper balance between the two." The Holy Father knows exactly how she feels. How is this to be accomplished? Sister must teach English and history this year (next year it may be typing and music) the while she longs to make her pupils understand, "If thou didst know the gift of God. the height and deptl'J of Christ's love, the riches of the glory of His in-heritance in the saints." Instead Sister must drill on the rules for capitalization and ex-pound the Monroe Doctrine. In some high schools priests have taken over the teaching of religion. Realizing the importance of training leaders in the secular branches of learning a.ccording t6 Catholic prin- 1The article is. directly concerned with teaching Sisters. But what is said applies equally to teaching Brothers. as well as to religious engaged in social work, nursing, ~7 SISTER MARY JUDE Re~ieu~ [or Religlous ciples, Sister attempts to assimilafe and o~ientate the subject and the child Godward., She suspects that Father bas been given the easier task--that of teaching'religion as religion. Community officials, becoming apprehensive at stories of .Sisters who have lost their vocations or become worldly-minded in pursuit ~f degrees, frequently react by reducirig to a minimum the number of " Sisters engaged in graduate studies, if this reT, ults in a loss of educa-tional standards to their community, many mistresses of studies con-elude that this is the price that must be paid for maintaining the ligious spirit. Unhappily they can neither foresee nor measure in their lifetime the intellectual stagnation effected by this policy. If the senior memb,,er~ .of the congregation remember their own more leisurely days, when summertime meant rest and relaxation: when daily preparation did not include the breadth of background iequired today; when children came to school with respect for au-thority already inculcated at home; when even the lengthier noon period with no police duty allowed sufficient time for slackening emotional tensions and regaining spiritual tranquility; if these thirsts are remembered, they are never brought up in accounts of "the good old days." With higher studies made the privilege of a chosen f~w instead of the constitutional obligation of all, superiors become fearful lest the ~ubjects singled out grow proud. They reason that it is the fault of " the studies if Sisters so favored become complacent. Meanwhile, Sis-ters, being human, continue to substitute emotionalism for true piety and to confuse devotion with devotions. Honor to the Mother of God is frequently a medley of classroom'May-altars and Sodality "activities" fondly imagined to be Catholic Action. On th~ Blessed Virgin's fulness of grace or her other prerogatives they do not expa-tiate much, because they do not know too much about Mariology. Sisters wonder why their students do not turn-out better, why so little that is taught in religion class carries over to daily life. When promising'pupils marry outside the Church or disgrace their faith by misdeeds in public life or in the underworld, their former teachers are bewildered. Have they not done all they can? Have they? Does even Sister's prize pupil know how precious grace really is? Does Sister herself have a proper appreclatlon of what it means to be a member of the Mystical Body of Christ? Has she ever put across to her pupils the beauties of a baptized soul strengthened by. confirma-tion, purified by penance, perfected by the Holy Eucharist, and Mar~h, 1953 .'i SUMMA FOR SISTERS adorned by the gifts of the Holy Spirit? If sl~ has, then Johnny will seek h married partner who will aid in his slSiritual development and will not establish his marriage merely oh emotional grounds. How can Sister teach these things, if she has never been taught them'herself? She has tried to teach children to develop will power, but how well has she emphasized the role of grace in r~sisting temp-tation? How many of her charges know that the grace, of God is theirs for the asking? Or instead have they been. thoroughly indoc-trinated with the idea that the'Jr Guardian Angel is on their right side and the devil on their left? What do they know of the life of grace within themselves? How many children and adults confuse sensible consolation and devotion? lk~ost,Catbolics think that priests and Sisters live in a semi-ecstatic state in which prayer is a series of thrills. They are. consequently, the more horrified when they discoverthat Father and Sister are human. Sister,is such a good teacher that she can mak~ even world history the most gripping subject in the curriculum. She can fiave her pupi_Is laughing merrily at the nineteenth century theory of spontaneous generation.of life. Do any of them know that it is a greater thing for God to raise a soul from mortal sin than to breathe life into a corpse? How different would be her pupils' attitude on leaving the confessional if they believed that they could no more restore grace to their own souls than bring themselves back to life.?_. They are taught to make an act of thanksgiving after confession. Have they ever been "given reasons for awe and wonder at God's mercy in the sacrament of penance? All the dislocations and chaos of the past years have had tre-mendous impact in the classroom. To analyze their cause is not our purpose here. The Korean War and television .are but ancillary to the mental dissipatio.n which teachers must combat. The young peo-ple of today are the offspring of the "Fla'ming Youth" generation .of the 1920's. Greater and " heavier tasks are being placed upon the school. Even so delicate and personal a matter as sex instruction is shirked by parents. Respect for authority is not only not inculc'ated at home; but it is denied to the teache.r,by mother and father.' , Like St. Thomas Aquinas the Sister must accept people as they are. A religious cannot right every wrong in the world, much as she would like to. She must start with that portion of the Lord's vine-yard which the will of God has assigned to her. She does no.t con, clude that the soil is bad becatise she finds weeds thriving in it. Be- SISTER MARY JUDE Re~iew for Religious cause there is so much to be overcome Sister must be equipped with a knowledge of sacred science before she can start to put things in di-vine order. Because the problem is of such complexity, Sister must first see things as God sees them. This wisdom can come from a study of the Summa Theologica. Time was when those entrusted with forming educational poli-cies of communities would have ridiculed the idea of theology for Sisters. Today, however, with the movement of theology for the laity sweeping the country as it has in the last fifteen, years, with* the butcher, the baker, and the candlestickmaker enthusiastically ~d[scus-sing their ultimate end and distinguishing between the moral and in-tellectual virtues at study ,clubs, no excuse is needed for a study of divine trtith by those whose life is dedicated to God by public pro-fession. No longer do people consider the study of theology a pre-requisite only for those who hear confessions. I~ she is going to God-center the'life of her students, a Sister must know. the science of God. "This is eternal life : That they may know thee. the only true God, and Jes~s Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John, 17:3). In order to convince her pupils of the very purpose of their existence she must first develop within herself a reasoned conviction and understanding of the great mysteries of faith. She must learn to distinguish emotionalism from true love of God, and yet evaluate the place of the emotions in the spiritual life. To meet ,the intellectual needs of th~ mid-twentieth centt~ry a scientific knowledge of God is needed. Unless Sister herself believes that "the least knowledge of divine things is greater than hny amount of knowledge about material, things," she will lose ground. Anyone who puts a degree in chemistry, or language, credits in litera-ture or education before a deeper knowledge, of God cannot be suc-cessful in connecting the life of the day and the life of God within the human soul. She is laboring "for the roost thaf perishes," and not for "that which endureth unto everlhsting life." Teaching, according to Saint Augustine, is the highest form of charity. For the religious teacher, then, the study and quest of wis-dom for the development of her vocation is absolutely necessary. Study undertaken for love of God increases her sanctity. The holier she, becomes, the greater is herdesire for a kngwledge of truth. Be-cause in the convent cemetery there lie the remains of Sisters who achieved sanctity without the study of theology, it does not follow that Sister Anno Domini does not need theology. To those who had 60 March, 1953 SUMMA FOR SISTERS not the opportunity for the study of theolo~gy God undoubtedly supplied. He fits each one with the grace needed for the task He wishes her to do. Theology was not ava~labie for those Sisters, nor had they the same problems to face that the Sister of 1953 has: St~ch an excuse will not hold today. The separation of study from. prayer is not a new problem. But the brilliant patron of Catholic schools has left a method by which study can be employed to direct the interior life to God. St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica has synthesized the whole rela-tionship 'between God and man in the most perfect harmony. Courses in the Summa Theologica have been opened for Sisters at various centers. Seven of these summer schools'stem from the one at Provi-dence College, Providence, Rhode Island, where the" Summa is stud-ied article by article in courses specially adapted to religious women. Other schools use Father Walter Farrell's Companion to the Summa as a text and the great classic itself as a reference. In accord with the spirit of Saint Thomas and in fulfillment of the spirit of the Do-minican Order the spiritual formation of the religious teachers at-tending Providence College transcends the intellectual. Otherwise the real purpose of the stud~ of theology would be subverted. There is not a mother gener~l anywhere who would grope for an answer if asked whether she would rather gend but in September good religious or good teachers. However~ the study of theology on a graduate level, although enthusiastically endorsed by all the Sisters who have t~iken the courses, is not yet as widespread as it should be. Many consider other educational requirements more pressing. That these members of rel.igious communities may eat their cake and have it too--with icing--Providence College also offers a course in the Summa and additional intensive study of special questions with a master's degree in religious education upon its completion. Theology is the antidote for those who fear that higher studies will~make the Sisters proud, just as it is the preventative for worldli-ness in secular subjects. No one who has learned the Catholic teaching on grace: thai it is "God Who moves in you both to will and to accomplish;" that you cannot even want to be good unless God gik, es you the grace bf that holy desire; no one who has learned the glories of the gifts and fruits in- the soul can find it in her heart to be proud. A man must walk to God by steps of the will, but the mind must tell him tb Whom beis walking and what road he should take. 61 SISTER MARY JUDE Review [or Religious The mind was created for truth, the' will for good. To know the truth and to choose the good a man must have grace. "Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God" (II Cor. 3:5). Humility, St. Thomas teaches, is truth. A distinctive phenomenon of the "active" orders today is the !number of religious seeking to change to a p'urely~contemplative life. Although their final profession is far enough behind them that they should have arrived at some proficiency in the delicate balance between praye.r and work, they now seek to transfer to a cloister. While God. for His own reasons may thus call a Sister, such a voca-tion is unusual. Eor every Sister who makes such a change there are many who for a variety,of reasons never effect the transit. They ar-dehtly desire this transit because they, presume it will bring closer union with God. The Sister who would exchange classroom or hos-pital corridor for cloister, has not yet been brought to a realization of the fulness of her vocation. She is willing to settle for less than th~ overflow of contemplation which needs to find an outlet in lifting her neighbor to God. The author of the.Summa, a high-octane teacher if ever there was one, could, without diminishing any of the power of his spiritual life, give himself to the service of his neighbor, for his compass was ever pointed toward truth. Thomas of Aquin had a list of accom-plishments no superior would dare .assign one person today. He t~ught school, preached, wrote something like 36 volumes, carried on an enormous corresponder~ce, traveled back and forth a~ross Eu- ¯ rope on foot several times and was at every'one's beck'and call. The: religious who resents teachers' meetings which take 'up her valuable time can recall the Angelic Doctor laying down fiiS pen in the middle of an article ("Just when I 'got a good start!") when summoned by the Pope to a General Council. To 'the man who was to become the Patron of C;itholic Schools, action and contemplation were inter- 'woven, interdependent. "Goodness diffuses itself," St. Thomas wrote, and the religious woman who has enough spirituality~will externalize her love of God no matter what she is teaching, which--if her congregation runs true to form--will be something outside her "teaching field." If a Sis-ter's community'has been progressive enough to send her to on.e of 'the summer schools of sacred theology for religious women, she has a lever which can move the dead weight of secula.rism considered l~y 62 , March, 1953 SUMMA FOR SISTERS the Bishops of the United States as l~he number one problem. Be she art or music instructor, baby teacher or cbllege professor, she needs the lever of theology. With ,Thomistic thoroughness and spiritual benefit both to herself and her pu.pils the religious who has met and mastered the order and harmony of the Summa Theologica can fit the most important thing~ in life intb her curriculum. Observant of the world's needs but not preoccupied by them, a Sister who has studied theology can immerse herself in algebra and chemistry without fear of losing the sense of the presence of God. In Him she will live and move and have h~r convent and school life. She will share with her pupils the fruit~ of her contemplation, be it in her presentation, of invertebrates or by .means of geometry theorems worked out in units and lesson plans. After a study of the Summa Sister reaches her peak performance. She can teach about God through, every medium because she has first learned to know God herself. Thrilled as by high altitudes, Sister has become acquainted with the science of God, has learned what~aan is, has studied the~ principles of human acts in relation to God. She has an appreciation" of the role of grace in the soul and has studied the life of Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Now that she has analyzed the means utkl-ized by the perfect Teacher, the Divine~Physician, the Greatest of all social workers--the means He has ordered for her and her pupils to share His life--now that she. ha~ this equipment, she can gear every moment of her day to the perfect love of God. A survey of Sisters with graduate training in secular subjects will reveal that few have used more than a small p6rtion of the knowl-edge acqutred in Home Economics or Art or Latin at a university. The training in research, the materials, bibliography, the mental con-centration, the technique of organizing knowledge all are invalu-able. These, however, could be acquired and better orientated after a mastery of the queen of the sciences. If Sister has studied only the first twenty-s, ix questions 6f Prima Pars which treat of the nature and attributes of God, hers is a breadth of vision so vast as to leave her untroubled by all the petty things which disturb conventual peac~ of soul. Placed beside the majesty, t~e b~auty, the simplicity of God; what are the annoying manner-isms of Sister Alpha, the inconsiderateness of Sister Beta, the impru-dence of Sister Ghmma ? As~o.the.Holy Eucharist is the great, divinely-ordered means ~f 63 SISTER MARY JUDE transforming.the human soul into the likeness of Christ, so theology lifts convent life above the narrowest of confines, the most ov'~r- ~rowded horarium, the most pQorly systema'tized routine. From the study of the first part of the Summa Sister learns how great God and from the third part of the same work how much He loves her. No spiritual reading book can grip her soul with the irrefutable logii: of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Once these truths have become part of her life, what difference does it make if Sister Delta leaves most of the work for her, or if Sister Epsilon is congenitally unable to mind her own business? No unctuous sermon whose .resultant glow will be chilled by the first reprimand of a superior can fill her with the peace and joy which a knowledge ~f sacred doctrine brings. Theoiogy is thus definitel); needed by all members of our educa-tional system. There is not a Sister in the Catholic Church who feels :satisfied with the results of her teaching. "Ask Father in confession," ¯ will no longer sufficb. Problems brought to Sister by pupils and ex- ¯ pupils by parents and friends should ordinarily be solved by her. .All too frequently.' those turned away will lose their nerve long be-fore they reach the confessional. Many, many people have never :asked a question in confession in all their lives. They would not know at what part of the confession to interject their request for in- .formation. Besides, they feel th.at, knowing SiSter's sympathy and good sense, they would get an answer which would take into tic-count all the circumstances peculiar to their own situation all of which would call for an autobiography in the confessional. As for asking Father outside--oh, no, he's too busy--even though Father, like Sister, is eager to help them. Moreover, there is small danger that Sister is presuming to answer questions and pass judgment in matters requiring.a trained physician Of souls. One of the biggest and surest and most lasting lessons Sis-ter carries away from her study of the Summa is how mu~h she doesn't know! And as she packs a trunk bulging with all the "teaching materials" Sisters tend to accumulate, she doesn't wonder anymore if the v~orld is sneaking up on her, for if she could, she would fill her arms with the world that she might 'give it all back to Christ. IEDITORS' NOTE: Although we would not entirely agree with some points in tml arti_cle, we believe that it calls for careful consideration and perhap~ for some a~o~- sion. Communications on any of the points, pro or con. woUld be welcome.; 64 The blidden Life Michael Lapierre, S.J. T lif~ HE of Our Lord falls into two distinct parts--the hidden life and the active life. The one is predominantly a life o~ .~ prayer, the other predominantly a life of activi.ty. The one comprises a period of thirty years, the other a period of only three. Tile life 'of Mary His Mother'and of His Foster-Father St. Joseph. was, moreover, scarcely ever in the public eye. As .a root supports and steadies the stalk and flower, so they supported and prepared, their Son for His future ministry. So in the hidden life of prayer, penance, and silence led by many in the world today whether in or out of religious orders and congregations, whether with or without vows, we find the root fixed in the good ground by the bank of living waters. This root supports and helps to energize the vast apostolic enterprise of the Church of Christ in the vast chaos called ~ the modern world. It may seem strange, in an age when there seems so much need of active work in the Church and outside of it, that the Church leaves. thedoors of.her monasteries sealed up, does not send a trumpet call to her monks and nuns to rise from their benches of prayer, to doff the robe of elected silence, to step forth from'the monastery wall and cry forth, like the Baptist, the words of light, of life, and of salva-tion. It may seem strange that the Church chose a contemplative as a patron for that most active 0f her activities. For over her intense as well as.extensive mission activity the ChurCh has placed the Car-melite contemplative, St. Thir~se, the Little Flower. And it makes us re~flect a little too when we read of Plus XI singling out a monastery of Trappist monks in the vast mission field.of China for special praise ¯ and commendation. "What can these do in the mission field?" we are tempted to ask. Missioners must instruct, preach, baptize, con-firm, perform marriages,.absolve, be at the ready call of the sick and ¯ the infirm. And how can a monk do this! Yet it is not too strange after all, if we reflect for a few moments upon a few salient truths. Only let us not forget that we are speaking , now as men possessed of the precious treasure of the faith wherein so many things are made clear to us at which unaided reason might~ fumble and endlessly stumble. Yet it is not out of place to mention MIdHAEL LAPIERRE Ret~iew for Religious that¯ pagans in their higher moments did not fail to set abundant stress, upon thefimportance of contemplation. 3apart had her bonzes; China had her monks. , And whatever the motives and intentions of these religious d(votees were, nevertheless there was somewhere.in the depths of their minds, a realiz, ation, dim and distant perhaps, that the better part in the life of man was, after all, contemplation. We are all familiar with the episode .in the Old Testament where-in Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his Isaac, his only bqgotten and beloved son. It ~vas a hard test of faith and God meant it to 'be so. Abr~ih'am bent his mind to the trial and prepared to carry out God's injunctiofi. But as he raised the sacrificial knife which was to spill:his son's blood upon the altar of holocaust, an angel stayed his hand, saying: "Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou any thing to him: now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake'." "At once ~e see that God was pleased with Abraham's intention. And God blest Abraham because in the strength of. his faith'he had bent his mind to the ful-fillment of God's will, though it seemed to Contradict one 6f the promises a~lready made to him. We are not so familiar per.haps.with that passage in Psalm 49, ¯ where God so emphatically insists through the mouth of His P~alm- "ist that internal holiness must accompany external worship. Here i~ the passage--"Listen my people and I will speak, Israel; and.I Will bear witness.against thee: I afi~ God, thy God. Not for thy sacrifices do I chide thee, for thy burnt offerings are always before me. I will not take a, bullock f~om th3~ house, nor he-goats .from thy flocks: For all the wild aniinals of the forest.are mine, the thousands of beasts on my mountains. I know all the birds of the air, and what moves in the field is~known to me. If I were hungry I'would not tell you: for mine is the world and what'fills it. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls? or drink the blood of he-goats? Offer to God the sacri/ice of praise, and pay thy vows to the Most High. And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." From this we gather then, that all our external activity, all our efforts ha~'e little or no ,value bdfore God, if our ~minds and hearts ire ,no't in harmony with Him, if we are not seeking him in all "our doings. - We recall too how Gabriel responded to Daniel the Prophet who with prolonged piayer-lnterceded for his people: "From. the ~begin- " ning of thy prayers the word came forth: and I am come to shew it to. thee,, because thou art a man of desires: therefore do thou mark 66 March, 1953 ., THE HIDDEN LIFE the word and understand the vision"~ (Dan. 9:22). Because he was a man of desires, a man of prayer, therefore a man with his mind turned towards God, Daniel's prayer is heard and God reveals him-self to him in pra~yer. Many, many tim~s we have heard repeated or have used ourselves the words of Our Lord to Martha concerning Mary Magdalene: -"Mary has chosen the better part which shall not be taken away from her." And to this saying of Our Lord we. may add another less familiar, spoken to His disciples who asked Him why they could not drive the devil out of the boy: "This kind goeth not out but. by prayer and fasting." All these instances show that God fin~Is as much'delight if not more in the 'supreme effort of man to keep his thoughts subject to God as He does in the supreme effort of man to plant the divine truth in other souls. When we bow before the Will of God. when we strive to extend our mind into God's breadth of view, when we b~nd the whole energy of our being into praising, reverencing, and serving God then we are practicing the Apostolate of intention. All*men must practice this to some degree. For all rrien are by -nature reflective animals. They like to turn in upon.the truth ~hich they have discovered---if they are action-inclined, with a vie~- gen-erally to further action: if they are contemplation-inclined, for sheer love and'joy. The missioner and the contemplative each c~rries on a warfare for souls his own soul and the souls of others. While the missioner works in the macrocosm, we magi say that the contem-plative works in the microcosn~. The contemplative finds God in the' depths of his own thoughts, the missioner finds God in the souls for whom he is spending himself. The contemplative is constantly employed in tapping the source of supplies whence flows the grace of God; the missioner ,is directing this supply" to souls. In the redemptive plan of' God each has his activity, each his definite purpose. Nor are.these 6perations opposed to one" another, but rather they are complementary. In the words of St. Paul, "There ar~e diversities of graces, but the same Spi.rit; and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord: and there are diversities of opera-tions, but the same God, who worketh all in all" (I Cor. 12:4-.7). Nevertheless because we are human clay equipped with senses easily and quickly captivated by creatures, perhaps 'because we are a fallen race filled .with the pride of life, caught by the glory of re-nown. haunted by the eclat of reputation, thrilled to be. in the public 67 MICHAEL LAPIERRE Ret~ieto for Religiot~s eye and to have our name trumpeted on the lips of men, we rush for-ward, or set high in our estimation the active phase of apostolic en-deavor: For when all is said and done, has not St. Paul received abundant glory through the ages for his ceaseless journeyings in the cause of Christianity? Think of St. FranCis of Assisi, the troubador "of God singing his way into the hearts of the sinners a'nd of the poor of the Middle Ages; think of St. Catherine being the counselor of kings and popes; St. Francis of Sales winning the stern Calvinists by his disarming evenness of temper and charming good humor; St. Philip Neri entrancing the stolid Romans by his laughter and even saintly jocularity; St. Teresaof Avila, a real Napoleon in her struggles for the reform of the Carmelites. There is a strong appeal in this active apostolate; an appeal enhanced by the passage of time and by the softening of the cross's painful outline in the blaze of .after-glory. "They are the heroes," we say. "How I would like a career like that," or "@hat's the'life for me." "If only we could set the world on fire as they did. If we could cast our lives in such a mould." The supreme success of it dazzles us indeed! Two Apostlesj bad the-same thought that we have had when they sat near Our Lord one day and brazenly asked Him, "Lord may we sit, the one on Thy right hand and the other on Thy left in Thy Kingdom? , And Our Lord replied, "Can you drink of the Chalice of which I shall drink?" As they, so we overlook or forget to see th~ pain and the penance~ paid for such renown. The.glory came only after the crown was. won. If we wish to be realistic we must concentrate on the prelude to alFthis glory. We should see St. Paul, ','preaching not ourselves, but Jesus Christ' Our Lord; . . . in all things suffering tribulation,-but not distressed; straitened but not destitute; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not pe~rishing: always.bearing about in our bod~, the mortification of Jesus, that the life Of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies" (II Cot, 4:5, 8- 10). Hear him cry, "Let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes~ in prisons, in seditions, in labors, in Watchings, in fa~tings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Hol~ "Ghost, in charity unfeigned, in the wo~d of truth., as dying, :and behold we live; as chastised, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always ¯ rejoicing; as n~edyl yet enriching many; as having nothing: yet pgs-sessing all things" (II Cot. 6:4-10). We should hear him say, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ 68 March. 1953 THE HIDDEN LIFE by Whom theworld is dead to me and I to the world." We should picture to ourselves St. Francis of Assisi contem-plating and praying to God on the lonely and solitary slopes of Mount Alvernia: St. Catherine drawn' from h~r loving contempla-tion of her °Saviour into the world of turmoil and dissension: St. Francis of Sales pouring out'his soul in prayer to God: St. Philip Neri as the "Hermit of the Streets" whose "little room l~ad a bed in it but that was not always used. Many nights Philip stayed,,up praying or wandering in the Campagna. When he did sleep it was as like as not on the floor. He hung what few clothes he had on a cord stretched from wall to wall." (T~ Maynard. M~cstics in Mot-le~ . page 25.) These are a few indications of the lives of prayer and penance led by men and women whom we know to have been extremely active in the work of spreading God's Kingdom on earth~ Their days and hours of contemplation are concealed beneath the radiance of their active lif~. But just as the sun's rays blind us to the sun, so the glory of these saints' public l~fe shields from us the depth and the richness of their hidden life. And yet, as' ~ith the sun, so with them the brilliance of their renown takes its splendors from the ~ullness Of their prayerful nights and silent days wherein the energy of their souls and bodies spent itself upon God and upon His truth. With their whole souls they sought God: and loving Him with all the fire of their whole being enriched by grace, they loved other men and all things in this one all-consuming love. They set in order and tried to keep aright, the creatures in the little world of self before and even wh~le venturing among the creatures of the larger world of God's creation. In all they strove for God--in everything they sought to live the morning offering made to the Sacred Heart. ' This was-the, hidden life behind, shall we say, the feverish activity: this was the wellspring that on no account they allowed to run dry. If in the earthly life of Jesus we find such a startling proportion between the 'years spent amid the hills of Nazareth and years spent on the stage of public life; if ia the lives of the saints we find the sami~ preponderating inclination to slip into prayer, penance, and seclusion, surely we have a truth to learn and a lesson to practice in imitating Him and His chosen souls. The Church, the Body. of Christ, has caught this lesson; there-fore she cherishes with a jealous love and guards with zealous ca~e those of her members°taking Nazareth for their ideal and the prayer-z 69 MICHAEL LAPIERRE ful life of Mary and Joseph. f6r their model. Fbr she is quite aware that they carry on a very vital, though, unseen activity, just as Mary and Joseph performed a very important task in ~uarding, feeding; cI~thing, and teaching the Son of God. For they, walking in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary, guard, feed. c'l~)the, and'enrich today the Mystical Body of Christ. As consecrated workers of Jesus Christ. we need their intercession and support. Furthermore we need to strengthen the life of grace and of union with God ~n our own souls. If we have, a realization of the value of the Hidden Life we shall go ab6ut this with a wil!. To the degree to which we have formed in ourselves a knowledge and a love of J~sus Christ. to that degree even in the midst of the heaviest .and the most annoying work we shall find our minds and our hearts stealing back to taste and to relish the sweetness of the Lord. To Him our desires will fly as to a'harbor and a refuge; for Him our. whole soul will yearn: 'Who will give me wings like a dove and will fly and be at rest." "I have sought him whom my soul loveth . I have found him and I. will not let him go." "I have loved O lord the beauty ofThy house and the place Where Thy glory dwelleth." "How lovely are Thy tabernacles O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth and fain,teth for the courts of the Lord." It is the v,r-" rues of the Hidden Life that we must sow'and make to take root and flourish in. our souls. The better we succeed in this planting the more contemplative our lives will become. And the ,more contem-plative our lives become the.deeber and richer will be our knowledge of God and of His. love. The deeper and richer our knowledge and love of God becomes, the fuller and livelier becomes our Apostolate of Intention. For then we shall move about our daily tasks, then we. shall face our duties, then we shall ac'cept the disaplSointments of each day, then we shall welcome the joys of our pilgrimage, With one thought, with all the ene.rgies of body and soul, senses~and mind concentrated on one object, ,the seeking and the serving of God in each and everything that we think and say and do. For, "Many Waters cahnot quench charity, neither can the fl.oods.drown ,it. If a man sh6uld give all" the substance of his house for love he shall despise it as nothing." ' ' PROCEEDINGS: SISTERS' SECTIONOF CO'NGRESS Religious Comrnunitg Life in the United States. The Proceedings of the Sis-ters' Section of the First National Cgngress. Of Rel!gioUs' of .the United States, which was.held at Notr, e Dame, Indiana, last August, can now; be obtained from the Pau!- ist Press, 411 W. 59tbSt., Ne~, Ysrk 19, New York. $2.50. 70 I:::at:her bler!:ling on I nt:usefl Cont:empla!:ion Jerome Breunig. S'.J. 44~UT do not think you are mystics just because you have read ~ Garrigou-Lagrange's Three Ages of the Spiritual Life," said the rector of a major seminary who had been urging all to buy and read the book. The laudable prOmotion of books on the :mystical life often produces two very different reactions. Some are inclined to make too little of the possibility or desirability of mysti-cal graces, while others tend to be enthusiastically over-optimistic and. after some quickl.y digested reading, imagine they are in the "fifth mansion" as soon as they experience a few moments of serene prayer. In his manual, Theologica Ascetica. Louis Hertling, S.3., presents the basic, element.ary facts of mysticism b¥iefly and concisely, and in a way that 'inculcates respect in those iiaclined to be cynical or slighting and prudent reserve in those who would seem to expect to attain to infused contemplation in ten easy lessons. Father Hertling taught a course in ascetical theology at the Uni-versity, of Innsbruck and later at the Gregorian and Athenaeum Pon-tifical Universities in Rome. He first published his lectures in 1930 under the title, Lehrbuch clef Ascetischen Theologie. His lectures in Rome were published in 1947 by the Gregorian University Press as Theologia Ascetica. The present a'rticle is drawn from the section in the latter which treats of the way of the perfect, numbers 327-367. It does not attempt to reproduce the entire content but rather some of the more practical directives found in the treatise. Father Hertling's ideas about the theoretical problems of mysticism, the essential nature of it, and so on, are not accepted by many other theologians, but still ~they are well worthy of consideration and respect. His practical directions seem. very sensible and excellent. A mystic is defined as one who has infused contemplation, and infused contemplation as a perception of God orof the mysteries of faith wbii:h is beyond human powers. This perdeption is not miracu-lous as the vision the shepherds in Bethlehem-received, as bearing a voice from heaven, or as a prophet's infused knowledge.of, future events:~:. It is not necessarily altogetbe~ new knowledge, bur"it is a new way of knowing as the beatific vision is a new way of knowing. 71 JEROME BREUNIG Revieu.~ for Religious In fact, infused contemplation is in. the same order as beatific knowl-edge, but it lacks the clarity, extension, and permanence of the oter-hal vision. In the natural order, some of our knowledge is proper, some analogotis. We have proper knowledge of what we perceive through our senses. Of spiritual, suprasensible, and supernatural reality, such as, of God and of the, mysteries of faith, we can have only analogous knowledge naturally. But' supernaturally, through the mystical grace of infused contemplation, the favored soul receives more than that: it receives a proper, that is, a sort of immediate, experimental knowledge of the things of God. The definition 'of infused con-templation can therefore be stated: an experimental or at least quasi-experimental perception of God and of the divine mystdries. In simpler language, the mystic might be said to "sense," "touch," "experience" God. In the beatific vision we shall see God face to face, we shall know God as we are known by Him. This description by St. Paul (I Cot. 13) is magnificent and clear, but he does not explain how the finite mind attains the infinite. Theologians have proposed theories, .but all agree that the beatific vision is a~mystery in the strict sense of the word. Infused contemplation presents a somewhat parallel case. A mystic is said to "experience" God, and theologians propose theories to explain this divine experience. Such investigation is challenging and serves to increase the awe of the searcher before the grandeur of the divine, but it does little to unveil the mystery of the divine opera-tion. Father Hertling merely mentions a few of the theories and then quotes from his former colleagi~e at the Gregorian University, the late 3oseph de Guibert, S.3. "Many place the essence of infused contemplation in the soul's becoming directly and immediately con-scious of the supernatural gifts which it has received from God, and in these gifts attaining God Himself and through them His presence and action in themselves. There is no immediate intuition of God but an intuition in ~ mirror, in some objective medium . Nor must it be thought that the object of contemplation is not God Him-self but only his gifts. For these gifts are not only a mirror or medium in which the soul attains God, not by a dialectic process or reasoning, but intuitively, as when I see an object in a mirror, my attention does not stop with the mirror but is wholly taken, with the object that is seen in the mirror." (Theologia Spiritualis Ascetica et Mgstica, 399,401.) 72 March, 1953 I N FUS ED CONTEMPLATII21~I Some Questions Is the grace of infused contemplation ordinary or extraordinary, relatively rare or frequent? Do all have a vocation to it or only a few? Is infused contemplation the normal goal and crown of the spiritual life or not? There is a difference of opinion among theo-logians on these questions. In general, Father Hertling's position is. that ~he grace of infused contemplation is extraordinary and rela-tively rare, that not all are called, and that it is not the crown and 'goal of the spiritual life. He is careful, however, to make proper distinctions on each qiiestion. ~ Is the grace of contemplation extraordinary? It is if understood simply as not customary. But it is not in the sense that it' would be rash to wish it for oneself, to pray to,receive such a grace, to prepare dispositions as occasion offers, as it ,would be imprudent to seek visions or the gifts of miracles. Is it relatively rare? Those who deny that contemplation is rela-tively rare say that all who are in the state of grace possess it because it is the specific effect of the gifts ,of t,he Holy Ghost, which are in-fused with sanctifying grace. Sin~e it seems contrary to experience that all in grace have infused contemplation, those who hold this opinion say that the contemplation in the imperfect is still below consciousness, and, as perfection increa.ses, or as the soul is more and more freed from inordinate affections, the infused contemplation enters more and mo~e into consciousness. After agreeing that infused contemplation is an effect Of the gifts, or rather that it is a special gift of th~ Holy Spirit, the author gives this ~refutation. Infused contemplation is an act of the intellect or~ at least, it is to be considered in the category of actions and not of qualities, or habits. Now, an unconscious act of the intellect, or an illumination of the mind that is not perceived, seems to be a contra-diction. For this reason, it seems more correct to say tl~at the.gifts infused at the time of justification place in the soul a remote disposi-tion to receive contemplation, but contemplation itself is had only when it enters into consciousness. It would not be necessary for the favored soul to know this rdflectively,, for he could have infused con-templation without knowinlg it was such, or knowing that it wa~s something that others did nbt have. The point is, if it is perceived I in no way~ it is not present.] Are all called to contemplation or only some? This. call can be compared to the call to perfection. There is a remote call for all, if 73 JEROME BREUNIG': ~ Review }'or Religious the reception of sanctifying grace with the ~ifts of the Holy Spirit is considered, sufficient for such a Vocatioh. The author denies a,proxi-mate vocation for all. God does not promise .this grace to. all ',who to-operate as well'as they can with the grace they receive, for God does. not lead all by" the same way, nor does He want to.' God can ~ompensate for the absence of infused contemplation by giving :othei: graces to. help ~i'man attain perfection. Of course, 7the man with in-~ 'fused contemplation will advance more easily and can more re~idily advance .higher on the w.ay of perfection. The not-unrelated question of whether infused contemplation the goal and crown of the spiritual life is answered in the same way. Perfection, or. the goal of the spiritual life, is judged l~y the heroic ~,irtue of a man rather t-ban by his method of prayer. As said above, o ] a, man can attain.perfection without co, nterflplation. Contempl.ation, then. is rather a very efficacious means to reach the goal than the goal .itself. On" the Value of Contemplation The author steers a: middle course between the two extremes found among spi~i.tual directors. On the conservative side arethe spiritual directors who fear infused contemplation in souls hndet ~heir direction, are always afraid of illusions, and try severely the sbuls who may show signs of" contemplative graces. On 'the ovef-enthusiastic side are those who woul~l urge a.nd persuade all novices and young religious that they al~eady have ~or may soon expect in-fused contemplation. These 'men are often deceived by the theories spoken of above, such as the universal call to contemlSlation. Even the theologians do not understand these theories as some dir~ectors would wish to apply them, In this way they~le.ad souls, a~'S~. The-resa says; to'intrude themselves into mystical paths where ihey carry on as fools. On the other hand, infused Fontemplation is not as rare as many b~lieve. The highbst levels are very rare but not the qesser grades which are still 'true mystical states. It would not be tOO much to expect tofind one Or 6ther true contemplative in a large~ religi.ous community, and this not only ~m0ng':'jubilarians. Norneed such religious'be parii~ularly conspicuousbr riecessari.ly revered a~ tibly by '~'11. When a spiritual director meets,such a soul, he need not be filled witl~ dismay. I~ is not too urlusual or da,ngerou~: 'Generally speaking, graces are not dangerous. Illusions appear when there is question~ of something other than contempI'ation itself, such as visions, revelations, supernatural commands.' Of such phenomena March, 1953 INFUSED CON:FEMPLATION Father.i-iertling says: "'I would not believe one in a hundred or even one in a thousand." It can happen that one believes he has infused contemplation when he only has affective prayer. But even this is not harmful if it has the effect of f6stering.,the practice of virtue. When the diredtor investigates too much in these matters, intro~- duces.special trials, and especially when he talks too much about them, he may not only disturb but even cause ,the person he is directing to form too high an opinion of himself. The effects of ihfused'contemplation are ve, ry powerful and most desirable, especially when they occur ~ frequently. Success in living a life of virtue depends on,holy thoroughly the Interior life is pene-trated with the truths of faith. A man will constantly practice heroic virtue 0nly when he is completely penetrated with the truths so they.hold sway in his heart and mind over all else. This interior state can be acquired with labor by ordinary means such as medita-' tion. but it can be attained more quickly and efficaciously with the help of thatspecial light sent from above. In" an ordinary-state, the truths of faith, known only analogously and not directly, have less psychological efficacy, and this must be renewed continually by un-ceasing laboi. In infused contemplation, a man acquires a qug~i-experimental knowledge of divine trutbs so that supernaturalrrib: tives have the same or even greater cogency than natural ones. There is real danger when a man leaves the ordinary way iore: maturely and on his own. thinking he already has contemplation when he does not have it. This happens especially when be assumes privileges. True mystics do not have ' privileges." Such a ofiehears that contemplatives find discursive rheditation difficult a-nd. in time. impossible, and mistakenly thinks be is a m)istic when. because"~'of sloth or lack of training, he finds no delight in mental 15~?ayer anal does not m~ike any progress. Infused contemplation is not attainiid by'leaving off meditation: thi? would rather cut short an~ hope whatever of acquiring it. Since even authentic mystics are not always illumined by contemplation,~ they must in the in~erveni'ng time return tirelessly to ordinary ways of prayer. Again, an immature ~eligious he~ars that contemplatives ~re under the direktion of the Holy Spirit, as though contemplation would act )is a spiritual director, and therefore thinks that he'can now act freely and without'the counsels of older me'n. These illu-sions and dangers do not rise from contemplation itself, but from the error of those who do not have it. It can be seen that out-of.'seasdri 75 ,JEROME BREUN[G admonitions that all are called and must tend to contemplation could do more harm than good. Conditions and Dispositions Since contemplation is a. gratuitous gift of. God, it is not easy to determine the conditions or dispositions that would be more favor-able to the reception of this grace. The best natural dispositions for infused contemplation would seem to be a clear mind, seriousness of purpose, and a simplicity or harmony of character. Contrary. dispo-sitions would be genius and a highly imaginative or emotional na-ture. Too much versatility and talkativeness would also seem to be hindrances. In general, mystics are not reformers, innovators who blaze new trails, or critics. A youthful exuberance would also seem unfavorable. A maturer age (after 40 or 50) and a more tranquil outlook are required. Ordinarily, mystics are men with few ideas, but these are sublime ones. Sometimes their writings tend to be monotonous, continually presenting the same round of thought in the same style. Universal spirits such as St. Bernard and St.Theresa of Avila are the exceptions rather than the type of the true mystics. The ~study of mystical theology, association with mystics, and reading their books does not help directly. It can help indirectly by stirring up. interest in the study of the things of the spirit. Infused contemplation is not "contagious." There is no such thing as a mystical movement in the Catholic Church. Collective mysticism is almost certainly a sign of false mysticism. The best deoeloped dispositions for infused contemplation are magnanimity, the spirit of sadrifice, separation from the wbrld, self-denial, and an intense application to prayer. Without the greatest' diligence in cultivating mental prayer, persevered in over the years, there is hardly any hope of attaining to contemplation. The need for chastity and mortification is clear from the examples of the saints. As it is the best way to sanctity, so the religious life provides the most suitable form of life for the cultivation of a life of prayer. Con-templativeorders are particularly.adapted to help their members at-tain this higher state of prayer. It is not going too far to see in a vo-cation to a contemplative order a proximate vocation to infused con-templation. Still, the membe~ of a contemplative order who does not have this conten~plation is not on that account a poor religious, for the purpose of the religious life is always Christian perfection, which can be had without contemplation. But even those who live an active life dedicated to works of charity for others can attain contempla-tion as is attested frequently in the lives of, missionaries. , Xavier t:he Missionary J. J. De~ney, S.J. ALTHOUGH more than ten years elapsed from the time Xavier landed in India on May 6, 1542, until his death on Decem-ber 3, 1552. less than four years and ten months.were spent in the Indian phase of his apostolate, and even this time was very much broken up by movements from one place to another. The field in which he v~orked longest was the Tamil-speaking sections along the Fishery Coast and the southern coast of Travancore, and even there his stays totalled less than two years and were spread over a coastline considerably more than a hundred miles long. Making liberal allowances we can admit that Xavier ma~ have spent seven-teen months in Goa, but these months were diyided over the whole ten years of his stay in the East, and much of the time here was spent in working with the Portuguese and in administrative work. The time Xavier spent in mgving from one part of India to another. usually by sea, certainly totalled up to many weeks and probably months. The remaining time~ includes stays in Cochin (at least seven different times). Quilon, Bassein, Negapatam, and Mylapore. We must remember too that Xavier's work in Goa and the coastal towns of the Por,tuguese was much different from that among~ the Tamils of the south. Yet in spite of such a sho'rt-lived and diversified apostolate Xavier was to become the "Apostle of the Indies," and to be known and revered as such throughout the world. Few saihts are better known and loved than Saint Francis Xavier. and no country is more closely associated with the name of Xavier than India. How did Xavier merit such a close association with India in these few years of work in our country? Since Xavier's most typical missionary work was in the South. we will first consider his work done there. ~ In late October'of the year 1542 Xavier arrived on the Fishery Coast as the ~only priest among twenty thousand recently baptized Paravas in desperate need of religious instruction and speaking a language which he did not know. He set to" work energetically: studying the language, in-structing the people, and baptizing their children. " In a country where the birth-rate is high and life-expectancy is J. J. DEENE¥ Review for Relioious low. we can easily imagine that the unbaptized children who had ~been born since.the priest was last present among .the Paravas num-bered at least four or five thousand, for it is not likely that the unin-stru. ci~d Paravas baptized their children. Besides this. Xavier bap-tized many,dying babies of pagan parents: in one letter he tells us that bebaptized over one thousand babies who died soon afterwards. Thes~ facts alone would explain Xavier's great preoccupation with baptisms, which is reflected in his letters. However. be also baptized great numbers o'f pagan adults, first of all on-the Fishery Coast whe're he tells us his arm often becfime tired from baptizing new converts to the faith: and finally in Travancore where he himself testifies that be baptized ten thousand in one mon(b among a people who 'bad never before been introduced to Christianity. ° ,It is true that Xavier did not requird a prolonged catechumenate prior to baptizing, and that his "'quick" .baptisms of~ pagan adults wot~ld surprise us of a more exacting age, but we must realize tile cir-cumstances in which Xavier worked. When be came to ~heFishery Coast be was confronted with the immense task of instructing twenty thousand new Christians. baptizing their ~hildren. and gaining new converts. Necessarily the instructions had to be on a limited scale. The people were uneducated and Xavier had to rely for the far greater part on formulas memoi?ized in probably defective Tamil. To bring new converts to the same low'level of instruction witb"tbe rest~would not take much time. Xavier just bad to keep working, trusting in God, begging for more helpers so that be could raise the level of all. old and new Christians. and at least he had the cgnsolation of knowing that those Who died had been baptized." could be fairly sure of the stability of his new converts. The oppor. tunism which had led the greater number of these people to the faith would be a-strong inducement for all of them to remain Christians. for this would be their surest guarantee of protection against the Muslims. Meanwhile Xavier would work hard to supernaturalize their motivation and deepen their religious knowledge and their life of grace. ~ The whole movement among the fishermen of Travancore is but an application, on a grand scale of the same attitudes. Xavier had a sudden'opening, an invitation from a grateful local king to enter his territory and work among the fishermen who lived a!ong the coast. Xavier seized the opportunity and went swiftly from village to village briefly instructing and baptizing the people before 78 XAVIER THE MISSIONARY, the moment would pas.s: alrea'dy he-had .some help,.on tl~e Fishery. Coast when this new opportunity presented itself, and'he was confi-dent that new recruits for the mission would soon arrive from. Europe. These would have to consolidate the work. A modern missionary would perhaps be more cautious, and even some of his fellow missionaries;held a stricter view. Surely-one element which we cannot, excliade'in Xavjer's case is the prompting of divine grace, and We ha.ve, nogreater proof of this than the, strong Catholic .faith which still exists among .these peoples. Xavier's work in Goa and the Portuguese ,centres" wa~ cast in a different.mould, but was no less taxing on his energies. The Goa of Xavier's day was far frbm being a model of strong, religious life. Many of the Portuguese were soldiers of fortune away from the. type of family life that might promote even a modicum of decency. For their own sake of course these souls were important to Xavier: more; over, he saw that unless the life of the Portuguese presented a favourable picture of Christianity,.~tbe Indians would havi~ no inter-est in it. So ~a large amount of Xavier'.s attention was given to the Portuguese, preaching to them, hearing, their confessions, visiting the sick and those in prison, using every means of personal contact by ¯ .which be thought he could bring individuals around to'a better way of living. But the Indians were in no way neglected, and Xavier frequently put-aside special time for them and considered it his° greatest glory when he could find time. to.be with their children. - In all these .activities Xavier followed a very exacting time schedule. We know from the eloquent testimonies of Xavier's contemporaries that his presence infused a renewed spirit into the city- of Goa. In all fields of his activity Xavier's form of apostolate was ~tarkly dire~t. He could not afford to spend his time .producinig plays or organizing boys' ball clubs; there was too much to be done. Rather he approached the people ~ immediately off a highl.y spiritual level. He, tried to imbue everyone he contacted with a sense ofthe importance of .the part they must play in the work of. the apostolate. He considered the children ideal co-apostles, and frequently mentions, working through tl~eir instrumentality. His-letters to the King of Portugal find to the'local officials are ferven,t pleas-that they may do all they can~ to eradicate the abuses which are such.a hindrance to the work, a~nd:that~they may render every positive help they can. In his" numerQus.letters to his fellow ,Jesuits working.in India he constantly guides, and ~ncourages them. and we. know, from the testimony of 79 d. d. DEENEY Review [or Religious these Jesuits that his personal contact was a source o~ great inspira-tion to all of them. Even the letters which Xavier sent back to his companions in Europe produced great good for the work of the mis-sion in India, for each new letter was dagerly sought and widely cir-culated in the Jesuit colleges, and they captured young imaginations and set generous hearts on fire. Thus besides what Xavier did him-self in ministering to the good of souls, he gave a tremendous impetus to the work in India by imparting to others some of the warmth of the flame that burned within him. ~ But isn't there a negative side of Xavier's work in India which we should .not overlook if our picture is to be complete? It is very likely that the modern missiologist would not always find~ in Xavier's life the best exemplar of present:day mission theory." We find in Xavier's life no serious attempt at a sympathetic approach to the cultural life of the India of his day, nor do we see signs of his taking those means of adapting his ways to the ways of the people such as would later prove so effective in De Nobili's apoitolate. Xavier occasionally met Brahmins, but from the start he brands them as being "as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found," and when he had one long talk about Indian religion with a learned Brahmin, he considered the fruits of the ~discussion not worth recording. Xavier knew that Indian literature is largely con-tained in a "sacred language," but there is no indication that Xavier ever considered learning this language. The fact that he started to use the vernaculars immediately is surely a strong point in his favour, but we have indications in Xavier's letters that his knowledge of the vernaculars was quite limited. After a year and a half of the two years spent in the South where Tamil was spoken, Xavier wrote, "I am among these people without an interpreter. Antonio is sick at Man'apar, and Rodrigo and Antonio (a different one)'are my interpreters. Thus you can imagine the life I lead, and the sermons I give, since they do not understand me, nor do I understand them. And you can imagine my efforts to talk with these people!" (29 Aug. 1544). / Also as we read Xavier's letters we feel that he did not seem to realize the importance, or at least the feasibility, of influencing 'the lower classes of India through the~intelligentsia. His own apostolate was carried on almost entirely among people of lower class, which can be explained perhaps, but it is harder 'to explain the fact that in his letters to Europe he regularly minimized learning as a requisite 80 March. 19~ XAVIER THE MISSIONARY for. the new missionary to India. Moreover, not only did Xavier fail to take positive means to identify himself with the chhUral life 6f India, but on the contrary Xavier, as we see him in his letters, is thoroughly identi~fied with the Portuguese; he was in continuous torrespondence with King John III of Portugal, and with the local officials, and had constant recourse to the Portuguese for. financial, legislative, and even military aid, nor was he slow to let this be known. He also required that all the new missionaries who did not know Portuguese should learn it immedi-ately upon coming to India. These might be considered limitations in Xavier's approach, but we must remember the sphere of action in which Divine Providence set Xavier's efforts in India. Si'nce Xavier's apostolate was either among the usually extremely poor fishermen or else in cities within the sphere of Portuguese influence, it' is natural that his attitudes s~hould he largely fashioned' by these environments. In the South he was absorbed in work for a people who were in constant danger of attacks, and for the sake of his people he had to be in close harmony with the Portuguese. In-the coastal cities ~ontroIled by the Portu-guese he had no other choice. Portuguese power would intrude itself whether Xavier wanted it or not. Actually much of Xavier's inter-~ vention with the Portuguese authorities was exerted in order t6 keep the Portuguese from hindering his work. Also we must realize that Xavier lived at a time, when Church and State were still very closely linked together, for good and for evil, and that he was working in a sphere where the State was actually willing to do much to aid the spread of religion, so it is natural that he availed himself of this aid as much as he could. This can explain Xavier's failure to adapt his ways to a more typically Indian society. It explains his failure to. consider learning as a necessary requisite for the new missionary. The apostolate of the Fishery Coast and along the southern coasts of Travancore re-quired practical men of robust health and solid virtue; for'the sea-towns controlled by the Portuguese he required good preachers also, apparently mostly for the benefit of the Portuguese, who were, for tl~e greater part, not so'much"in need of priests who could explain the fine points of dogma, as of priests who could shock them out of their attachment to sin. This brief description of Xavier's works helps us understand something of the accomplishments of.Xavier, and also something of 81 SUMMER: SESSIONS Review [or Religious the limitationk in his techniques, but it does not show us positi3~ely the tremendous force which,was Xavier. This can be gotten only by a direct personal study of Xavier. the man. the saint. Happily it is a study to which we have often applied our minds and hearts. Xavier is above all a marl entirely dedicated to God and absorbed in the work of winning s'0uls to God's love and life. Every line of his letters breathes this whole-soul absorption: nothing else matters: there is never a thought of his co~fort nor of rest: always the work to be done: .He is a man of intense activity, but the action never gets in the way of his deep union with God. His trust in God is unbounded i he fears only not to trust. 'Grace and nature gave him a heart with a great capacity for loving l~is fellowmen, and gave him great powers in influencing his. fellowmen. Indeed, although Xavier may not have made much contact with the higher cultural elements in India. he certainly, showed forth qualities which appealed strongly to all that was finest and typically ¯ Indian in those among whom he worked. For Xavier radiated forth a~ spirit, of profound union with God and of utterpoverty and detachment such as none of the Indian holy men could equal, and Xavier's deep sympathy for his people and willingndss to expend himself in their behalf was something unknown to their holy men, but appealing no less s~trongly on that account to the hearts of his people. Summer Sessions At Marquette University, Father Gerald Kelly, S.3. will con, duct a 5-day institute on Medico-Moral Problems, ~dune 15-!9. This instittite, which, covers all the provisions of the Catholic Hospital code, is for cfiaplains, Sisters, and other hospital personnel. Also, this summer M~rquette will inaugurate a program of studi.es leading to a degree of Master of Arts in the_ology. The program extends through,five summers, and provi~les two plans for the Master's de- .gree: one including a thesis,, the other without a thesis. The. intro~ ductory courses will be given in 1953, ,lune.22LJuly 31, by Fathers Augusti~ne Ellard, S.3., and Cyril Vollert, i.3. Among those who will conduct courses in subsequent years are: Fathers Cyril P. Dono-hue, S.,J., Gerald Ellard, S.3., Gerald Kelly, S.d., and Gerald F. Van 82 Mar¢~, ! 9~ 3 F~R YOUR INFORMATION Ackeren, S.J. For further information ,wi~te to: Rev. Eugene H. Kessler, S.J., Marquette University, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin. The Institute for Religious at College Misericordia, Dallas, Pennsylvania (a three-year summer course of twelve days in canon law arid :iscetical theology for Sisters), will be held this year August 19-30. This is the first year in the triennial coursd. The course in canon law is given by the Reverend Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., that in ascetical theology by the Reverend Daniel J. M. Callahan, S.J., both of Woodstock College, Woodstock~ Maryland. The registration, is restricted to higher superiors, their councilors, mistresses of novices, and thosein similar positions. Applications are to be :;ddressed to Rev. Joseph F. Gallen, S;J., Woodstock College, Wood~tock, M& For Your Inrrorma ion " Scholarships for Librarians Mary.wood College, an ALA accredited library school, will offer three 'scholarships in librarianship for 1953-54 to graduates of ap-proved colleges. .Two of these scholarships are full tuition, $450, and the third; $350. The course of study for which' these scholar-shops are available le~ids to the, Master of Arts in LilSraria.nship. "They are competitive and are based on scholarship and background. Dead-line for application is May" 1. Address~ Marywood College, De-partn~ ent of Librarianship, Scranton 2, Pa. Futuramic Convention A Futuramic Convention will be held at Central Catholic High S~hool, Canton, Ohio, on March 31 and April I, 1953. Religious ~orders, colleges, business, industry, and branches of the service are in-vited to participate. Those interested can write for more information to Futuramic Cowcention Headquarters, Central Catholic High School, 4824 Tuscarawas Street, West, Canton 8, Ohio. Transparencies for .Vocational Project : A priest, wqrking on a project to foster interest in vocations to the Sisterhood, is: anxious to contact any priest or Sister who has a selection of 35 mm color transparencies depicting the everyday life of the Sister in th~ novitiate, the convent, the school and hospital, and in the missions at home and abroad. Write to. Fr. B. Megannet~, O.M.I., St. Patrick's College, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 83 Divided Attention P. De Letter, S.J. ONE of the most common forms of inattention during prayer is divided attention. Who does not know from experience what this means? We go to pray and sincerely try to apply our-selves to prayer. We pray the beads or the Divine Office, make our. meditation, say or hear Mass. But while the deliberate application of our mind goes to and stays on the prayer, another half of our mind, subconsciously or half-deliberately, is taken up with thoughts completely foreign to our prayer, Our interest, worry, preoccupa-tion, Our plans for the day or the week, are at the back of our minds, struggling to come to the fore and divert our attention. Even when we do not. wilfully give in, but strive as best we can, the play of the unwanted thoughts and images carries on ,in the background of our mind like another actor on a second stage. The "intruder" succeeds at times in drawing our attention away from prayer and lessening our application by fifty per cent or more. The resulting prayer looks superficial and shalIow. Our mind and heart seem to have little grip on the subject of\our medi.tation. Prayer is not exactly mere lip service. We still give a half-hearted advektence to the matter of our meditation. But neither vocal nor mental pra)'er is thorough, satisfactory. They do. not occupy us fully. No wonder we feel ,small and draw little profit from them. Could it be other-wise when our prayer is half-hearted? ,Can nothing be done? Is there little hope that sorhe day, with the help of His grace, things maY improve ? Human minds are naturally fickle and prone to divide attention among many objects. This is particu~larly true when they are at-tracted to things other than uninteresting duty. But what makes matters worse is that we train ourselves to divide our attention. The inevitable amount of' ~outine occupation, both Spiritual and tempo-ral, found in regular life a~tually fosters this division. Besides, the advice of spi'ritual authors often tends to emphasize this training for a "double life." Some routine work develops a mechanical Way of acting which demands and generally takes little attention. Without allowing itself to slip into inattention ~hat harms the work, the mind can pursue a different train of thought on its own. How many ideas originate in this twilight zone! While we are performing routine 84 DIVIDED A'VFENTION tasks, oar real intere, st follows up its own spe.culations. In regular community life, moreover, we are positively encour-aged to divide our attention. When we do manual work, we are " to keep our mind occupied with spiritual thoughts that can keep us united with God. When at meals, we are not to be too much en-grossed with the material occupation but "to let the soul have her food" in the reading at table or in pious reflections. We are definitely asked to train ourselves to divided attention. Nor is this practice to be cofifined to exterior occupations. 'When reciting our rosary or saying the Office, there is no need. to try to pay attention to every word. While saying the 'Hail Marys, we are to reflect either on the mystery, on the person to whom we pray, or on our special intention. While reciting a psalm, we need not follow the meaning of every word (who could do that?), but we may keep ¯ our attention on its main idea or on some striking phrase or thought. In that manner we expressly foster, in our very prayer, a psychology of divided attention. Is it surprising that something similar happens when we do not look for it and wish to give ourselves fully to prayer. After developing the habit of dividing our attention, both outside of and during prayer, we must not be surprised to find the habit coming into play even when we are not planning on it. Obviously, divided attention is not all wrong. We cannot help dividing our attention. A spiritual life that is not confined to chapel or prie-dieu but penetrates into our day's work is not possible with-out it. The spiritual advice we are given about attenti6n in spiritual and temporal duties is certainly right. We do ~ell in following it. There is nothing wrong with that divided attention which we foster deliberately. It is a means of saturating our action in contemplation, of making our vocal prayer approach ever closer to mehtal prayer. It is a fact, nevertheless, that the habit of deliberately dividing our attention is not without harmful consequences. We suffer from these when we turn our minds to set period~ of prayer. The habit is prone to act in an indeliberate manner. Such is the mechanism of every habit or second nature. This may evidently hinder our pur-poseful action. Trained to divide their application, our minds often do 'so spontaneously just when we wish to concentrate on one sub-ject. A special effort is required, to counteract this natural and de-veloped propensity. To know ,the factor~ that favor the indeliberate activity of the divided-attention habit is the first step we can take to oppose them 85 'P. DE L~TTER Review ~,or Religious effectively and neutralize their influence., The~se may be divided into three groups: affections that occupy one's emotional powers, such as, desire and hope, fear and anxiety: thoughts and memories steeped in emotional content: new sense-perceptions which we are permitting or seeking here and now. These are factors to be reckoned with. ¯ The shallowness of prayer that is,caused by the habit of divided attention cannot be remedied completely. 'There is no need ~o at- ¯ tempt the impossible. To prevent every surprise of divided attention would require a vigilance so sustained that it could not be demanded in. our every day duties. The power of the habit can be lessened and controlled, but the habit itself can hardly be rooted out'altogether. We can go far in learning to control its spontaneous activity by fol-lowing the wise rules given by the masters of Catholic spirituality. Our emotions, desires, hopes, anxieties, fears are among the chief causes of the thoughts and images that disturb our prayer. A two-fold effort can check the noxious action of these worries and preoc-cupations. First is the long-range strat.egy. By personal effort and with the help of gr.ace we can train ourselves, to control our emotions. We can prevent them from upsetting our peace of soul. The measure of success in this effort varies for different temperaments, characters, ai~d graces. Some are easily excited, preoccupied, worried. Others can take things more evenly. Not all have th~ same will power~ Not ail receive the same graces. But those called to a state of perfection or to the priesthood should possess this self-control to a marked de-gree: this is part of the vocational fitness and they are in a position to inirease'it steadily. .This self-mastery and habituai'peace of mind is-nothing else than the remote preparation for pra3ier which spiritual authors, without exception, recommend. Secondly, spiritual authorities also insist on immediate prepara-tion. -This consists in arranging for a psychological transition-stage from exterior occupations to prayer. This transition must be gradual, It must allow a peaceful and organic switch-over from the .one to the other. It may not be mechanical. Our psychological make-up is such that sudden transitions c6mmanded by sheer will power or whim rarely succeed. What occupied the mind before prayer stays on and continues to hold us" half-consciously. We must allow the hold to decline gradually. Before prayer we must give our mind and heart a chance to shift from @hat occupied them before, and to turn peacefully but definitely to prayer. To make this mgve :effective, motivation is important. We may find. motives by asking 86 March, 1953 DIVIDED.ATTENTION the traditional preparatory questions': "What ain I ,about todo?" "To Whom am I going to speak?" The better we manage this trari-sition, the greater the chance for success in forestalling divided atten-tion. The same twofold effort for remote and. immediate preparation l~elps to ,redu.ce the harmful influence of the thoughts and memories steeped in emotional cbntent that stay on in the mind during prayer. They are reduced as a cause of distraction by habitual union with God, habitual self-control, and a determined immediate l~reparation for prayer. The third source of divided attention is easier to"dr~/up." ¯ It is ~w~at we'see and hear around us during prayer. To allowthe eyes and ears to prey for .new sensations is evidently looking for trouble. Why invite images to enter, when they have to be dismissed at once? A suitable place for prayer should eliminate most divided attention from this source. It may happen that remote and proximate preparation for pra~,er meet with 0nly partial success, for instance, on occasions of marked emotional disturbance, whether of great joy or of great anxiety" When we have been half-hearted in our effort and are paying the price in half-distracted prayer, can we still do something? Can we go agains~ distractions and salvage a little of our prayer? A: condition for success is to nouce the distraction and to desire to overcome it. We are able to notice it, for our mind.is not fully~ taken .up by the distracting thoughts. We can also desire to remedy the situation. Our very dissatisfaction is a first step towards im- -provement. With the help of grace we can rouse ourselves to effecliive volition. '.The following considerations might prove of help in con-trolling and counteracting divided attention. A.first means is to arouse a desire for,.real prayer, for real union with God. We can desire, or at~ least desire to d~sire, this deeper contact with God. We can express this desire by asking for grace. Unless we really wish to pray, we are not likely to make ~he needed effort. In prayer, our effort and God's grace go hand in hand. The desire must be rooted in the awareness of our need for contact w~th God who.is our strength and happiness. A life dedicated to God has no meaning without real union with Him. The awareness of what we are and do should excite a genuine desire of actual union with God. Aided by grace, this desire should grow strong enough to tin-saddle distracting affections. This will .not always succeed. Our worries may be too pervading 87 P. DE LETTER and penetrating~ When it fails, it might be useful to pray about°our distractions. One way of unifying divided attention is to bring the troublesome care to the fore and to center our attention on it under God'~ eyes. We can prayerfully reflect before God on what worries us, on our plans and ideas, hopes and apprehensions, and entrust these to His Providence. What can be better than this? When we beg Him to enable us to do what He demands, our very worries' may unite us closer to Him in genuine prhyer. This use of our distrac-tions is not without danger. Unless we.be fully sincere about ex-ploiting them, we may be !ed into far-away considerations and for- .get about prayer. , But if we are sincere, and if our first effort in tackling distracting worries has failed, there is a good chance that this second means may prove more helpful. At any rate, this prayer will likely be better than a half-distracted and desireless resignation. Lastly, we can insist on the self-surrender we make in prayer. Even under surface inattention this can be genuine. In spite of some unwanted and repelled wandering of the mind, prayer can really be raising of the heart to God. Prayer indeedis more a matter of inten-tion than of attention. Attention, of course, is always required, but the intention of surrendering to God is the heart of prayer When this is thorough, distracting thoughts easily lose" their interest and their grip. Le[ se.lf-surrender 15e sincere: shall we not be'straightfor-ward in setting aside what does not tally with it? Passing and un- '~ccepted wandering of the mind does not seriously break our contact with God. And the more pervading our surrender, the rarer also and less lasting our distractions. This last consideration suggests the radical remedy for divided attention in prayer. But it is not a quick device or a palliative for passing ill. It is a whole attitude of life. Our minds will easily concentrate on God in prayer when our lives are centered in Him, when He is our all?embracing~love and "worry." Then othdr wor- ties and preoccupations shrink into unimportance. They lose their hold on our minds and hearts. The more we grow in that one iove, the higher~ we rise above temp~ral occupations. That growth is the work of a lifetime. In its unfinished stages we are likely to exper,- ence. the trouble of divided attention in prayer now and again. No grave harm will come from it if we sincerely keep up the, struggle T1fiere are no magic or mechanical devices to rid us of this evil. It the simplicity and unity of one Love which ~must rule our' lives that will also bring unity and stability to our naturally wandering minds. 88 The I:ucharis :ic APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION OF HIS HOLINESS POPE PIUS XI[ ON LEGISLATION TO BE OBSERVED REGARDING THE EUCHARISTIC FAST. PIUS, BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD FOR AN EVERLASTING REMEMBRANCE ~i~HR, IST Our Lord, on the in which He was betrayed" Cot. 11 :23), when for the last time He celebrated the Pasch of the Old Law, took bread and, giving thanks, broke and gave it to His disciples after the supper was finished (cf. Ldke 22:20), saying: "This ,is My body which shall be delivered for you" (I Cot. 11:24). Ir~ the same way He handed the chalice to them, with the words: "This is My blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many" (Matt. 26:28); and He added: "This do for the commemoration of Me" (cf. I Cot. 11:24 f.). These passages of Sacred Scripture clearly show' that our Divine Redeemer wished to substitute, in place of that last celebration of the Passover in which a lamb was eaten according to the Hebrew rite, a new Pasch that would endure until the end of time. This is the Pasch in which we eat the Immaculate Lamb that was immolated for the life of the.world." Thus the new Pasch of the New Law brought the ancient Passover to an end, and,truth dispelled shadow (cf. the hymn Lauda Sion in the Roman Missal). The relation between the two suppers, was designed to indicate the transition from the ancient Pasch to the new. Accordingly, we can easily see why the Church, in renewing the Eucharistic Sacrifice to commemorate our Divine Redeemer as He had commanded, could relinquish the conventions prevailing at the older Love Feast and introduce the practice of the Eucharistic fast. From the earliest times the custom developed of distributing the Eucharist to the faithful who were fasting (cf. Benedict XIV, De Synodo diocesana, VI, cap. 8~ no. 10). Toward the end of the fourth century fasting was prescribed in a number of Councils for those who were to celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Thus ir~ the year 393 the Council. of Hippo decreed: "The Sacrament of the Altar shall not be celebrated except by persons, who are fasting" 89 POPE PlUS XII Revieu., for Religious (Conc. Hipp., can. 28: Mansi, III, 923). Not long after, in the year 397, the same prescription, phrased in the vgry same words, was issued by the "Third Council of Carth.age (Conc. Carthag. IlI, cap. 29:'MansL III, 885). By the beginning of the fifth century this practice was quite universal and could be said to be immemorial. Hence St. Augustine asserts that the Holy Eucharist is always received by persons who are fastihg and that this usage is observed through-out the whole world (cf. St. Augustine, Epist. 54, Ad Ianuarium, cap. 6: Migne, PL, XXXIII, 203). Undoubtedly this practice was based on very' weighty reasons. Among them may be mentioned, first of all, the situa.tion deplored b'y the Apostle of the Gentiles in connection with the fraternal Love Feast of.theCbristians (cf. I Cot. !1:21 ft.). Abstinence from food and drink is in accord with the deep reverence we owe to the supreme m~jesty of 3esus Christ when we come to receive Him hid-den' ufider the Eucharistic veil. Moreover. when x~e consume His precious body and blood before we partake of any other food. we give clear evidence of our conviction that this is the, first and most excel!enf nourishment of all, a refreshmen.t that sustains our very souls and increases their holiness. With good reason, then, St. Au-gustine reminds us: ".It has pleased the Holy Spirit that. in honor of so great a sacrament, the Lord's body should enter the mouth of a Christian before food of any other kind" (St. Augustine, loc. c~t.). The Eucharistic fast not only pays a tribute of honor due to our Divine Redeemer, but also fosters our devotion.' Therefore it can help to increase the salutary fruits of holiness which Christ, the source and author of all good, desires us who have been enriched with His grace, to bring forth. ' Besides; everyone who has had experience of the laws of human nature knows that when the body is not sluggish with'food, the mind is aroused to greater activity and is'inflamed ro meditate more ferventl}; on that bidden and sublime mystei'y which unfolds within the temple of the soul, to the growth of divine love. The importance ,which the Church attaches to the observance of the Eucharistic fast can also be gathered from the gravity of the pen-alties imposed for its violation. The Seventh Council of Toledo, in the year 641, threatened with excommunicstion anyone who qcould offe,r the HolyI Sacrifice after having broken his fast (Conc. Tole-tanum VII, cap. 2: Mansi, X, 768). In the year 572 the Third Council of Braga (Conc. Bracarense III, can. 10: Mansi, IX. 841.), 9O March: 1953 THE EUCHARISTIC FAST 'and in 585 'the Second Council of Macon (Conc. Matisconense II, can. 6: Mansi, IX, 952) bad previously decreed that ahyone~ who incurred this guilt should be deposed from office and deprived of his dignities. As the centuries rolled on, however, careful attention was paid to the consideration that expediency sometimes required, because of special circumstances, the introduction of some measure of mitigation into the law of fasting as it affected the faithful Thus in the year 1415 the Council of Constance, after reaffirming the venerable law, added a modification: "The authority of the sacred~canons and the praiseworthy customs approved by the Church havre prescribed and do now prescribe that the Hol~; Sacrifice should not be offered after the celebrant has taken food, and that Holy Communion should not be received by the faithful who are not fasting, except in the case of illness or of some other grave reason provided for by law or granted by ecclesiastical superiors" (Cone. Constantiae, sess. XIII: Mansi, XXVII, 727). We have desired to recall these enactments ~o mind that all may understand that We, although granting not a few faculties and per-missions regarding this matter in view of the new conditions arising from the changing times, still intend by the present Apostolic Letter to retain in full force the law and usage respecting the Eucharistic fast. We also wish to' remind those who are able to observe the law that they must continue to do so carefully. Consequently only they who need these concessions may avail themselves of the same accord-ing to the measure of tbelr need. We are filled with joy--and We are glad to express Our satis-faction here, if only briefly--when We perceive that devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is increasing day by day in the souls of Christ's' faithful as well as in .the splendor surrouhding divine worship. This fact emerges whenever the people gather for public congresses. The paternal directives of Sovereign Pontiffs have undoubtedly contrib-" uted much to the present happy state of affairs. This is particularly true of Blessed Plus X, who called on all to revive the ancient usage of the, Church and urged them to 'receive the Bread of Angels very frequently, even daily if possible (S. Congr. Concilii, Decree Sacra Tridentina S~tnodus, Dec. 20, 1905: Acta S. Sedis, 'XXXVIII~ 400.ft.). At the same time be invited children to this heavenly Fbod, and wisely declared that the precept of sacramental confession and of Holy Communion extends to all without exception who have 91 POPE PIUS XII Review [or Religious attained the use of reason (S. Congr. de Sacramentis, Decree Quam sir~gula~:i, Aug. 8, 1910: ttcta Apostolicae Sedis, II, 577 ft.). This prescription was later confirmed by.Canon Law (C. I. C., canon 8d3; cf. canon 85zL § 5).-In generous and willing response to the desires of the Sovereign Pontiffs, the faithful have been receiving Holy Communion in ever greater numbers. May this hunger for the heavenly Bread and the thirst for the divine Blood burn atidently in the hearts of all m~n, whatever their age or social condition may be! Yet allowance must be made for the fact that the extraordinary circumstances of the times we live in have introduced many modifica-tions into the habits of society and the activities of our workaday life. Consequently serious difficulties may arise to prevent people from participating in the divine mysteries, if the law of Eucharistic fast should have to be kept by.all with the strictness that has ipre-vailed up to the present time. In the first place, priests in our day, owing to insufficient num-bers, ate clearly unequal to the task of dealing with the constantly growing needs of Christians. On Sundays and holydays, particu-larly, they are often overburdened with work. They have to offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice at a late hour, and not rarely twice or even three tim~s the same day. They are frequently obliged to travel a considerable distance that large portions of their flocks may not be deprived of Holy Mass. Apostolic toil of this exhausting kind un-questionably undermines the health of our clergy. The difficulty mounts when we reflect that, besides celebrating Mass and explaining the Gospel, they have to hear confessions, teach catechism, and take care of the manifold tither duties of their ministry which" is more exacting and laborious than ever before. In addition to all this, they must prepare and adopt measures to repel the relentless attacks that in our day are craftily and savagely launched on many fronts against God and His Church. But Our thoughts and Our heart go out most of all to those who are laboring in distant lands far from their native soil, because they have nobly answered the invitation and command of the divine Master: "Going, therefore, teach ye all nations" (Matt, 28:19). We have in mind the heralds of the Gospel. They endure the most crushing burdens and overcome every imaginable obstacle in their travels, with no other ambition than to wear themselves out that the light of the Christian religion may dawn for all men, and that their flocks, many of them but recently received-into the Catholic faith, 92 Ma~h. 1953 THE EUCHARISTIC FAST may be fed with the Bread of Angels which nourishes virtue and re-. kindles love. A similar situation arises amofig those Catholics who live in many of the districts committed to the charge of missionaries or in other places that lack the services of a resident priest. They have to wait hour after bou~ until a priest arrives that they may assist at the Eucharistic Sacrifice and receive Holy Communion. Furthermore, with the development of machinery in various in-dustries, countless workers employed in factories, transportation, sbipping,'or other public utilities, are occupied~ day and night in al-ternate shifts. The exhausting hature of their work may compel them to take periodic- nourishment to restore their energies, with the result that they are unable to observe the Eucharistic fast and hence are kept away from Holy Communion. Mothers of families, likewise, are often unable to go to Holy Communion until they have finished their household duties. Such tasks usually require many hours of hard work. Again, the case of school children presents a problem. Many boys and gibls are eager to take advantage of the divine invitation: "Suffer the little children to come unto Me" (Mark 10:14). They put all their trust in Him "who feedeth among the lilies" (Cant. 2:16: 6:2), knowing that He will guard the purity of their souls against the temptations which assail youth and will protect the in-nocence of their lives from the snares which the world sets to trap them. But at times it is extremely difficult to arrange to go to church and receive HoI~ Communion, and after that to re~urn home for the breakfast they need before setting out for school. Another matter of frequent occurrence today is that large num-bers ~f people c~oss from place to place during the afternoon hours to be present at religious functions or to attend meetings on social questions. If pe.rmis~ion were given on such occasions to offer the Holy Sacrifice, which is the living fountain of divine grace and in-spires wills to desire growth in virtue, there is no doubt that all could draw upon this source of strength to think and act in a thor-ougbly Christian manner and to obey just laws. These specific considerations may well be augmented, by others of a more general kind. Although the science of medicine and the study of hygiene have made enormous progress and have contributed greatly to the reduction of mortality, especially among the young, conditions of life at the present time and the hardships brought on 93 POPE-PlUS XII Review for Religious by the frightful wars of 6ur century have seriously impaired bodily constitutions and public health. For these reasons, and especially for the purpose of promoting reawakened devotion toward the Eucharist, numerous bishops of v~irious, nationalities have requested, in official letters, that the law of fast might be somewhat mitigated. The Apostolic See had previ-, ously shown itself favorably disposed in this regard .by granting special faculties and dispensations both 'to priests and to the faithful. As an e.xample of such concessions, the Decree entitled P. gst'Editum may be mentioned; it was issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Council, December 7-, 1906, for the benefit of the sick (Acta S. Sedis, XXXIX, 603 ffl). Another is the Letter df May 22, 1923, sent by the SacrM Congregation of the Holy Office to local Ordinaries in favor of priests (S.S. Congregationis S. Officii Litterae locorum Or-dinariis datae super ieiunio euc,haristico ante Missam: Acta Ap. Sedis, XV, 151 ft,). ~ In these latter times, the petitions of the bishops hav.e become more frequent and urgent. Likewise the faculties granted have been more liberal, partcularly those that were conferred because of war c6nditions. All this clearly discloses the existence of new, serious. coniinuing, and widely prevailing reasons which, in the diversified circumstances brought to light, render the cdebration ~f the Holy Sacrifice by priests .and the reception of Communion by the faithful ex_ceedingly difficult, if the la~, of fasting has to be observed. ¯ .Accordingly, to alleviate these grave hardships and incOnveni-ences, and to eliminate the possibility of inconsistent practice to which the variety of: indults previously granted may lead, We deem it n.ecessary to mitigate the legislation governing the Eucharistic fast ~to such an extent that all may be able more easily to fulfill the law as perfectly as possible, in view of particular circumstances of time, place, and person. By issuing this decree, We trust that We may contribute substantially to the growth of Eucharistic devotion,, and thus more effectively persuade and induce all to sharc in the An-gelic! Banquet. This will surely redound to the glory,of. God and will enhance the holiness of the Mystical Body of Christ. By our Apostolic authbrit~r, therefore, we enact and decree ihe folio.wing; I. The law of Eucharistic fast, to be observed from midnight,. cgntijaues in force for all those who do not come under the. special Mar~l~. 1953 THE EUCHARISTIC FA ST conditions which We shall set forth in this Apostolic Constitution. In the futuie, however, this general principle, valid for aIl ,, alike, whether priests or faithful, shall prevail: plain water does not break the Eucharistic fast: II. Those who are ill, even though not confined to bed, may, on the advice of a prudent, c.onfessor, take something in the form of drink or of true medicine: but alcoholic beverages are excluded. The same faculty is granted to priests who are ill yet desire to celebrate MASS. ~. III. Priests who are° to offer the Holy Sacrifice at a late. hour or after onerous work of the sacred ministry or after a long journey, may take something in the form of drink, exclgsive of alcoholic.bev-erages. However, they must abstain from such refreshment for the period Of at least ~one hour before' they celebrate Mass. I~r. 'Priests who celebrate Mass twice or three times the ~ame day. may. consume the ablutions at each Mass. In such cases, how' ever, the ablutions must be restricted to water.alone, and mu~t not include, wine. ~ V. Likewise the faithful, even though they are not ill, who are unable to observe a. complete fast until the tiine of Communion, be-cause of some grave inconvenience--that is, because of fatiguing work, or the lateness of the hour at which alone they can receive the Holy Eucharist, or the long distances they have to travel--may, on the, advice of a prudent confessor, and as ,long as such state of necessity lasts, take something in the form of drink, to the exclusion of alco-holic beverages. However, they must abstain from refreshment of this kind for the period of at least one hour before they receive Holy Communion. VI. If circumstances indicate a necessity, We grant to local Or-dinaries authorization to permit the celebration of Mass at. an eve-ning hour, as We have said, but with the restriction that Mass shall notbegin before four o'clock in the afternoon. This evening Mass may be celebrated on the following days: on Sundays and h61ydays of dbligation which are obseived at the present time or were formerly obserged, on the first Friday of each month, and on days delebrated With solemn functions which the people attend in great numbers; finally, in addition to these days, on one day a week~ The pries,t who offers Mass.on these occasions must observe a fast of .three hours from solid f6od and~alcoholic beverages, and of one hour from non- March. 1953 ~ THE EUCHARISTIC FAST alcoholic beverages. At such Masses the faithful may receive Holy Communion, ob, serving the same rule r~garding the Eucharistic fa.~st, but the prescription contained in canon 857' remains in force. In mission territories, after due consideration of the extraordi-nary con(~itions there prevailing; which for the most part prevent priests from v.isiting their distant stations except rarely, local .Ordi-naries may grant to missionaries faculties to celebrate evening Mass also on other days of the week. ' Local Ordinaries are to exercise care that any interpretation en-larging on ~he faculties here granted is precluded, and that all danger of abuse and irreverencein this matter is removed3 In granting these faculties, which circufiastances of person,place, and time make impera-tive in our day, We decidedly intend to reaffirm ~he importance, binding force, and good effects of the Eucharistic fast for those° who are to receive our Divine Redeemer dwelling concealed underneath the Eucharistic veils. Besides, whenever bodily discomforts are re-duced, the soul ought to do~ what, it can to restore equilibrium, either by interior'penance or in other ways. This is in harmony with the traditional practice of the Church, which is accustomed to enjoin other pious works when it mitigates the obligation to fast. Accordingly, they who are in a position to take advantage of the faculties here granted, should offer up more fervent prayers to adore God, to thank Him, and above all to expiate their sins and implore newgraces from on high. Since all must recognize that the Eucharist has been ins[ituted by Christ "as an everlasting memorial of His Passion" (St. ~Fhbmas, Opusc. LVII, Office for the Feast of Corpus ChristL lesson IV, Opera Omr~ia, Rome, 1570, Vol. XVII), they should stir up in their hearts those sentiments of Christian hu-mility and contrition which meditation on the sufferings and death of our Divine Redeemer "ought to arouse, Moreover, let all offer to our Divine Rddeemer, who keeps fresh the greatest proof of His love by uiaceasingly immolating Himself on our altars, ever more abun-dant fruits of their charity toward their fellow men. In this way, surely, all Will do their part, better and better every day, toward alizing the words of the Apostle to the Gentiles: "We, being many, are one bread, one body~ all that partake of one ,bread" (I Cor 10:17). We desire that all the decrees set forth in this Constitution shall be. firmly established, ratified, and valid, an~ything to the contrary 96 March. 1953 THE EUCHAILISTIC FiST notwithstanding, even what "may seem to be deserving of special men-tion. All other privileges and faculties granted in any form by the Holy See are abolished, that this legislation may be duly and uni-formly observed throughout the ;¢ orld by all men. All the decrees herein enacted shall become operative from the date of their publication in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. Given at St. Peter's in Rome, in the year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-three, the sixth day of January, on the Feast of. the Epiphany, in the fourteenth year of Our Pontificate. POPE PIUS XlI Instruction ot: Holy OJ:t:ico SACRED CONGREGATION OF THE HOLY OFFICE INSTRU'~TION ON THE LEGISLATION TO BE OBSERVED CONCERNING THE EUCHARISTIC FAST The Apostolic Constitution Christus Dominus, issued this day by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius )~II, gloriously reigning, grants a number of faculties and dispensations concerning the observance of the law of Eucharistic ~fast. At the same time. it substantially con-firms most of the norms which the Code of Canon Law (canons 808 and 858, § 1) imposes on priests and the faithful who are able to observe the law. Yet these persons are likewise included in the favor conferred by the first prescription of the Constitution, according to which plain water (that is, ordinary water without the admixture of any other substance whatever), no longer breaks the Eucharistic fast (Constitution, n. I). With regard to all the other concessions, however, only those priests and faithful may take advantage of them who find themselve~ in the particular conditions specified in the Con-stitution, or who celebrate evening Masses or receive Holy Commun-ion at evening Masses which are authorized by Ordinaries within the limits of the new faculties granted to them. Accordingly, to secure throughout the world a uniform observ-ance of the norms pertinent to these concessions and t0 forestall every interpretation that would enlarge on the faculties granted, as well as to obviate any abuse in this matter, this Supreme Sacred Congrega-" .97 INSTRUCTION OF HOLY OFFICE Reoietu for'Religious tion of the Holy Office, by order and command of the Sovereign Pontiff, lays down the following directives: Concerning the sick, whether the faithful or priests (Constitution, n~ II) 1. The faithf~ul who are ill, ~ven though not confined to bed. may take something in the form of drink, with the exception of al-coholic beverages, if because of their illness the); are unable, without grave inconvenience, to observe a complete fast until the r.eception of Holy Communion. They may also take something' in the form of medicine, either liquid (but not alcoholic drinks) or solid, provided it is real medicine, prescribed by a physician or generally recognized as such. However. as must be noted, solid foods taken a's mere nour, ishment cannot be regarded as medicine. 2. ,The conditions that must be verified before anyone may use a dispensation from the law of fasting, .for which no time".limit pre-ceding Holy Communion is set down, are to be pru, dently weighed by a confessor, and no one may avail himself of the dispensatior~ without his approval. The confessor may give his approvai either in ¯ sacramental confession or outside of confession, and once and for all so that it holds good as long as the same conditions of illness endure. 3. Priests who are ill, even though not confined to bed, may likewise take advantage of the dislbensation, whether,they, intend to celebrate Mass or wish only to receive Holy Communion. Concerning priests in special circumstances (Consti'tution, nn. III and IV) 4'. Priests who are not ill and who are :to celebrate Mass (a) at a late hou'r (that is,-after nine o'clock in the morning), or (b) after onerous work of the sacred ministry .(beginning, for example, early in the morning or lasting for a lbng time), or (c) after a long jour-ney (that~is, at least a mile and a quarter or so :on fogt, or a propor-tionately greater distance in accordance with the "means of. travel em-ployed, allowance being made, too, for difficulties of the journey and personal~considerations), may take something in the. form of drink, exclusive of alcoholic beverages. 5. The three cases enumerated' above are,formulated .in-such a way'as to embrace all the circu'mstances for which the legislator in-tends to grant the aforesaid faculty. Therefore any interpretation that would.extend the faculties granted must :be avoided~ 98 March. 1953 , THE EUCHARISTICF.AST 6. l~riests who find themselves in these circumstances may take. something in the form of drink once or several times,, but must serve a fast of one hour prior to the celebration of Mass.:. 7. Furthermore, all priests who are to celebrate" tWO . or; three Masses the same day may, at the first Mass or Masses, .take the two ablutions pr~escribed by the rubrics of the Miss.al, .hut using only water. This is merely an application of the new principle that-water does not break the fast. However,. priests who celebrate three Masses without interval on Chrismas or on All Souls' Day are obliged to observe the. rubrics regulating ablutions. 8. Yet if the priest who is to celebrate two or three Masses should inadvertently take wine in'the ablutions', he is not forbidden to celebrate the second and third Mass. Concerning the faithful in special "circumstances (Constitution, n. "V) 9. Similarly the faithful who are unable to observe the Eucha,. risti¢ fast, not because of illness but because of some other grave in-convenience," are allowed to take something in the form of drink, with the exception of alcoholic beverages. But they must keep the fast for one hour prior to the reception of Holy Communion. 10. ,The causes of grave inconvenience, as it is here understood. are three in number, and they may not be extended. a) Fatiguing wbrk undertaken before~ going to Holy ,com-munion. Such is the labor performed by workers employed in suc-cessiv. e shifts, day and night, in. factories, transport and- maritime services, or other public utilitieS; likewise b~ those who, in .virt~ue of their .position or out of charity, pass the hight'awake (for example, hospital personnel, policemen on night duty, and the like). The same.is: true of pregnant women and mothers of families who must spend a long t.ime in household tasks befo~.e, they can go to church :etc. : b) The lateness of the hour at whicb:"Holtj Communior~ ceived. Many of the faithful cannot have Mass until late in the day, because no priest is able to visit them earlier. Many children,find it excessively burdensome, before .sett.ing out for school,'to go to church, receive Communion, and then to return home again for breakfast; etc. c)" A. long distance to travel on the way" to chu.rch. As was explaiped above (n. 4), a distance of at least a~ mile and a quarter or INSTRUCTION OF H~)LY OFFICE Reuieua for Religious so, to be covered on foot, is tb be regarded as a long journey in this connection. The distance would have to be proportion.ately longer if conveyances of various kinds were us~ed, and allowance has to be made for difficulties of travel or the condition of the person .who makes the trip. 11, The reasons of grave inconvenience that may be alleged must be'carefully evaluated by a confessor either in sacramental cofifession or outside of confession; and without his approval the faithful may not receive Holy Communion while not fasting. The confessor, however, may give this approval once and t:or all so that it holds good as long as the same cause of grave inconvenience exists. Concerning evening Masses (Constitution. n. VI) By authorization of the Constitution, local Ordinaries (cf. canon 198) enjoy the power of permitting the celebration of evening Mass in their own territory, if circumstances indicate its necessity, not-withstanding'the prescription of canon 821, § 1. The common good sometimes requires the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice in the after-noon: for example, for those in certain industries who work in shifts even on Sundays and holydays: for those classes of workers Who must be at their jobs on the mornings of Sundays and holy-days. such as those who are employed at ports of entry;' likewise for people who have come in great numbers from distant places to cele-brate some event of a religious or social character; etc. 12. Such Mhsses. however, are not to be celebrated before four o'clock in the afternoon, and are limited exclusively to the following specified days: a) Sundays and 'holydays of obligation which are now in force, according t,o the norm of canon 1247, § 1 : b) Holydays of obligation that have been suppressed, as listed in the Index published by the Sacred Congregation of the Council, December 28, 1919 (cf. A./l.$,, Vol. XII [1920], pp. 42- 43): ) First Fridays of the month: d) Other days that are ~elebrated with solemn functions and are attended by the. people in great numbers: e) In addition to the days mentioned above, one other day during the w.eek0 if the good of particular classes of persons requires it. 100 Ma~h. 1953 THE EUCHARISTIC FAST 13. Priests "who celebrate Mass in the evening, and likewise the faithful who receive Holy Communion at such a M~ass. may, during a meal which is permitted up to three hours before the beginning of Mass or Communion, drink al~c;holic beverages that ate customary at table ifor instance, wine, beer. and the like), but they must observe becoming moderation, and haid liquors are entirely ruled out. How-, ever, with regard to the liquids whi(h they are allowed to take before or after such a meal up to one, hour before Mass or Communion, alcoholic beverages of any kind whatever are excluded. 14. Priests may not offe? the Holy S,acrifice in the morning and afternoon of the same day, unless they have e~xpress permission, to celebrate Mass twice or three times, according to the norm of canon 806. The faithful, similarly, may not receive Holy Communion in the morning and afternoon of the same day, in conformity with the prescription of canon 857. 15. The faithful, even though they/are not included in the number of those for whose benefit evening Mass has been instituted, are. free to receive Holy Communion during such a Mass or directl~ before or immediately after it (cf. canon 846, § 1). If they do so, they must observe the noims prescribed a~ove, relative to the Eucha-ristic fast, 16. In places that are not subject to the general law [ius com-mune] but are governed by the-special law for the missions [ius.mis-sionum], Ordinaries may authorize evening Mass on all days of the week, under the same conditions. Cautions regarding the execution of these norms 17. Ordinaries are to exercise great care that all abuse and irrev-erence toward the Most Blessed S~icrament are completely avoided. 18. They must also see to it that the riew legislation is uniform-ly observed by all their subjedts, and must notify them that all fac-ulties and dispensations, whether territorial or personal, heretofore granted by the Holy See, are abrogated. 19. The interpretation of the Constitution and of the present Instruction must adhere faithfully to the text, and must not in any way extend the faculties that are already so generous. With regard to customs that may be at oddswith the new legislation, the abroga-ting clause is'to be borne in mind: "Anything to the contrary not-withstanding, even what may seem td be worthy of special men-tion." 101 BOOK NOTICES Review ~or ReligioUs 20. Ordinaries and priests who are to avail themselves of the faculties granted by the Holy ,See should zealously exhort the faith-ful to assist at the Sacrifice of the Mass and ~recei~ve Holy Commun-ion frequently. " By initiating appropriate measures and especially by their preaching, they should promote that spiritual good for the sake of which the Sovereign Pontiff, Plus XII, has been pleased to issue t.he Constitution. In approving this Instruction, the iHoly,Father has ordered that it should be promulgated by publication in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis along with the Apostolic Constitution Christus Dominus. From the,Palace of the Holy Offic.e, danuary 6, 1953'. ~ JOSt~PH CARDINAL PIZZARDO, Secretaql A. OTTAVIANI Assessor. [EDITORS' NOTE: The foregoing translations "*'ere made by Father "Cyril Vollert. S.J. professor of sacramental theology at St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. The - translations wer~ prepared 'from the texts as published in L'Osservatore Romano, January I 1, 1953, and were carefully checked with the official texts published in ,Acta Aoostolicae Sedis, 45 (Jan. 16. 1953), 15-24. 47-51. For our purposes a somewhat free translation, rendering the sense of the documents as accurately as pos-sible, seemed preferable to a strictly literal translation.] ¯ BOOK NOTICES Those who want a life of Our Lord that is scholarly, without the more distracting trappings of scholarship, and very readable, will find what they desire in the popular edition of Giuseppe Ricciotti's LIFE OF CHRIST. By means of careful editing the former large edi-tion has been reduced to a little more than half its size. The popular edition has a 70-page critical introductibn and a :good index. A very good book.f0r either spilitual reading or meditation, i(Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1952. Pp. xiii + 40.2. $3.50.) Every Sister will smile, laugh, and cry as she catches some glimpse, s of herself in EVERYNUN, a, novel and. play by Daniel A. Lord, S.3. Written originally for th~ One Hundredth Anniversary of the-Sisters of St. 3oseph xn Canada, the play is ideal for a similar celebrfftion, for Vocation Week Programs, and for private reading. Many passages seem to glow like grace itself. This "morality play" is a tribute and a consolation to Sisters, and should open the vistas of the religious life to Sisters-to-be as well as to others who have to live outsid~ convent walls] No royalty is charged for the productions of 102' March. 195'3 BOOK NOTI.CES Eoer~mun. If admission is charged by those producing theplay, Father Lord asks a gift ~f ten per cent of the return for his work for the Knights and Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament. (St. Louis, Missouri: KHBS, 3115 S. Grand Blvd., 1952. Pp. 162. $3.00.) ST. VINCENT DE PAUL, by Mgr. Jean Calvet (translated by Lancelot C. Sheppard), is a l-volume, well-documented biography, as fascinating as good historical fiction. The many aspects of the saint's life--his interior life, his apostolate of charity, his power of organization, his spiritual direction of nobility and especially of his companion saint. Louise de Marillac, and so forth all blend into the picture of an unt~orgettable character. One flaw in the book is ISerbaps a too-evident nationalism on the part of. the biographer. _Bibliography and index are both useful. (New York: David McKay Company, 1952. Pp. 302. $5.00.) RETURN TO THE FOUNTAINHEAD contains the addresses given at the Tercente,nary Celebration of the Sisters, of St. Joseph, Le Puy, France. in July, 1950. by His Eminence, Cardinal Gerlier, and .other French Churchmen. The book is edited and translated into the- American idiom by the Sisters of St. Joseph at Fontbonne College, St. Louis, Missouri. All Sisters of St. Joseph (others, too) will . draw inspiration and strength for today from this return to and consideration of the evidently blessed origins of their congregation. The address, "The Spirit of the Congregation," is particularly de-serving of prayerful attention. (St. Louis 5, Mo.: SistErs of St. Jo-seph of Car, ondelet, Wydown and Big Bend Blvd., 1952. Pp. xi, + 143. $3.00.) Great things might be expected from the girl who was late for school because she had stopped to pick up broken pieces of glass to protect the' feet of the children of the poor from the young lady who preferred the care of blin~t children to the attractive social life her position guaranteed. WHOM LOVE IMPELS, by Katherine Bur-ton, tells her story in another excellent biography., the life of Pauline yon Mallinckrodt, the foundress of the Congregation of Charity. While her brother Hermann .yon Mallinckrodt helped lead 'the growing Center Party t+ ultimate victory over Bismarck in the Reich-stag, Mother Pauline guided a still-growing crusade of charity that began in Paderborn, Germany, in 1849 and now motivates over "2,000 religigus laboring in schools, orphanages, and hospitals in Eu-rope~ throughout the United Sthtes, and in South America. (New York: Kenedy 24 Sons, 1952. Pp. x + 234. $3.00.) ¯ 103 Search t:he Script:ures Henry Willmering, S.J. | N THE ENCYCLICAL Diuino Agtante' Spiritu. published Sep- | .tembet 30, 1943. Pope plus XII remarked "that the condition of biblical studies and their subsidiary Sciences has greatly changed .within the last fifty years." and "after enumerating the various helps which are at the disposal of modern exegetes the Holy Father con-tinues: "All these advantages which, not without a special design of Divine Providence. our age has acquired, are, as it were, an invitation and inducement to interpreters of the Sacred Literature to make dili-gent use of this light, so abundantly given, to penetrate more deeply explain more clearly and expound more lucidly the Divine Oracles." This invitation of His Holiness was promptly accepted by the m~mbers of the British Catholic Biblical Association. After appoint-ing an editorial committee, they drew upa plan to produ.ce a one-volume commentaryI on the whble Bible. In addition to a thorough exposition of the text of all the books of the Old and New Testa-ments, it would include a complete manual of biblical introduction Their ambitious plan has been successfully realized, and the firm of Thomas Nelson and Sons, Edinburgh, has produced their labors in a quarto volume of 1312 pages, double column to a page. clearly printed on excellent paper, and,strongIy bound in buckram. The price is eighty-four shillings (about twelve dollars). The volume includes a condensed, yet adequate and up-to-date commentary on the forty-five books of the Old, and" the twenty-seven bqoks of the New Testament. There' are introductory articles for every book, and also on groups of literature, namely, on the Pentateuch, the historical books, the poetical and Wisdom literature, the prophetical literature, and the Epistles of the New Testament. The place of the Bible in the Church, the formhtion and history, of the canon, the languages, texts and versions, the geography of the'Holy ~.Land,.the history of Israel, chronology of Old and New Testaments, archaeology and the Bible, and many other informative and fascinating articles enable the IA CATHOLIC COMMENTARY ON HOLY 'SCRIPTU'RE." Editorial Committee: Dom Bernard Orchard, Rev. Edmund Sutcliffe, S.J., Rev. Reginald'Fuller, Dora Ralph Russell. Thomas Neldon ~ Sons. Pp. 1312. 4 guineas. The reviewer, Father Willmering, a p~cofessor of Scripture at St. Mary's College. St. Marys. Kansas. has written the commentary on the Catholic Epistles for this volume. 104 March, 1953 SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES reader to obtain a solid background for the proper understanding ot the sacred text. In all there are seventy-two commentaries andthirty-eight separate articles. The commentary is designed to be read with the Douay version of the Bible, which is the version still in widest circulation among Catholics yet every commentator had before him the original text of the book he interpreted, and he faithfully noted any important vari-htion of the English v~rsion from the original. Throughout the book ¯ each paragraph is distinctly marked in the margin for .purpose of reference, and very many paragra~phs have appropriate headings indi-cating their contents. The commentaries on individual books are a positive expos, ition of Catholic interpretation, not directly apolo-getic, but so worded as to provide answers to current unorthodox views. The explanation meets the needs of all who desire to have in limited compass a clear exposition of the sacred text. which is schol-arly, accurate, and thoroughly ~Catholic. Frequently we desired to have at hand a ready answer book to the many perplexing questions which ,the Old Testament poses. Let us take a few examples from Genesis. The opening chapters of this book narrate the story of creation and the origin of the human race. The world was formed by Divine Omnipotence on six successive days. Darkness yielded to light, the firmament unfolded, the waters under it assembled in one place, and dry land appeared. Then God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament, filled the waters with fishes and the air withbirds; gave the land as the habitat for beasts and reptiles, and finally, created man in His own image and made him ruler of the visible world. How must we understand this unscientific account of the development of the earth and its inhabi-tants? What is the meaning of the six days of creation? Recent discoveries have found human bones .and artifacts in sl~rata that .greatly antedate the four thousand years B.C. which was formerly assigned as the age of the human race. To what extent, therefore, are the early narratives of Genesis historical? For what purpose did the sacred writer introduce them? What are we to think of the great ages of the patriarchs? What part of the earth was covered by the flood? We used to look for the answer to these questions~ in the Catholic Enc~Iclopedia or the Catholic's Ready Answer Book: yet these books of reference are nearly a half century old, and exegetical opinion has passed through radical changes since that time. The new Commentary offers satisfactory solutions to these and several hun- 105 HENRY WILLMERING dred other difficulties that have often puzzled us in the past. As the preface ~tates: "it' is a critical survey of modern biblical knowledge-from the standpoint of all those, Catholic and non;Catholic alike, who accept the full doctrine of biblical inspiration" (p. vii). At the end of the volume is a topical index, which lists nearly ten thou'- sand titles and refers directly to the paragraph in which the answer to our difficulties is given. ' But the Commentary,, is not primarily a "question settler." St. Paul reminds .Timothy: "All Scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in .justice: that the man of God may be. perfect,, furnished to every good work" (2 Tim, 3: 16f.). Hence, "in the commentaries on individual books a special endeavour is made to give adequate treatment to the doc-trinal and spiritual con.tent." ~pecial articles, which emphasize the spiritual nature of the Bible and are therefore of particular interest to religious, are the following: :'The Place of the Bible in the Church," by W. Leonard and' Dom B. Orchard, which stresses the Church's love for the Bible, and what she has done to preseive and propagate it;' "The Interpretation of Holy Scripture," by, R. C. Fuller, an ac-count full of valuable information: "Our Lady in the Scriptures, by E. C. Messenger, explaining the prophecies relative to the Mother of God, and her tJrerogatives; "The meaning of the Old Testament," by E. F. Sutcliffe, S.J., what it meant for the. israelites, and what is its meaning and value today; "The Religion of Israel," by the same author; "The Person and Teaching of Christ," by Dom Aelred Gra-ham; "Christianity in Apostolic Times," a long and interesting article by M. Bevenot, S.J. and Dom Ralph Russell; and finally "The Life of St. Paul," by D. J. O'Herlighy. Besides the articles mentioned above, there are thirty others, all-well written and abounding with valuable and interesting information. Anyone who digests all these wil

Issue 12.3 of the Review for Religious, 1953. ; Bellarmine and t:he Queen ot: Virgins John A. Hardon, S.J. ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE is widely known in theological circles as the great champion of the Papac, y. At the Vatican Council, h~s Controoersies.were the principal source from which the assembled fathers formulated the definition of papal infallibility. An.d in 1931, when the Holy See declared him a Doctor of the Church, he was described as "The Prince of Apologists and Strong Defender of the Cathoiic Faith, not only for his own time but for all future ages." But Bellarmine has another title to glory, seldom pointed out, which should endear him in a special way to priests and religious who are directors of souls. St. Robert was for years the spiritual counsel-i " lor and confessor of St: Aloysius Gonzaga, to the day of the latter's death in 1591. So attached was Bellarmine to his spiritual son that he was largely responsible for his early beatification, which he lived to see, and asked to be buried near the body of his "caro Luigi" as a perpetual remembrance of their mutual affection. Pope Benedict XV was sufficiently impressed by this circumstance that he proposed, "for the imitation of confessors, the prudence of that 'wisest of spiritual directors, Robert Bellarmine, who moderated ev'en the' penitential ardor of St. Aloysius Gonzaga." St. Aloysius is the heavenl~ patron of Catholic youth, ahd the chosen exemplar of heroic chastity. We should 'not be surprised, therefore, if his spiritual director was personally so much devoted to the Immaculate Mother of Virgins that be drew from her life and example the inspiration which he transmitted to Aloysius. Bellarmine once wrotethat, "Every great man in the Church has been most de-voted to the Blessed Virgin Mary: Ephrem, Bernard, Dominic, Fran-cis of Assisi"--and we may now add, as the following sketch will show, Robert Bella~rmine, the spiritual father of Aloysius Gonzaga. Bellarmine's Personal Devotion to the Mother of God . St. Robert w~is devoted, to the Blessed Virgin fr6m his earliest years. According to his schoolmate, later Canon Vincent PatiucheIli, as a young boy Bellarmine used to recite daily the Office of the Bles- 113 JOHN A. HARDON sed Virgin, often in company with Vincent as the two of them walked slowly ~long the road. Bellarmine retained this custom of reciting the Ottice of Our Lady throughout life. In the same way he kept the custom to his old age of ~aily saying the Rosary. ,~Iexander Jacobelli, who was the cardinal's almoner for twenty years, testified at the beatification process that, "He ~never omitted saying the ~OfIice and thd Rosary of the Blessed. V!rgin Mary, during which he. was often found melted in tears." " HOwever, Robert .was not satisfied with only a single recitation of the.Rosary. The beads were Iite~a!ly his constant companion. In the words of his chaplain, "when fatigued with study, Bellarmine would find recreation in reciting the beads wiih uncovered head:'.' And again, "his relaxation was to say the Rosary of O~r Lady.". On his frequent journeys as Archbishop of Capua, attendants noticed that he always followed the same "ritual: celebrate Mass, say the Itinerarium,' and, rosary in hand, enter the carriage for the journey. Juan de Serayz, a close friend of Robert, has left some interesting details on bow Bellarmine would say.the Rosary. It was June 14, 1618, the feast of Corpus Christi, th~it Bellarmine and Juan were returning from a procession at St. Peter's Basilica-. "As we got int9 the carriage," relates Juan. "he told me that he was ablb to say the third part of the Rosary exactly three times, from the time the pro-cession left the Sistine Chapel to where it finally ended at the Altar of Exposition in St. Peter's When I asked him, out of curiosity, hbw he said the Rosary, he told me that he separated the decades of the Angelic Salutation with an Our-Fathe.r, adding to eacB decade a short prayer corresponding to the different mysteries, .and preceding the decades with a short meditation on the following mystery. Then with emphasis he said that he recited the Hail Mary's sJow.l~l, s!owl~l. When I observed that this did not leave much time for keeping his partner company, he answered that during the whole procession he did not say a single word to his~ cardinal companion." We can understand, therefore, how painful were the doctor's Or-ders during Bellarmine's last illness, when he was forbidden not only to say the Breviary but also the Rosary. . For, as his brother explained, the doctor knew with what ardor and devotion he applied himself to these prayers: Finally, the doctor was moved by ~he dying man's pleas an.d mitigated the orders first given to the servant, allowing'the sick man "a moderate use'of the Rotary," although everyone knew that, "his intense application to this prayer would'be a great strain 1!4 'Ma~/, 1953 BELLARMINEAND MARY upon him." To the Office and the Rosary, Bellarmine added the Saturday fast in Mary's honor. He fasted th'ree days a week with the same. rigor that he kept the Lenten fast, that is, most strictly. According.to a syllogism which he wrote on the subject, he argued in this way: Our justice should be greater than that of the Pharisees. Matt. 5/20. But the Pharisees fasted two days a week. Luke 18/12. Therefore, I should fast at least three days a week! So besides the fasts for the vigils and the Lenten fast, and besides the whole of Advent, he kept a sacred fast on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of each week. That he kept the Saturday fast in honor of Our Lady is clear from the Sermon which he gave on one occasiofi for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, when he said that among the practices most pleasing to the Blessed Virgin and her Divine Son, and most useful to grow in their, love and friendship, is the daily recitation of the Rosary and the Saturday fast in Mary's honor. It was only under express orders,from hi~ confessor ~o fas~ only twice~a week, that in his old age Bellarmine relinquished ~he Saturday fast. Bellarmine and the Immaculate" Conception According to available evidence, Robert Bellarmine was the first bishop of the Catholic Church to have formally petitioned the Holy See for a definition of the Immaculate Conception. It was made while he was serving as cardinal member, of the Congregation of the Inquisition. The petition is dated August 31, 1617, and carried two main questions: Is the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin definable doctrine; and is it expedient at the present ,time to define this doctrine? Then follow three thousand words of careful theoiogical exposition and answering of objections, calculated to break down the resistance of ~ertain critics in the Roman Curia. One of the reasons whch Bellarmine gives in favor of the defini-tion is especially revealing. "It is possible," he says, "for a mere creature to be without an~i sin. Such, .for example, a~e the good angels in heaven. Consequently, the ~ame must be true of the Virgin Mother of God, who is more .pure than the angels. Otherwise she would be less pure than the angels, at least by the presence of sin. For tru.e purity consists of two qualities: absence of sin and nearness to God." The point is that if Our Lady is more pure than the angels in closeness to God, which all admit, then she is also as pure as they 115 ,JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious in the absence of sin, since purity comprehends both qualities with-out discrimination. St. Robert's devotion to the immaculate Conception is also at- . tested by the number of sermons which he preached on this preroga-tive of the Mother of God. Besides other testimony, there are two extant letters which Bellarmine wrote on the subject i one in 1617 to an English priest, and another in 1618 to Philip III of Spain, in both of which he promised to do everything in his power to promote the defense of the Immaculate Conception. Juan de Serayz, previously quoted, testified at the Beatification Process that Bellarmine bad a singular devotion to the Immaculat~ Conception. After this general statement, h~ added that, "his de-votion was manifested in all the Roman Congregations on which the Cardinal served. And relative to. this question, he often told me that he would not rest until the doctrine was defined. ' 'There is no. need of convoking a General Council in this matter,' he said, 'since the Pontiff can easily pronounce the definition by means of a papal b~ll.' " It is significant that when Pius IX defined the dogma in 1854, he did so without convoking a General Council and by means of a papal bull, exactly as BeIlarmine had suggested. It was Bellarmine's mind that the definition of the Immaculate Conception in his own day was not only opportune but even neces-sary, as he wrote to King Philip, "to remove the terrible scandals which are daily committed against the 1donor of God and with such danger to the the souls of the faithful." Only two months before his death, Bellarmine was still 'urging the cherished definition. On August 1, 1621, says the chronicle,. St. Robert engaged the Holy Father in a long conversation, and frankly told him that if he were Pope he would not hesitate immedi-ately to define the Immaculate Conception, s~eeing no obstacle what-ever standing in the, way. st. John Berchmans died on August 13, 1621. Shortly after his death, Bellarmine heard of the vow which John had made, signed with his own blood, and declaring: "I, John Berchmans, unworthy son of the Society of Jesus, promise thee and thy Son . . . that until death I, will ever declare and defend thy Immaculate Conception." When the aged cardinal was informed of this "fact, he exclaimed: "What a marvelous act of devotion! What aningenious expression of love, written in his own blood! What he says is most certainly true; I am sure he was inspired to this action by Our Lady herself. 116 MaR, 1~53 BELLARMINEAND MARY For just now in Flanders, while others ,are attacking Mary's honor, this young man from Flanders has been chosen by the Mother of God to defend her." Bellarmine was referring to the forerunners of 3ansenism at Louvain, who were teaching that, "No one except Christ is without original sin. Consequently the Blessed Virgin died because of the sin which she had contracted from Adam." Bellarmine and the Annunciation Cardinal Orsini rec'alled that one year he happened to stop at the Jesuit Novitiate in Rome on March 25th, where Bellarmine' was making the Spiritual Exercises. That.morning, the latter's medita-tion had" been on the Annunciation of Our Lady, and when Orsini called on his friend, Bellarmine immediately began to talk about the sublime'mystery .with such fervor and clarity that his visitor was convinced "he had received a special illumii~ation from God that very morning/' It may be noted also that all his life Bellarmine delighted to mention that he was ordained to the priesthood on Holy Satur-day, ,March 25, 1570, and therefore had the privilege of celebrating his first Mass in honor of Our Lady's Annunciation. Since one of the main points of opposition by the Protestants was clerical celibacy and religious chastity, Bellarmine 'took every occasion to defend this traditional practice of the Catholic Church. There are tl~ree complete sets of sermbns which Bellarmine preached for the feast of the Annunciation, and in several of them he took as his theme the Virginity of the Mother of God, stressing the sublimity of this privilege and the example it affords for our imitation. Thus on one occasion he is commenting on the words, "And Mary said to the angel: 'How shall this be done, because I know not man?' " and explains: "The obvious implication of these words' is that Mary had not only chosen to be a virgin but that she had confirmed her choice by vow. According 'to St. Augustine, the Blessed Virgin would never have spoken this gray to the angel unless she had already vowed her-self as a virgin to God. "Can we imagine a greater courage than Mary's, when she made this choice of a virginal life? Even in our own day, it is no small thing to preserve oneself i'n untainted virginity after we have been taught the dignity ofthis state of life by Christ Himself, after St.Paul has clearly recommended it to us, after the Fathers of the Church have given it unstinted praise, and after so many thousands of people 117 JOHN A. HARDON Re~ietu [.or Religious of both ~exes have embraced the life of,celibacy and kept it inviolate until death. How. remarkable it is, therefore, that the Virgin Mary should have aspired to the palm of this virtue although she had been given no precept to that effect by God, had received no counsel, and the only example" she had to follow was the disrepute in which vir-ginity was held by everyone around her." Bellarmine and the" Assumption Among the lon,gest sermons that Bellarmine preached are three for the feast of the Assumption, which he gave at Louvain in St. Michael's Church: In Rome at the titular Church of Our Lady of the Way; and in the Cathedral Church at Capua, as Archbishop, in t 1604. It is worth noting tfiat the fifteenth of August was one of the six feast days each year ~vhen all the servants and attendants of Car-dinal Bellarmine were obliged to go to Confession and receive the Hol~r Eucharist. St. Robert would himself distribute Holy Com-munion to his cardinalatial family, at the Mass'which b~ "said~ for their intention. Two other of these six days "of.precept" were March twenty-fifth and December the eighth. In,the first of his sermons on the Assumption, Bellarmine returns to his favorite theme in relation to the Mother of God: her spotless p,urity. Contemporary witnesses record thht many of his listeners at Louvain were English Protestants, who crossed the Channel to Bel-gium just to hear him speak. ' "The Mother of Jesus," they were told, "was the first woman in history to have consecrated her virginity to God. She was the first to have pointed out the path of chastity which leads to the highest sanctity. It is common doctrine that no one, either man or woman, bad ever taken a vow of virginity before the Blessed Virgin Mary. ~ "Add to this the ~act that Mary, alone of all others before or after, united the state of virginity with the holy state of matrimony, in the truest and fullest sense of the word. For other virgins may be said to contract marriage only in a restricted sense, in that they be-come spiritually espoused to the Person bf Christ. "But most remarkable of all, she alone joined virginity of body and soul with true progeny, and such progeny as ~vould make her the Mother of God. Other virgins, it is true, are also not without chil-dren, when, by their example, prayers and exhortations, they bring sinners back to God and thus increase the number of the elect. And it not infrequently happens that the unmarried in God's'Church are 118 May, 1953 ~BELLARMINEAND MARY more fruitful in this regard than those who are married, as witness St. Catherine of Siena, St. Clare, and others. However,' with the sole except.ioa of the Blessed Virgin, none of them could at the same ' time remain virgins and also give birth to a natural offspring. All"of which must finally be attributed to a special ~race of God, and also, let us not forget, to the free choice of Mary, who chose to take a vow of virginity, to take a human spouse, and who chose to become the Mother of 'God." The Blessed Virgin in the Apostolate Bellarmine instinctively apl~aled to the virtues of the Mother of God, whenever he urged consecrated religious to the more faithful f~racti.ce of their profession. ~While he was Archbishop of Capua,,for example, a convent, of nuns which he had reformed, was accused of receiving only applicants of noble birth. When. investigatibn showed that the charge was true, St. Robert addressed .to the Sisters of San Gi'ovanni one of the longest letters Which he ever wrote. Following the lead of St.Augustine, Bellarmine praised the Sis-ters for 'consecrating their virginity to Almighty God. He implied that in so doing they were admirably imitating the, chastit~y of the Blessed Virgin Mary, becoming "the affianced of the Lord." But he also suggested that chastity is not enough, unless it is coupled with true humility. "Religious life," he told them, "cannot'co-exist with the spirit of the world, nor can ,it be ruled by it, bu~t by the Spirit of God aloiae. The spirit of the world makes accbunt of nobility and wealth, but the Spirit'of God esteems virtue and holin~s~ of life above everything else." Taking this for granted, he continues: "I thought that the nuns of San Giovanni would have really laid aside the spirit of the world, and have gone out from it not less in body than in soul." NOw (he pointed shaft: "If the Blessed Virgin were on earth and wanted to become a nun, she would never be able to get itito ~;our convent, being a carpenter's wife . This will show you in what favor you will be with the Queen' of Heaven and her "Divine Son, if you persist in such a spirit of worldly'vanity." And he con, cl'udes that, "We must nbt try' to impose our ideas on the.Holy Ghost, debarring Him from calling to His service those whom He pleases," seeing that He chose the humble Virgin Mary to become the Mother of God. Also when exhorting his own religious brethren in Rome t6 the practice of perfect chastity, he counselled them'to "be vigilant over 119 JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious the first movements of the senses, which is easy~ because then the pas-sions are still weak and a man is strong and able to resist."' Undoubt-edly this means a constant war on our concupiscence, literally. "bearing the cross in our bodies." But in this. religious have the ex-ample of the saints to imitate, notably St. Luke, "whose friendship and familiarity with the Blessed Virgin Mary made him an ardent lover of Christ,~' for whose sake, and with the help of whose Mothe~ he was able to carry the cross faithfully until death. Also outside the cloister, on at leastone occasion, Bellarmine ap-pealed to the purity of the Mother of God in asking for a favor from the Pope himself. In the city of Ro~e, nea'r the Cardinal's titular church of Our Lady of the Way, was a public house of ill repute, which Bellarmineconsidered an insult to the Church. First he tried to do something privately, and when that failed, he wrote a letter to the Sovereign Pontiff, in which he begged, "by the love which Your Holiness has fob the most pure Virgin Mary," to see that this nui-sance was re_moved. Needless to say, his request was promptly granted. Bellarmine's Hymn to Mary the Virgin Among St. Robert's extant writings there is a short poem of twenty stanzas ~;hicb he composed in the nature of a Litany to the Blessed Virgin. The text was first published in Italian some fifty years ago, and to th6 best of l~he writer's knowledge, has never been translated into English. Each verse-line begins with the name "Virgin,~" joined to a title and petition to Our Lady, starting with the letter "A" and going down the Italian alighabet to "V". Tfius the first seven verses begin with the invocation: "'Vergine adorna . . . Vergine bella . . . Vergine casta . . . V.ergin( degna . . . Vergine eletta Vergine felice,. . . Vergine gradita . . ." A free translation of this tribute to the Virgin Mother reads as follows: "Virgin Virgin Virgin Virgin Virgin adorned and clothed with the sun, grant me thine aid. most beauti'ful, mystical rose, take abode in my heart. most chaste, all undefiled, grant me true peac~. deser;cing of all honor and praise, give ine thy love. elect and full of all grace, lead me to God. Virgin most .blessed, star of the sea, dispdl the storms .besetting ' me. Virgin most virtuous, holy and swdet, show me the way. Virgin illustrious, with thy burning light, enlighten thou my mind. 120 May, 1953 BELLARMINEAND MARY Virgin more precious than jewels or gold, make reparation for me. Virgin most worthy of all praise, mother, daughter, and im-maculate spouse. Virgin and Mother, make me more pleasing to Jesus thy' Son, Virgin most innocent of any stain or fault, make me more worthy of God. Virgin enriched with every gift and grace, obtain the remission of my sins. Virgin most pure, grant me" to enjoy the bliss of hehvenly love. Virgin, thou lily ambng thorns, I pray thee for the grace of a happy death. Virgin more rare than the rarest dream, bring joy to my heart, Virgin so great there is none like thee on earth, bring peace to my soul. Virgin most true, loving Mother too, Virgin Mary." ST. CLARE PLAY BY A POOR CLARE Candle in Umbria is the story of Saint Clare of Assisi told in a verse play by a Poor Clare Nun. The play of four acts, eight scenes is suitable for production by college students or by high schools with.special direction. The play was writt¢~l to honor the fohndress of the Poor Clares on the seventh centenary (1953) of her. death. The author is a regular contibutor to Spirit magazine. $I.00 per copy, including the music for the "Canticle of the Sun" which is embodied in the play. Those interested in obtaining a copy of this production should write to: Poor Clare Monastery, Route I, Box 285 C, Roswell, New Mexico. SUMMER SESSIONS Loyola University of Chicago announces several courses in theology scheduled expressly for Sisters during the coming summer session, Jtine 29 to August 7. Th'e Rev. James I. O'Connor, S.J., a canonist from West Baden, Indiana, will conduct an institlate" on Canon Law for Religious (Theol. 298). The Rev. Edward J. Hodous, S.J., a professor of Scripture at West Baden, will give a course on the Letters of St. Paul (Theol. 216). An authority on St. Joseph and author of several books on the saint, the Rev. Francis L. Filas, S.J., is giving a course on the History and Tbeology of the Devotion to St. Joseph (Theol. 253). For further information write to the Rev. L, J. Evett, S.J., Loyola Univet;sity, 820 N. Michi-yah'Ave., Chicago 26, lllinois. 121 Canonical Visi :at:ion ot: t:he Local Ordinary Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. ONE of the many obligations imposed on bishops is that,of vis-it! n.g their dioceses. Canon 343. § 1 commands a bishop to visit all or part of his diocese each year in such a way that the entire diocese is visited at least within every five-year period. The importance of the visitation is evident from the fact that a metropoli-tan is to. report to the Roman Pontiff: a suffragan bishop who has gravely neglected his duty of ,i.sitation. In such a case, the metro-politan himself, after obtaining the approval of the Holy See, may make the v.lsitatio.n.1 The Ordinary's visitation of religious is significant part of .'this general visitation. At least one author states absolutely that his, obligation of making the canonical visitation religious is serious.~ All religious are subject to the visitation except those that are exempt, who are to be visited only in the cases expressly. mentioned in the law.3 The specific legislation on the Ordinary°visitation of religious is found in can~ 512, It is more oractical confine this articld to his visitation of the religious community, distinguished from! its works, and to lay institutes, that is, congrega-tions of brothers a~nd sisters and orders of nuns. 1. Congregations of Brothers and Sisters . 1. Person of.the uisitor. Canon 512 prescribes that the visitation of religious is to ble made by the local Ordina'ry personally or through a delegate. The term local Ordinary includes a residential bishop, vicar or prefect apostohc, and an abbott or prelate nullius. Unlike the law on the ghneral visitation of the diocese, can. 512 gives the'l Ordinary full liberty to make the v,sitation personally or through" delegated visitors;'| The vicar or delegate of the Ordinary for reli-g, ous has vls~torial powers only if these have been expressly assigned to h~m by the O~dmary. When many priests are delegated for the visitation, it appears to be the prefeiable and more efficient practice to assign houses of the-same institute to a particular delegate, as far as lCan, 3431 § 3: 27~4;'4°, 5°. ZToso, 48; Cf. Coronata. p. 654. nora 5. SCan. 344, § 2. VISITATION OF ORDINARY this is possible. This lightens the delegate's burden of familiarizing himself with the life of the house be visits. He should study previ-busly the Rule, constitutiong,, directory, c'ustom book, book of com-mon prayers, and ce.remonial of the institute. 2. Frequenc~t of the visitation. Canon 512 enjoins the Ordinary; to visit every house of lay congregations, pontifical or diocesaia, of men or wpmen, every fifth year. Again unlike the canon on the gen-eral visitation of the diocese, can. 512 does not command the Ordi-nary to visit some of the religious houses every year nor to visit all of them at least every five years. The obligation of the Code is com-pletely fulfilled by one visit in five years, and it is perfectly licit to confine the visitation of all the religious houses to one year. The further question arises as to whether tile Ordinary may make a can-orfical visitation of these houses more frequently than once in five years. He may certainly do so in diocesan instituteR, since cart. 492, § 2 subjects these houses completely to the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary. It is the more probable opinion that the Ordinary may not make more than fine canonical visitation in five years in pontifical congregations of men or women,a A canonical visitation constitutes .an Intervention in the religious life of a pontifical congregation, and can. 618, § 2, 2° forbids such an intervention t6 the Ordinary ex-cept in the cases expressly mentioned it, law. These statements are based on the law of the Code. It~is~not impossible to find diocesan congregations and much more exceptionally pontifical congregations that prescribe a greater frequency of visitation in their constitutions. 3. Visitation of places in pontitfcal congregations. The places that the'Code subjects to the visitation in the houses of these congre-gations are: "the ~hurch, the sacristy, the public oratory, and the c!onfessionals.''s Churches and public oratories are practicall3; never iittache'd to the houses' of lay congregations in the United States. All chapels, whether principal or secondary, in the houses of these insti-tutes are classified canonically as semipublic oratories.6 Canon 512 subjects only public, not semipublic, oratories to the visitation of the local Ordinary. Since it is the intention of this c~non to define the persons, places, and things in a religious house that are subject to the visitation of the Ordinary, it is at least probable that he possesses neither the obligation nor the right to visit the semipublic oratories 4Farrell,, ~01-102; LarraonaTCpR, VIII (1927), 444; Toso, 49. sCan. 512, § 2, 2% 3°. 6Can. 1188, § 2, 2°; 1192, § 4. 123 JOSEPH F. GALLEN of lay pontifical co confessionals erected the religious and of sory to the oratory¯ 4. " Visitaffon of Review [or Reliqious gregations. The same principle is true of the in the semipublic oratory for the confessions of the sacristy, which is to be considered as acces-persons in pontifical congregatiot~s, a) General-ate arid provincialat ;. The general and i~rovincial house, superiors, officials, government, and administration of temporal matters of pon-tifical congregational are not visited by the Ordinary. Canon 512 assigns to the Ord~nary the right and the obligation to visit only houses, not provinces or institutes; can. 618, § 2, 2° foriaids the Or-dinary to intervene .~n the .internal government and .discipline of pon- ¯ tifical congregations except in the cases expressly mentioned in the law, and no particu, lar canon gives the Ordinary the right to visit the generalate or proviricialate as such. The dowries are the only matter of general administration that fall under the canonical visitation Otherwise the gene, ral and provincial house, .superiors, and officials are subject to the ~isitation only as a local house and as members of a local community. IT.he same principles are true of. such intermediate divisions as vice,prbwnces, quasi-provinces, visitations, regions, mish sions, districts, and vicariates. b) Imernal'qoloernraent. The internal government of pontifical congregations is exempt by law from the visitation of the Ordinary? Therefore, th~v .,s,tor does not inquire directly ihto the government of local, provincial, other intermediate, or general superiors. .Both [anons 5 2 8 2 3',° and 618, § 2, 2 ° restrict the Visitation of persons XC1 s, on in the latter canoh, in which both government ano a~sctptme are mentioned but the~ intervention of the Ordinary is imm.ediately re- " stricter to &sc,phne. Internal government :includes not only the gen-eral~ elation of subject's to superiors but also the admission of sub- 7De Carlo,.n. 93. 4°, Ib) ; 5°; Larraona, CpR, VIII (1927), 447, and nora 501 448; Reilly, 99, I I2;[Slafkosky, 96-97; Vromant De Personis, n. 177, IL2),a). For the contrary opmton, of. Farrell, 104. Cf. also Ciacio. 60; Coronata, p. 655, ~ota 2; Goyeneche, C'pR,'III (1922), 335-336; Schaefer, n. 560; XVernz-V~dal, p. 123, nots 91.550 ' SCan. 535, § 2; , § 2. . 9De Carlo, nn. 64, III, b) ; 93, 5°, b) ; 404, c) ; Fanfani, IfDiritto Detle Rehq~- ose, n. 60, 2 , c) ; De Reliqiosis~.n. 70, d) ; Larraona, CpR, IX (1928), 100, and aota 505; Pruemmer! qq. 187, 5, c): 242, 2, c). Cf. Abbo-Hannan, ~. 512, Bastien, n. 141; Bryn, n. 616, 6°: Ch°elodi, ~. 281,~b~: Cocchi, pp. c5)2, 183, Goyeneche, De Rehg~ps~s, 169; Jorabart, I, nn. 827, 2, e); 890, 2, ; Raus, n. 178, 4); Regatillo, n. 746; Schaefer, nn. 560, 1285; Vermeersch-Creusen, nn. 631; 778, 2. 124 May, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY jects into the congregation' and to the professions, their education and formation, appointment t_o various offices and employments, and transfer from house to house. c) R~liqious discipline. The right and the duty of the Ordinary to inquire into religious discipline is specified by can. 618, § 2, 2° as follows: 1 ° "The observance of discipline according to the constitutions." The Ordinary is not a religious superior in canon law. His office in this matter is that of the vigilance of external authority and not of direct government of the religious life. He does not inquire into re-ligious discipline in the detailed and rather individual manner of a higher superior. His right and duty is to ascertain the general state of religious discipline in the house and especially the existence of abuses in discipline. Inquiries bearing on an individual should, not be made unless, there is at least a rumor or founded suspicion of the misconduct of the individual.1° The Ordinary is not obliged to in-terview all tbe religious but only the number and the particular indi-viduals who because of their office, employment, or other circum-stances will be sufficient to enable him to discern the general state of discipline.11 Religious dlsc~phne includes the observance of the laws, decrees,' and instructions of the Holy See except those on government. Prac-tically all of these that are pertinent are or at least should be con- .rained in the constitutions. Inquiry sh6u!d also be made as to whether these lay religiou, s are informed on such important canonical legislation as the duration, continuity, and laws on absence of the canonical year of noviceship; the limitation on the application of novices to external works of the congregation during the second year of noviceship; the necessity of the reception of all juridical profes-sions and especially of the renewal o'f temporary professions; ind the observance of the canonical prescription of three full years of tem-porary vows for the validity of the perpetual profession. A direct investigation is to be made on such matters as the observance of the Code and the instructions of the Holy See on begging and on the canonical prohibition of electioneering. The more proper field of religious discipline is the observance of the vows and of the articles of the following sources of obligation: the Rule, constitutions, legitimate customs, ordinations of the general 10Chelodi0 n. 194, c). nCan. 513, § 1. 125 Review for Religious JosEPH F. GALLEN chapter, an~i regula.tions of higher superiors. The most apt norm of inquiry that can be suggested here is the list of questions of the quin-quennial report to ,the Holy See, especially those contained in Chap~ ter II, Article II of this list. The observanc~ of the vow of poverty demands the pe'rmission of the superior fo~ the disposition of material things, but both the ancient and modern abuses in poverty are in the neglect of common life, for example, ~he possession of money that th~ religious' disposes of dependently or independently for his' own necessities; .the frequent or habitual obtaining of necessities from externs; the failure of the institute to supply these necessities adequately and generously; the absence.of the pres, cnbed and reasonable uniformity among the reli-gious in material things, especially in such matters as trips and vaca, tions; and ¯imprudent and excessive demands on parents for these ne-cessities, particular!y during the postulancy and noviceship: ' The external ~afeguards of chastity are subject to the inquiry of the visitor. Thes~e include the avoidance of familiarity and sensual friendships, care ih reading, prudence in the use of the radio, tele-vision, and in thelchoice of the moving pictures shown to the com-munity. The observance of cloister falls under this heading but it is mentioned individually later in the canon. Tile OrdinarY inquires about fidelity to the prescribed religious exercises: Mass, meditation, Little O~ce of the Blessed Virgin Mary, examen 'of conscte, nce, rosary, spiritual reading, visits to the Blessed~ Sacrament, etc. ¯ The spirit of i cooperation, peace, happiness, charity, the general spiritual Ievel in the house, and the obstacles to all of these come un-der the scrutiny of the Ordinary. The canon orl the purpose of the general visitation 6f the diocese directs the Ord, i!nary aiso positively to promote the welfare of the pkrsons and place~ he visits,t2 His counsels can be of value to 'insti-tutes that are la~'king in initiative, manifest a most unsatisfactory rate of increase o~ membership, have a constricted mental outlook, or live so much. in ~he traditions of the past that they refuse to face modern times in ,their lives in general, their work, spiritual forma-tionl and' educat.~gn of subjects. He can give a sympathetic hearing and even effectivei aid to representations on the universal lack of suf-fici'ent financial r~sources in lay congregations. This fact is the cause l~Can. 343, § 1. 126 ) May, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY of overwork, of some of the weakefied health, df much of the loss of the full fervor of the religious spirit, of inadequate education of sub-jects, of the failure to provide sufficient material necessities and suit-able vacations, and, finally of annoying and undignified ways of raising funds. The whole matter of overwork in its relation to the ~observance of religious discipline should be thoroughly studied. The daily schooltwork of brothers and sisters is more than sufficient labor in itself. Added burdens can readily result in the contradiction of the unprepared teacher and the natural' religious. 2° "'Whether sound doctrine and good morals have suffered in. any way." This clause expresses an~application of subjection to the Ordinary not as religious but in the manner of the ordinary faithful. The local Ordinary is the guardian of the purity of faith and morals in his diocese. Misu'nderstanding of matters of faith and erroneous moral principles can be avoided by a competent course in Christian doctrine during the postulancy~ and noviceship and by further and highly desirable theological courses after first profession. 3° "'Whether there have been any violations of cloister." The Ordinary has the 6bligation of exerting .vigilance that cloister is ob-served in all religious congregations and of taking appropriate meas-ures to correct any habitual, notable, or scandalous Violations.13 Canon law imposes cloister on all congregations of men or women. This law places in cloister the parts of the house reserved for the ex-clusive use of the religious and determined by higher superiors. It forbids the entrance into the cloistered section of any person of the opposite sex except for a reasonable cause. The particular law of some .congregations forbids the entrance likewise of those of the same sex. The law of cloister also demands the observance of the pre-scriptions of the constitutions on going out of the house and 6n the rec~eption of visitors. 4° "'Whether 'the sacraments are, dul~t and regularlt.t received." The Ordinary is to inquire whether the religious receive the sacrament of Penance weekly, as universally prescribed by the constitutions. This is also the appropriate occasion for an investigatibn into the following canonical matters: the competence and regular fulfillment of their duties by the ordinary and extraordinary confessors; the-availability of supplementary confessors; abuses in the matter of special confessors; interference in 'internal and external government by confessors; interference with the rights of subjects regarding the 13Can. 604, § 3. 127 JOSEPH F GALLEN Reweto for Rehfltous suplblementary and occasional confessors and also the confessors of re-ligious women who are seriously ill; the exercise" of these rights in Conformity with right .reason, prudence, and religious discipline; the important directive of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments on the opportunity for confession before daily Mass; and any violation of the prohibition of obliging to a manifestation of conscience. The frequency of the reception of Holy Communion is not prescribed by the constitutions but is left to the devotion of the individual ~eh-gious. It is not beyond the power of the Ordinary to inquire about the general frequency of the reception of Holy Communion. If he finds a situation unusual in a religious house, he may be able to sug-gest o'r actually to effect a solution that will render the 'situation normal. 5° Remedial action of the local Ordinary. The defects in reh-gious discipline of lesser moment that the Ordinary has discerned and judges worthy of mention should be communicated to the siapiriors It will be sufficient to advise the local superior of such matters, unless , he judges that an effective correction can be attaihed only by inform-ing the superior general or provincial. If he has found abuses of serious moment, that is, continued or repeated violations of the laws o~ God, of the Church, or of.religious discipline in matters of greater importance, he is to admonish the superiors to correct the abuse. The gravity of these matters will frequently demand or at least cdu,.nsel that the higher superior be informed. If the abuse is not corrected within a reasonable time, the Ordinary himself is to take means to eliminate it. If he has discovered any serious matter that demands immediate correction, the Ordinary himself is to take direct corrective action but in this case he is obliged to inform the Sacred Congrega-tion of Religious of his action.14 5. Financial matters in pontitical congregations. Cation law here asserts the practical restriction of the authority of the local Ordinary to the two following matters:XS a) Dowries. The dowries, which are proper to institutes of women, are under the vigilance of the Ordinary of the habitual resi-dence~ of the higher superioress who is administering them. This right of vigilance demands that the consent of the Ordinary be obtained 14Can. 618, § 2, 2*., lSCan. 618, § 2. 1 °. Only the two financial matters here listed.are ordinarily found in constitutions approved by the Holy See. Cf. can. 533, § 1, 4"; 1515-1517, 1544-1551. 128 Mag, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY for any investment or change of investment of the dowries; he is also to exert care that the dowries are maintained intact and invested in safe~ lawful, and productive securities; finally, he is to exact an ac-count of the dowries un'der these headings at the time of the canonical visitation or even oftener, if he thinks the latter necessary,lg A state-ment should be prepared for the visitor sho~ving the number of dow-ries, their 'value when given, the securities in which they are invested,' and the current value of the securities. b) Funds for divine worship or charitg~. The rather obscure and complicated funds here intended are those: (1°) donated or be-queathed to a house of a religious congregation; (2°) and motivated at least primarily and directly for divine worship or works of charity in favor of externs and to be carried out in the same. village, town, or city in which the religious house is located. Money given for main-taining a scholarship can be an example of such funds. The consent of the local Ordinary must be. obtained for any lnvestment or change of investment of these funds, and he also has.the right of inquiring into their administration. The manner, frequency, and time of the inquiry are left to the decision of the Ordinary.lz The canonical visitation is an opportune tim~ for this inquiry. These same rights of the Ordinary do not extend to such funds given to a province or congregation, nor tO those given solely or pri-marily and directly for the benefit of the religious, nor when the di-vine worship or works of charity are to be performed outside the lo-cation of the religious house or when the choice of the place of their performance is left to the religious. The primary and direct purpose of the gift of funds for a scholarship may be to provide an education for a poor youth or to bestow a gift on the religious who conduct the school; only in the former case would these funds be subject to the norms of vigilance quoted above. 6. Visitation of diocesan cofigregations. The general principle of canon law is that diocesan congregations are completely subject to the local Ordinaries. However, the Code immediately limits this sub-jection by stating that it is such as is described in law.is The prin-ciples that restrict the jurisdiction of the Ordinary over these congre-gations are as follows: (a) he must observe the particular canons that limit his power, for example, the higher superiors of the institute, 16Can. 549; 550, § 2; 533, § 1, 2°; § 2; 535, § 2. 17Can. 533, § 1, 3°; § 2; 535, § 3, 2°¯ ISCan. 492, § 2. 129 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reoietu for Religioas not the Ordinary, are competent tb admit to the professions; (b) his authority must be exercised according to the apprgved constitutions; (c) the Ordinary of the motherhouse enjoys no primacy of author-ity, since the Code subjects the houses in each diocese to the jurisdic-tion of the Ordinary of that diocese; (d) a diocesan c~'ngregation is a legitimately erected moral person in the Church, with its own proper internal life and field of action: the superigrs possess independent au-thority and are obliged to recur to the Ordinary in matters of inter-nal government only when this is demanded by the Code or the con-stitutions; (e) the Ordinary is not to be considered as a religious su-perior who directly governs the congregation but as an external ec-clesiastical superior, whose authority is that of vigilance over the proper observance of the Code and the const~itutions, of correcting abuses, supplying for defects, and of guiding and aiding the co'n-gregation during the relatively brief probationary period of acquiring the strength and stabili_ty necessary in a petition for pontifical ap-proval. The Ordinary thus acts as an external ecclesiastical superior in the canonical visitation of these congregations. The Code places no limitation on the Ordinary's right of visitation of the houses of congregat!ons. He visits these houses'in everything, internal government, the whole field of discipline, all financial matters, per-sons, and places. Here also the Ordinary is obliged to interview the individual religious only to the extent that he judges necessary for the attainment of the purpose of the visitation.19 The visitation of the semipublic oratories and sacristies of dioc-esan institutes includes an examination into the fgllowing matters: cleanliness; freedom of the oratory from profane uses and its security against sacrilegious thefts and profanations; the conformity of the altar, the t~bernacle, and their furnishings with canonical and litur-gical legislation; the cus, tody of the Eucharist; obedience to instruc-tions on the custody .of the tabernacle key; all the sacred vessels; tl~e sanctuary lamp; the conformity bf the vestments and other furnish-ings with liturgical law, ecclesiastical tradition, and the laws of sacred art; observance of the laws on divine worship and sacred music; fidel-ity to the list of days on ~hich Exposition and Benediction bf the Most Blessed Sacrament are permitted; the admission of priests to the celebration of Mass; and the proper custody of the holy oils. The confessionals in these institutes are examined in the follow- 19Can. 513, § 1. Cf. 4. c), 1° above. 130 Matt, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY -ing respects: their location in' institutes of women in an open and conspicuous place and generally in the chapel: suitability and per-manent accessibility of the place of the confessional; the danger of being overheard, especially ih a confessional in the chapel: a suitable place for the ~onfessions of the deaf; the presence of a narrowly per~ forated grating between the confessor and the penitent; and observ-ance of the law that forbids the confessions of women outside the confessional except in cases of sickness or for other reasons of similar import. The Ordinary always has the right of taking direct and imme-diate action to correct defects and abuses that he has discovered in di-ocesan congregations. However, for the efficacy of the government of superiors and the peace of the members of the institute, it would be better to follow the order of correction described above for pontiff-cal congregations. A diocesan generalate or provinciaiate and the general and pro-vincial superiors and officials, even if the institute or province has houses in several dioceses, certainly fail, under the quinquennial visi-tation of the Ordinary as a local house and members of a local com-munity, The administration of all the dowries i~ also' subject to this visitation of the Ordinary. It is certain that the Ordinary is not obliged to make a ~canonical visitation of the general and provincial houses, superiors, and officials as "such, nor of the general and pro-vincial government and material administration, even if all the houses of the congregation or province are located in his diocese. The argu-ment for this statement is found in the law on the canonical visita-tion, which speaks only of the visitation of houses, not of provinces or institutes.~° It is likewise certain that the Ordinary may make such a visitation, provided all the houses of the province or congrega-tloia are located in his diocese. This right follows from the general subjection of diocesan congregations to [he Ordinary and is in con-flict with no canonical principle. It is more probable that the Ordi-nary may not make such a visitation when the congregation or prov-ince includes houses located in other dioceses, unless he has been com-missioned to do so by the Ordinaries of all these other diocesesl- The principal arguments for this doctrine are that sfich a visitation would affect the entire congregation or province, would contravene the can-onical principle that the Ordinary of the motherhouse enjoys no primacy-of authority, and would thus be obstructive of the rights of 20Can. 5 1 2. 13 t JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reoieu~ for Religious the other Ordinaries. Some canonists oppose thi~ doctrine and hold with solid prob-ability that the Ordinary may make a canonical visitation Of such a generalate or provincialate. Their position is founded on the general subjection of diocesan institutes to the local Ordinary and they deny that this visitation, whose purpose is to promote the observance of the Code and the constitutions, would of its nature conflict with the authority ~r rights of the other Ordinaries.22 In this diversity of opinion, the Ordinary may licitly maintain the right of visitation, since the exclusion of the visitation of such a generalate or provi'ncial-ate from the general principle of subjection to the local Ordinary has not been certainly proved. The controversy should now have a. negligible practical applica-tion. The Sacred Congregation of Religious stated clearly in the new quinquennial report that a diocesan institute actually divided into provinces should have petitioned the status of a pontifical con-gregation before such a division. The Sacred Congregation also ex-plicitly affirmed that any diocesan congregation should.~petition pon-tifical approval as soon as the necessary conditions are verifiei:l. These are practically alwa~rs verified in a diocesan congregation that has spread beyond the diocese of origin. It cannot be repeated too fre-quently that the .diocesan status of a religious ifistitute is not per-petual and definitive but only temporary and probationary and that pontifical status, when the necessary conditions are verified is not optional but mandatory according to the practice of the Sacred Con-grega tion~. ~ II. Monasteries of Nuns Not Subject to Regular Superiors Canonically. nuns are the members of an institute of religious @omen in .which solemn vows at least should be taken according to the prescription of the particular law~ of the institute. Only simple vows are still taken in most monasteries of nuns in the United States, but the injunction of the apostolic constitution Sponsa Christi should soon reverse this condition,24 Some orders of nuns, for example, the 21Bastien, n. 137; Jombart, IV, n, 1323, 7, but cf.'I, n. 827, 2, a); Larraona, CpR, X (1929), 368-377: XIV (1933), 417, and nora 777; 418; Muzzarelh, nn. 145-147; Quinn, 842'90; Schaefer, n. 744, d), but of. n. 745. 22D'Ambrosio, Apollinaris, I (1928.), 417-422: Reilly, 91-97; apparently also Brys, n. 631, IV, 3°; De Carlo. n. 206, III: Vermeersch-Creusen, n. 660, 3, Vromant, De Bonis Ecclesiab Ternporalibtts, n. 238. 23Review forReligious, March, 1950, 57-68; January, 1951, 22; January, 1952, 13-14. z4Statuta, Art. III, § 2. 132 May, 1953 VISITATION OF ORDINARY Carmelites and Dominicans, are subject by the law of their constitu-tions tothe supeiiors of orders of men; others, for example, the Vis, itandines, are not. Monasteries of only simple vows are most rarely in fact subject to order~ of men, even though their constitutions pre-scribe such subjection. The first category of nuns with regard to the canonical visitation of the local Ordinary is of monasteries of solemn or simple vows that are not in fact subject to orders of men. The local Ordinary is obliged to visit all such monasteries every five years35 He may do so more frequently, since these monasteries are subject to him also with regard to the religious life. The consti-tutions also may prescribe a greater frequency of visitation. He viS'its these monasteries in everything, as described above for diocesan con, gregations. All monasteries of 'nuns, whether of solemn or simple vows, are now to have papal cloister.~ The local Ordinary or his " delegate, accompanied by at least one .cleric or religious man of ma-ture age, enters a papal cloister of. women only for the-visitation of places. The rest of the visitation is carried out at the grille37 III. Monasteries of Nuns Subject to Regular Superiors , The distinctive note of this category is that th~ monastery is in fact subject to an order of men. A~ stated above, it may be of sol-emn or'simple vows. The local Ordinary is obliged to visit such a monastery "every five years concerning the observance of the law of cloister and he may make such a visitation as often as he judges it opportune.~ On the occasion of his q~inquennial visitation he also inquires'into the administration of the dowries,a9 The Ordinary alsb has a suppletory duty with regard to a monastery, of this category. If the monastery has not been visited within five years by ~he regular superior, the 1,ocal Ordinary is obliged to visit it in everything, as ex-plained above for diocesan congregations.3°, Other Pertinent Canons abd Principles Canons 513; § 1 and 2413, as also the principles on the. field of c6nsciende, denunciation of the conduct of another, and use and se-crecy concerning.matters learned in a visitation, explained in the pre- 2SCan. 512, § 1, 1" 26Sponsa Christi, Statuta, Art:'IV. 27Can. 600, 1" 28Can. 512, § ~, 1". 29Can. 5 5 0. ~30Chn. f!l2, § -2, 1". 133 JOSI~PH F. GALLEN vious aiticle on the visitation of higher superiors, a~ply similarly the canonical visitation of the local Ordinary.3',32 31Concerning the subject of the penalty of can. 2413. cf. Jombart, Larraona. Muz-zarelli, and D'Ambrosio. as cited in notes 21-22. and Reilly, 173-176. 3ZThe authors cited are: Abl~o-Hannan. The Sacred Canons, I: Bastien. Directo~re Canonique; Brys. duds Canonici Compendium, I: Chelodi, lus Canonicum De Per-sonis: Ciacio, De, Oratodis Semipublicis: Coccbio Commentarium In Codicem lur,s Canonici, IV; Coronata. lnstitutiones luris Canonici, I: D'Ambrosio. Apollinar,s:. De Carlo. dus Religiosorum; Fanfani. ll Diritto Delle Religiose, De lure Relioioso-rum: Farrell. The Rights and Duties of the Local Ordinar{l Regarding Congrega-tions of Women Religious of Pontifical Approtml; Goy6neche. Commentadum Pro Religiosis, De Religiosis; JomlSart. Traitd De Droit Canonique, I. IV: Larraona, Commentarium Pro Religiosis; Muzzarelli. De Congregationibds furls Dioecesam; Pruemmer. Manuale luris Canonici; Quinn. Relation of the Local Ordinart, t to Reh-gious of Diocesan Approval; Raus. Institutiones Canonicae : Regatillo. lnstitutiones luris Car~onici; Reilly~ The Visitation of Religious; Schaefer, De Religiosis; Sl~f-kosky, The Canonical Episcopal Visitatiori of the Diocese; Toso. De Religios~s, Vermeersch-Creusen, Epitome furls Canonici, I: Vromant. De Personis: De Bores Ecclesiae Temporalibus; Wernz-Vidal. De Rdigiosis. "10,000 GOLD FRANCS" MEANS "S,000 DOLLARS" AcCording .to a decree of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, duly 13, 1951, religious institutes need the permission of the'Holy ¯ See t6 alienate property or to incur a debt when the amount exceeds 10,000 gold' francs or lire. In an article in-this REVIEW (November, 1952, pp. 301-304), we att'empted to translate this amount into American dollars, and we reached the~ tentative conclusion that the approximate amount would be 7,000 dollars. Our estimate was based on sound economic calculations; hence, we suggested that 7,000 American dollars Could be taken as the norm until some more specific norm would.be given by the Holy See itself. On danuary 29, 1953, the Sacred Congregation of Religious pub-lished the official equivalents of 10,000 gold francs or )ire for the principal countries of the world. The equivalent for the United States is given as 5,000 dollars; for the equivalents in other countries, see page 150. As matters now stand, therefore, the permission of the Holy See must be obtained to alienate property or to incur a debt when the amount exceeds 5,000 dollars in our ordinary currency. It should recalled that this permissidn may be obtained through the Apostohc Deldgate, in Washington,if the sum does not exceed 500,000 dollars 134 Conl:ession before Communion Gerald Kelly, S.3. '~N THE FIFTEENTH of Jun, e, 1520, in a memorable docu- . ~ ment which begins with the words, Exsurge Domine (Arise, O Lord), Pope Leo X condemned a multitude of errors of Martin Luther. Among these errors was Luther's teaching on the preparation, required for Holy Communion. According to him, pr~yers~and other pious works, as well as contrition for mortal sin and even confession itself, are useless; all that is required is to .be-lieve, to have confidence that one will obtain grace in the sacrament, and this alone will make one pure and worthy. Thirty-one years later, fin its thirteenth 'session' (October 11, 1551), the Council of Trent considered this same errdneous teaching, and,stated the true doctrine in a chapter and a canon. Chapter VII, "On the preparation to be given thht one may.worthily receive the sacred Eucharist," runs as follows: "If it is unbeseeming for anyone to approach to any of the sadred functibns unless he approach holily; assuredly, the more the holiness and divinity of this heavenly sacrament are understood by a Chris-tian, the more diligently ought he to "give heed that he approach not to receive it but with great reverence and holiness, especially as we read in the Apostle those words full of terror: He that eateth and drinketh unworthil! , eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, Wherefore, he who would communicate ought to recall to ~ind the precept of the Apostle: Let a man proue himself. Now ecclesiastical usage declares that necessary proof to be, that no one, conscious to himself of mortal sin, how contrite .soever he may seem to himself, ought to approach to the sacred Eucharist without previous sacra-mental confession. This the holy Synod hath decreed is to be,in-variably observed by all Christians, even by those priests on. whom it may be incumbent by their office to celebrate, 16rovided the opportun-ity of a confessor do not fail them; but if, in an urgent necessity, a priest should celebrate without previous confession, let him confess as soon as possible." (Waterwotth, The Canons and,Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumen&al Council of Trent, pp. 80-81.) " The eleventh canon :of the same session makes explicit reference to the Lutheran error. It reads: 135 GERALD KELLY Reoiew for Reli~lious "If anyone saith, that faith alone is a sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most. holy Eucharist; let him be anathema. And for fear lest so great a sacrament may be received unworthily, and so unto death and conddmnation, this holy Synod ordains and declares that sacramental 'confession, when a confessor" may be had, is of necessity to be made beforehand, by those whose conscience is burtl~ened ,with mortal sin, how contrite even soever they may think themselves. But if anyone shall presume to teach, preach, or obstinately to assert, or eveh in public disputation to de-fend the contrary, he ~hall be thereupon excommunicated." (Water-worth, p. 84.) The foregoing teaching of the Council of Trent is the principal source of our present canon law: namely, canon 807, which concerns the celebration of Mass, and canon 856, which concerns the reception of Holy Communion. .An English translation of the latter canon runs as follows: "No one, whose conscience convicts him of mortal sin, no matter how contrite he thinks himself, may approach Holy. Communion without l~revious sacramental confession. If there is urgent neces-sity, and no oppoitunity of finding a confessor, he must first elicit an Act of Perfect Contrition." (O'Donnell, Moral Questions, p. 270.) This law is of the greatest moment. It should be clearly under-stood by religion teachers, catechists, and frequent communicants. Properly to understand it, one must have a grasp of these three propositions: (I) It is always, necessary to be in the state of grace When receiving Holy Communion. (II) It is ordinarily necessary to confess before receiving Holy Communion if one has committed a mortal sin since one's last good confession. (III) In certain extra-ordinary circumstances it is sufficierit to regain grac~ by a'n act of per-fect contrition before receiving. Holy Communion. The purpose of the present article is to explain these three propositions and (IV) to call attention to some precautions to be. taken in order to safeguard the ordinary observance of the law and, to avoid sacrilegious Com-munions. I. It is alwol~s necessary to be in' the State of grace when receiving Communion. One reason for this is that the Holy Eucharist is a sacrament of the living. A sacrament of the living supposes its recipient to be already supernaturally aliventhat is, living the divine life of grace--- 136 Ma~, 1953 CONFESSION BEFORE COMMUNION and its function is to increase this divine life in the soul. A second reason is found in the special purpose of the Eucharist, which, is to r~ourisb. We do not speak of nour.ishing a corpse; nourishment sup-poses that life ~lready exists. The conscious receptiOn of Holy Communion while in the state of mortal sin is a grave sacrilege. It is to receive the source of sal-vation unto one's own condemnation. No one, therefore, should receive this sacrament unless he has a reasonable assurance that he is in the state of grace. I say "a reasonable assurance," because when there is question of our interior state of soul it is not possible for us, apart from ~ special divine revelation, to have an absolute certainty that we are in the state of grace. All that God. expects of us in this and in similar matters is a practical, or working, certainty that we fulfill various conditions established by Himself or the ChurCh for His honor and our own spiritual welfare. For ordinary people there is no difficulty in this.matter. They go to confession; do what they can to fulfill the requisites of a good confession, and leave the con-fessional in peace, sufficiently confident that their sins are forgiven and that they are in the state of grace. And the same is true of them when they make an act of perfect contrition: they are reasonably, or practically, sure that through this act they are restored to God's friendship,' in case they had lost it through mortal sin. (Contrition, said the Council of Trent, is perfect through charity. Hence, perfect coritrltion is sorrow for sin based upon a motive of charity, that is, sorrow because one has offended God, who is the supreme good and worthy to be loved above all things. It is not difficult for those who are accustomed to think of God to make an act of perfect contrition and to mean it. The formula for the act of contrition, as ordinarily taught in catechism classes, contains both imperfect and perfect contrition. This is appropriate, because sorrov~ for the perfect motive does not exclude sorrow for lesser motives.) Some people, such as the scrupulous, have great difficulty in these matters. They alw.'ays feel spiritually insecu~re. No matter what their reason might tell them of their state of soul, its calm judgment is stifled by their fear; and this fea.r makes them feel that they are not, or,may not be, in the state of grace. If such people were to follow their feelings, they would very likely never receive a sacrament of the living, especially the H61y Eucharist. For them~ it is necessary to fol-low sound direction in spite of their feelings--lall the while working towards the goal of being able to make quiet judgments for them-selves, judgments based on facts and not on fea~. 137 GERALD KELLY As is the case with other sins, one must realize what he is doing in order to be guilty of a sacrilegious Communion. Consequently, one who is actually in the state of mortai sia but does n~ot advert this when he receives Holy Communion does not commit a sin: fact, it may be that he receives sanctifying grace through the Eucha-rist itself. Many erfiinent theologians hold that. a sinner (i.e:, in the state of mortal sin) who receives Holy Communion ifi good faith and with imperfect contrition for his sins is restored to grace through'this sacrament. Knowledge of this opinion may be a con-solation to those who are apt to worry about being deprived of grace because of unsuspected unworthiness when they communicate. The case of receiving Holy Communion without adverting the fact that one is in the state of mortal sin can hardly be very common. But it is certainly not an impossibility, especially for some people whose devotions' aie governed by routine. For example, sup-pos~ that a layman is accustomed to receive Holy Communion first Sunday of every month and to go to confession, the day before It might happen that something unforeseen.would prevent his going to confession, and then, following his routine pattern, h~ would communciate Sunday morning without realizing at the time that had been unable to make his usual confession. If he had committed a mortal sin and had made only an act of imperfect contrition'he would still be in mortal sin at the time of communica_ting. Being unconscious of this, he would be in wh~t is called "good faith Communion would proba.bly have the same effect for him as an of perfect contrition~namely, give him sanctifyi.n.g grace, though would still be obliged to confess his sin.' II. It is ordln~rily necessar~.l to confess before receiving Communion ~f one has committed a mortal sin since one's last good confession. To say that one must be in the state of grace when receiving sacrament of the living is not the same as saying that a sinner must go to confession before receiving one of these sacraments. It is pos-sible to regain sanctifying grace either through actual confession through perfect contrition, which includes the intention to co,nfess the proper time. Nothing in the nature of a sacrament of the living makes actual confession a necessary prerequisite; nor is there any special law which makes confession necessary, except for the Holy Eucharist. For instance, if a young man who is to be confirmed tomorrow commits a mortal sin today, he is certainly obliged regain sanctifying grace before receiving confirmation, but an act 138 ¯Ma~, 1953 CONFESSION BEFORE COMMUNION perfect contrition would suffce for ¯thpis rup !o s e .~ A . nd this would" be true also of matrimony, holy~orders, and e~xtrem¢ unction if these sacraments were received apart from Holy:Communion,or the cele-bration of Mass. | ~ . . The Holy Eu~charist, therefo.re, is govern~ed by°an entirely special law~. As we learn from the Council of "l~rent arid the Code, the regaining of grace through perfect contrition.is not normally suffi-cient for the reception of this sa~cramsaecnrat;m Ie ~ntal confession' is ordinarily required. The reason for this seems to be the entirely special .character of the Holy Eucharist. it is the most excellent of sacraments, and it is to be safeguarded as much fis is humi~nly possible against the clangerof abuse. ~ ] Is this law prescribing confession beforle Comrfiunion a divine law or a law made by the Church? The answer to this question is not clear. Some of the greatest of'post-Tr~dentine theologians ex-plain it as a divine law promulgated through St. Paul: St, Alph'onsus Liguori, writing in the eighteenth century, ~dheres. to this explana~ tion as being by far the more common and th~eonlv true one Never-thele. ss, eminent modern theologians express ~lissa~isfa~tion with the arguments that the law is of divine origin arid hold that ~he words of the Council of Trent are sufficiently verifi~ed if the law is consid-ered to be of ecclesiastical origin. In either case--whether divine or merely ecclesiastical the law is strictly binding, and the only excep-tion to it is offcially declared by the Church[ to be a case in which Communion is necessary and confession is impossible, as will be ex-plained in our next section. ~Who are obliged by this law to go to cofenssion before receiving Communion? Only those u:bo are certain tb ~at tbe[j.have committed a mortal sin since their last gUod confession. T~erefore, one who inculpably failed to tell a mortal sin in an otl-lerwise good confes~io~h is ~iot obliged to abstain from Communion u~nti~ he makes another c~nfession. ~'He bus already regained grace thr~ough co~nfession. It is true, of course, that the omitted sin must still be confessed; but it is not necessary to advance one's ordinary time of confession in order to do this, and in the meantime one may receive Holy.Communion even daily as long as ~he commits no further m~0rtal sin. " , It is clear that- if one who knows he forgot to tell a mortal sin in. confession may receive Holy Communion, then one who merely doubts whether be forgot to tell a sin has the~ same privilege¯ BUt what of one who knows be committed a mortal sin and doubts 139 GERALD KELLY Reoieto for Religious whether~ he has been to confession at all since then (not a yery com-mon case), or~,.of one who doubts whether he has sinned mortally (e.g., by sutficient reflection or full co.nsent) since his last confession~ Regarding these cases there would be some difference of opinion among xheologians; but a sound practical rule covering all .such doubts is this: th~ sole obligation is to take some available means of removing the doubt so that one will be reasonably sure of being in the state of grace when receiving HolyrCommunion. ¯ Sometimes what is called a doubt is not a doubt at all, but merely a scruple or a sort of hazy" fear. The best treatment for such ~orries is to pay as Iittle heed as possible to them, even though they accompany the holiest of actions. In other instances, a doubt is a sort of temporary state of mined that can be corrected by the applica-tion of a sound rule of presumption. For instance, one who Wonders whether he gave full consent in some very disturbing temptation, mig~ht' realize in his calmer moments that in similar' situations he never, or practically never, gives in to the temptation. Thus the presumption of not consenting favors him, and he may use this pre-sumption to dispel his perplexity and to form the practical judgment 'that heDis still in the stare of grace. In such cases neither confession nor r~erfect contrition is strictly required before Holy Commun.lon But it may happen occasionally to anyone that his doubt whether he has committed a mortal sin is too solidly-founded to be ignored and that the circumstances of the temptation are so unusual that the ordinary presumptions are not helpful. In other ~ ords. one might have a really sincere and insoluble doubt whether he is here and now in the state of mortal sin. Even in this case confession is not obliga-tory; but if one does not wish to go to confession one should make an act of perfect contrition before receiving Communion. Ac~ording to some good authors even the act of perfect contrition is not str_ictly necessary; but it is hard to find any sound reason for this opinion and I viould-not sponsor it. On the. other hand. many, if not most. authors think that confession is generally advisable in these cases of insoluble doubt. For myself. I would be very slow to recommend the special confession of doubtful sins except to persons who might need this'as a means of corr.ecting a proneness to laxity. III. In cdrtain extraordinary circumstances it is'su~cient to regain grace before receit)ing Communion by making an act of perfect con-trition. A problem proposed to Father Michael O'Donnell (Moral Ques- 1:40 Meg, 1953 tfons, p. ,2,70) can aptly introduce the pCrOeNs~eEnSt$ 1sOecNt BioEnFO. TREh CeO pMrMobUlNeImON concerns a person who d d an impure action and was heartily sorry for doing so, and wanted to keceive Our Ble'~ssedLord the following morning," This person evidently had no opportunity to go to con-fession: hence be made an act of perfect cqntrltlon 'and promised Our Lord he would go to confession'at the first opportunity and tell that sin of impurity and fulfilled that promis~e a few days later." He now wants to know whether he did wrong an going to C6mmunion. This is a very human problem. One can almost feel the anxiety of the questioner. Father O Don-_ewl rlgbtllv sets b~ m:nd at r~st by saying that. since he acted in good faith. He has n6 need to worry. It is one thing to decide wh&her one has beech guilty of sin, another thing to tell one what to do in the future. I~ cannot be repeated too . often that past actions arenot to be judged by present knowledge. Many of us have done things in perfectly gobd faith which we later learned were forbidden. In acting thus we ~ere not guilty of sin: in fact we may have been highly pleasing to God because we ~lid what we thought was righf under the circumstadces. So, too, we may have done things in a sort of perplexed state i~n which .we did the best we could to decide what was right and then d~d it. but with a sort of vague anxiety. This is not ,what aut, bors referIto when,, they coffdemn acting "in practical doubt.' The °practica1~lldoul~ter is not merely troubled by a vague worry or perplexity; he is one who has a serious reason, for questioning wh~tber what he is about to do is sinful and then, witl~out forming his conscience, be does' it Xnyway. I call attention to this principle that pas~ acti6ns are n~t to be judge.d by present knowledge, because it is n~t entirely unlikely that some readers of this article may have had an experience similar to Father O'DonnelI's questioner. Lacking a ~lear knowledge of the law of confession before Communion, they may have received Co}n-reunion without previous confession in some. instance in which, ac-cording to the explanation given here, they were not justified in doing so. Let them be content to use the new knowiedge as a guide for the future and not make it a cause of anxiety abou~t~tbe past. Many laws admit of exceptions by reason of some extraordinary circumstances or combination of circumstances[ Thus, a mothek who must care for a sick child is excused from Slunday Mass; the "poor who live on what they receive from others are excused froin tb~ law of abstinence; and so forth. The law pr~scri'bing cbnfession before Communion also admits of exception; but the" Church considers ~bis 141 GERALD KELLY Reoteto [or Rehgtous matter of such importance that she officially declares just what cir-cumstances constitute the exception. For a legitimate exception there must be a combina~tion of two extraordinary circumstances: (1) im-possibility of going.to confession; and (2) necessity of receiving Communion. Both conditions must be verified. And both need some expla~nation. 1. Confession lmpbssible. Authors generally illustrate this matter with the example of person who is0 already kneeling at the Communion rail before he realizes that he should have gone to confession. It is clear that if he is to receive Communion now (whether 'that is necessary will be ¯ treated later), then coflfession before Communion is impossible. He ~annot stop the priest.at the altar rail and say: "Will you please bear my confession before giving me CommuniorL" " F~ther Edwin F. Healy, S.2., in Christian Guidance (p. 105), uses the example of a father of a family who has planned on receiving Communion with his children on their mother's anniversary. ,He intends to go to confession before Mass, but when they reach the church they find that the onlh, priest of this parish is already begirt-ning Mass. As Father Healy points out, it would be out of the question for the man to leave the church and go elsewhere to con-fession if he is to receive Communion with his family at this Mass'. Example~ of inability to get to confession are not limited to these last-minute cases. The impossibility might last for some tihae, espe-cially in a small town when the pastor is absent and when inclement weather or lack of time would prevent one from going to another town. Moreover, there can be cases in which a priest can be reached yet, confessi6~ is impossible: _for example, if the priest Would not hear the. confession, perhaps because of scrupulosity. Or the only available priest might be one without tl'ie faculties to hear confessions. This would not be very common in our country; but it could happen, for instance, in the case of'a priest who would be outside his own dio-cese. And it would be more common in some countries where it is customary to,limit the jurisdiction of young priests to a certain class of persons. At the time of the Council of Trent the limitation of confes-sional faculties was not at all uncommon: hence cases in which an available priest migh~t b~ able to hear one's confession were not rare This seems to be one reason for the rather strange wording used by the Council in declaring the law of confessing before Communion 142 May, 1953 CON~ESSION BEF(~RE COMMUNION / Confession is necessary, it says, if one has a i'co/~ia confessoris." The Code preserves the same expression, "copia ~onfesarii?' The literal meaning of copla is 'a plenty, an abundanc~e," an,d the very use of the expression implies that it might be possible to have a priest pres-, ent, yet no confessor would be available, VaI r.ious authors try to press this idea by saying that confession is neIcessary: if a confessor is present to whom one is obliged to confess: if a suitable confessor is present: if there is an available priest to wh6m one could go to con-fession without grave inconvenience. The foregoing are various ways of sayin~ is present or can be reached confession may bility. I have aI~eady cited two examples cannot hear the confession, and the priest Another example of this practical impossibil case in which confession cannot be made privacy. Still another case, very clear in tF. that,even when a priest be a practical impossi-af this: the priest who who will not hear ~t. ity of confessing is the without the necessary eory but not nearly so clear in its application, is that in. which the very going to confession would create suspicion in the minds of others that one had s~nned seriously. I say this is clear in theory becaus~e such a danger to one's reputation is certainly an extraordinary inconvenience that would, make confession morally impossible. And I ladd that Jr'is not clear in its practical application bechuse the dangelI is more likely to exist merely in the minds of,certain oversensitive in~lividuals than in actual fact. It is sometimes said that this kind of sltuat~on is not uncom-mon in communities of Sisters, so that a Sister1 who would go to con-fession before Mass would be open to suspicion. Perhaps there~are some communities in which such gross unkindness and injustice pre-vail, but we can at least h'ope that they a.re ~ery rare and that they will soon reform. " I Theologians discuss and dispute over what they call "invincible repugnance') attached to goin~ to con~fession to a certain individual. All agree, of course, that the mere d~flicultyI of confession, or the mere humiliation of confessing a serious sin-~iifficulties inherent in "confession to some extent for most people~,w.ould not constitute a moral impossibility of going to confession. The debatable case con-cerns repugnance or embarrassment that arises ?from some kind of special relationship with the confessor. This might be blood rela-tionship.: for example, the confessor 'is one's son or brother. Or it might be a relationship of work: for example, the confessor and peni-tent are working intimately together day after day. Or it might be a 143 GERALD' KELLY Review for Religipus relati0nshipZwif I may use the term--of dislike., For instance, sup-pose that a certain priest clearly dislikes me and loses no opportunity of~showing it l~y bein~g rude,.ridiculing me, and so forth. It is easily seen that I might have a repugnance to confessing a serious sii~ that priest which would be entirely special, entirely different from the difficulty ndrmally experienced in confession. No one holds that these relationships always create "invincible repugnance." But many theologians believe that this psycho!ogical effect is experienced in some cases and,that in these cases there is truly extraordinary inconvenience which amounts to a moral impos-sibility of confessing to that priest. Hence,,the~r wo~Id say that such a priest were the only one ~vho could be reached, confession would be a practical impossibility. I am convinced that these theo-logians are c~orrect: and I believe that St., Thomas. Aquinas would agree with them, too. With reference to a similar question--the ne-cessity of making" the annual confession "to 6ne's own priest"-- St. Thomas recommended great liberality in alldwing people to to other confessors, "because," he said, "many are so weak that they would rather die without confession than confess .to that priest." (Suppl., q. 8, a. 5, ad. 6.) A few otheb cases generally cited by authors as constituting impossibility of confessing are these: the danger of scandalizing t, priest: the danger that confessional secrecy will be abused; the danger of revealing one's accomplice in a sin. Granted that such ~onditions existed, they would make confession morally'impossible: but I think their actual existence would be rare. 2. Communion Necessarg Because" of the variety of situations which mak~ confession moral impossibility, the first condition for the exception to the .of confession before Communion is not entirely uncommon. But second condition is also required--necessity of going to Communion --and this is seldom gerified. To illustrate this condition we might reconsider three of the cases previously mentioned. In the problem presented to Father O'Donnell the questioner apparently had no opportunity of going to confession. But his only reason for going to Communion was that" he "wanted to receive Our Blessed Lord the following morning." This desire, though it may be very strong and though it is very laudable, does not. make Com-munion a necessity. There is a necessity of going to Communion Ma~, 1953 CONFESSIO,N BEFORE COMMUNION' only when abstinence from Communion would be accompanied by' some very extraordinary incorivenience. Another case is that of the person who is. already kneeling at the Communion rail when he realizes that be should have gone to Con-fession. Clearly, as we pointed out, confession is now impossible. And if he could not leave the rail without exposing himself to suspi-cion, there would also be a necessity of communicating: that is, ab-stinence from Communion would be akcom13anied by the extraordi-nary inconvenience of danger to his reputation." Granted that this circumstance existed he could legitimately receive Communion after having made an act of perfect contrition. A third example was taken from Father Healy's Christian Guid-ance. Since Father Healy uses this particular example primarily to illustrate a necessity of communicating, it may be helpful to quote it in its entirety: "It has been the custom for some years, that the whole Baxter family receive Holy Communion on December 12, the day on which Mrs. Baxter died. Mr. Baxter had received Holy Communion the d~ay be, fore at the Sunday Mass and now he comes to church with his grown children. Unfortunately, he committed a serious sin ~he pre~ vious afternoon, and he i~ counting on going to confession before Mass. However, when' Baxter arrives he finds that Father Treacy, the only priest at this church, has already begun the prayers at ~he foot of the altar. Baxter cannot pretend that he violated the Eucha-ristic fast, for his children know that he did not. ' He cannot feign sickness, for he is obviously in the best of health. Unless he receives Holy Communion, his family will conclude that he is in the state of mortal sin." Father Healy comments: "Given these circumstances, Mr. Baxter may make an act of perfect contrition and licitly go to Holy Com-munion at this Mass." I believe that theologians would generally agree with this solutidn because the drcumstances all build up to an entirely exceptional situation--a situation which not only excludes the possibility of confession but also .makes abstinence from Com-munion a source of extraordinary inconvenience. And if the case were changed so that the children were young, instead of grown up, there might be the added factor of danger of bad example if the father were to abstain from Communion in the cir~umstances de-scribed. A case in which similar circumstances might prevail would be a wedding, when the bride and groom had planned on receiving GERALD KELLY ~ Review for Religious Co.mmunion together it the NuptialMass. It may be taken as a sound working 15rinciple that if abstinence from Communion would jeopardize one's reputation or give bad example, then Communion is necessary, in the sense of canon 856. But as I suggested,with reference to confession, it is easier to enunciate a principle like this thin to-judge its practical application. It is sometimes said, for instance, that these inconveniences are apt to ex-is't in a convent, or when Sisters go to Communion daily in the parish church, or when they receive Communion with the children on special occasions, such as the First Friday. We are dealing here with a question of fact, and I certainly would not want to be dogmatic m affirming or denying the existence of the conditions. If they exist, they constitute a necessity of communicating. But clearly the Church d6es not want them to exist; and there is no valid reason why they should exist, because occasional abstinence from Communion is cer-tainly not a ~ound basis for either suspicion or scandal. All theologians say that the mere desire to receive Communion does not rfiake Communion a riecessity. In other words, the sorrow felt by a devout person who is deprived of Communion is not an extraordinary inconvenience in the sense of canon 856. This is un-doubtedly true when the omission of Communion would be required foronly a day or two. But I think there is room for an easier judg-ment in the case of a devout daily communicant, e~pecially a reh-gious, who might have to omit Communion for a rather l~ong time. I am thinking 15art~cularly of an earnest religious who might very rarely commit a serious sin and who on one of these rare "occasions might be in circumstances in which confession would be impossible for a week or so. I believe that abstinence from Communion during all that time would constitute an e~traordinary hardship for such a religious a hardship of such an exceptional nature as to constitute a justification for receiving Holy Communion after regaining grace through perfect contrition. This case is admittedly rare; but it can happen, especially in some rural districts. Throughout this present section I have tried to~ stress two points: first, that the combination of circumstances demanded by the latter part of canon 856 ~should be seldom ~erified; and secondly, that it can be verified occasionally, even in the case of religious. But when-ever a religious finds that these exceptions are frequent, there is some-thing radically wrong a situation which should not exist andwhich must be corrected. In this regard, I should.like to refer to a question 146 ! May, 1953 ~ONFESSION BEFORE COMMUNION answered inan earlier number'of this REVIEW (V, 70-71) that con-cerned a young Sister with aproblem that called for frequent con-fession. She was in a islace where such frequent confession was prac-. tically impossible and she thought that "frequent abstaining from Communion. especially as this might often be for several days a~ a time, would enable others to suspect her trouble." I believe that the answer we published at that time bears repetition here! "It is not easy to answer a problem like this in a few words; but we can give a general idea of the points that must be considered. An occasional emergency when Communion is judged necessary and con-fession is impossible is understandable and might occur in the life of almost anyone. But a state of affairs that makes such emergencies more or less habitual ought to beremedied. Ii~ the case referred to in the question, the religitius should ask for a change of reside~ace that .would enable her to confess when necessary and to obtain competent dire. ction concerning her problem. If she cannot bring herself to ask for the change and is unabld to cle~ar up the problem, she ought seri-ously to consider whether she has the requisite qualities for leading the religious.life. Decisions like this ought to be made while religious are still young. If some problems are not faced, and settled in the early years of the religious life they can eventually reach a point where a satisfactory solution is practica'lly impossible." , The change of residence suggested in this answer can hardly be made jtidiciously unless thesuperior is given some information as to the nature of the problem. (Cf. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, VI, 242- 47.) Humility, therefore, is a requisite for the ~eligious: but need-less to say a religious who is unwilling to practice such humility when salvation itself might be concerned has lost his sense of values. On the other hand, the superior should be approachable, sympathetic, and very careful to observe, strict secrecy. IV, Precautt'ons to be taken to avoid the unnecessary use o[ excep-tions to the ordinary law o[ con[ession be[ore Communi, on and to guard against sacrilegious Communions. Under date of December 8, 193 8. the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments issued an instruction for local ordinaries and majo~ reli-gious superiors which called attention to the fact that frequency of Communion could le]d to diminished esteem, for the Blessed Sacra-ment and that reception in groups could lead to sacrilegious Com-munions. The purpose of the instruction was to outline a number of steps tobe taken to preclude these evils. There is a complete English 1417 GERALD KELLY version of this instruction in Canon Law Digest, II, 208.-15; an out-line in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, III, 268-270. In the same number of the REVIEW (pp. 252-67), is a commentary on the instruction by Father I~mile Bergh, S.2., together with some notes by the editors and some references to other commentaries. Since these various ref-erences cover the matter completely, I shall conclude the present article with only brief references to some of the main precautions. The first precaution is t~ give proper doctrinal and ascetical in-struction regarding the Holy Eucharist. This kind of instruction should engender a profound esteem for the Blessed Sacrament, a de-sire to communicate frequently arid worthily, and a wholesome abhorrence of sacrilege. Through such instruction one would see that daily Communion is a great privilege, but not a necessity Moreover, though Communion is not reserved to the saints, it does suppose a minimum disposition of freedom from mortal sin, and nothing justifies its conscious reception in this state. And although One need not have tl~e most perfect motive, such as disinterested love of God, one should have a supernatural .motive, such as the desire to avoid sin, preserve grace, grow in grace, and so on. Should instruction be given, not only about the necessityof re-gaining grace through confession, but also about the exception which permits .the reception of Communion with only an act of perfect cbn-trition? If one were to judge from some of the religious texts I have seen, one would conclude that the faithful are to be told only about the necessity of confession, and nothing about the exceptions men-tioned in canon 856. This does not seem ~air. If the faithful are obliged to keep a law, they are entitled to know what the law means, how seriously it obliges, and wh~t are at least the more common legitimate exceptions. I admit that this has to be adapted to the age of the people. Yet surely even a child can be taught that if he com'- mits a mortal sin he should go to confession before receiving Com-munion, but if he cannot avoid going to Communion and cannot get to confession, then he should make an act of perfect contrition before Communion. He migh~ also be told that if ever he should have to do this, it would be well for him to explain the case in the next confession and see.whether the confessor would want to 'give him some advi~ for the' future. A second precaution is to provide ample opportunity for confes-sion before Communion. For religious in particular this means safe-guarding the liberty of confession as granted in the canons: and for 148 May, 19~3 CONI~SSION BEFORE COMMUNION parishes, schools, institutions, and religious houses,, it means that whenever it is feasible a confessor-should be available before Mass. This latter provision should certainly be very helpful in larger con-vents, but I do not clearly see how it would be either convenient or effective in some very small convents. A third precaution is to avoid practices that make it difficult for individuals to abstain from Comfiaunion. It is ordinarily not pru-dent, for instance, for ateacher to say to a pupil, or a superior tb a subject: "What's the matter--are you ill? I noticed you didn't go-to Communion this morning." Also, if a "general" Communion is bad, it should be in such a way that no one feels obliged to go or tl~at no attention will be called to those who do not go. So, too, prizes are not to be given for frequent Communion, and contests that highlight ¯ the reception of Communion by individuals should not be had. As regards circumstances that make it difficult to abstain from Communion, the instruction, referring especially to the effect of these things on young people, said there should be "no rigid and quasi-military "or~ter in coming up, no insignia to be worn by those who receive Communion, etc." Some commentators have inferred from this that communities of religious women ought to abandon their custom of approaching the Communion rail in a certain order. Some have put this rather strongly, ~as if the instruction demanded it. One of the milder comments runs as follows: "It would certainly be praise-worthy and accord.in.g to the spirit of the Instruction if the rigid and almost sacrosanct order of aproaching, the communion rails (Mother Superior, the Assistant, the senior nuns, etc.) were abolished: in con-vents human respect may do more mischief than in men's communi-ties." No doubt, good might come from dropping the order of preced-ence; but I do not shar the great enthusiasm of some writers about its possible good effec.ts. For one thing,1 a large number of otir ~reli-gious are' in small communities, where abstaining from Communion wouldbe noticeable no matter what order or lack of order prevailed, And even as regards larger communities, I wonder how long it would take, after the prescribed order of precedence had been dropped, for the religious to establish their own order. Most. of us are confirmed routinists. Give a community .enough time--and I doubt whether much time would be requ.ired-v-and one would note that the same ones go to Communion first, the same ones go las~, and of course the" same ones are'in the middle. Perhaps I am wrong. But if I am 149 GERALD KELLY .right, then the best precaution is notin the "mechanics" of going Communion, but in the general cultivation of a mental attitude which allows everyone liberty of spirit, both in going to confession and in abstaining from Communion. NATIONAL EQUIVALENTS FOR."I0,000 GOLD FRANCS" According to the announcement of the Congregation of Religious (see p. 150) the official equivalents of l O,O00 gold francs or lire for the principal countries are North and Central America 5,000 American dollars Argentina 100,000 Argentine pesos Belgium 250,000 Belgian francs Brazil 150,000' Cruzeiros Canada 5,000 ~ Canadian dollars Colombia 15,000 Colombian pesos Egypt 2,000 Egyptian pounds France 2,000,000 Franch francs Germany 20,000 German marks Great Britain' 2,000 Pounds sterling India 25,000 Indian rupees Italy 3,000,000 Italian 1ire Netherlands 20,000 Dutch guilders Philippines 15,000 Philippine pesos Portugal 150,000 Portuguese escudos Spain 200,000 Spanish pesetas Switzerland 20,000 Swiss francs Turkey 20,000 Turkish life Uruguay 15,000 Uruguayan pesos Venezuel~ 15,000 Venezuelan bolivars Countries not listed above should take as their norm the value of a neighboring country which is found to be in analogous conditions. :PROCEEDINGS OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 'At the seventh annual convention of the Catholic Theological Society of Amen'- ca, which was held at Notre Dame, Indiana, 3une 23-25, 1952, the following sub-jects were presented: "On the Essence of the Sacrifice "of the Mass," by Emmanuel Doronzo, O.M,I.; "The Common Good and the Socio-Economic Order," by Ger-ald Kelly, S.3.; "The Problem of Theology for the Laity," by Charles E. Sheedy, C.S:C. : "The Physician's Duty to Preserve Life by Extraordinary Means," by ,John A. Goodwine; and "The Current Protestant Critique of Catholicism in the Umted States," by Msgr. Thomas 3. McCarthy. Copies of the Proceedings are available to clerical non-members at $2.00 per copy. Older from: P. O. Box 24, 3amaica N.Y. 150 The Mys!:ic l Pr yer ot: h' argaret: Mary . A. Herbst, S.3. ST. MARGARET M~RY is one of the great mystics, oi i'fiodern times. On the visions and the revelations she received from Qur Lord is based, historically speaking; Devotion to the Sacred Heart in its modern form. This article will try to illustrate each of the degrees of mystical prayer from her own life and. writings. It should be noted that it is not easy to do this in such a precise manner that the quotation might not also apply to the other degrees. Let me preface a few remarks. ,In the first place, we ought not look askance at, be suspicious of. or afraid of the mystics.There really is nothing wrong with them nor with mysticism.'. Those who are humble and obedient, and keep in touch with their spiritual director need have no fear of becoming_psychopathic or of being deceived by the devil. Secondly, visions, levitation, and the like are merely acci-dental phenomena of the mystical life. They are not at all necessary to a life of infused prayer. Thirdly,, one who has lived a fervent re-ligious life for a.period of years ought to be ready for infused or mys-tical contemplation if God chboses to raise him to it. It is the "logi-cal," but not the necessary, sequence of acquired contemplation. Father Poulain, the author of the well-known work, The Graces of Interior Pra~ler, defines infused contemplation: "Those supe~- natural: acts or states which no effort or labour on our. part can suc-ceed in producing, even in the'slightest degree or for a single inst~lnt, are called mystical." They are.infused, poured into the soul as a pure gift of God, without our being able to attain them by our own efforts. 'This .is higher, ex, traordinary contemplation. We cannot soar to'these heights without the wi,ngs God furnishes. He determines when, how, and for how long it is to be given. It is passive prayer: the soul no longer takes the initiative, but God fastens its attention lovingly onHimselfl The s0ul is not idle though. It is intensely active under the operation of grace. It is a special kind of knowledge of God which lies somewhere between the knowledge of faith and the b~atific vision and shares in faith's obscurity. It really baffles descrip-tion and has in it mysterious suffering and intense happiness. It is an intellectual experimental knowledge of God. 151 C A HERBST Reotew for Rehg~ous St. Margaret Mary describes it: "I felt Him always near me, as one feels himself near another at night but cannot see him because of the darkness. The pdnetrating eyes of love make me see and feel Him in a most loving and certain way, and under various aspects . .This infinite grandeur encompasses me with its power and so takes posses-sion of mine and of my whole body and soul that I think I can say that I no longer have any power over myself." (Letter 1~3.~) The first degree or state of the mystical union is the Prayer of Quiet. Here God takes over the higher faculties of the soul, the will and the understanding, but leaves the imagination and the exterior senses free. Therefore there can be distractions. The soul experiences God's presence and reposes joyously in it, but only f.or very brief pe-riods of time. As an initial stage of this prayer of quiet there is the First Night of the Soul, or Night of Sense. In this the one domi-nating thought or idea of the prayer of simplicity is intensified, there is habitual aridity and a great, anxious y~arning for God. The dis-taste for things of sense grows and God works gently and almost un-noticed on the soul in a special way. A characteristic of this Night is inability to follow set forms of prayer. St. Margaret Mary says: "I did my utmost to follow the method of pray, er and other practices which were taught me, but I was not able to retain anything. It was in vain that I read my points of meditation, for all variished from my mind, and I could neither learn nor retain anything except what my Divine Master taught me." (Autobiography, No. 47.) The second degree of mystical prayer is the Prayer of Full Union. Now God takes over not only the will and the intellect but also the imagination and interior senses. Therefore there are no more dis-tractions. The soul is fully occupied with God. St. Margaret Mary describes it well when she says that God "presented Himself to me in the mystery in which He desired me to consider Him, applied my mind so closely to it, and kept my soul and all my powers so ab-sorbed in Him that I felt no distraction . . . being then so absorbed in prayer that I never felt weary" (Ibid., No, 12). , Any doubts or fears of being deceived are gone now. God's presence is ?xperienced "in a manner so real and sensible as to be beyond all doubt, by reason of the.effects which this favour produced in me, fearful, as I always am, of deceiving myself, in anything that I say of what passes in me" (Ibid., No. 53). .In this degree there is "profound peace, joy, and satis{action" (Letter 133). It is sometimes called the semi-ecstatic union. The exterior senses continue to act and one can, therefore, 152 Ma~ , 1953 PRAYER OF MARGARET MARY though with great effort, cease from prayer. Th third state of infused contemplation is the Ecstatic Union or Spiritual Espousals. Now not only the interior faculties are absorbed in God but the activity even of the exterior senses is suspended. .The whole person, body and soul, is taken over by God. The body be-comes fixed and rigid as though dead. ,Communication with the ex-terior world is all but severed. The power of voluntary movement ¯ is gone. One cannot emerge from this state at will, but only when God determines or at the command of a superior. Since St. Margaret Mary was a great ecstatic, she can describe this state for us. "I felt myself wholly penetrated with the Divine Pres-ence, but to such a degree that I lost all thought of myself and of the place where I was, and abandoned myself to this Divine Spirit, yielding up my heart to the power of His love" (Ai~tobiography, No. 53). "On orie occasion . . . feeling wholly withdrawn within myself by an extraordinary recollection of all my senses and powers, Jesus Christ, my sweet Master, presented Himself to me" (Ibid,, No. 55). "After such a signal favour which lasted for a long time, I remained for several days,.as it were, on fire and inebriated (with divine love) and so completely out of myself, that I had to do my-self violence in order to utter a single word" (Ibid., No. 54). "I lost all cor;sciousness during that time and I no longer knew where I was. When they came to withdraw me, seeing that I could make no reply, nor even stand except with great difficulty, they led me to Out Mother. On seeing me thus, as it were, completely beside myself, all burning and trembling on my knees before her, she mortified me to the utmost of her power, which pleased me and filled me with incred-ible joy" (Ibid., No. 58). Let it be remarked that the Pray.er of Quiet, the Prayer of Full Union, and the Prayer of Ecstatic Union are but three degrees of the specifically same grace of supernatural prayer. In the Prayer of Quiet the .union is incomplete, weak, doubted, obscure. Inthe Prayer of Full Union there are no distractions and the whole interior is taken up with God. In the Prayer of Ecstatic Union even the exterior man, the senses, are captured and absorbed in God. These are three degrees of infused contemplation: weak, medium, energetic. The transitions b.~tween them are imperceptible, much like the colors in the rainbow. It is different with the fourth and highest degree of infused prayer, the Transforming Union or Mystical Marriage. This differs 153 C. A. HERBST Reoieto for Religious specifically, not merely intensively, from the other three. Before entering it the soul must go through the Second Night, or the Night of the Spirit. ' Since mystical marriage is permanent whereas the th~ree preceding stages are transient, thesoul must be profoundly and ~adi- . tally purified from all its habitual, and actual imperfections. The poor, weak soul is dazed and pained by the bright light of God much ag the eyes of the body are by looking into the sun. Green wood must be dried out and blackened by fire before it itself will become inflamed. The sufferings of this Night are terrible. St. Margaret Mary says: "His sanctity is in~xorabl~, and it seems to me there is no suffering more exquisite than that through which He makes a soul pass when'He wants to purify it in order'to corn-, muica.te'Himself to it" (Letter 132). Yet the soul is not disturbed and is perfectly conformed to God's will. ""Yet I suffer all this with perfect serenity, content to cling to His holy will. If only He is con-tent I am satisfied" (Letter 135). The mind and will, the whole soul, even the body, is in anguish. "My whole being, body and soul, is plunged jn suffering., desiring only what is pleasing to my Sovereign Who is sacrificing me, before Whom I am a sighing victim immolated to divine justice" (lbid). But the soul has a great Sense of security. "I sometimes think that all hell is let loose against me to annihilate me, so fiercely am I attacked on all sides. But I am not afraid, deeply intrenched as I am within my strong fortress which is the divine Heart of my divine Master" (Letter 136). The soul is strong, too, and all aflame with the love of the Divine Spouse. But to return to the Transforming Union. Being a mystical marriage, it is most intimate. "I felt myself .wholly penetrated w~th that Divine Presence, but to such a degree that I 'lost all thought of myself and of the piace where I"was, and abandoned myself to this , Divine Spirit, yielding up my heart to the power of His love. Her made me repose for a long time upon His Sacred ~Breast, where He' disclosed to me the marvels of His love and tbe inexplicable secrets of His Sacred Heart, which so far He had concealed from me." (Auto-, bioqrapby, No. 67). The soul is serene in its perfect enjoyment of, God. "My heart is so centered there that it finds repose only if it can enjo, y Him continually: [ was made just for that" (Letter 133). .And, like marriage, this union is indissolul~ie. "And when you com-mit some fault, I shall purge it away with suffering if you do not do 'it yourself with penance. I shall never.deprive you of My presence on that account, but I will make it so painful for you that it will, M~, 1953 take the place of every other torment" (Ibid.). These are the char-acteristics which put thi~ highest degree of infused contemplation in a class by itself. Habitual imaginative visions of Christ may occur in this state. St. Margaret Mary narrates one. "Feeling wholly withdrawn within myself by an extraordinary recollection of all my senses and powers, Jesus Christ, my sweet Master. presented Himself to me. all resplend-ent with glory, His Five 'Wounds shining like so many suns. Flames issued from every part of His Sacred Humanity especially from His Adorable Bosom. which resembled an open furnace and disclosed to me His most loving and most amiable Hefirt, which was the living . source of these flames. It was then that He made known to me the ineffable marvels of His pure (love) and sho(ved me to what an ex-cess He had loved men." (Autobiographg, No. 55.) Visions'of the Blessed Tr.inity are in place here, too. "The Three Persons of the Adorable Trinity presented themselves to me and filled my soul'with inexpressible'consolation. But I cannot well explain what then occurred, except that it seemed to me the Eternal Father presented, me with a very heavy cross beset with thorns and sur-' rounded with various instruments of the Passion and said to me: 'See, My daughter, I make thee the same present which I made to My Beloved Son.' 'And I,' said Our Lord Jesus Christ, 'will fasten thee to the crbss as I Myself was fastened to it and will bear thee faithful company.' The Third Adorable Person then said that, being Love Itself. He would purify and consume me thereon. My soul was filled with unutterable peace and joy, and the impression made upon it by the Divine Persons has never been effaced." (Ibid., No. 59.) This highest form of prayer here on earth brings with it an in-satiable thirst for suffering. St. Margaret Mary had this, too. "I will only sa~; that it has given me such an intense love of the cross that I cannot .live a moment without suffering, but suffering in si-lence, without consolation, alleviation or compassion, and in fine dying with the Sovereign of my soul, overwhelmed .by the cross of every kind of opprobrium, of sorrow and of humiliation, forgotten and despised by all." (Ibid., No. 50.) To sum up. After purifying the soul b~r habitual aridity and an anxious yearning for ,God in the Night of Sense, God takes over the highest part and makes it repose joyously' in Himself in the Prayer of Quiet. In Full Union the imagination and interior senses are also 155 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS l~eotew ~or l~eltgtous taken so that ~here are no more distractions and the soul is fully oc-cupied qcith Him. In E.cstatic, Uriion the outer senses, too, are wrapt in God, and the whole person, body and soul, is united with Him Finally comes the indissoluble bond of Mystical Marriage, in wh,ch the soul enjoys the mbst intimate union with God possible in this life, a foretaste of the beatific vision. II In an institute in which the. novitiateiasts for two years~ may the first profession be made on the recurring date (two years later) of admission to the novitiate, or must it be postponed for an additional ,day7 For example, a novice is admitted to the novitiate on August 15, 19S3. May he /hake his profession on Au~cjust IS, 19SS, or must he wait till August 16, 19S57 I understand that if there were question of a one-year novlt[ate, profession could not be made till the lapse of one year plus one day. If the same rule does ;not hold in the case "of the two-year novitiate mentioned above, what is the reason for the discrepancy7 A general rule is that the provi.gions of the constitutions are to be observed. Sometimes a provision touches upon the validity of an action. If the constitutions explicitly require two complete years of now-tiate for t~alidit~, then such provisiqn 'would have to be observed for the validity of subsequent profession. In that case, if the novitiate is begun on August 15, 1953, first vows could not be taken until Au-gust 16, 1955. The reason is that entrance to the novitiate is not made at midnight. Consequently, according to canon 34, § 3, 3% since the day of entrance is not counted, the two years of novitiate .would be completed (provided there had been~no canonical inter-ru]~ tion nor suspension of the novitiate) only at midnight between August 15 and 16, 1955. Hence first vows could not be taken until the day following the anniversary date of entrance to the novitiate. Aside from such particular law, the common law as expressed m canon 555, § 1, 2° of the Code, requires only one complete, unin-terrupted year of novitiate for validity. ,Just as in the supposition above, first profession therefore cannot be made onthe anniversary of entrance to the novitiate, but the novice midst wait until the follow-ing day, under pain of an invalid profession. 156 Ma~, 1953 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS If the constitutions of an in~stitute prescribe more than one year of novitiate, the extra time is notrequired for the validity of the pro-fession, unless the constitutions expressly declare otherwise (canon 555, § 2). The added time (in Our case, one year) would be for licitness but not for validity of subsequent profession. Custom and superidrs then would' be the best interpreters of the requirements of the constitutions on the point of whether first profession is to be made on the recurring second anniversary of entrance to the novitiate or not until the following day. In either event in this last supposi-tiom neither ~ractice would affect the validity of the profession. This explains why first profession after a two-yea,r novitiate often'might be made on the anniversary of reception into the noviti-ate, while it cannot be made thus after a one-year novitiate. --12m Some religious are of the ol~inlon that certain community prayers, such as the rosary, meditation, and the like, are to be interrupted to say the Angelus as soon as the Angelus bell is rung. Must this be done, or would not the mere recitation of the Angelus prayers three times a day suffice to gain the indulgences? The 1952 edition of the official collection of indulgences, the Enchicidion Indulgentiarum: Preces et Pia Opera, states that the faithful may gain the indulgepces attached to the .recitation of 'the Angelus if 'they recite the prayers at dawn, at noo~n, anal at eventide, or" as soon after these times as they can (no. 331). It is not necessary to~interrupt the rosary, meditation, and the like, in order to say the Angelus as soon as the bell is rung. Is it proper to seat the st,',dents at Mass according to whether they will receive Holy Communion or not? It has been the practice to designate certain sections for those who are going to. Holy Communion and other sections for those who are not. Thereason for such procedure is to obtain order. In its reserved Instruction on precautions to be taken against abuses in the daily reception of Holy Communion (the complete English text is in the Canon Law Digest, .II, pages 208-215), the Sacre~d Congregation of the Sacraments in 1938 remarked that "the danger ofreceiving Communion unworthily.is increased when the faithful, especially the young, approach the Holy Table; not singly but generally and in a body a.s. .happens.frequently 157 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Reuteto [or 'Rehgto,,s in colleges and institutions for the training and education of Chris-tian youth." (Canon Law Digest, II. 209). Again, "When Holy Communion is being received, all those things are to be avoided which create greater difficulty for a young person who wishes to abstain from Holy Communion, but in such a way that his absti-nence will not be noticed: hence there should be no express invita-tion, no rigid and quasi-military order in coming.up, no insignia to be worn by those who'receive Communi6n, etc." (ibid., 214). The observance of order is, of course, a worthy motive. How-ever, the purpose of the Sacred Congregation, as manifested in its Instruction, is to safeguard the worthy reception of Holy Commun-ion by discouraging anything which would make communicants con-spicuous. Seating communicants in a special place makes them con-spicuous. ml4-- "The Mother General holds the first place in all the houses of the Community. Then follow the Members of the Council in the order of their election; ~hen the Secretary General, unless she is a member of the Coun-cil, and the Adminlstratrix General, in the Motherhouse: in other houses these latter take their rank after the Superior ,of the house." What is meant by these latter? Does it refer to the last two Offices mentioned, or does it refer to the Council Members also? Ira Council Member visits one of the houses where the Sisters are stationed, does she take .precedence over th'e Local Superior who is only an appointed person while the Council 'l~lember was elected? In part canon 106 says that: 1. One who represents another enjoys the precedence that per.son has. But anyone who is in a council or similar me~ting as a proxy yields precedence to those of thesame rank wh~ are personally present. , 2. A person who has authority over other physical or moral persons has right of precedence over them. These are general norms. The highest superior of the institute, therefore, always and everywhere has precedence over all his subjects If someone represents him, that person likewise enjoys the precedence of the superior represented. Provincial and local superiors have pre-cedence in their territory or houses, unless a higher superior or h~s proxy is present. In regard to other officials, there is great divergence among different religious,institutes. "In ~ach case the constitutions or else legitimate custom will have to be considered. 158 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS In our specific case, the general councillors are being considered in their proper role, and not as proxies. Do the constitutions give them precedence over local superiors in the latters' houses?' It is not clear that.they do, since the ouestioned words these latter might be inter-preted as ~ivin~ or denying such precedence. (As a matter of fact, in some institutes b~r a clear provision of the constitutions general coun-cillors have such precedence, especially in more recent congregations; in others they do, not.) Since the constitutions do not seem t6 settle the matter clearly, the solution would be sought in legitimate cus-. tom, which in this case~ would mean the way in which the,disputed phrase of the constitutions has been habitually interpreted, If 'no such consistent interpretation exists, it seems that the" words these latter refer to the secretary general and theadministratrix general, so that councillors general would take precgdence over local superiors even in the farters' own hoi~ses. ! Is it absolutely necessary that the entlre'concjrecjatlon turn and face each station of the cross in order to obtain all of the indulcjences attached to that pious exercise? Ordinarily a person making the stations of the cross must movg from station to station ai part of the requirement for gaining the in-dulgences attached to that exercise. When t.here is question of a large group of people, however, confusion or disorder might result from so many moving about. The Sacred Congregation of Indulgences on August 6, 1757, decided that in that case the method proposed by St. Leonard of Port Mafirice for making the stations is to be used. According to this method the people remain'in their places, while a priest.with two acoly'tes moves from station to station, stopping ~it each to recite the customary prayers to which the faithful reply. This decree was reaffirmed in a response from the Sacred Penitentiary, March 20, 1946.(A.A.S., XXXVHI [1946], 160). In connection with the foregoi.ng method of making the stations, the Subsecretary for the Section on Indulgences in the Sacred Peni-tentiary, Serafino de Angelis, in his book De lndulgentiis (1946): n. 341 b, remarks that the' people are to be advised, while remaining in their places, to face each station, rise, genuflect, and recite the pray-ers. From this one would conclude that, when the way of the cross is being made according to the method of St. Leonard of Port Mau-rice, it is not absolutely necessary for the.entire congregation to face each station in order to gain thedndulgences. 159 . QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS The use o~ St. Leonard's method has b~en extended by several official pronouncements (one of these: the reply of the Sacred Peni-tentiary mentioned above) to the members of religious institutes in like circumstances in their chapels. In such circumstances only'one religious, man or woman as the case may be, moves from station to station. By its response of March '20, 1946, the Sacred Peniten-tiary recognized this method also for use in boarding schools and the Will you kindly tell me how many votes constitute an "absolute major-ity" in a house of thirteen vocals7 Also how many votes constitute a "rda-tlve majority" in the same house? When there are thirteen valid votes, seven of them constitute an absolute majority, since such a majority is effected by any number exceeding one half the number of valid votes. A relative majority is had by a candidate who receives more vahd votes than any other candidate, but less than all the others taken to-gether. Thus in our case if three'candidates received respectively six, four, and three votes, the candidate with the six votes would have a relative majority over the other two candidates. What five scapulars comprise thefivefold scapular? The following scapulars are popularly known as the "fivefold scapular" or the "five scapulars." 1) The brown scapular of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel: proper to the Carmehtes, the best known of all the scapulars. 2) The wfiite scapular (with a blue and red cross) of the Most Holy Trinity: proper to the order of Trinitarians. 3) The red scapular of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ: pr6per to the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists) 4) The black scapular of the Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary: proper to the order of the Servites of Mary. 5) The blue scapular of the Immaculat~ Conception: proper to the order of Cler,cs Regular (Theatines). HOSPITAL CONFESSION CARD A plastic-coated Confessio'n Card for the sick, with prayers before and after ,I confession, has been designed by the Rev. Thomas Sullivan, C.S.V., chaplain of St. Luke's Hospital, Aberdeen, South Dakota. It is similar in size and design to the Communion Card (REVIEW, Sept., 1952, p." 248) by the same author, now m use in more than 250 hospitals. Both cards bear the i.mprimatur of Bishop liam O. Brady of Sioux Falls. Each sells at 20 cents and may be ordered from the Presentation Sisters, Aberdeen, South Dakota. 160 Book "Reviews THE SACRED CANONS. By John A. Abbo, S.T.L., J.C.D., and Jerome D. Hannan, A.M., LL.B., S.T.D., J.C.D. Pages in Volumes: I, xxll -k 871~ II, 936. B. Herder Book Company, Sf. Louis, 19S2. Two-volume set, $19.00. "Amon~ other objectives, the work, was begun to answer in some degreeothe spontaneous demand for a better knowledge of ecclesiastical law that has arisen in English-speaking countries among religious who are not clerics and among laymen, especially in the professions.'.' It is from this standpoint that this book is reviewed. After a brief his-torical introdtictioh the learned authors give a statement of the law as contained in the canons of the Code, together with a running commentary. The order of treatment and the division~ of the work are identical with that of the Latin Code, and the numbers of the canons are used instead of paragraph numbers. In the distribution of the matter the authors have made their book especially .useful to non-clerical religious and to the laity. Of the 1800 pages of text con-rained in the two volumes, over 1500 are devoted to the commentary on the three first books of the Code of Canon Law, whereas books four and five of the Code, which are of lesser interest to non-clerical readers~ are taken care of in little more than one hundred pages. Of particular importance is the treatment given tothe seven sac-rament~, which is usually omitted in whole or in part in treatises on Canon Law and transferred to the writers on Moral Theology. 209 pages are devoted to the canons dealing with "Religious" and will" be of great use for religious Brothers and Sisters. All the latest decrees of the Holy See are reported, and there are numerous references to American civil law/especially in the titles concerning church property, An index with over 4500 references, which makes it easy for the reader to find any particular subject, concludes the work. The publisl~ers plan "to keep this commentary up to date by adding, at each reprinting, a supplement containing decisions of the Holy See issued subsequent to the first edition, and these will be available' to purchasers of earlier printings at a nominal cost. The only defect in the book is the lack of a table of contents. While the clerical reader~ will easily follow the canon numbers with which he is familiar from the Latin Code, ,the non-clerical reader has no way of getting a bird's-.eye view of the entire field in order to b~- 161 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS ' Re~Jieto fbr Religiou~ come acquainted with it, so that he may choose certain parts for reading and study. Su~ch a table of contents should be added to the next printing, and copies made available to all purchasers of this first edition. , We recommend this book to all religious---especially to religious Brothers and Sisters who will find it a great help in solving personal problems as religious, as well as a source of information in preparing classes in. religion and church history. Not only higher superiors, but every religious communify should have a copy of it. --ADAM C. ELLIS, S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS [For the most part. these notices are purely descriptive, based on a cursory examina-tion of the books listed.] BENZIGER BROTHERS, INC., 6-8 Barclay St., NewYork 8, N.Y. The Burning Flame. By Francis Beauchesne Thornton. The story of Guiseppe Sarto, the peasant boy who became the saintly Pope Plus X, told in popular style by Father Thornton, an associate editor of the Catholic Digest. " Pp. 216. $3.00. BRUCE PUBLISHING CO., 400 N. Broadway, Milwaukee 1, Wisc Dear 8istec. By Catherine de Hueck, Brief letters to help Sisters train lay leaders. PI~. 80. $2.00. BIBLIOTHEQUE DU SCHOLASTICAT, L'Immacul&-Conception, 1855,, rue Rachel Est, Montreal .34, Canada. La Virginitd Chrdtienne. ~ By Francois Bourassa, S.J. A full treatment of the subject of Christian virginity, showing its oppor-tunities for full ahd harm6nious development of persgnal perfection. Pp. 174. $1.25. CATECHETICAL GUILD, St. Paul 1; Minnesota. Pocket book editions of You Can Change the Worl

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

MAY, 1901 o oTheo o Qettysbur Mercury VOL. NO PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE GETTYSBURG,PA PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. Amos Eckert Dealer in Hats, Shirts, Ties, Um-brellas, Gloves, Satchels, Hose, Pocket Books,J-Trunks, J>J> Telescopes, Rubbers, Etc., Etc. AMOS ECKERT. PRICES ALWAYS RIGHT. TUB Llltta No. 1424 Arch Street, PHILADELPHIA, PA. Acknowledged Headquarters for Any-thing and Everything- in the way of Books for Churches, Families, Colleges and Schools, and Literature for Sunday Schools. PLEASE REMEMBER That by sending- your orders to us you help build up* and develop one of the church institutions, with pecuniary ad-vantage to yourself. Address HENRY S. BONER, Supt., No. 1424 Arch St. Phila. 50 YEARS' EXPERIENCE TRADE MARKS DESIGNS COPYRIGHTS &C. Anyone sending a sketch mid description mnv quickly ascertain our opinion free whether ah invention is probably pulentable. Communica-tions strictly confidential. Handbook on Patents sent free. Oldest apency for securing patents. Patents taken throuph Munn & Co. receive special notice, without charge, in the Scientific American, A handsomely illustrated weekly. Largest olr-culationof any scientific journal. Terms, $3 a year; four months, $1. Sold by all newsdealers. MUNN & Co.36lB">adwa>- New York Branch Office, 626 F St., Washington, D. C. J. I. MUMPER, PHOTOGRAPHER, 29 Baltimore Street, Gettysburg, Pa. Special attention paid to COLLEGE WOKE A fine collection of Battlefield Views always on hand. Mail orders receive prompt at-tention. C. A. Blocher's Jewelry Store, For Souvenir Spoons, Sword Pins, Etc. All kinds of Jewelry. Repairing a Specialty POST OFFICE CORNER CENTRE SQUARE THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY The Literary Journal of Pennsylvania College Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter VOL. X GETTYSBURG, PA., MAY, 1901 No. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS The Social Qualities of Robert Burns as Manifested in His Poems, 70 The Cultivation of Patriotism, . 77 Superlatives, . 80 Perseverance, . 82 A Dutch Schoolmaster's Adventure, . . . . .84 Editorials, . 88 An Old Reader, . 90 Pictures, . 91 Spontaneity in Literature, . . . . . .93 In Nature's Realm, . 96 A Country Barn on a Rainy Day, . . - . 97 All Souls Day, . 98 Exchanges, . 100 Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth, and youth, and warm desire; Woods and groves are of thy dressing; Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing! Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee, and wish thee long. -Milton. Through wood, and stream, and field, and hill, and Ocean, A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst As it has ever done, with change and motion, Prom the great morning of the world when first God dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light; All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst; Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. -Shelley. 70 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY THE SOCIAL QUALITIES Of ROBERT BURNS AS MANIFESTED IN MIS POEMS D. C. BURNITE, '01 [Graeff Prize Essay] A CAREFUL comparison of the lives of poets, with their pro- ■*"*• auctions, discloses this fact, that almost universally there exists more or less inconsistency betiveen their true characters and the characters which their poems would lead us to believe they really possessed. In some cases the former belie the latter completely. In others, the works are in a large measure faithful transcripts of the men. Great uncertainty would attend an at-tempt to paint pictures of the natures of many poets were we to use as materials only the evidence drawn from their productions. Recurring bombast and affectation preclude any possibility of using their poems, with any great amount of reliability, as stand-ards by which to judge their real characters. Not so, however, with all poets. Here and there in the field of our inspection appears a bard, whose writings are a faithful reflection of his real nature. But before we can be sure that this is true of any poet, we must be certain that he is thoroughly sin-cere. So, before we can proceed to show that the qualities indi-cated in the poems of Burns are revelations of his actual personal characteristics, we must prove his sincerity. And we do this, not by a comparison of his verses with his biography, but by testi-mony drawn from the poems themselves, apart from all historical evidence. Men who talk much of themselves, as Burns does, are not gen-erally prone to admit their own shortcomings. But this poet, contrary to general practice, makes no attempt to present only the good side of his character. Frequently he gives us glimpses of his own weaknesses; not a shameless exhibition of guile, but always with expressions of sorrow and remorse. Never hidden, always open, he bares his whole heart, and shows himself as he is. He seems anxious to have us see him in a true light. How frankly and clearly he reveals his true self when he proposes "A Bard's Epitaph" for his own tomb. Read his condemnation of his own self: . THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 71 " Is there a man whose judgment clear, Can others teach the course to steer, Yet runs, himself, life's mad career, "Wild as the wave; Here pause—and thro' the starting tear Survey this grave. " The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn and wise to know, And keenly felt the friendly glow, And softer flame; But thoughtless follies laid him low, And stain'd his name !" Can we read this and believe that Burns was not sincere ? But there are other evidences of his genuineness. Affectation and sincerity are incompatible. But, no matter how closely we scrutinize his lines, we find no indications of the former in Burns' works He must have been a lover of the truth, for he never descends to the expression of feigned emotions. His pictures are real; all are undoubtedly the products of his own experience. Of his hundreds of poems, with one or two exceptions, none are the offspring of imagination. All he presents he himself has seen and felt. We see no indications of anything assumed about his addresses "To a Mouse" and "To a Mountain Daisy." Neither is there anything false or overdrawn in his descriptions. Per-fectly natural himself, he presents things as they are. Nothing could be written with much more fidelity to life than his "Cotter's Saturday Night." Without his characteristic straightforward-ness such complete depiction of Scottish peasant life would have been impossible. All his poems manifest in the man a spirit of genuineness and deep sincerity. With this conviction, then, that Burns wrote exactly as he saw, thought, and felt, we can be certain that the social qualities which his poems suggest are identical with those he really pos-sessed. Our investigation, then, involves an answer to the question, What social qualities do Burns' poems make us think he pos-sessed ? With this answered, we then know, with some measure of accuracy, what Burns himself was socially—what it was that, in all probability, must have rendered him an ever-welcome guest both in the humble homes of the Scottish peasantry and in the mansions of the gentry. But in order that we may be competent judges as to what features in his social nature were attractive and 72 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY what were not, we must make allowance for the differences in time, place, and circumstances, and view the matter, not from oicr point of view, but from the standpoint of his Scottish contempo-raries. Only then can we avoid the danger of an over or an under estimation of the man's social constitution. We have already spoken of what we regard as the crowning social virtue of any man—sincerity. "L,et a man but speak forth with genuine earnestness the thought, the emotion, the actual condition of his own heart, and other men must and will give heed to him."* Burns, as we have stated, does this. We here have a certain quality which would of itself draw men to its possessor. A writer whose poetic works are imbued throughout with the truth must himself have been sincere. Burns must have attracted his fellows because of this one social quality, if for nothing else. The whole world loves a patriot. Even those of other nations than his own admire him; but especially his own countrymen. Burns' poems indicate the presence of patriotism in the heart of their author. Compare his stanzas with those of former Scottish bards, and what do we find ? The subjects of their themes are foreign, and they even scout their own native dialect. The poeti-cal works of Burns are the initial achievement of a new era in his nation's literature. He is the first to give out a body of dis-tinctively Scottish poetry. He saw no need to step beyond the borders of his own laud for things of which to sing. He writes of things, not English, or Irish, or Continental, but of things Scottish—thoroughly so, from his country's ' 'braes'' to her moun-tains, from her field-mice to her horses, from her beggars to her kings, from her daisies to her trees, from her " burns" to her rivers; all of his own "bonnie laud." Nor does he hesitate to take the initiative of using the language of his fireside; not, however, because he was unable to write in pure English. Some of his poems show that he could. But he prefers his native tongue, and seems to delight in the use of its quaint expressions. He appears proud of his dialect, and all he describes with it. In almost every poem there breathes the true spirit of patriotism, a quality which we believe helped to make his society desirable. What Scotchman could have avoided a feeling of attraction to the "loyal native" who wrote such things * ♦Carlyle. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 73 .'* ' j as "My Heart's in the Highlands" or "Scots wha hae wi' Wal-lace bled?" Another social characteristic is revealed in his verses; a trait indispensable to gaining the good-will of the Scottish peasantry. How generously he applies himself to the faithful interpretation of the thoughts, feelings and manners of that class amongst whom he was reared ! His poetry teems with this natural sympathy for the lowly inhabitant of the thatched cottage. His were the first Scottish poems to show it, and from it we can be sure that the man himself thoroughly loved the humble people of whom he writes. How nobly he exalts their simple lot in the words he puts into the mouth of Luath, "the ploughman's collie" in "The Twa Dogs." In the "Cotter's Saturday Night" he brings to the notice of the humble bread-winners, not the ills, but the blessings of their toilsome lives. He would make them proud of their station and their labor. He appears at all points to have been a thorough democrat, and evidently was in close touch with the lives of the poorest people. It is such qualities as these that hold men in social esteem, with thehighas well as the low. A highly sympathetic nature was a social trait which undoubtedly helped to make Burns popular. Cheerfulness is a prime essential to social success. A glance convinces us that the man who wrote these poems surely had this attribute. Such a one must have cheered the lives and bright-ened the very faces of those with whom he came in contact. At every turn we meet his genial poetic laughter. And this, too, in the same poems in which he tells of his own misfortunes. To be happy in adversity; what an enviable trait! And if he could shake off his coil of pitiful thought and recognize the good things in his own life, he surely would shed some beams of happiness on the lives of those about him. All his songs attest this quality. "When at his best, you seem to hear the whole song warbling through his spirit, naturally as a bird's."* Note it in this stanza: "Ye banks land braes o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary, fu' o' care?" A vein of humor makes its possessor welcome. "I,augh, and the world will laugh with you." Doubtless Burns' little world "Jeffrey. 74 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY enjoyed many a laugh with him. For some of his poems fairly bubble with humor. And the author of these must have exhibited a like trait when he spoke, as well as when he wrote. We realize this when we "Remember Tarn O'Shauter's Mare;" or read the following from "Death and Dr. Hornbook": "The Clachan yill had made me canty, I was nae fou, but just had plenty; I stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent ay To free the ditches; An' hillocks, stanes, an' bushes, kenn'd ay Frae ghaists and witches. "The rising- moon began to glow'r The distant Cumuock hills out owre; To count her horns wi' a' my pow'r, I set mysel'; But whether she had three or four, I could na tell." These and many other poems, manifest in Burns himself a spirit of jocularity which, we believe, heightened the attractive-ness of his nature wherever he went. That a man was a friend of "John Barleycorn" was no social defect in Burns' day. And he'seems, from his poems, to have been a participant in "those convivial enjoyments which were not only counted excusable by the temper of the time, but gloried in by all whose heads were strong enough to indulge in them without ruin."* In fact, as a "total, abstainer" Burns' social career would likely have been curtailed. It is perfectly natural, therefore, that he gives drink and drinking a very prominent place in his verses. And the fact that he does so leads us to conclude that he was a not infrequent participant in the then prevalent jolly tavern carouses. Many evidences in his poems manifest his inclination toward convivial enjoyments of a more healthy character. He seems to have had a fondness for other gatherings than those where the consumption of "usquebae" was the central feature. We refer to such social functions as he speaks of in his "Hallow E'en." He evinces perfect familiarity with the jolly practices of that mysterious night, as he describes the mirthful sports of the country "lads and lasses." In fact, his frequent description of J *Blackwood'6. Feb., 1872. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 75 such scenes convinces us that he must have been an important member of the peasant society of his locality. But we see evidences that he would also make a valuable ad-dition to a higher plane of society than that of his own country-side. The mere fact that he was able to produce such remarkable verses is enough to show that he was fitted to move on a higher level than that of the peasant class. We can treat only briefly of a few of the many manifest traits which, besides those already cited, would make him a social attraction in the hall as well as in the hut. It is hard to prove conclusively from his poems that Burns was a good conversationalist. But we think there are indications that warrant us in believing that he was. The ease with which we understand the thoughts he wishes to convey in his lines, i. e., his extreme simplicity, together with his vivacity of expression and his powers of vivid description, lead us to think that he was a good talker. Nor would such a writer be at a loss for topics for conversation. He seems perfectly familiar with the full details of an immense variety of topics. Burns undoubtedly was at perfect ease in conversation. A keen insight into human nature, as we see it in his verses, would enable him to throw himself quickly into close sympathy with new associates; an almost invaluable social quality. His oft-appearing spirit of independence would gain him respect. The thoughtful tenderness he exhibits, not only for his fellow-men, but for beasts and flowers, too, suggests a feature in his nature which would draw men to him. Thus we see in his poetry, char-acteristics which would make his company acceptable to those of high rank. Of Burns' actual social successes in a certain direction, we have positive evidence. The great majority of his poems are con-cerning women with whom he has been in love, or at least ad-mired greatly. And we can easily see that, if not as a lover, at least as an admirer, he was accepted in .some cases. At any rate, we can judge from these poems that he had sufficient attractions to make him acceptable among the lasses of his native land. This gives us a clue, though an uncertain one, to his personal appear-ance and manners. To have been admired by so many women, he must have been to some degree attractive in looks and move-ments. 76 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURi Thus far we have considered only those things in Burns for which he was undoubtedly admired. But he shows traits that we cannot believe were acceptable to all of his contemporaries, for he refers in different passages to the fact that he had enemies. Certainly there were some who did not admire all he did; but just as we are limited in giving all his good qualities, by the fact that he does not make manifest in his poems all the traits he really pos-sessed, so are we limited, but to a greater degree, in observing all his bad qualities; for though he constantly confesses that he had monstrous faults, he has not specified what the particular immor-alities were that he committed, and we cannot know all these without referring to his biography. However, he does exhibit definitely some traits which, we believe, would be hindrances to his free movement among all classes of society. Profanity may have been attractive to his tavern associates, but must have been a shock to the strict piety which we know prevailed in his community. Reference to "Holy Willie's Prayer" manifests a spirit approaching blasphemy, an indication that the poet himself was probably not averse to the use of strong expressions by word of mouth, as well as pen. As a sincere man, Burns was a hater of hypocrisy, upon which subject he wrote several poems. But this feeling leads him into a fault. The satires he has written against hypocrites are too bitter to be commended. Were we to see only those works, we would have little desire to meet their writer. The acrimony of his invective seems unreasonable and repulsive, rather than at-tractive. We have mentioned Burns' drinking habits; but though we have no direct testimony in his poems that he himself was over indulgent, yet some of the scenes he depicts make clear that he must have been present at them, or he could not have described them so well. He at least practically confesses that he frequented places and associated with persons of low repute. Whether it is likely that he indulged in the orgies he describes, the reader can judge from the evidence. Such tendencies as these thus indi-cated certainly did not at that time constitute admirable social qualities. That Burns was positively vulgar, we must admit. A look into certain of his poems, which we do not deem fit to make more public by quoting them here, will convince us of this. It is seen, THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 77 for instance, in certain lines of ' 'The Kirk's Alarm.'' A betrayal of such lack of decency, in the eyes of some, would seriously affect his social character. Though to many persons the absence of Christian qualities in a man would be no social objection, yet we must be of the opinion that Burns' great lack in this regard would form a barrier to his entrance into close acquaintance with many persons at his time. We are sorry to admit that such a genius, in all his works, shows no spirit of true devotion to his Creator and His Son. Probably a closer inspection of Burns' lines would manifest more qualities wherein he would be attractive or not; but we think we have drawn from his poems enough of both kinds to indicate whether or not he deserved to be popular. It is our decision that his good far outweigh his bad social qualities. We believe that were Burns' biography to be forever lost, with noth-ing but his poems for grounds from which to reason, the world today, were he to come back again, would greet him—just as Scotland would have done immediately after his death—with open arms. And we would welcome him, if for nothing else, because of his social qualities as manifested in his poems. THE CULTIVATION OP PATRIOTISM FRANK LBNKER, '03 HPO have a thorough understanding of the subject one must ^ necessarily have a full and true conception of the meaning of the word patriotism. Patriotism is—" L,ove and devotion to one's country, the spirit that originating in love of country prompts to obedience to its laws, to the support and defense of its exist-ence, rights and institutions and to the promotion of its welfare." From the definition of the word it is readily seen that without patriotism no good government can exist and by as much as the people of a nation are patriotic or unpatriotic, by so much that nation will be either pre-eminent or debased in the galaxy of nations. Patriotism is of different kinds. It is patriotism that leads a man to shoulder his musket and amid storms of applause and the entrancing strains of his national air to dare to fight for his country's honor. It is still greater patriotism that enables him to endure 78 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY the privations and hardships of a severe campaign and which enables him, when some very daring service is required, willingly to lay down his life. It is patriotism that a man displays when for a season he leaves the pleasures of his home, neglects his business and exposes himself to the censure of those opposed to him, to become a voice of the people in the nation's council. But only the true statesman, the man who stands for right and principle against personal interests, displays this patriotism. Then, too, anyone may be a true patriot. He need not be a soldier, he need not be a statesman, but one thing Me must be—a man—a man true and firm, a man of high principle and lofty sent-iments and above all he must dare to stand by the right. If each one should place his country's welfare above his struggle for per-sonal gain and aggrandizement, what a powerful nation such men would constitute. It is acknowledged that there is no power equal to the mother's in shaping the characters and disposition of the young. If the solemn duties and obligations of motherhood could but be more strongly intrenched in the minds of those who have assumed the positions of wives and mothers, patriotism would surely become a more self-sacrificing and deep-seated kind. Mothers should endeavor to bring their children up to maturity even-minded and devoted to their country and to their God. Early in life children should be taught to reverence the starry ensign—the symbol of their freedom, to respect the nation's laws —safeguards of their liberty, and above all to know our history. Let them know how the nation was established on a foundation of right, cemented with the blood of some of the noblest men who ever lived. Let them know how, when the nation was in its in-fancy, our statesmen studied and planned so that laws tending only to progress might be promulgated. Let them know how gallantly our warriors punished England's insult to that banner, which so long as the true American spirit prevails will tell of the freedom of our nation and assure every American citizen protec-tion abroad or a speedy vengeance if molested. It should not be forgotten to tell them of the Civil War which for a time threatened to disrupt the Union. Tell them how the North was arrayed against the South and how bravely brother engaged brother to the death. But most emphatically tell them that each fought for principle. They fought not concerning petty THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 79 matters but rather concerning deep-rooted belief that each was right. Then review how at first there seemed to be bitter feeling, then gradually take them through the intervening space of time and at last show them how gloriously a united, a thoroughly . united and closely associated baud of men, representing the North, South, East and West, defeated the cruel Spaniards on San Juan hill. Our young should also be led to hate the greatest curse of the nation, they should be taught to abhor the greatest enemy of true manhood and upright living—the moral-debasing and character-weakening rum. Can a drunkard be a true patriot? No, most decidedly not. For how can a man who weakens himself morally, physically and mentally by using the vile stuff offer his ablest and best services to his country either as a statesman, a soldier, or as an exemplary private citizen. Double-dealing, rottenness and corporation influence in politics is another great evil and the one which probably above all others might possibly cause the downfall of these United States. Oh, would that some of our statesmen were more honorable men, would that they were more stalwart warriors in the defense of right and more zealous to forward measures drawn up for the public good rather than for personal gain and advantage ! L,et those, in whose power it is to elect the law-makers, cast their ballots for none but honest men. Then, with an honorable man guiding the ship of state, and none but honorable men on the crew, how can it be otherwise than that a more patriotic spirit would be displayed in the next generation. We turn our sad, reluctant gaze Upon the path of duty; Its barren, unwilling' ways Are void of bloom and beauty. Yet in that road, though dark and cold, It seems as we begin it As we press on—I/O ! we behold- There's Heaven in it. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 80 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY SUPERLATIVES J. B. BAKER,'01 WHEN, in accusing Peter of affiliation with Jesus of Nazareth, the morbid scions of Jewish authority, said "Thy speech bewrayeth thee," they described a condition of more than local interest. The sentiment their charge embodied has outlived the perverted Sanhedrin. It prevails to-day and applies to us. We are the heirs of a rich language; londled were we in the lap of opulence and children of fortune are prone to squander. Our language, being as it is a composite one, necessarily, by the survival of the fittest, contains the accumulated grace and vigor of its varied progeny. Its verbs express accurately every shade of human thought, even to the antipodal range of a Shakespeare. Its nouns are like the notes of a pianoforte, so varied is their tone. Its adjectives, in their several degrees embellish even that which already is sublime. They are the grace notes in the vernacular strains and of all things the most difficultly used. The proper adaptation of an adjective, even in the positive de-gree, to its corresponding noun is of itself a task of no mean im-port; the comparative requires more skill, while the superlative, like a run of extras on a key board, is accomplished gracefully, only by a practiced man. And yet how prone we are to use them. With what readiness we carry every thing to a ne plus ultra. Why is it thus? Wherein lies the cause ? Emerson has probably answered it, in his essay on history, without intending directly to do so. After a short disser-tation on the various nations that have come and gone over the highway of time, he says, "But I will make no more account of them. I believe in Eternity, I can find Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain, the islands, the genius and creative principle ofeach andall eras in my own mind." The much-travelled man does not call each high hill a cloud-piercing peak, nor does he speak of every landscape as nature's last attempt. Those are the foibles of childhood. The evolutions of such whose peregrinations have not as yet translated them be-yond their native shire. Precisely the same is true in the world of thought. The cos-mical mind uses few superlatives. The farther out it pushes into unknown tracts, the more it discovers of hitherto unrevealed re-ality, the closer appears its affinity with it, and with that increasing THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 81 identity there comes an increasing frugality of terms. He who has thoroughly established his identity with all reality could not possibly predicate a superlative of any thing without paying his own self an indirect compliment, and this, if report be true, is of all things the most odious to men of a larger growth. So much' so at least that they will use them stintingly, save only as applied to Divinity. As proof of this we need but resort to the sayings and writings of such great men. The genial paternal Emerson is judiciously sparing even in the use of his comparatives and yet there \s an ex-hilarating loftiness in all his thoughts. The many sided Ruskin speaks most frequently in simple, homely, childlike terms, and yet Carlyle compared his words to copious lightning bolts pour-ing incessantly into the black words of anarchy about him. Tolstoi, whose boldness has incurred the hostility of the Russian royalty, seldom calls things by their hardest names, yet his pen is a very scramasax in the side of monarchial iniquity. Nor is this abstemiousness from any thing that smacks of hy-perbole a characteristic only of him who sits down quietly at his desk and writes in his pacific words. It is characteristic of great men everywhere. Even in the forum, tempest-tossed and raging. The men who kindled and maintained the fires of patriotism through seven years of blood strife were men whose speech was as plain as their garb. A few months training in a country school and a six weeks course in law would not be likely to embellish much the speech of any one. But "give me liberty or give me death" had a potency that added superlatives could not augment. Daniel Webster, in that paragon of American philippics, his reply to Senator Hayne, is deadliest when he is plainest. His unadorned arrows are the swiftest. Lincoln, the great, in his speech on these hallowed grounds, gives us not only a model in structure well worth study, but manifests a chastity in terms seldom seen. Not once, in referring to the war in which we were then engaged, does he use an extravagant term such as thousands of others might with apparent justification have employed, and yet there is an Alpine sublimity pervading it all. So we might continue our citation almost indefinitely, pushing our observations out even beyond the confines ofour native tongue; including all ages past and present, all lands and climes, and find the great men every where corroborating the truth. The greater 82 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY the man, the smaller will things appear, and with the diminution of things will come a corresponding frugality of terms; deducting from this the converse and we have in very truth the modern ap-plication of those ancient words, "Thy speech bewrayeth thee." PERSEVERANCE EMORY D. BREAM, '02 T^HE old saying, " A rolling stone gathers no moss," has been * illustrated so often, and in so many ways, that when we see a young man going from one thing to another, not following one pursuit long enough to overcome its difficulties, we at once con-clude that he will never amount to much. The youth who comes to college with the intention of being a doctor, a lawyer, or having in view some other profession, and when he encounters difficulties in Greek, mathematics and other hard studies, has not the conquering spirit to master them, shows to a marked degree the lack of persistency. Or if, during his college course, he is swayed from his purpose, and decides to take a special course because he has failed in some department, or there is in the regular course a laborious, abstract subject which he dislikes, and which he has not the courage to attempt, it is evi-dent that he will never be well prepared to face the more difficult problems of life. Hence, instead of steering to a position of trust and honor, he will drift down the stream along with thousands of aimless beings like himself. On the other hand, the young man who chooses a worthy and honorable calling because he knows it is right and noble to do so; because he knows that to attain the desired end he will have to work long and hard; if such a young man will do with his might what his hand findeth to do, and, like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster or Abraham Lincoln, overcome every obstacle that comes in his way, each victory won will strengthen and encourage him for something higher. With such persistency he is bound to make life a success. The boy who enters life as a clerk, and looks forward to the time when he will be a prominent business man, lending a help-ing hand to the needy, using his influence in every good cause or having some other worthy aim, and takes for his motto this I THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 83 proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings;" the boy who enters a blacksmith shop, determined to hammer out, as it were, link by link the very chain by which he is to be raised to honor and usefulness; if such boys keep in mind the life of Iceland Stanford or P. D. Armour or Clem. Studebaker, never dreaming of failure, future genera-tions will not fail to call them blessed. The drummer-boy who says to himself, '' I shall not always beat the drum. I will rise just as high as my talents or the neces-sities of war will permit;" the youthful soldier behind the gun, who performs faithfully every duty, no matter how small it may be; if within his breast burns the spirit of patriotism ; if he feel that faithful work insures success, and that success means that a man must make the best possible use of his God-given talents for the benefit of his fellow-men; if he never allow himself to be deceived nor turned from the path of martial glory by spending his time, strength and money in the regimental saloon; if such drummer-boys and soldiers take as their ideal Paul Jones or An-drew Jackson or Ulysses Grant, their names will be recorded on the pages of history. To-day there is a greater need than ever for able men in the pulpit; for h°nest cashiers in our banks; for upright and noble statesmen, who do not enter politics for money or the gratifying of selfish desires; for truly patriotic generals and admirals, like him who was called "Father of His Country," and who will not, after the war is over, fill the columns of our newspapers with abominable wrangling as to who won certain battles, Santiago for instance, or who will be promoted-and who will not. We shall be needed. Our future depends upon the present. To make the best use of our present opportunities, we must per-severe. "Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving' thine out grown shell by life's unresting sea." —The Chambered Nautilus. 84 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY A DUTCH SCHOOLMASTER'S ADVENTURE A. 0. WOLF, '04' SOME eighty years ago, in the vicinity of the little village of Gettysburg, there lived two celebrated characters. One a long, lank, ungraceful Dutch schoolmaster by the name of Joseph Sleutsenslizer, who wielded the birch in a most prolific manner and who was noted for his arrant cowardice and marked suscepti-bility to feminine influences; the other, Mike Miller by name, a type of Herculean manhood, famed for his ability to break the most vicious horse, and for a diposition to indulge in all the pranks and roguish proceedings-of the most recklessly disposed element of the mischievous young men among whom he lived. It so happened that these worthies were rival suitors for the hand of the village belle. Their antagonism had attained to such proportions that our friend Joseph had felt himself constrained to exert his influence to prevent his rival from receiving an invita-tion to a ball which was to be held at a neighbor's home some distance south of the village. For thus, the schoolmaster argued to himself, he would be able to anticipate the advances of his rival and to monopolize the society of the fair one in question. His plans had worked well. The revelry was over. The tracing and retracing of the woof and weft of the dizzy dance by the light of the roaring logs had ended. The dingy rafters had ceased to ring with peals of girlish laughter and strains of the violin. The swish, swish of fantastic feet was no longer heard. Echo from her rocky cavern stepped forth perplexed at the sudden transformation. A scamper for wraps, a change from almost tropic heat to the crisp atmosphere of a November night, and the terpsichorean revelers bid adieu to their host and the dancing. As they trudge homeward beneath the brilliant emblazonry of a star-lit sky, oceans of midnight air poured over the mountains into the forest-covered valley making its branches groan with forebodings of the coming storm. The maidens became startled at the demoniacal laughter of some melancholy night-bird only to give the attentive swains an opportunity for reassuring them. Jest is passed from couple to couple, and their hilarious spirits find vent in snatches of song and in pertinent thrusts of wit. At the fork of the road they separate with a hasty "good night" and a counter ejaculation of unthought-of-until-the-last-moment inter-rogations hurled at each receding party. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 85 Joseph was now reaping the fruit of his well laid scheme, as, with the fairest of the fair maids in the little village on his arm, he turned to the right on the road that leads past Devil's Den. His heart beat wildly for it was rarely that he had the opportunity of enjoying the society of the beautiful but somewhat reticent maid. In fact, the society of others seemed preferable to his own. This made him gloat over his good fortune as an ogre would gloat over his cannibal repast. The infatuated schoolmaster failed to conceive himself anything but a brilliant courtier in at-tendance on the object of his affection. Moreover, his bigotry would not permit him to offer his awkward, uncouth appearance and decidedly rustic air in striking contrast to the trim figure of his companion, as a possible explanation of her reticence and her disposition to indulge in a peculiar sort of suppressed laughter. Suddenly she became communicative and deftly turned the drift of their conversation on ghosts, hobgoblins and other super-stitious fancies so dear to the heart of the early Dutch settler. Oh, what's that ! she cried, clasping his arm in terror. His heart stood still. But just then a passing breeze rustled the dead leaves on a bush by the roadside which she had mistaken for the crouching figure of some wanderer from Spiritland. After this his aroused imagination saw ghosts innumerable; headless hobgoblins and winged fairies. Even the murky air seemed teeming with imaginary hosts. The drift of his com-panion's conversation by no means tended to allay his trepida-tion. In a fearful whisper she told him of a time when her father passed along that very road after nightfall, and how a horned creature with gleaming eyes and nostrils that breathed forth sheets of flame snatched him up and was bearing him away. It became frightened at the wild cry of a panther, dropped him half dead and galloped into a cavern in the adjacent hillside. Again, she related the story of the adventure of a certain deacon which happened at the rocks which they were then Hear-ing. The deacon was going home from a visit to a sick neighbor and on passing the rocks he heard an unearthly crash and felt the rock on which he stood heave under him. Thunder pealed. The sky was kindled by a lurid blaze. The ground was on flame, and fiery torrents came down in tumultuous avalanches. The rocks melted and the valley assumed the aspect of a basin of glowing ore. He bounded with the speed of the wind through the raging 86 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY conflagration. The sulphurous molten tide pursued him, spouting white columns of vapor and sheets of vitreous lava. As he ran, it gained speed on him; when he bounded, the spot Irom which he sprang was on fire before he alighted on the ground. At length he sank exhausted, but the indefatigable lava rolled on like armies rushing to battle. Suddenly the earth quaked and a fissure appeared, out of which leaped a compan}' of devils as if shot from a subterranean catapult. The foremost, whose stature was as that of a tree, advanced and with a claw-like hand had picked him up and was about to hurl him into the bottomless pit. The deacon recollecting himself cried, "Get thee behind me, Satan,'1 which so enraged his captor that, with a horrible roar, he hurled him through the air with such force that he continued his aerial course until he lauded on his own door step. Joseph was now fully aware of his danger. His natural cow-ardice prompted him to cast his eyes in every nook and cranny of that mass of rocks which now bears such a sinister name, and from which he firmly expected to see the beginning of a sponta-neous combustion which would overwhelm him. Nor had he long to wait. Just as they came opposite the rock a blood-curd-ling yell resounded which would have put to shame a vociferous Comanche brave. By a sudden contraction and relaxation of his muscles, Joseph was elevated some three or four feet in the air. He turned to look for his companion, but she was fleeing with the speed of a whirlwind and giving vent to that series of ex-quisitely rendered screeches, in which startled women delight to indulge. Another whoop from the rock, accompanied by the rattle of chains and clank of iron, and Joseph's knees began to strike each other in a remarkable manner. He looked up, and there on the summit of the rock stood his Satanic Majesty plainly outlined against the stony vault. To the excited beholder he seemed panoplied in all the regal habiliments of a prince of the nether world. His hoofs and horns gleamed in the starlight, and from his eyes scintillated the fiery sparks of his wrath. The poor pedagogue was in a serious predicament. His limbs moved convulsively. His hair rose and with it his hat, allowing the cool breeze to fan his throbbing forehead. His heart palpitated wildly. His breath came in short quick gasps. Hoping that he was in some horrible nightmare, and that his visitor would soon vanish, he looked up. His majesty was de- I THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 87 liberately stepping to the edge of the rock where he tore a tree from its roots, and with a sepulchral roar leaped headlong, with the tree in his grasp, upon the terrified Joseph. The branches of the tree struck him and bore him to the earth. His tormentor leaped upon him, kicked him, pulled his hair, spat upon him, at the same time producing the most hideous noises. Tired of his diversion, he threw the trunk of the tree across the breast of the prostrate pedagogue and started, roaring like an enraged buffalo, in pursuit of the fleeing girl. A rescuing party, aroused by the clamor, came and released the terror-stricken Joseph and heard his fabulous tale. Their mirth knew no bounds. And ever after when the irate school-master was asked to relate his adventure at the Devil's Den he would exclaim, "Vat ! you dink a Dutchman's a geece, hugh ! Do you dink I shust come over tomorrow ?" This, dear reader, is how Devil's Den came to be so named. Again the sun is over all, Again the robin's evening call Or early morning lay; I hear the stir about the farms, I see the earth with open arms, I feel the breath of May. Century Magazine. Oh, the merry May has pleasant hours, And dreamily they glide, As if they floated like the leaves Upon a silver tide. The trees are full of crimson buds, And the woods are full of birds, And the waters flow to music, Like a song with pleasant words. Willis. & There is something grander than the ocean, and that is con-science; something sublimer than the sky, and that is the interior of the soul. —Victor Hugo. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY Entertd at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter VOL. X GETTYSBURG, PA., MAY, 1901 No. 3 E. C. RUBY, 'Oi, Editor-in-Chief R. ST. CLAIR POFFENBARGER,' 02, Business Manager J. F. NEWMAN, '02, Exchange Editor Assistant,-E.d,.it.ors Advisor•*y Board . -K, o ,"-. PROF. J. A. HIMES, A. M., LIT. D. M. IS"S "ANNIE M. .S"W" ARTZ, '02 _ " _ " ." ~ PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. A. B. RICHARD, '02 _ T _. _ ' -. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D. D. Assistant Business Manager CURTIS E. COOK, '03 Published each month, from October to June inclusive, by the joint literary societies of Peuusj'lvania (Gettysburg-) College. Subscription price, One Dollar a year in advance; single copies Fifteen Cents. Notice to discontinue seudiug the MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors, and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITORIALS '"pHE first day of May was once a festival in honor of an Ameri- *■ can "saint," canonized simply by popular acclamation. Our colonial troops deprived themselves of the patronage of St. George by their rebellion, and at once they looked about for a saint of their own. Their choice fell on Tamina, a sagamore of the Delaware Indians, who, tradition says, bad whipped satan. Naturally the soldiers concluded that the conqueror of satan could also overcome St. George. The name of St. Tamina was in-scribed upon the banners of the colonial troops and on the first day of May celebrations were held in his honor. These celebra-tions were a combination of the Indian war dance and the old English May Day frolics. The May-pole was crowned with a THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 89 liberty cap, and bore a tomahawk instead of the garlands of flowers used to decorate the English May-pole. The army was not alone in doing honor to the "saint." Poets sang of his virtues. His life was dramatized and appeared on the stage in many places. Societies, which usually took the place of the modern club, were formed under his name. In England it was customary, on the first day of May, to wear a sprig of green gathered in the early morning and worn all day. This sprig was called the " May." The narrow-leaved elm and the hawthorn were the trees from which the sprig was usually taken. The expedition into the grove after it was called " going a-Maying," and the carrying of it home was " bringing in the May." The erecting of a May-pole, the young men and maidens dancing around it with flowers and song, and the choosing of the most attractive maiden as the " Queen of the May," to whom homage was paid as long as the day lasted, were characteristic features in the observance of May Day. This festival was quite general in England until the Puritans of the Commonwealth put a stop to it and uprooted the May-poles. It was again revived after the Restoration, but has now nearly, if not entirely, died out. In the New England States this same festival had been observed for a short time. Here it was also opposed by the Puritans, who regarded it as an emblem of satanic rule. In such an atmosphere it could not flourish long, and soon became a thing of the past. The custom of giving " May baskets," however, survived a little longer, and for aught we know may still be observed in some places. A basket, tastefully arranged with flowers, was left by the love-sick swain at the door of his lady-love; children tied baskets and bouquets on the door-knob of the house wherein dwelt their playmates, and friends remembered each other by gifts and flowers on May Day morning. r"pHEPvE is a surprising lack of knowledge in regard to *■ South America, its people and their ways. There is more known of Europe, Asia and Africa than of South America, once an echo of Spain in her glory and the home of a brave people con-quered by treachery and deceit. When we do study its history at all, we start with its discovery and almost abruptly end there. 90 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY Perhaps it is because we do not have so much in common as we have with the people of other countries that we know so little about the people, but it would be better to be more familiar with the doings and character of the people who live on the same side of the world as we do. We usually regard South America as made up of a number of little republics always at odds and the people as indolent and uneducated. We might change our minds some-what if we knew more about them. The natural resources of the country are worth study also, the magnificent mountain-ranges, the valuable forests and mines, the rivers and bays, the fertile plains equal to any which nature has ever bestowed on any country. —S. AN OLD READER CHAS. W. WEISKB, '01 I picked up an old school reader, Which up on the attic lay, Covered with the dust of ages, Brown with mold and decay. I opened its well-worn pages— They were soiled and marked with grime, By the little hands which used them In a by-gone, happy time. And out came the flood of memory, "With a rush, a flutter and sweep, And I lived those days all over— Those days ere I climbed life's steep. Aye! there was the old brown school house, With its warped and beaten floor, And there were the old wooden benches, Arid the old thumb-latch on the door. And there was the rude cut initial, Carved on the desk and seat, And under the forms the shuffling Of stout-booted restless feet. Around me arose a murmur, A chatter and whisp'ring gay, The humming of happy children, In the school beside the way. But the cold winds weirdly sighing, Awoke me from my dream; The present lay before me— Iafe's bright and silvery stream. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 91 PICTURES MARY C. SIELING, '03 HPHERE are pictures not painted with the brush of the artist. * The hills, the valleys, the sky, the rivers—all the works of God—what are they to him that see, aught but so many beautiful pictures ? How the hills, with their trees rising rank above rank, brighten the valleys between them. What artist can imitate the delicate shade of their green ? What colors mixed by man are so beautiful as their red and gold in autumn, and in what picture hung in our houses is there expressed the desolation of those same hills in winter, when the trees are bare and the winds moan through their branches ? The stream sings through the valley, hurrying on to the sea. The sunbeams dance upon the waters, making the scene still more pleasing, while the flowers along its banks add to its,beauty. All this is a beautiful picture, and it fills our hearts with peace. In the sky, too, there are pictures. The heavens are a moving panorama. The blue of the noon-day sky is to the sight what far-off beautiful music is to the ear. It fills us with a vague longing, and turns our thoughts to what is high and spiritual. The sunset is the most beautiful of all pictures, for do not the rifted clouds, bordered in gold, with the splendor spreading from them, seem like outer battlements of heaven when the inner gates are opened ? These pictures are around us and above us day after day. They gladden us, purify us and uplift us. He who can copy these pictures on canvas is the painter, and that man is the best painter who can most com-pletely forget himself and yield his soul and his hand to the Mas-ter of all paintings, content to let himself be the means through which the copies of the paintings, engraved deep on his own soul, are made to stand out on canvas. Raphael painted his beautiful Madonna because, in his mind, there was a beautiful picture of the purity and love of the mother of Jesus, and this picture was his, not only from a study of the Bible, but from the memory of his own pure and noble mother. Michael Angel o, who in the age in which Christian art had reached its zenith, stood almost unrivaled as a painter, sculptor, architect and poet. He painted and carved as never man painted and carved before or since, because he more fully than other men let nature and the God of nature speak through his life and his hand. 92 THE GETTYSBURG MEBCURY But artists are not the only men who try to copy these pictures which God has painted. The poets and prose writers also paint pictures, not with brush and palette, but with words in writing. "The Great Stone Face," how clearly we see with Hawthorne the long valley with the great family of lofty mountains beyond, the great face of stone carved in the side of the mountain, the people of the valley. Ernest, who, as a boy and man, looked through a long life for the face that should resemble the great face carved in stone, and who should thus fulfill a tradition of the valley ! With him we look into the face of the rich man, warrior and poet, and with him we are saddened to find in each one something lacking, but with the people we shout to see at last that he, Ernest himself, is the man who resembles the great stone face. But these pictures drawn by prose writers and painters, in the end mean to us only as much as we put into them. We cannot enjoy a poem or a painting of a forest stream unless we ourselves have felt the restfulness and delightful coolness of a streamlet murmuring over the pebbles under the shade of the overhanging trees, nor will the most beautiful pictured children Millias appeal to us before we have learned in some way the beauty and inno-cence of childhood. Thus in truth, all the pictures, of which we have spoken, depend on the great painter, Nature. But every-body is to a certain extent an artist, because everybody is paint-ing a picture called character. This picture is of more importance in the sight of God and to us than any other kind of picture. Upon this picture depends our happiness hereafter. Some people are trying hard to paint the picture well, while others handle the brush so carelessly that in the end the picture is a mere daub. There are a few men whose characters stand out above others like the paintings of the mas-ters. We should study these pictures, and let the beauty of their character enter into our own lives. If you would teach a boy self-poise, coolness of judgment and majesty of character, let him read about George Washington. If you would have him sincere, looking through the glamour of symbols to the things beneath, let him study long and well the lives of such men as Socrates and Lincoln. But if you would have him to be a true man, rounded, combining all virtues, let THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 93 him study the life of Him more majestic than Washington, for He was the God of man, and more sincere than Socrates. "We should study His life until just as Ernest, by looking long and lovingly into the great stone face, grew like it in feature, we also, by looking at the picture of His character, may grow more and more like Him. SPONTANEITY IN LITERATURE J. RUSH STONER, '01 QPONTANEITY, applied to literature, may be used to desig- ^ nate that spontaneous flow of eloquence or spirit from the depth of the author's own nature, giving to literary work spice and attraction. It may have an ennobling effect, or it may have a degrading effect, according as the life and ethical ideas of the author are high or low. It constitutes the ground upon which what is commonly called good and bad literature are distinguish-able. In the higher sense it might be looked upon as inspiration in literature; in the lower sense, merely as an evil tending to de-moralize the race. All who are familiar with the poetry of Robert Burns have recognized there the naturalness with which the poet gave vent to his feelings. And with the exclusion of his coarser poems, he might be taken as a good type of authors, whose writings flow with natural freshness of pure humor, pathos and wit, appealing strongly to the higher sympathies and the nobler passions. There is in literature a force that molds the character or indi-viduality of the reader. This element, or subtle force, makes itself clearly manifest in the life principles of different individuals, through the subconscious impressions it ingrains upon the mind. For the reader, if he is in the highest sense a true reader, must be in a receptive state, imbibing the spirit and tone of the litera-ture perused. And these impressions are stored up for future reproduction in the principles of life. Enthroned thus in the ruling element of the world, this force becomes at once a power in shaping the destiny of the race. Those who are at all susceptible to literature resort to it either for rest, pleasure, instruction, or for its ennobling influence. The scientist, exhausted from his deep abstraction in the realms of nature, searching for laws and principles in large collections of 94 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY facts, comes hither to quaff from this sparkling fountain, this source of the emotional nature. It is to him a source of rest and pleasure, indispensable to his well-being, that he may draw from his life's work the best results. And, too, what wealth of in-struction is yielded to the earnest seeker after knowledge as he pries into this mine of wisdom. Above all, the ennobling effect ofgood literature is universal; experienced alike by scientist and all who come within the scope of its power. The existence of this subtle force in literature may be verified by the career of a distinguished scientist of the nineteenth cen-tury, who neglected entirely the fine arts and the reading of in-spired writings for the absorbing interests of his life's work. In this description of his own life, Darwin tells his pathetic story. He tells how in the early part of his life he took great delight in poetry and music, and then, after many years of their utter neglect, he tried to read some poetry. But he could no longer appreciate it. His mind had become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, and was so revolutionized that poetry seemed unendurably dull and even nauseating. He had lost all appreciation of the higher tastes. He says this atrophy of the emotional nature is doubtless a loss of happiness. And he expresses an intense regret that he could not have his life to live again, that he might, at regular intervals throughout his busy career, pay some attention to those things which appeal to the spiritual side of life, that this horrible atrophy in his mind might have been averted. Here was a man who accomplished a vast work in science, but his absorption in the work, and neglect of the finer arts, brought him to a painful consciousness of the reality of this element in literature, and its influence upon the reader. While there are many instances that demonstrate the reality of this force by showing the change brought about in the indi-vidual who is isolated from its influences, there are also numerous evidences of its positive influence upon the individuality of the reader. So positive is this influence, that the literature a person enjoys is an unfailing index to his character. If the mind be turned into the channels of heroic and active literature, a heroic spirit of'strong and manly principles, master of circumstances and capable of resisting the most powerful evils, is the inevitable re-sult. If, on the other hand, time is spent in devouring nonsensi- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 95 cal trash of a doubtful, or possibly degrading moral tone, you have as a reward, or rather demerit, a nerveless, sentimental tem-perament, unfit for the accomplishment of any great work, be it in the study or in life's profession. There is no more contemptible type of human character than the nerveless sentimentalist and dreamer, who spends his life in a "weltering sea of sensibility," and never does a concrete, manly deed. But, ah ! the individuality formed by contact with inspir-ing and ennobling literature ! How sublime is that character, standing firm amid the tempests, like a tower when everything rocks about it, and the weaker fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast ! Since there is. a spontaneous force in literature exerting its influence over every reader, whether he is conscious of the fact or not, how essential it is that all current literature and fiction should be idealistic, upholding the ideal of the race; for this is the law of human progress. It would be better if the realistic novel were never published. What we want is a stalwart ideal-ism. In life " aim and ideal are everything;" so it is in litera-ture. And if these be high and just, the author is true to his profession, and will be false to no one. How great is the responsibility resting upon the author ! He may be the agency through which humanity is brought into the most exalted phase of moral excellence, or into the vilest degen-eracy, endowing the race with real wealth to promote its civiliza-tion, or bringing upon it the deadliest curse. Then let those who are looking forward to a higher order of things, social and politi-cal, equip themselves and aspire to win the favor of the people by making the idealistic literature surpass in splendor the low-grade realistic novel, as the glorious mid-day sun outshines the insignificant glow-worm. And let the unscrupulous author, who has no higher ambition than to cater to the populace, sink into oblivion beneath the weight of a refined popular taste and criti-cism. This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, Slow rises worth by poverty depressed. -Johnson. 96 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY IN NATURE'S REALM J. RUSH STONER, '01. How oft in life's deep vestige sought,— Be it in Nature's realm and throne, Where fleeting time has strata laid, And plant life quivering, by zephyrs blown, Wafts perfume o'er the sacred dead, Or in the search of truth and lore,— The Unintended lifts its head And speaks in oracles of yore! In the closing days of winter drear, When anon begins through Nature's veins To course the life of a living world, We strolled through field and rustic lanes; Enchanting for romance were they, In facts for science richer still. We searched for minerals, types of rock And phenomena caused by rippling rill. And lo! within a fractured rock A microscopic plant was seen. Perennial, delicate, tiny thing, It has of Nature's marvels been One oft escaped the human eye; A life unscathed by Aeolian breath Or Zeus' cataclysms wild, Nor felt Apollo's scorching dearth. But clinging to the rugged cliff A lonely, solitary form; In all the great, wide universe Only a little speck forlorn; Yet symmetry and order plain Are there set forth in clear design By the Supreme Intelligence, Its "Great Original," benign. A useless infinitesimal plant! But it a mission has to fill: It may proclaim the law Divine, And be of greatest value still. If it but shows that God, who keeps The stars in cosmic beauty bright, Regards the smallest forms of being, It turns on science floods of light. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 97 i And man, a spark of the Divine May see in this the message clear, That God who rules things great and small In sweet compassion holds them dear. And he may catch the inspiration, That love, the essence of the soul, Controls and rules the universe And pilots safely to the goal. A COUNTRY BARN ON A RAINY DAY D. S. Weimer, '03 TT is a warm summer morning, the folks have arisen from the long, A sweet slumbers of the night, breakfast has been prepared and served, the horses have been fed and harnessed, and all are ready to go to their respective duties, when, lo! the sky becomes dark, ened and in a short time the rain begins to descend upon the parched earth, causing the drooping plants to lift their heads, as it were, and to spread out their leaves that they may be bathed by the gentle rain. All stand wrapped in delight, as they watch the rain which has been needed so long, no one being unwilling to rest from his labor, while the gentle rain descends to replenish the earth with flowers and fruits. Soon the scene changes. The father, ever mindful ofhis duties, bids the sons go to the barn to unharness the horses. When this is done, they are told that they must go to the barn-floor and pre-pare to thresh some rye in order to have some long straw for tying the corn in the autumn. Soon the doors are thrown open and you see the boys sweeping the floor to get ready to place upon it the sheaves of grain ready for the flail. When the sweeping is completed, you see James climb thelad-der and pass into the mow, while Henry remains upon the floor to arrange the sheaves in order, one after the other, until the floor is fairly covered, when James ceases to throw them from the mow and descends to the floor and prepares to begin with the flail. Taking their flails, they step to their places, and at once begin to strike with alternate strokes, creating a great noise so that it is very difficult to be understood in speaking, but doing the work to which they were appointed with apparent ease and skill. They 98 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY labor during the long hours of the day, ceasing only when thefact that it is time to perform the regular evening duties is made known to them. From what I have said, you may infer that the "Country Barn" is, besides being a protection for the animals against the inclem-ency ofthe weather and a storehouse for grain, a kind ofworkshop, where boys are taught to improve their time and not to throw away the golden moments. We shall see that it is something more. While James and Henry are busy at their work, Willie, Ned, and Joe, who are yet too small to bear the greater burdens of life, are rolling over the hay, turning somersault, standing upon their heads, playing "Run and Jump," "Hide and Seek," and indulg-ing in other sports. Seated in the corner of the barn-floor or run-ning to and fro, or lounging in the swing made by Henry, are Jane and Nell, too selfish to engage in sport with the boys, or probably keeping away, pouting on account of some trick which the boys have served them. Thus wesee that the "Country Barn" is a shelter, a storehouse, a workshop, and a playhouse, teaching to us the lesson that the things which exist may be used for different purposes, each pur-pose in its own time, being necessary for full and complete devel-opment and advantageous to all. «f^£> ALL SOULS DAY W. H. B. CARNEY, '99. Arched above, a reefless ocean Gray of clouds; no sunny glow: Leafless trees affect no motion To the biting' winds which blow. Everywhere are solemn faces,— Father, mother, daughter, son; Over all I see the traces Of a sorrow, deep and lone. Towards God's acre slowly walking Where a loved one lies "At Rest"; Thinking all, but none are talking: Sometimes Silence speaks the best. w THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 99 On the arm a wreath of holly With white flowers wove between; But the gnawing melancholy Of the heart cannot be seen. In the churchyard there is weeping Over every ivied mound; Some have infant forms in keeping, Some by sculptor's hand are crowned. On the graves the wreaths are lying, Glistening with blood-warm tears, Tribute of a love undying, Living on through dragging years. In a homestead sits a maiden Sighing o'er a golden band ; For his grave her hands not laden; There's a trench in foreign land. In her dreams a wife is hearing Lashing waves that froth and roar; And she sees a boat that's nearing,— But it never reached the shore. • In the church is told the story How the Christ, in village Nain, Gave a widow cause to glory, Raising up her son again. While the trumpet tones are blowing All the dead in Him shall rise; And the living, those reknowing. Shall meet with them in the skies. Every desert yield the treasured, Every mountain, and the Bea, Thousands in whose deeps unmeasured Toss like leaves upon the lea. Then I see the faint hearts strengthen And the tears are wiped away; For the shadows soon will lengthen, Herald of Eternal Day. —Berlitz School of Languages, Berlin, Germany. 100 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY EXCHANGES TVTE have been pleased to receive more than the usual number " of magazines and journals from different colleges and universities during the past month, many of which visited our desk for the first time. Among these the Red and Blue, because of its neat and attractive appearance, and wealth of both poetry and prose, will always be most heartily welcomed. The Harvard Monthly is unassuming in appearance, and filled with excellent literary productions. The Nassau Literary Magazine and the University of Virginia Magazine are both entertaining as always. In addition to these, many others could be mentioned. It has been interesting to note that nearly all the magazines have given considerable space to poetical selections, and also that the number of really good prose articles is greater than dur-ing the previous month. The Lesbian Herald contains a tender and beautiful poem, "The Trailing Arbutus," whose title was probably suggested by John Burrough's poem on the" same subject. We quote the fol-lowing : " Her presence like glimmering sunshine seemed, And the soft sweet breath of the spring, The blue of her eyes was the blue of the heaven, Her voice had a gladsome ring. " Like the voice of the birds as they sing in the trees, When the sweet April shower is done, Or lift to the heavens their anthems of praise When a glad new day has begun. " But the wind swept by with a wailing moan, And the maiden so wondrous fair Was gone in her glory of summer sheen, But the prints of her feet were there. " You call it the trailing arbutus flower, A sweet breath of spring, you say, But I know the glory which gave it birth In the foot-prints left that day." The author of '' The L,ady of the L,ake '' in The Mountaineer evidently appreciates the vivacity and beauty of one of Scott's grandest productions, and thoroughly enjoys the chivalric spirit manifested by the characters. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 101 In the St. John's Collegian appears an article on " The Bible as a Text-book.'' The importance of this subject cannot be ques-tioned when we think of the efforts which are made to exclude the Bible from the curriculum of our educational institutions, and the author's very thorough discussion has our entire appro-bation . The Juniata Echo is publishing a series of articles on Porto Rico, written by Prof. M. G. Brumbaugh, Ph. D., Commissioner of Instruction in Porto Rico. These articles contain valuable information. The last issue contains an article on Martin Luther, part of which we take the liberty of quoting: " Martin Luther was the example of loyalty, the exponent of freedom, the guiding star of the Reformation, the advocate of the genuine Pauline Doctrine, and the mainstay of Christendom since the Apostles. . ******* " 'Thou, who art so great in whatever aspect we view thee, so worthy of admiration, so deserving of universal gratitude, alike great as a man, a scholar, a citizen, and a Christian', hast so in-spired us with the thought so characteristic of thy life, that he who steers his frail canoe the best, truest and noblest in the ser-vice of himself, his Alma Mater, his nation and his God; steers it longest when he receives his reward." "The Chemist's Guess" in The Free Lance teaches two important lessons—" the result of careless work " and " honesty is the best policy." J-Other exchanges to be acknowledged are: The Dickinson Lit-erary Monthly, The Susquehanna, The College Folio, The Western Ufiiversity Courant, The Catthage Collegian, The Scio Collegian, The Phoenix, The Campus and The Forum. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. C. R. SOLT MERCHANT TAILOR Masonic Bldg., GETTYSBURG Our collection of Woolens for the coming Fall and Winter season cannot be surpassed lor variety, attractive designs and general completeness. The latest styles of fashionable novelties in the most approved shades. Staples of exceptional merit, value and wearing durability. Also altering, repairing, dyeing and scouring at moderate prices. In buying don't forget the Advertisers. They support us. ESTABLISHED 1867 BY ALLEN WALTON. ALLEN K. WALTON, President and Treasurer. ROBT. J. WALTON, Superintendent. flammelstomn Bromn Stone Gompany Quarrymen and Manufacturers of Building Stone, Sawed Flagging and Tile Waltonville, Dauphin Co., Pa. Contractors for all kinds of Telegraph and Express Address. Cut Stone Work. BROWNSTONE, PA. Parties visiting the Quarries will leave cars at Brownstone Station on the P. & R. R. B. For a nice sweet loaf of Bread call on J. RAMER Baker of Bread and Fancy Cakes, GETTYSBURG. PA. EIMER & AMEND, Manufacturers and Importers of Chemicals and Chemical Apparatus 205, 207, 209 and 211 Third Avenue, Corner 18th Street NEW YORK. Finest Bohemian and German Glassware, Royal Berlin and Meissen Porcelain, Pure Hammered Platinum, Balances and "Weights. Zeiss Mi-croscopes and Bacteriological Apparatus; Chemical Pure Acids and Assay Goods. SCOTT PAPER COMPANY MAKERS OF FINE TOILET PAPER 7th and Greenwood Ave. PHILADELPHIA PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. The Century Double-Feed Fountain Pen. Fully Warranted J6 Kt. Gold Pen, Iridium Pointed. GEO. EVELER, Agent for Gettysburg College PRICE LIST. Spiral, Black or Mottled $2 50 Twist, " 2 SO Hexagon, Black or Mottled 2 SO Pearl Holder, Gold Mounted S 00 THE CENTURY PEN CO. WHITEWATER, WIS. Askjour Stationer or our Agent to show them toyon. Agood local agent wanted in every school No. 1. Chased, long or short $2 00 No. 1. Gold Mounted 3 00 No. 3. Chased 3 00 No. 3. Gold Mounted 4 00 awfwmiffmmmmwiffmiffifmrmiffmmiffifrTffffgg 7k Printing and Binding We Print This Book THE MT. HOEEY STATIONERY AND PRINTING CO. does all classes of Printing and Binding-, and can furnish you any Book, Bill Head, Letter Head, Envelope, Card, Blank, or anything pertain-ing- to their business in just as good style and at less cost than you can obtain same elsewhere. They are located among the mountains but their work is metropolitan. You can be convinced of this if you give them the opportunity. Mt. Holly Stationery and Printing Co. *SPRINGS, PA. UMkJttiUlUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUiUR H. S. BENNEF?, .DEALER IN. Groceries, Notions, Queensware, Glassware, Etc, Tobacco and Cigars. 17 CHAMBERSBURG ST. WE RECOMMEND THESE BUSINESS MEN. Pitzer House, (Temperance) JNO. E. PITZER, Prop. Rates $1.00 to $1.25 per day. Battlefield a specialty. Dinner and ride to all points of interest,including the th ree days' tight, $1.25. No. 127 Main Street. You will find a full line of Pure Drugs and Fine Sta-tionery at the People's Drug Store Prescriptions a Specialty. J. A. TAWNEY_^ Is ready to furnish Clubs and Boarding Houses with Bread, Rolls, Etc. At short notice and reasonable rates. Washington & Middle Sts., Gettysburg. . A. WONDERS, Corner Cigar Parlors. A full line of Cigars, Tobacco, Pipes, Etc. Scott's Corner, Opp. Eagle Hotel. GETTYSBURG, PA. M. B. BENDER Furniture IRON BEDS, MATTRESSES, SPRINGS Picture Framing" and Repair Work done Promptly 27 BALTIMORE ST. GETTYSBURG, PA. .GO TO. fyokl Gettysburg Barber Sfyop. Centre Square. B. M. SEFTON WTJ /~T\P\r\Dl Successor to . r . {JJUKJKl, Simon J.Codori Dealer in Beef, Pork, Lamb, Veal, Sausage. Special rates to Clubs. York St., GETTYSBURG. .GO TO. CHAS. E. BARBEHENN, Barber In the Eagle Hotel, Cor. Main and Washington Sts. * CHAS. S. MUMPER (Formerly of Mumper & Bender) Furniture Having opened a new store opposite W. M. R. R. Depot, will be pleased to have you call and examine goods. Picture Framing promptly attended to. Repair Work a Specialty Students' Trade Solicited FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. 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EMIL ZOTHE, ENGRAVER, DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURING JEWELER, 19 S. NINTH ST. PHILADELPHIA SPECIALTIES: Masonic Marks, Society Badges, College Buttons, Pins, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods ordered tltrough A. N. Beau. To Repair Broken Arti-cles use Remember MAJOR'S RUBBER CEMENT, MAJOR'S LEATHER CEMENT, Meneely Bell Co. TROY, N. Y. MANUFACTURERS OF SUPERIOR BELLS The 2000 pound bell now ringing in the tower of Pennsylvania Col-lege was manufactured at this foundry. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. The Pleased Customer Is not a stranger in our establish-ment— he's right at home, you'll see him when you call. We have the materials to please fastidious men. J. D. LIPPY, Merchant Tailor 39 Chambersburg St., Gettysburg, Pa. Try My Choice lane of ,\ High-Grade Chocolates 3 'at 40c per lb. Always fresh, at ,£ CHAS. H. McCLEARY J Carlisle St., Opposite W.M.R.R. jj Also Foreign and Domestic Fruits A i Always on Hand. B,C L. D. Miller, GROCER Confectioner and Fruiterer. 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Manufacturers of High Grade Fraternity Emblems Fraternity Jewelry Fraternity Novelties Fraternity Stationery Fraternity Invitations Fraternity Announcements Fraternity Programs Send for Catalogue and Price List. Special Designs on Application. MOTEL GETTYSBURG LIVERY GETTYSBURG, PA. LONG & HOLTZWORTM, Proprietors Apply at Office in the Hotel for First-Class Guides and Teams THE BATTLEFIELD A SPECIALTY Uhe JSolton Market Square •fcartfeburg, fl>a. Earge and Convenient Sample Rooms. Passenger and Baggage Elevator. Electric Cars to and from Depot. Electric Eight and Steam Heat. J. M. & M. S. BUTTERWORTH, Proprietors Special Rates for Commer-cial Men "EZ 1ST IMMER CUT ET WAS ZU WISSEIN." These are the words of Goethe, the great German poet, and are as true in our day as when uttered. In these times of defective vision it is good to know something about eyes. A great deal has been learned about the value of glasses and their application since Goethe lived. Spectacle wearers have increased by thousands, while at the same time, persons losing their eyesight have been greatly diminished. If your eyes trouble you in any way let me tell you the cause. Examination free and prices reasonable. We grind all our own lenses and fit the best lenses (no matter what anyone else has charged you) for $2.50 per pair and as cheap as SO cents per pair, or duplicate a broken lens if we have one-half or more of the old one, at a reasonable charge, returning same day received. .E. L EGOLE. 807 and 809 North Third Street, HARRISBURG, PA. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. ^entpol Jlotel, ELIAS FISSEL, Prop. (Formerly of Globe Hotel) Baltimore Street, Gettysburg, Pa. Two doors from Court House. MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. Steam Heat, Electric Inght and Call Bells all through the House. Closets aud Bath Rooms on Every Floor. Sefton & Flem-minfr's Livery is connected with this Hotel. Good Teams and Competent Guides for the Battlefield. 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Issue 17.2 of the Review for Religious, 1958. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious MARCH 15, 1958 Teaching Brothers . Pope Plus XII Religious and Psychotherapy . Richard P. Vaughan A Sense of Balance . Robert W. Gleason Pattern for Religious Life . Da.ie~ J. M. Ca~aha. The Might of ~ood . c. A. I-lerbst Summer Sessions Book Reviews Communications (~uestions and Answers Roman Documents about: Movies, Radio, Television Seminarians and Religious The Role of the Laity VOLUME 17 NUMBER 2 RI::VII:::W FOR RI::LIGIOUS VOLUME 17 MARCH, 1958 NUMBER 2 CONTI::NTS THE HOLY SEE AND TEACHING BROTHERS . 65 SUMMER SESSIONS . 72 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY-- Richard P. Vaughan, S.J . 73 A SENSE OF BALANCE~Robert W. Gleason, S.J . 83 COMMUNICATIONS . 90 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 90 THE PERFECT PATTERN FOR RELIGIOUS LIFEm Daniel J. M. Callahan, s.J . ' . 91 THE MIGHT OF GOD--C. A. Herbst, S.J . 97 SURVEY OF ROMAN DOCUMENTS~R. lq. Smith, S.J . 101 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS: Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 112 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: 7. Sisters Overworked . 121 8. Elimination of Silence .¯ . 122 9. Illegitimacy and the Office of Local Superior . 123 10. True Meaning of Tradition in the Religious Life .124 11. General Councilor as Treasurer General . 126 12. Unsuitable Spiritual Reading . 127 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, March, 1958. Vol. 17, No. 2. Published bi-monthly by The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Blvd., St. Louis 18, Mo. Edited by the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approval. Second class mail privilege authorized at St. Louis, Mo. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J.; Gerald Kelly, S.J.; Henry Willmering, S.J. Literary Editor: Robert F. Weiss, S.J. Copyright, 1958, by The Queen's Work. Subscription price in U.S.A. and Canada: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U.S.A. Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to: Review for Religious, 3115 South Grand Boulevard. St. Louis 18. Missouri. The Holy See and Teaching Bro!:hers A LETTER BY Pope Plus XII, dated March 31, 1954, and addressed to Cardizial Valeri, prefect of the Sacred Congre-gation of Religious, discussed the nature and dignity of the teaching brothers' vocation. The official Latin text of this letter is in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 46 (1954), 202-5. Several English translations have appeared in our country. C, ornmen-tarium .pro religiosis, 33 (1954), 150-61, published the Latin text, with some annotations by Father A. Guti~rrez, C.M.F., and some interesting background. According to the Commentariurn, the procurators general of~i~!ght institutes of teaching brothers have the custom of meet-ing.~.' in Rome and discussing their mutual problems. The insti-tutes are: Christian Brothers; Christian Brothers of Ireland; Marists; Marianists; Brothers of Christian Instruction mel; Brothers of the Sacred Heart; Brothers of St. Gabriel; and the Xaverian Brothers. The main point discussed in their meeting in the spring of 1953 was the problem of vocations to their institutes, and especially the very delicate problem of mis-understanding by the clergy. Deeply concerned about this prob-lem, the procurators general de.cided to ask His Holiness for an official statement concerning the nature, .dignity, and value the teaching brothers' vocation and apostolate. Thus, with the approval of their own superiors and of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, they addressed a letter to the Pope. The French text of their letter, dated October 15, 1953, is given, in. the Commentarium /~ro religiosis. The Annotations Since Father Guti~rrez' remarks serve as a so~rt of brief commentary on the papal letter, the Gommenlarium publishes them immediately after the letter. It seems better for our 65 TEACHING BROTHERS Review for Religious purpose, however, to incorporate his principal points into this introductory background material because this will help to appre-ciate the' content of the papal letter, as well as of the letter addressed to the Pope by the procurators general. The principal points stressed by Father Guti~rrez are these: (1) The teaching brothers are religious in the full sense of canon law. (2) They have a special divine vocation, which is approved and specially protected by the Church. (3) Their apostolate of teaching is given to them by the Church itself; and the Church recognizes this apostolate as a higher call than Catholic Action. (4) The object of this apostolate is to form good men, good Catholics, and leaders; and this is accomplished not only by having excellent schools and teaching methods, but also and especially by teaching Christian doctrine and morality. (5) Since the pontifical institutes of brothers have received from the Holy See a commission to teach religion, they have a .right to exercise this apostolate within the limits of canon law. (6) One sign of the fruitfulness of the brothers' apostolate of teach-ing is the number oi: ecclesiastical vocations among their alumni. On the last point, Father Guti~rrez gives some interesting statistics concerning seven it~stitutes of teaching brothers with a total professed membeiship of 31,006. Of their former pupils who were still living in 19~3, there were 10 cardinals, 218 bishops, 31,938 priests, and 11,398 seminarians. I. Letter of the Procurators General Most Holy Father: The undersigned procurators general of eight institutes of teaching brothers lay at the feet of Your Holiness their respect-ful homage as loyal and obedient sons; and, in full agreement with the officials of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, they beg you graciously to consider a problem which their superiors are now making efforts to solve, that is, the misunderstanding by certain members of the clergy of the usefulness and canonical 66 TEACHING BROTHERS status of our vocation as lay religious men engaged in the teach-ing apostolate. Recalling the provisions of canon law (c. 107), Your Holi-ness declared to the religious' assembled in an international congress at the end of the Holy Year, I950, that "Between the two states--clerical and lay--which .constitute the Church, there falls the religious state." As religious with simple vows, our profession places us in the humblest category of the religious state. We are religious in so ~ar as we tend toward the perfection of charity by the practice of the ~three vows of the state of per-fection; we are laymen inasmuch as we have deliberately offered to God our sacrifice of~th_e priestly dignity and of the spiritual privileges which priests enjoy in order to concentrate all our activity on one apostolate alone: the Christian education of youth. This apostolate wa~ entrusted to us by the Holy Church. It is "a tedious work and a thankless task,''~ as Your Holiness pointed out when speaking to the m~sters of the French uni-versities on April 10, 1950; -But divine Providence. has con-tinually blessed such work and has rewarded it with the most noble of harvests through the priestly and religious vocations which spring up in our schools. "It is an unassailable fact that the number of p~iestly voca-tions is, if not the only criterion, at least one of the surest criterions for measuring the strength and fruitfulness of a Catholic school or of any Catholic educational institution." This is the judgment Your Holiness pronounced on May 28, 1951, at an audience marking the fifth centenary of the College Marc-antonio Colonna. The statistics on this subject which we have. the honor submitting to Your Holiness are based on the most recent research and are of such a nature as to console the heart of the Holy Father by showing in just what proportion the labors 6¸7 TEACHING BROTHERS Review for R~ligious teaching brothers contribute to the increase of the clergy through-ou~. the entire world. These results would be even more noteworthy if the nu-merical growth of our own institutes permitted us to answer all the appeals we are constantly receiving for the further expan-sion of our present works and for ventures into new fields of apostolic endeavor. We here touch upon the unfortunate problem which we wish to bring to the attention of Your Holiness. In many places our recruiting is hindered and the perseverance of those whom we do recruit is jeopardized by the misunderstanding or the opposition of certain members of the clergy. These ecclesi-astics are ignorant, or appear to be ignorant, of the canonical status of our vocation as well as of the mission which the Church, by its approbation of our institutes, has confided to us. In Appendix No. 2 0f this petition, we recount to Your Holiness some of the fallacious arguments disseminated against ui and some of the methods used in certain regions to turn young men away from our novitiates or to direct toward the clerical state some of our own religious even though already bound by perpetual profession. We thought, Most Holy Father, that a word from the Chair of Truth would-be most helpful to us in our efforts to refute these fallacies, to break down the prejudices which they engender, to encourage and guide souls of good will somewhat confused by these false ideas. The recent yearly congress of the Union of Teaching Brothers held at Paris--the report of which we beg you to receive as a humble testimony of our loyalty--seemed an appro-priate occasion for addressing the present petition to Your Holiness. Confident of the gracious welcome it will receive from the head of Christendom and the father of all religious and implor-ing your blessing, very respectfully we profess ourselves once 68 March, 1958 TEACHING BROTHERS more Your Holiness's most humble and obedient sonsR. ome, October 15, 1953. II. Letter of Pius XlI to Cardinal Valeri Beloved Son, Health and Apostolic Benediction: The procurators general of eight religious institutes of brothers, whose special mission is the instruction and education of youth, have presented Us with an official report of the annual meeting of the French provinces of their institutes, held last year at Paris, in order to inform Us of what had been accom-plished there and what they hope to accomplish in the future. At the same time, they besought Us in a submissive and respect-ful spirit to give them paternal instruction and to point out to them the best means to increase their numbers and to achieve the happiest results in their recruitment of vocations. That is what We gladly do in succinct form by means of this letter. And in the first place, We congratulate them very much, because We know with what zealous and untiring will these brothers are fulfilling the mission confided to them, a mission that can be of the greatest assistance to the Church, to the family, and to civil society itself. Indeed, their work is of great importance. Boys and young men are the blossoming hope of the future. And the course of events in the years ahead will depend especially upon those young men who are.instructed in the liberal arts and every type of discipline, so that they may assume the direction not only of their private affairs but also of public matters. If their minds are illumined by the light of the gospel, if their wills are formed by Christian principles and fortified by divine grace, then we may hope that a new gen-eration of youth will era"" t, appily triumph over the difficulties, beil -esently assail us a:ad which by its I e can establish a better and health. It is Our grent c~. ~nat these religious institutes are laboring to that end, guided by those wise rules 69 TEACHING BROTHERS Review for Religious which their founders have bequeathed to their respective insti-tutes as a sacred inheritance. We desire that they perform this task not only ~vith the greatest alertness, diligence, and devotion, but also animated by ~that supernatural spirit by which human efforts can flourish and bring forth salutary fruits. And specif-ically We wish that they strive to imbue the youth confided to them with a doctrine that is not only certain and free from all error, but which also takes account of those special arts and prodesses which the present age has introduced into each of the disciplines. But what is most !mportant is this, that they draw super-natural strength from their religious life, which they ought most intensively to live, by which they may form to Christian virtue the students committed to their care, as the mission confided to them by the Church demands. For if this virtue were relegated to a subordinate position or neglected entirely, 'neitl~er literary nor any other type of human knowledge would be able to estab-lish their lives in rectitude. In fact, these merely human attain-ments° can become effective instruments of "evil and unhappiness, especially at the age "which~ is as wax, so easily can it be fashioned to evil" (Horace, De arte l~Oetlca, 163). Therefore, let them watch over the minds and souls of their pupils; let them have a profound understanding of youth-ful indifference, of its hidden motivations, of its deep-seated drives, of its inner unrest and distress, and let them wisely guide them. Let them act with vigor to drive away at once and with the utmost determination, those false principles which are a threat to virtue, to avert every dange~ that-can tarnish the brightness of- their souls, and to so order all things about them that while the mind is being illumined by truth, the will may be tightly and courageously controlled and moved to embrace all that is good. While these religious brothers know that the education of youth is the art of arts and the science of sciences, they know, 70 March, 1958 TEACHING BROTHERS too, that they can do all these things with the divine aid, for which they pray, mindful of the word of the Apostle of the Gentiles: "I can do all things in Him who strengthenth Me" (Phil. 4:13). Therefore, let them cultivate their own piety as much as they can, as is only right for those who, although not called to the religious priesthood, yet have been admitted to the lay form of the religious life (c. 488, 4). Such a religious institute, although~ composed almost entirely of those who by God's special calling have renounced the dignity of the priest-hood and the consolations that flow therefrom, is all the same held in high honor by 'the Church and is of the gr.eatest assist-ance to the sacred ministry by the Christian formation of youth. On a previous occasion we turned our attention to this subject, saying: "The religious state is in no sense reserved to either the one or the other of the two types which by divine right exist in the Church, since not only the clergy but likewise the laity can be religious" (Allocution to the meeting of re-ligious orders held at Rome, AAS, 1951, p. 28). And by the very fact that the Church has endowed laymen with this dignity and status, it is quite plainly signified to all that each part this holy militia can labor, and very ~ffectively, both for its own salvation and that of others, according to the special canonical rules and norms by which each is regulated. Wherefore, let no one lack esteem for the members these institutes because they do rmt embrace the priesthood, or think that their apostolate is less fruitful. Moreover, it is afact well known to Us that they gladly encourage the youths com-mitted to their care for instruction and education to embrace the priesthood when it seems that" divine, grace is calling them. Nor is there any lack of instances of their former pupils who now adorn the ranks of the episcopate and even the Sacred College of Cardinals. These religious institutes merit and de-serve Our praise and that of the whole Church; they deserve, also, the good will of the bishops ~and" the ~ clergy, since they give them their fullest support, not o.nly in providing a fitting 71 TEACHING BROTHERS education for youth, but also in cultivating the vocations oi~ those students whom divine grace attracts to the sacred priest-hood. Therefore, let them hold to the way upon whichthey have entered, their vigor increasing day by day; and one with the other religious orders and congregations to whom this work has been confided, let them devote themselves to the instructior~ and education of youth with peaceful an~d willing souls. As a pledge of the divine help, which" we implore for them with earnest prayer, and as a testimony of Our personal benevo-lence, we lovingly impart the apostolic blessing to you, Our beloved son, and to each of the superiors of these institutes, to their subjects and to their pupils. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the 31st day of the month of March, of the year 1954, the sixteenth year of Our pontificate. SUMMER SESSIONS [EDITORS' NOTE: The deadlinefor summer-session announcements to be included in our May number was March 1. Since the May number is the last one to be published before the summer sessions begin, it will be useless to send us further announcements for 1958. We wish to take this occasion to make one candid remark. In our November, 1957, number, page 32~, we outlined several specifications to be observed in draw-ing up summer-session announcements. Most deans who sent us announcements either completely or partially ignored these specifications. May we suggest that someone who reads this magazine might call his or her dean's attention to this?] St. Louis University will feature an institute in liturgical music: Gre~gorian Chant and Polyphony, June 9-13. During the six-week summer session, June 17 to July 25, there will be graduate courses .in the Theology .of the Mystical Body and in Moral and Ascetical Theology, together with undergraduate courses in Sacred Scripture, Divine Grace and Corporate Christianity, and in other topics. For further details write to: Department of Religion, St. Louis University, St. Louis 3, Missouri. Registration for the summer session at St. Bonaventure Uni-versity will take place on June 30. Classes will extend from July 1 until August 7. Special attention is called to the School of Sacred Services for the sisters. The purpose of this program is to afford teaching sisterhoods an opportunity of broaderiing and deepening their knowledge of religion and of acquiring a scientific and scholarly (Continued on page 81 ) 72 Religious and Psycho!:herapy Richard P. Vaughan, ~.J. THE PAST TWO decades have seen an ever-increasing awareness of the p~esence of mental illness in our midst. Newspapers and magazines have served as media to educate the public. As a result, the person who previously had been ac-cepted by his family and friends as "just naturally odd" is looked upon as mentally disturbed and in need of psychiatric care. The usual treatment of twenty or thirty years ago, which consisted of relegating the peculiar member of the family to the back of the house or excusing his presence by an embarrassing wink, has to a great extent given way to the realization that the emotion-ally and mentally ill can be helped only by adequate psychiatric treatment: Within the cloister and the convent, however, this changing attitude has been slow to make its appearance. Many superiors recognize signs of mental disorder in one or more ot: ¯ their subjects, but they are hesitant even to consider the pos-sibility of psychiatric aid. In general, they will exhaust every other possible source-of assistance before they will send the subject to a psychiatrist. If one stops to analyze this distrust, a number of reasons come to mind. Sources of Negative Attitudes In the first place, this negative attitude toward psychiatry is partially due to the historic role of the priest. From the earliest days of the Church, the clergy have been the accepted pastors of souls. The very notion of pastor implies a duty to guide and direct. Since there was no other source of profes-sional guidance until quite recently, the full burden of this duty fell upon the shoulders of the priest. It became the accepted practice for the faithful to seek his help when confronted with the vexing problems of phobias or compulsions as well as in their strivings toward spiritual perfection. As a matter of fact, many looked upon these purely psychological disorders as spiri-tual difficulties. 73 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review [or Religious This attitude has persisted uniil our own day. It is espe-cially prevalent among priests, brothers, and sisters. Even though experiende has shown that most prie.sts are not equipped to deal with pathological emotional disturbances, many religious cling to the outdated view that the priest should be the sole ~source of assistance. They are convinced that spiritual guidance and the frequent reception of the sacraments are the best remedies for neurotic disordeks. Psychiatric care is deemed necessary only in those cases where the individual can no longer live in the religious community. A further source of antagonism is tl~e materialistic and anti-religious philosophy held by some of the most important psy-chiatrists. Foremost among these is Sigrnund Freud, who. has done more to shape psychiatric thought than any other individual. Unfortunately, most rdligious have heard only of Freud's errors. They have made no attempt to understand his valuable contribu-tions to the science of treating the mentally ill or to sort out his scientific findings from a biased and i'rreligious philosophy, which came as an after-thought. They summarily dismiss Freud's works on the false assumption that their sole topic is sex in its basest form. This view has led to a condemnation of the scien-tific as well as the philosophical teachings of Freud. Since most psychiatrists are Freudian to a degree, a distrust for the whole profession has resulted. Finally, there are the often-quoted examples of seemingly immoral advice given by some psychiatrists. One of the traits of the mentally ill is a resistance to treatment. It sometimes hap-pens that this resistance takes the form of trying to undermine the reputation ot~ the therapist. If this can be successfully ac-complished, the neurotic feels justified in discontinuing treatment. Thus, he sometimes either consciously or unconsciously misin-terprets the words of the psychotherapist. This misinterpreta-tion gives rise to some of the stories of immoral suggestions offered during 'the sessions ot: therapy. Of course, it cannot be 0 74 Marck, 1958 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY said that this is true in every instance.~ Undoubtedly, thereare genuine cases of psychiatrists advocating sinful actions. Such advice does not, however, constitute good therapy. It is not the function 0~ the psychotherapist to make moral judgments 'for his patients. It is rather a sign of incompetence. However, just as there is a certain amount of incompetence in the other branches of medicine, so too we should expect it in psychiatry. We do not condone such incompetence, but look forward to the day when it will be eliminated. The s01ution to the problem is not to ~ondemn the whole .profession, but to know the qualifications of the psychotherapist to whom we refer a patient. Church's Position As can r~eadily be seen, the three above-mentioned sources of hostility toward psychiatry as a medium for treating mental illness are the product of personal attitudes and personal ex-perience. They in no way express the official view of the Church. Up to a few y~ars ago, the Church had not as yet officially indicated her position in regard ~o psychiatry. She prudently and cautiously waited before making any statement. The nega-tive views that were prevalent among Catholics some ten or fifteen years ago simpIy reflected the personal attitudes of a large percentage of the clergy. In 1953 th~ Holy Father, Pius XI.I, at the Fifth Congress of Psyhotherapy and Clinical Psychology concluded his address to the delegates with these words: "Further-more, be assured that the Church follows your research and your medical practice with warm interest and best wishes. You work on a terrain that is very difficult. Your activity, however, is capable of achieving precious results .for medicine, for the~ knowledge of souls in general, for the religious dispositions of man and for their development. May providence and divine grace light your path!" These words represent an official statement of the Church. They certainly indidate anything but a negative and hostile attitude toward the arduous work oi: the psycho.therapist. 75 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious Types of Psychiatry In general, therapy for the mentally ill takes two forms: one which is strictly medical and one which is psychological. The medical approach makes use of such means as brain surgery, electric shock tre~i~ment, and the use of drugs. This approach is entirely in the hands of medical specialists. The second ap-proach, which is called psychotherapy, makes use of a continuing series of interviews. This latter approach is not limited exclu-sively to the medical profession. At present, not only psychia-trists but also psychologists and psychiatric social workers are practicing psychotherapy. In a number 0f instances, the mem-bers of the latter two professions practice psychotherapy under the supervision of a psychiatrist, because of the physical impli-cations involved in many cases of mental illness. With those who are so seriously ill that little personal con-tact can be established, the purely medical techniques are used until such a time as psychotherapy can be profitable. With the less seriously disturbed, some psychiatrists make use of a com-bination of psychotherapy anddrugs, while others look upon drugs as a crutch and prefer to depend entirely upon psycho-therapy. It is this latter type of treatment toward which numer-ous religious are so antagonistic. If the only technique used by psychiatry were the administration of drugs or surgery, there would probably be much less oppogition to it. Psychotherapy If one surveys the history of mankind, it becomes apparent that a type of psychotherapy has been practiced for centuries. It seems safe to say that people have always had problems that they were unable to solve without the help of others, and these problems disturbed their emotional equilibrium in" varying de-grees of seriousness. The writings of ancient Greece and Rome tell of troubled individuals seeking advice and aid from the wise and learned. From the very beginnings of the Church, people brought their troubles and problems to the priest. In past 76 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY generations, most had a dlose friend with whom they could dis-cuss their most intimate affairs. The help derived from these above-mentioned sources came not only from the advice given by the friend, priest, or learned counselor, but also from the relationship that was established through numerous sessions of conversation and from the insight into the problem that the disturbed party g~ined through the very act of talking about it. However, because of a lack of knowledge and skill in deal-ing with human emotions and feelings, those consulted fre-quently found themseives at a loss to help those who sought their assistance. With the development of scientific methods in psychiatry, men discovered that they could apply the results of their in-vestigations to the emotionally and mentally ill and thus aid those who had previously been immune to all known sources of help. In this manner, psychotherapy, as it is known today, was born. One practices scientific psychotherapy when he car~ analyze an emotional disorder and then during the course of his dealings with the afflicted person apply the psychological techniques that are the product of fifty years of clinical experi-ence and research. The good therapist must have learning, skill, and experience. Basically, therefore, psychotherapy is nothing more than the age-old practice of aiding others through communication, but now built upon a scientific foundation. It has the added factor that the therapist has a psychological knowledge and skill which his predecessor lacked. Morality and Psychotherapy Since religious men and women are by no means free from emotional and mental disorders, the development of psycho-therapy should have offered a welcome solution to a very vexing and persistent problem. However, owing to the previously mentioned factors, a negative and hostile attitude arose among religious toward the whole movement. As a result of this at-titude, today when a religious superior is faced with the necessity of seeking psychiatric help for a subject, he frequently hesitates 77 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious for a "considerable length of time, questioning the advisability of such a step. Because of the seemingly close connection between religion, morality, and psychiatry, the superior sees in psycho-therapy a potential danger to the faith and religious vocation of the subject. Psychiatric aid has, therefore, become in most instances a last resort. For the most part, this attitude is built upon a false notion of the nature of psychiatric treatment. The treatment of mental illness pertains to the science of medidine. Just as there are specialists in the fields of surgery, obstetrics, and internal medicine, so too there are specialists in the area of mental disease. The specialist in this branch of medicine is the psychiatrist. His training, which consists of three years of concentrated study and work with the mentally ill over and beyond his general course in medicine, adequately equips the psychiatrist to treat the mentally ill. His auxiliaries, the psychologiit and psychiatric social worker, likewise have an in- ¯ tensive training; but the orientation of their studies restricts their activity to psychotherapy and diagnostic testing. The religious who .is psychotic or neurotic is just as sick as the religious with a heart or stomach disorder. And he is just as much in need of treatment. He, therefore, has an equal righ~ to the specialized services of those who have been trained to treat his particular disorder. In all probability, unless he does obtain this specialized care, his condition will grow progressively worse. In view of this fact, the emotionally afflicted priest, brother, or sister is certainly justified in making a request for psychiatric care. And in those cases where the mentally ill are unable to make such a request because of their disorder, superiors have the obligation to see that these sick religious obtain specialized treatment. We are all bound to preserve our life and health. Severe mental diseases sometimes hasten death, and in almost every instance undermine physical health. More-over, mental health is equally as important as physical health for happy and efficient living. The superior, therefore, who disregards the condition of a severely neurotic or psychotic sub- 78 March, 1958 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY ject because of an erroneous prejudice against psychiatric treat-ment works a gross injustice upon the afflicted religious. Any Psychiatrist? Granted that a religious is given permission to seek psy-chiatric treatme.nt, the next problem that presents itself deals with the particular therapist to whom the religious is sent. In brief, should a priest, brother, or sister seek the services of any psychiatrist? Obviously, some psychiatrists have a'better reputa-tion than others, just as some heart specialists have a better repu-tation than others. Thus, it seems needless to say that religious should seek out the best possible psychiatric treatment available in the area. This means that the therapist should be competent in his profession.One of the foremost characteristics of a com-petent psychiatrist, in addition to knowledge and skill, is a deep understanding and respect for the person of his patient. These two factors result in a relationship between the patient and the therapist that becomes the cornerstone of successful treatment. Understanding and respect naturally include an appreciation of the religious and moral convictions of the patient, since these are an integral part of'his ipersonality. Thus, contrary to the thinking of a number of priests and sisters, the competent psychiatrist does not try to undermine the faith and moral principles of his patient but rather accepts these convictions. He knows that he has had no specialized training in religion and morality which would qualify him as an authority in these areas, Furthermore, he looks upon these areas as foreign to his "function as a professional man. Should a religious problem arise with a patient, he sends the patient to a specialist; namely, the priest who is a trained theologian. Thus, any conflict that might arise between morality and psychiatry is the product of incompetency rather than the natural outcome of the psychotherapeutic process. A Catholic Psychiatrist? One of the questions which is most frequently asked is whether a Catholic should seek the services of a Catholic psy- 79 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious chiatrist in preference to those of a non-Catholic. This question is especially pertinent when one is dealing with a religious who is in. need of psychotherapy. If there is a choice between two psychiatrists who are equally skilled, but one is a Catholic and the other is notl then it would seem that the better choice would be ~he Catholic. The reason for such a choice does not rest upon moral issues, but rather upon the need for full under-standing of the patient. A Catholic psychiatrist is in a much 'better position to understand the religious life and all its implications than the non-Catholic. Thus he is more likely to be able to offer greater assistance to the mentally-ill religious. However, it sometimes happens that a particular non-Catholic psychiatrist has a deep interest in priests, brothers, and nuns and, as a result, has spent considerable time and effort in trying to gain an appreciation of the religious life. In such instances, it may well be that the non-Catholic psychiatrist is equally as well equipped to treat the religious as the Catholic psychiatrist. It should also be noted that the fact that a psychiatrist is a Catholic does not mean that he is a good psychiatrist and capable of treating religious. Some Catholics have little understanding of or sym-pathy for the religious life. In those few cases where religious and moral problems are deeply interwoven with the neurotic co.ndition, the Catholic psychiatrist who is well versed in his faith is in a considerably better position to help the religious patient than the non-Catholic, because he has a better understanding of what his patient is trying to convey to him. It is needless to say that in these instances the priest with training in psychotherapy is in a unique position. Unfortunately, however, there are very few priests who have sufficient skill and experience in psychotherapy. In the majority of psychological problems found among religious, however, faith and mo.rality play a relatively minor role. Generally speaking, the roots of the disorder spring from those periods of life which preceded entrance into the convent 80 March, 1958 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY or cloister. The conflicts" and problems that have to be faced are of such a nature as to be experienced by any patient, re-gardless of faith or walk of life. In these instances, psycho-therapy aims at helping religious get at the source of the neurosis and then change the patterns of thinking and feeling that pro-duce the condition. Thus, for many emotionally disturbed religious the non-Catholic psychiatrist who has some under-standing of the religious life is adequately equipped to handle treatment. Conclusion The pr~actice of psychotherapy is a rapidly developing method of treating mental illness. Because of certain negative attitudes and a lack of understanding, many religious hesitate to make use of it or turn to ~t only as a last resort. As a result, numerous priests, brothers, and sisters needlessly continue to suffer untold anguish from the various forms of mental and emotional illness. In as much as mental and emotional dis-turbances disrupt the whole personality and hinder advance in the spiritual life, this usually unfounded distrust of psychiatry is in all likelihood damaging the growth of the religious 'spit:it in our country. Summer Sessions (Continued from page 72) understanding of the teaching of the Church. Further information will be gladly supplied by the Director of Admissions, St. Bona-venture University, Olean, New York. The Theology Department of Mai'quette University will offer two non-credit summer institdtes from June 30 to July 12. An institute on canon law for religious will be conducted by Father Francis N. Korth, S.J., J,C.D., a specialized lecturer and consultant in canon law. The institute will provid~ a thorough course in the current church law for religious. Although the lectures are designed especially for superiors, mistresses of novices, councilors, bursars, and others engaged in administrative or governing functions," other religious would profit from the course. These lectures will be held in the mornings. In the afternoons an institute on prayer will be 81 SUMMER SESSIONS conducted by Father Vincent P. McCorry, s.J, author, professor, and spiritual director. The purpose of the institute is strictly prac-tical: to provide for an interested group such exposition and direction as will enable the individual religious to practice mental prayer with greater fidelity and profit. Campus housing for the institute par-tidipants will be the new Schroeder Hall. For further information write: Director of Summer Institutes, Marquette University, Mil-waukee 3, Wisconsin. Graduate courses in theology leading to the Master of Arts degree will also be offered. The two introductory courses i:or those students entering the graduate theology program are: Fundamental Theology which will be taught by Father Bernard .L Cooke, S.J'., S.T.D., of Marquette University, and the Church of Christ to be conducted by Father Cyril O. Vollert, s.J., S.T.D., professor of theology at St. Mary's, Kansas. For advanced students, The Unity and Trinity of God will 'be taught by Father John J. Walsh, s.J., S~T.D., of Weston College, Weston, Massachusetts; and Father R. A. F. MacKenzie, S.J., S.S.D., of the Jesuit Seminary, Toronto, Canada, will conduct the course on Special Topics in Scripture. For further information about the program write to: The Graduate School, Marquette University, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin. In the Canadian capital, the Pontifical Catholic University of Ottawa offers courses in its summer school, July 2 to August 6, leadin~ to the degree of Master of Arts in Sacred Studies. The curriculum stresses the kerygmatic presentation ot: theology. It is planned particularly to meet the needs of sisters and brothers teach-ing religion, and of novice mistresses or others giving religious or spiritual instrudtion. These courses are also open to students work-ing toward other degrees. The summer school offers a separate series of courses in sacred studies in which the language of instruc-tion is French. For the sacred studies prospectus and the complete summer school announcement, write: Reverend Gerard Cloutier, O.M.I., Director of the Summer School, or Reverend Maurice Giroux, O.M.I., Head of the Department of Sacred Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa 2, Canada. Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles, California, will open a iix-week summer session on June 24. An extensive liberal arts program leading to the Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees will be supplemented by workshops in art, drama, language arts, and library science. T[fe curriculum of undergraduate courses lead-ing to a Certificate in Theology will be continued this summer. The Immaculate" Heart Graduate School will ina~ugurate a new depart-ment of religious education, offering a major ia theology and minors in Sacred Scripture or church history. Elective courses will be given in Catholic Social Thought and Liturgy. Designed especially to prepare teachers of religion ~•or high school and college, this program .is open to those who hold a Bachelor of Arts degree from an accredited college (with a major in any field) and. have sufficient (Continued on page 128) 82 A Sense Balance Robert ~X/. Gleasonr S.J. IT IS CHARACTERISTIC of Christian doctrine to maintain the delicate balance between extremes. Moreover, without los-ing hold of any aspect of a" complex truth, the Church unites all its elements in a synthesis that throws light on each of them. And the Christian himself is often called upon to do something of the same sort in his spiritual life. He has to tread a careful path between attitudes which are apparently opposed, though each of them reflects some truth. This di~i-culty is sometimes experienced when the Christian soul ap-proaches the antinomy between the natural and the supernatural or between what we migh't call the accent of optimism and the accent of pessimism in Christianity. For both currents, opti-mism and pessimism, have played an historic role in Christian thinking; and both seem destined to be with us for ~quite awhile. Each of these perspectives is capable of dangerous exaggeration', ~for Pelagianism is an overblown optimism and Jansenism is pessimism run riot. As an examl61e of a thoroughly unchristian pessimism, we might point to those words of the French novelist Andr~ Gide: "Commandments of God you have embittered my soul; com-mandments of God you have rendered my soul sick; will you never draw a limit? Will you go on forever forbidding new things? Is all that I have thirsted for as beautiful on earth, forbidden, punishable? Commandments of God you have poisone.d my soul." Gide was a tortured personality, even to the end of his life; and in these lines we can perhaps glimpse a reason for his unhappiness. For they reveal a fundamentally unchristian point of view, a thoroughly pessimistic point of view that perfectly reflects his Calvinistic background. In striking contrast to those lines are two sentences from St. John's Gospel which are almost startling in their optimism. 83 ROBERT W. GLEASON Review for Religious In the tenth chapter of that Gospel, Christ the Lord, the Alpha and Omega of truth, gives us a summary of His plat-form. "I am come that you may have life and have it more abundantly." In this direct utterance Christ enuntiates a posi-tion of relative optimism. He explains the purpose of His existence as Incarnate Word, both God and Man, and He explains it in terms of an increase of life---an optimistic point 'of view, surely. He put it in other words at other times, but they all come down to the same thing in the end. He also said: "Those who are well have no need of a doctor; I am come to the sick." And He said: "I am come to rescue all that which was in the act of perishing." But perhaps the clearest expression of His purpose is that simple declaration: am come that you may have life and have more of it." In that one line Christ compressed the whole spirit of what we might call Christian optimism. It has taken philosophers and theologians a good many years to unravel some of the implica-tions of the program summed up in these few words. God has planned a new life for us; He has planned to expand, to increase our capacity for living beyond any capacity we might have dreamed of. In fact, He has planned for us an entirely new grade of life~-known as the life of sanctifying grace. The story of Christ's coming we usually call the Gospels; and the Gospels, the e.vangels,are the great and good news, the announcement of the definitive victory of this new life over death, over sin, and over Satan. As the whole of human history unfolds before us centered in this momentous figure of Christ in whom God wrote the definitive chapter of the history of our salvation, we cannot but feel the optimistic position in which we Christians of these latter days find ourselves. The victory belongs to the Christian; that is the meaning of Christ. The victory over death, sin, and Satan is ours. Is ours, we must say, not will be ours, for Christ, our Victory, already exists. We have conquered in Him; and 84 Ma~'ch, 1958 A SENSE OF BALANCE the victory is ours for we ,are not separated from the conquering hero, rather we are closely united by physico-mystical ~bonds to Him who has the victory, who won it on Calvary. There is one of our race and family, one of .us, crowned with victory in the glory of the Trinity in heaven. And His victory i.s ours for He did not enter into it as an isolated individual alone, but as the Head of the Body, His Church, .of which we are mem-bers. The Head of the great column o.f humanity to which we belong has already entered upon His triumph; and, if we but remain united to Him, our victory too is assured and inevitable. After the conquest which was Calvary, then, there is really no place in the Christian life for a depressed pessimism. There is no place for a spirit of defeatism. There is no place for a small-spirited, mean-spirited mentality. We are the victors al-ready, and ours is a ~spirit of optimism. Despite this, life still has its dangers and its difficulties. The roses did not lose their thorns on Easter day. Because this is true, the Christian must be realistic about the dangers ~nd the difficulties of life. His traditional asceticism, maintained in a spirit of optimism, will preserve him from both'. But at bottom there still remain two fundamentally opposed ways of looking at life. One we have labeled pessimistic, and Gide's words exemplify it. The other we may call optimistic, and the words of St. John are its charter. The pessimistic attitude is negative. It is a depressed view 6f things ifi wh~ich the vic-torious Redemption which has already taken place appears to be forgotten. It might seem a~ though such an attitude could never creep into authentically Christian li~es, yet, since error is al-ways possible, even for the well-intentioned, such negati~,e at-titudes have not been entirely unknown even among earne'st Christians. It is surprisingly easy t6 drift into these" dangerous waters, particularly if one's theological perspectives are' awry. This will be clear if we think for a moment on the rigfi't and the wro_ng understandings of certain religious realities. 85 ROBERT W. GLEASON Review fo~" Religious Consider, for example, the way in which these two classes of souls, the negative and the positive, approach the great mystery of God. The negative ~oul will light at once upon certain isolated texts from Scripture and come up with a picture of God as a hard Master who reaps where He did not sow, who lies hidden in the shadows of our life, always prepared to fall upon us in a moment of surprise and seize us in some misdoing or sin. The God of these people is a hard God, ready at any moment to drag out the account books and show us our deficits, not omitting the idle words. Alas, if God takes to playing the mathematician, how few of us can endure. For as the De Pro/undis puts it: "Lord, if you take to numbering our in-iquities, who ot: us shall survive?" ,. The attitude of the op.timistic Christian, on the other hand, is quite different. He knows that God is the absolute Lord and Master, the unapproachably holy and just one, the transcendent, the totally.other. But He also recalls God's recorded definition of Himself, "For God is love." St. John gives Us this phrase, and St. John was neither pietistic nor particularly poetic. He was an excellent theologian, the best in this respect of all the evangelists; and his definition is inspired. God' is indeed a just God, but He is als0 a justifying God. He justifies us irz His sight by the free, undeserved gift of His grace. He is indeed a demanding God--"I am a jealous God"--but He is never hard, uncomprehending, or cruel. He is very demanding, and His demands are ever-increasing. But they all go in the same direction. For they all rgquire us to accept more from Him. God insists that we prepare ourselves, with His help, to receive His floods of generosity. He asks us, to be sure, for ~more--more acceptance, more readiness to receive the new gifts He has laid up for us. His demaads are the demands of one who loves, not the demands of a suspicious bank auditor. We see somewhat the same contrasts if we look at the way these two classes of souls regard man himself. For ~he 86 March, 1958 A SENSE OF BALANCE pessimistic soul, man is essentially/ a spoiled creature, a ruined, unbalanced creature all too heavily laden with the effects of original sin. Evil seems so often triumphant in him. Hell is always just around the corner. Satan appears to 'be the real victor in this world, and man is his victim. Man is a poor thing; his nature is fallen. The phrase "fallen human nature" is repeated even with a certain relish. Fallen indeed, but fallen and redeemed, replies the Christian soul. We cannot underrate the Redemption of Christ our God. Satan is not triumphant. His back was broken on a certain hill outside Jerusalem, and the victory of Christ is written large for all to see who have eyes to.look upon a crusifix. Man is no .ruined, spoiled .creature, half-demon and victim of his own determinisms. He is the spoils of the victory of Christ. He is the prize of the Redemption, won in the sweat and the blood and the tears of Calvary and valued at a great price, bought with no blood of oxen or goats, but with the blood of Him who is God. In. the center of :all creation stands Jesus Christ, and with Him stands man. We two, He and I, are members of the same race, members of the same family. Where sin did abound now grace does superabound. Grace it is which replaces sin at baptism and raises us to the heights of quasi-equality, where we can claim the friendship of the God of the Old and the New Testaments. We Christians are a family with a great tradition. We are wounded but remade and more marvelously remade, for God does not do a poor patchwork job when He repairs us. In our family we have legions of martyrs, men like us. We have legions of virgins, men like us. We have legions of con-lessors in our family, and t.hey have all put their merits at our disposal for this is only normal in a loving family. When we turn trrom the question of the meaning of God and of man to the third great problem of the spiritual life, the 87 ROBERT W. GLEASON Review for Religion,s meaning of creatures, we find the same two contrasting attitudes. For the negative, pessimistic soul creatures are all deformed, twisted beings with little value or meaning in themselves. They are only tenuous beings serving us as instruments. In general they are things to be feared, for they are all traps for the unwary soul. They all conspire to ensnare man and to destroy him. But the genuine Christian insight discovers in creatures.a meaning, and a dignity of their own; for they, too, are mirrors of God. The sacred humanity of our Lord is a creature; and, if it is a net, it is a net designed to catch and save us--that I may be caught by Christ, says St. Paul. The wine at Mass and the water at baptism and the oi! of 'confirmation . . . all are creatures. We live in a sacramental universe in which all crea-tures speak of God. For they are the means God has given us to form us as His children. They are called by" a wise and ancient writer "our viaticum," our sustenance during this period when we are on the way. It is on creatures that we practice our apprenticeship in the art of loving God. They do demand of us a wise, lucid, and generous choice; but they 'are not evil. We learn much about loving God from our use of them--a use that can take many forms from contemplation to absention. Creatures always have a role to play in our lives, and we cannot forget that we too have a role to play in theirs. We have to reconsecrate them to God and rededicate them to Christ, the Center and Owner of all cre~turedom. We have to bless them by our use and stamp them with the image of the risen Lord. Does not the Church write special blessings for such shiny new creatures as typewriters and fountain pens? In doing so she resp'onds to the age-old appeal of creaturedom for its redemption. For the very material world about us groans for the day of its liberation, and we are called upon to extend to it the effects of the Redemption.~ 88 March, 1958 ASENSE OF BALANCE Of course, with such different conceptions of the world, the two classes of souls we have been envisaging will regard the moral or spiritual life in very different lights. For the negative soul the moral life is a long battle, a series of prohibitions, an ever-expanding Decalogue that is purely negative. Above all, one must be on his guard to do nothing to .anger a God who is always ready for anger. Do nothing that can be punished . . and there is almost nothing that is not tainted in some fashion, and so punishable. Such a view, replies the truer Christian, is essentially in. adequate. The moral life consists above all in living, in doing something, in being something. It consists in life and an expansion of our divinized life so that we may live for God and gro.w in love and make our talents fructify. Virtues ire not negative dispositions but positive .dispositions. And prime among all the don'ts on that list is the one great and transcendently great do. "Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God." The spiritual life is not one long escapism. It is not a flight from life. It is a positive living of love for God and my neighbor. The Christian soul's apostrophe would run quite differently from Gide's. "Commandments of God," the Christian would say, "you are all so many-signposts on 'the road toward the lasting city; you point out the road to love and of developing life to foolish humanity. And if I but read you right, you are all so many declarations of love on the part of God for me. Commandments of God, you indicate and you preserve all that life has to offer that is beautiful and worthy of search. Without you beauty would dry up from the face of a scorched earth." The pessimist has an unrealistic view of God and the world, for he lives as though the Redemption had an incomplete efficacy. The realism of the Christian's optimism takes into account both his own weakness and the power of God who has conquered the world. The pessimist's view is an incomplete view and an incomplete truth; it needs to be completed with 89 COMMUNICATIONS a real assent to the truth of the Redemption, gloriously accom-plished. For an incomplete truth is a half-truth, and a half-truth is nearly as dangerous as a lie. Communica!:ions More on Delayed Vocations (See REVIEW Fog RELIGIOUS, May', 1957, page 154) Reveiend Fathers: The Congregation of Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus professes a special worship of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, above all in the Blessed Sacrament. This spirit of reparation is concentrated in daily adoration before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, and offered in an active apostolate in the education of youth, retreat work, catechetical instruction, and foreign missions. The spiritual training is based on the rules of St. Ignatius. The Handmaids have some sixty houses throughout the world. The mother house is in Rome. Mission work has taken 'root both in South America and in Japan. A future field of work is opening up in India. The foundress of the congregation, Blessed Raphaela Mary oic the Sacred Heart, was beatified in 1952, only twenty-seven years after her death. Her process of canonization is now,going on. Candidates are accepted up to the age of thirty. Those who wish to dedicate themselv'es to domestic work are accepted up to the age of thirty-eight. We accept widows. Our novitiate is located in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Private retreats, may be made there by a candidate to decide her vocation. Mother Maria Angelica Iq'an, A.C~J. Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus 700 East Church Lan~ Philadelphia 44, Pennsylvania OUR CONTRIBUTORS RICHARD P. VAUGHAN, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of San Francisdo and a staff member of the McAuley Clinic, St. Mary's Hospital, is currently engaged, in psychotherapy with religious men and women. ROBERT W. GLEASON is a professor of dogmatic theology in the Graduate School of Fordham University, New York. DANIEL J. M. CALLAHAN is professor of ascetical and mystical theology at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. C. A, HERBST is now a missionary in Seoul, Korea. 9O The Pert:ec(: Pa!:l:ern t:or Religious Lit:e Daniel J. M. Callahan, S.J. DIVINE REVELATION assures us of our elevation to the supernatural state and of'the o.rganism which equips us for life and action on that superhuman level. The question immediately presents itself: Who will inspire us to respond to God's .beneficence and supply the pattern for such a life? God predestines us to be, not creatures only, but His children through adoption and heirs of His beatitude. ~Voblesse oblige; rank has its obligations; nobility of station demands nobility of con-duct. As God's children we should resemble our Father in our conduct no less than in our nature, and such is the injunction placed on us by Christ: "~ou therefore are to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48) and resumed by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (5:1): "Be you, there-fore, imitators of God, as very dear children and walk in love, as Christ also loved us." To imitate God we must first know Him, and this is one reason why He has manifested I-Iimself to us. in His Son and through His Son. It is by means of the Incarnation that the Son has revealed to us the Father. Christ, the incarnate Son of the Father, is God brought within human reach under a human expression, and in Him and through Him we know the Father. In reply to Philip's request: "Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us," Jesus said to him, "Have I been so l~ng a time with you, and you have riot knowa Me? t~hilip, he who sees Me, sees also the Father . . . I am in the Fathe.r and the Father in Me" (John 14:8 ft.). To know and imitate God, we have only to know and imitate H~s Son, who i~ the expression at once divine and human of the perfec-tions of the Father. Jesus is perfect God and perfect, man, and under both aspects He is the ideal for every one, for religious most of all. 91 DANIEL J. M. CALLAHAN Review for Religio~ts He is the natural Son of Go,d, and it is His divine sonship that is the primary type or pattern of our divine adoption. Our filiation is a participation of His eternal filiation; through Him and from Him we share in divine grace, are in reality God's children and partake of His life. Such is to be the fundamental characteristic of our likeness to Jesus, the indispensable requisite for our sanctity. Unless we possess sanctifying grace, we are dead spiritually; and all that we can do is of no strict merit entitling us to our everlasting inheritance. We shall be coheirs with Christ only if we are His brethren through habitual grace. Here it may not be amiss to examine our appraisement of sanctifying grace, our prudence in safeguarding it, and our diligencd in its increment in our souls. Do we ~ippreciate its embellishing effects and how unlovely and helpless we are with-out it? Mortal sin alone despoils us of this precious treasure; and, because we are subject to temptation from within and from without, it is expedient, at least occasionally, to probe our atti-tude to sin, to the frailties and perhaps unmortified passions that induce it, and to the constructive measures to be adopted. Growth is the law of life, and it is through the cultivation of the theological and moral virtues that we are to fortify and expand our supernatural life. . Every least good action per-formed with the requisite intention by one in the state of grace, as well as every sacrament worthily received, effects in us an iricrease in grace and in all the infused virtues. Christ is in truth a perfect man, and in this He is for us the attractive and accessible model of all holiness. In an in-comparable degree" He practiced all the virtues compatible with His condition. He did not have faith in God, for this theo-logcal virtue exists only in a soul which does not enjoy the immediate vision of God, a vision that was Christ's privilege from the mbment of the Incarnation. He did, however, have that submission of will inherent in faith, that reverence and adoration of God the supreme truth that imparts to faith its excellence. Neither did Christ possess the virtue of hope in the proper sense, 92 March, 1958 PATTERN FOR RELIGIOUS LIFE since the function of this 'virtue is to enable us to ddsire and'to expect the possession of God and the means necessary for its attainment. Only in the sense that Christ could desire and expect the glorification of His body and the accidental honor that would accrue to Him after the Resurrection, could He have hope. Charity He possessed and practiced to a supreme degree: the purest love of the Father and of His adopted children in-undated His soul and motivated His activities. Love unites the wills of the lovers, fusing them into oneness of desire and con-duct. Christ's first act in entering into the world was one of ardent love: "Behold I come . . . to do Thy will, O God" (Matt. 10:7), and His subsequent life was the prolongation of His initial sacrifice: "Of Myself I do nothing He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, because I do always the things that are pleasing to Him" (John 8:26 ft.). Our Blessed Lord's soul was adorned with all the moral vir-tues: humility, meekness, kindness, patience, prudence, jus-tice, temperance, chastity, fortitude, zeal, each in its own per-fection. His every least action glorified and eulogized His Father, and was the object of the latter's complacency, as voiced by Himself: "This is My beloved Son in whom I am ~ell pleased" (Matt. 3:17), a proclamation which covered everymome.nt and every deed of Christ's life. His actions as man, while in them-selves human, were divine in their principle, for there was in Him only one person, a divine person, performing all in union with the Father and in the most complete dependence on the divinity and therefore confdrring on the Father infinite glory. Religious, obligated by their state to strive for perfection, have need of an ideal, of a perfect pattern to be realized in their lives. Mere human beings are too imperfect. God in His divine nature seems too distant from us and beyond our repro-duction. The God-man is the consummate ideal for all, at all times, for childhood, youth, maturity; for the hidden, public, apostolic, and suffering life. There is no phase of human life' which He does not exemplify, illustrate, adorn, and enoble. 93 DANIEL J. i~I. CALLAHAN Review fo~" Religious Far from resembling the cold blueprint of the architect or the lifeless page of our favorite author, Jesus is always the most attractive and appealing man who lived in circumstances similar to our own; and, while He enlightens our mind, He awakens love and emulation in the will, meanwhile offering the necessary strength and the assurance of ultimate success. In our endeavor to fashion a Christlike character, obviously there is need of intelligent interpretation. As we turn over the pages of our New Testament, often we read of deeds that were the outcome of superhuman power and clearly beyond us. However, even in such instances we can fall back on the spirit and motive of these achievements. Christ used His infinite ¯ power, not for His selfish aggrandizement, but for the honor of the Father and the benefit of souls--a procedure within our finite reach and sedulously to be duplicaked. In our attempt to imitate Christ we are constrained by the nature of the case to reduce His traits to terms of human capability. We cannot, for instance, forgive sins against God; but we can pardon offences against self. We are unable immediately to cure the sick, but we can alleviate their sufferings by sympathy and kind-ness. We may not be permitted to spend the night on the mountain in prayer with Jesus, but we can cultivate the spirit of communion with God amidst our activities throughout the day and pray with attention when we do pray. We may not be in a position to teach with authority, but we can say a salutary word of instruction and counsel when occasion offers. We may not hope to die for mankind, but we can sacrifice our-selves for the convenience and happiness of our fellow religious. 'We are not called on to undergo the scourging and the crown-ing with thorns, but we are expected to endure a little pain or accept a humiliation without becoming ill-tempered and render-ing others miserable. We cannot redeem the world from sin, but we can exercise zeal in promoting the fruits of the redemp-tion by shunning sins ourselves and prudently doing what may be feasible to draw our neighbor to a better life. Thus, every- 94 March, 1958 PATTERN FOR RELIGIOUS LIFE where we can reduce our Lord's example to the humbler terms of ordinary life; and, out of the result, together with appropriate precepts from His moral teaching, we can construct for our-selves an ideal which, ever haunting our minds, is to be pon-dered and realized, or at least aspired to systematically in shap-ing our lives. "A Christian is another Christ" applies with' additional force to every religious. These have dedicated their lives to Jesus in order to share through sanctifying grace in His divine filiation and to reproduce by their virtues the features of His asceticism. To ambition a career so sublime, far frora being presumption, is God's eternal design for them and His sincere will Jesus said: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6). Such is the pattern faith proposes to us, truly transcendent and yet easy of access, since through grace we share in the divine filiation of Christ and our activity is supernaturalized. Clearly we keep our personality, remaining by nature merely human creatures. Our union with God, however intimate, is accidental, not substantial; but it in-creases in perfection the more the autonomy of our personality, in the order of activity, is effaced before the divine. If we "desire to intensify our intimacy to the extent that nothing interposes between God and us, we are to renounce not only sin and willfdl imperfection, but moreover we are to despoil ourselves of our personality in so far as it obstructs perfect union. It is such an obstacle when our self-will, our inordinate self-love, our suscepti-bilities lead us to think and to behave otherwise than in accord-ance with the divine will. The habitual attitude of soul which wills to keep in everything the proprietorship of its activities seri-ously hampers familiarity with God. We must, therefore, bring our personality to a complete capitulation before Him and make Him the supreme, mover of our thoughts, volitions, words, and actions, entire life. Only when we have divested ourselves of our excessive attachment to self and to other creatures, in order to surrender ourselves to God in absolute dependence on His good 95 DANIEL J. M. CA~LAHAN pleasure, shall we have attained to the perfect imitation of Christ and be able to say with St. Paul: "It is now no longer I that live, but Chrisf lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not cast away the grace of God" (Gal. 2:20-21). And we should apply to ourselves his plea to the Romans (12:.I): "I exhort you therefore brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God, your spiritual se~rvice. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in the newness of your mind, that you may discern what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God." Christ is the head of the Mystical Body of which we are the members, and there should be identity of life and conduct in both. He has merited for us the courage and strength ¯ requisite; and divine revelation assures us that with Him, in Him, and through Him we are competent to travel the one and only way to the Father. Our persevering endeavor consequently should be to know Christ more thoroughly and more intimately through prayer, study, and our manner of life: "He who has My command-ments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. But he who loves Me will be loved by My Father and I will love him and manifest Myself to him" (John 14:21). Love issues from knowledge, and love adjusts our daily conduct to that of Jesus. This was the mind of St. Paul when he reminded his converts of Ephesus that they were to be: "No longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine devised in the wicked-ness of men, in craftiness, according to the wiles of error. Rather are we to practice the truth in love and to grow up in all things in Him who is the head, Christ . Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man which has been created acdording to God in justice and holiness of truth" (Eph. 4:14- 24). To accomplish in us this transformation is the precise pur-pose for which Jesus comes to us in Holy Communion. 96 The MighI: o1: C. A. I-.lerberI:, S.J. A meditation made at sea enroute to the Korean missions AS THE S. S. Fair/~ort plows her way through the wild Pacific a few thousand miles out of San Francisco, the thought that strikes one forcefully is the thought of the might of God. Religious seem not to emphasize this attribute of God so much, seem almost to de-emphasize it, in fact. It is rather God's love and mercy that occupy their thoughts and prayers. Yet in God's mind and in that of His Church, His almighty power stands out. "I believe in God, the Father. al-mighty, Creator of heaven and earth." The creator-creature relationship is most fundamental to all religion. Only the Al-mighty can create. In the creed, both in and outside of Mass, "almighty" is the only attribute of God mentioned at all. And how often the official prayer of the Church begins with "al-mighty!" The Old Testament is full of almighty God, the God of armies, and very, very often the God of the sea. As I sit here on the boat-deck reading the Invitatorium of the Office I pray: "His is the sea: for He made it" (Ps. 94:5). Only He could. One realizes that more and more as one looks out or~ the vast circle of water stretching away to the horizon in every direction. Yet those are only a few of the seventy million square miles of the Pacific. God reaches from end to end of it mightily, up-holding every particle of it by the word of His power. A great artist works miracles with his brush and a little pair~t. He tries to imitate nature. What a masterpiece the almighty Artist creates in each sunset at sea! Tonight, Hallo-ween, I watch the sun sink into mountains of gold and silver clouds and make the whole ocean a cauldron of blazing gold. There is no imitation of nature by this Artist; He is at play 97 C. A. HF_~BST Review for Religious creating the most exquisite origina!. The more delicate shades and colors come. as the evening deepens. This is the time for the most loving and awesome thoughts of God. Somehow, on this particular night, I cannot help thinking of the little lights flickering on each grave in southern Austria on All Souls' eve. As the last rich violet cloud is absorbed into the night up north toward Siberia, I think of the suffering, silenced Church behind the iron curtain. The moon is high in the east now, building a silvery bridge to the Philippines three thousand' miles from here. The shep-herdess of the night is queen over her flock of woolpack clouds. She is a type of Mary, our queen, reflecting the light of her Son as the moon does. The stars seem so near and companion-able out here so far away from home and everyone. The big-gest and brightest are the ones we long to see in the crown encircling the head of the Artist's virgin mother. We constantly hear of the power and destructive force of typhoons. We are running into the typhoon area now. Again, we are reminded of the might of God: God of old came in the whirlwind. We struck south several hundred miles in order to get away from the wild weather the equinox brings to the north Pacific but ran into a gale. As the wind thunders through the gear fore and howls through the rigging aft and one sees the angry ocean all around, one feels very small and helpless. The largest ship is a tiny toy in an angry ocean. It is good to be at peace with the Almighty out here. I think of the heavy toll the ocean has taken. How many a guardian angel has had to plead the cause of his charge in these depths! Perhaps the angel of the Pacific helped him. Countries have their angels to watch over them, the Scripture says. Should not these boundless waters have one, too? The Far East radio network out of Tokyo is telling us these days of the troubles in Egypt and the sinking of ships in the Suez Canal. Their number is zero compared with the burden 98 Marck, 1958 THE MIGHT OF GOD this north Pacific bears. What are the secrets of the sea? They have always enticed man. But to them again only the almighty mind of God can reach. One of the mates says there are eight thousand feet of water under this ship; ahead of us there are forty thousand and more. What lies down there and what goes on down there only God knows. Uncounted ships and men have perished here. Here the almighty Judge sat enthroned to pass the sentence of justice and mercy on many a lonely,child of God since Pearl Harbo.r struck. Only He and this restless, silent ocean know the anguish of those-days. Time means nothing to the great timeless One. But its mystery, too, confuses us. We have just crossed the one hundred and eightieth meridian and passed from Monday to Wednesday. There will be no Tuesday for us this week. But for us time is the stuff of which we make our eternity. God gave it to us for that and it goes by quickly. For wasted time and every idle thought we shall have to give an account. Such an occasion as this is like the year's ending. It gives us pause for some serious thinking on the value of time. Here one is impressed by almighty God's providence, too. Large albatross-like birds, "gooney birds" the seamen call them, have been following the ship since San Francisco. For hundreds, even thousands of miles now, they have been following: soaring, soaring all the while, never flying or exerting themselves. Beauti-fully colored little birds appear, too, just out of nowhere, catch-ing insects and feeding, then resting on the water. They are very content ' and carefree. ~At night they sleep on the sea. Naturally there come to mind some of the most consoling words the almighty Christ spoke in the Magna Carta He gave His Church: "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than they?" (Matt. 6:26). A school of porpoises went sporting by today. Their omnipotent Father has given them a happy disposition. They 99 C. A. HERBST are playful and friendly to men, yet are one of the few watery creatures a shark holds in dread. Then a whale went spouting by: big, showy, always attracting attention, but terrible, too, in his way, and almost the hero of the sea since Moby Dick. How big the Almighty has made him, the largest of all known animals, to supply so many products for man! In the evening, as I say the fifth glorious mystery, the Coronation of Offr Blessed Mother Queen,of Heaven, I look up into the big comfortable-looking clouds "over the East China Sea towards Nanking and Shanghai. I wonder what our Lady of China is thinking about tonight. A missionary to China wrote: "Our men are still rotting in Shanghai. They really must be suffering now because the winters in Shanghai are grim." Mary was assumed and crowned for China, too, even for today's China. This evening we are slipping through the East China Sea toward Korea. Off to the right over fifty miles of beautiful blue water to the northe~tst lie Nagasaki and Nagasaki Hill, the hill of the martyrs. Again I think ~f the might of God: how these poor frail men needed His .almighty arm to support them in the terrible torment they had to undergo. Three hundred years later came to the same spot a manifestation of might of another kind; August, 1945, brought the atom bomb that smashed this same Nagasaki to pieces. The power of God, at work in the death of the martyrs and the fissure of the atom, is also bringing a second spring to the Church in Japan. As we pass among the countless rocky islands along the west coast of Korea, mighty China lies four hundred miles to the west over the Yellow Sea. Its iron curtain closes her to Christ toda~ as her exclusiveness made her impenetrable to St. Francis Xavier four hundred years ago. But all things are pos-' sible to almighty God. The length of His arm is not shortened. The exquisite sunrise over the hills around Inchon Bay at the end of this voyage seems like a promise that in these Far Eastern lands the might of God will bring forth a rich harvest. I00 Survey oJ: Roman Document:s R. F. Smlth~ S.J. IN THE FOLLOWING pages there will be given a survey of the documents which appeared in the ~cta /Ipostolicae Se~/z's (AAS) during the months of October and Novem-ber, 1957. Throughout the article all page references will be. to the 1957 AAS (v. 49). Motion Pictures, Radio, and Television Under the date of September 8, 1957 (AAS, pp. 765-805), the Holy Father issued a lengthy encyclical which, is entitled IVIiranda/~r~rsus and which treats of the mass communication arts of the contemporary world. After an introduction wherein he gives the reasons why the Church must be interested in the matter of movies, radio, and television and outlines a brief history of previous papal documents on the subject, Pius XII begins the main body of the encyclical, dividing it into four principal parts which treat in succession the following topics: general norms for the movies, radio, and television; the movies; the radio; television. In developing the first principal part of the encyclical, the ViCar of Christ points out that God who communicates all good things to men has also. desired that men themselves share in the power of communication; human communication, therefore, is an activity which of its very nature possesses nobility and if evil is found in it, that evil can come only from the" misuse of human freedom. Because true human freedom demands that men use for themselves and communicate to others whatever augments vir-tue and perfection, it follows that the Church, the state, and the private individual have the right to use the communication arts for their differing purposes. It is blameworthy, however, to maintain that these arts may be utilized for the dissemination 101 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious of matter that is contrary to sound~mora!ity, provided only ~hat the laws of art are observed. Human art, the Pontiff remarks, need not perform a specifically ethical or religious function; nevertheless, if it leads men to evil, then it corrupts its own nobility and departs from its first and necessary principle. To avoid such evils the Church, the state, and the communication industries should cooperate with each other in working for the attainment of the legitimate goals of the communication arts; this is particularly necessary in the case of the cinema, the radio, the television, for each of these arts is a remarkably effective way of large scale communication. Motion pictures, radio, and television, the Pontiff points out, must first bf all serve the truth by. avoiding the false and the erroneous; they must also aim at the moral p'erfecting of their audience, and this especially in th~ case of those enter-tainment programs where vivid scenes, dramatic dialogue, and music are united and which, by appealing to the whole man, induce him to identify himself with the scene being presented. The power of these communication arts to affect the whole man together with the fact that these arts are destined not for a select audience but foi ~he great masses of the people leads the Holy Father to consider solutionsto the moral problems connected with these arts. He accordingly proposes three practical means by which the mass audience can be led to pass a mature judgment on the products of the communication arts and to escape being carried away uncritically by their superficial attractiveness. The first of these means is that of education, whereby men will be given the artistic and moral norms by which the products of communication arts can be ~orrectly evaluated. Accordingly, the Holy Father expresses the desire that training in the right .appreciation of motion pictures, radio, and television be in-cluded in schools of every kind, in associations of Catholic Action, and in parish activities. The second means is that care be taken that young people should not be exposed to programs 102 March, .I958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS which can harm them psychologically and morally. The third means is that in each country the bishops should set up a na~ tional office for the supervision of motion pictures, radio, and television. The second principal part of the encyclical then considers the problems of motion pictures in particular. The bishops should see. to it that the national office of supervision imparts needed advice and information concerning the movies and moral evaluations of current films should be published. The faithful should be reminded of their obligations to inform themselves of the decisions of ecclesiastical authorities ~ith re-gard to films. All those connected with the movie industry, from the exhibitor to the director and the producer, must be mindful of their duty of fostering morally wholesome produc-tions. Finally, the Holy Father urges that the approval and t.he applause of the. general public be generously given as a reward to those motion pictures that are really worthwhile. The third principal part of the encyclical concerns the radio. Listeners should admit into their homes, only programs which encourage truth and goodness. National Catholic offices for radio should attempt to keep the public informed of the nature of radio programs, and listeners should make known to radio stations and chains their preferences and criticisms. The bishops are encouraged by the Holy Father to increase the use of radio for apostolic and doctrinal purpose~, taking care, however, that such programs meet the highest artistic and technical, standards. The fourth part of the encyclical concerns itself with tele-vision which, among other advantages, has that of inducing members of the family to stay at home together. The obliga-tions with regard to television are the same as for the movies and for radio. In the conclusion to his encyclical the Holy Father encour-ages priests to acquire a sound knowledge of all questions per-taining to motion pictures, radio, and television; moreover, as 103 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious far as it is possible and usefu!, they should utilize these aids for their pastoral work. The same subject matter of the communication arts was the topic of the Pontiff's talk on October 27, 1957 (AAS, pp. 961-65), on the occasion of the blessing of the new quarters for the Vatican radio. In the course of his talk the Vicar of Christ pointed out that radio furnishes Christians a new means' for the better fulfillment of the command to preach the gospel to every creature; and he expressed the hope that the new and more powerful.radio station of the Vatican will prove a new bond of unity among the Christian community, since by its aid more peoples will be able to hear the voice of the Vicar of Christ. To Seminarians and Religious On September 5, 1957 (AAS, pp. 845-49), the Pope addressed a group of students from the minor seminaries of France. After encouraging them to look forward to their priesthood with the greatest of eagerness, he praised their clas- " sical studies as an unrivaled means of' developing penetration of judgment, largeness of outlook, and keenness of analysis. The Pontiff concluded his talk to the seminarians by extolling the value of minor seminaries for the good of the whole Church. On July 30, 1957 (AAS, pp. 871-74), the Sacred Con-gregation of Religious published an important decree, M'ilitare servitium, which henceforth will be the controlling legislation in the matter of religious who must undergo military service for at least six months. Full and exact knowledge of all the provisions of the decree can be obtained only by a direct study of the docu-ment, and no more than the principal points of the legislation will be noted here. According to the decree perpetual vows may not be taken unless a religious has already served his required time in the armed forces or unless it is certain that a given religious is immune from such service. During milit.ary sekvice temporary vows are suspended, though in given-cases the major superior can allow a religious to retain his vow~ during such service. 104 March, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS In either case, however, the person involved remains a member of his religio~s institute and under the authority of its superiors. One whose vows are suspended during the period of mili-tary service may leave religion •luring that time according to the norms of canon 637, provided that he has declared his intention of leaving to superiors either in writing or orally in the presence of witnesses. The decree also gives directives concerning temporal possessions acquired during the time of military service and stipulates that between the conclusion of military service and the taking'of perpetual vows there must be a probation period which generally should not be less than three months. The final provision of the decree is to extend the above legislation, where applicable, to all societies liging in common, but without vows. The same Congregation of Religious issued on March 12, 1957 (AAS, pp. 869-71), a decree giving the norms for aggre-gation to the pontifical institute Re~ina 2V~undi. (For the nature and purpose of this institute, see REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, January, 1957, p. 25.) Aggregation places a house of studies of religious women under the patronage of the institute Regina Mun~/~" and allows the house the right to confer pontifical diplomas, with the reservation that the highest diploma can be granted only to those students who have studied at least one year at Regina 2"V~unc/i. The decree concludes by noting that a house of studies may acquire a special relationship to Regina 2V~unc/i by reason of a special act of recognition, which, how-ever, does not give the house the right to confer pontifical diplomas. By an apostolic letter dated December 27, 1956 (AAS, pp. 889-94), the Holy Father united the two parts of the Order of the Daughters of Mary Our Lady' under the new title, Order of the Company of the Daughters of Mary Our Lady. Two documents of the period surveyed were addressed to religious orders of men. The first was a letter from His 105 SMITH Review fo~" Religfous Holiness to Very Reverend Michael Browne, Master General of the Order of Preachers. Written on the occasion of the seven hundreth anniversary of the death of St. Hyacinth, the letter proposes the saint as a clear image of the apostolic work entrusted to the Dominican order. On September 10, 1957 (AAS, pp. 806-12), the Pope addressed the members of the general congregation of the Society of Jesus, recalling to their attention their ideals of loyalty and obedience to the Holy See. He urged superiors to be vigilant in their care for re-ligious observance and discipline. The Pontiff insisted on the need for austerity of life to be manifested especially by an observance of poverty involving not only a dependance upon superiors but a moderate use of temporal things and the priva-tion of many comforts. In conclusion the Vicar of Christ insisted, to his listeners upon the need to retain the Society's traditional monarchical form of government. For Laymen and Laywomen A large number of the documents published in AAS during October-November, 1957, were devoted to the role of the laity in the .life of the Church today. In a radio message deliv-ered September 15, 1957 (AAS, pp. 854-57), to the faithful present at the Marian shrine of Mariazell in Austria, the Holy Father touched briefly on the subject of the urgenc.y of the lay apostolate in the Church today; three weeks later on Oc-tober 5, 1957 (AAS, pp. 922-39), th.e same topic formed the subject matter of the long and important allocution which the Pope delivered to the Second World Congress for the Lay. Apostolate. The Pontiff began his allocution by framing and answering the question whether a layman who has an ecclesi-astical mandate to teach religion, and whose professional work is almost exclusively such teaching does not therefore pass from the lay apostolate to the "hierarchical" apostolate. The Holy Father replies to the query in the negative, for the layman possesses neither the power of orders 'nor that of jurisdiction. It is interesting to note that at the end of this part of the allocu- 106 Marck, 1958 .ROMAN DOCUMENTS tion the Holy Father refers to the possibility of re:establishing in the Church deacons who would have no intention of going on for the priesthood. His Holiness does not show himself unsympathetic to this idea, but nevertheless notes that the times are not yet ready for such a practice. The Pontiff continues by noting that it is wrong to dis-tinguish in the Church a purely active element (ecclesiastical authorities) and a p.urely passive element (the laity), for all the members of the Church are called to collaborate in the building up of the Mystical Body of Christ. Even apart from a scarcity of priests, the work of the laity is necessary, for the task of the "consecration of the world" is essentially the work of laymen, intimately associated as they are with the economic, social, political, and industrial life of the world. In showing the relations between the lay apostolate and Catholic Action the Pontiff begins by saying that the lay apostolate is the performance by the laity of tasks which derive from the mission given the Church by Christ. Accordingly, the apostolat~ of prayer and personal example and the Christian practice of one's profession are lay apostolates only in a wide sense of that word; the Pontiff emphasizes, however, that lay Christians who exercise their professions in an exemplary fashion perform an activity that is comparable to the best kind of lay apostolate in the stric~ sense of the word. Catholic Action, the Pope remarks, always bears the char-acter of an official apostolate of laymen. It cannot, however, claim for itself a monopoly of the lay apostolate, for alongside of Catholic Action there always remains the free lay apostolate. In this connection the Holy Father discusses a possible change in terminology and structure which may eventually be put into effect. According to this plan the term. "Catholic Action" would be used only in a generic, sense to signify the sum of organized lay apostolates recognized on the national level by the bishops or by the Holy See on the international level. Each individual movement would then be designated by its own proper and 107 R. F. SM~ Review for Religious specific name and not by the generic term "Catholic Action.;' Each bishop would remain free to admit or reject such or such an individual movement, but he would not be free to reject it on the grounds that of its nature it Was not Catholic Action. Observing that not all Christians are called to the lay apos-tolate in the strict sense of the word, the Pope then notes that the lay apostles will always form an elite, not indeed because they stand apart from others, but precisely because they can influence others. As such, they need to be given a serious formation; and this training of lay apostles should be taken care of by organizations within the lay apostolate itself, though diocesan and religious priests, secular institutes, and women religious should assist in this formation. The final part of the allocution is devoted to a detailed consideration of the many areas where lay apostles are urgently needed today; and the Roman Pontiff concludes his allocution by urging his listeners to conquer the world, but only by the weapons of Christ. On ~ugust 25, 1957 (AAS, pp. 837-45), His Holiness addressed thirty thousand members of the Young Catholic Workers. He spoke of his audience as a great hope for the Christian regeneration of the world and urged them to re-establish the Christian notion of work as the personal act of a son of God and of a brother of Christ for the service of God and of the human community. On September 29, 1957 (AAS, pp. 906-22), the Holy Father addressed the Fourteenth International Congress of the World Union of Catholic Organizations of Women, speaking on the mission and apostolate of women. Women's apostolate, he notes, must be rooted in the tru.th, that she comes from God; that she is an image of God;" and that h'er everlasting destiny is God. Not only has God created woman, He has also given her her proper physical and psych!cal structure. 108 March, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS She has been given the gifts which permit her to transmit not only physical life, but also qualities of a spiritual and moral nature---and this not only to the children she bears, but to social and cultural life in general. In married life woman expresses the gift of oneself; this symbolization, however, of self-giving receives a higher form in consecrated virginity, for there her giving is more total, more pure, and more generous. Moreover, the Pope continues, woman belongs to Christ; accordingly no form of heroism or sanctity is inaccessible to her. This belonging of woman to Christ attains its perfect realization in the Blessed Virgin. If actual life sometimes reveals to what depths of evil woman can descend, Mary shows how woman in and through Christ can be raised above all .created things. In the exercise of the apostolate, says the Pontiff, woman finds herself in a welter of ideas, opinions, tendencies, and systems. She needs, therefore, a guide and a norm of judg-ment and action; and this she will find in the Church which is the guardian and interpreter of divine revelation. The aposto-late of woman, concludes the Holy Father, even when rooted in the above truths, will remain largely ineffective, unless it is inspired by a deep love of God that flows over into a universal and fruitful activity which seeks to bring all men into one fold under one pastor. In an allocution given on September 16, 1957 (AAS, pp. 898-904), the Vicar of Christ gave a moving allocution on the nature of Christian widowhood. The Church, he ob-served, does not condemn second marriages; neve~rtheless she has a special love for those who remain faithful to their spouses and to the perfect symbolism of marriage. Christian widow-hood is based on the conviction that death does not destroy the human and supernatural love of marriage, but rather per-fects and strengthens it. Doubtless after~death the juridical institution of marriage does not exist;¢~but that which con- 109 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious situted the soul of the marriage--conjugal love--still continues in existence, for it is a spiritual reality. If the sacrament of marriage is a symbol of the redemptive love of Christ for the Church, it may be said that widowhood is a symbol of the Church militant deprived of the visible presence of Christ, but nevertheless indefectibly united to Him. Socially too the widow has a definite mission to perform, for she participates in the mystery of the cross and the gravity of her comportment should show the message she carries: she is one who has through sorrow gained entrance to a more serene and supernatural world. "In times of trial and discourage-ment the Christian widow should strengthen herself by the thought of the Blessed Virgin who lived as a widow during the early years of Christianity and who by her prayer, interior life, and devotion called down divine blessings on the infant com-munity. Miscellaneous Matters By a decree of July 1, 1957 (AAS, pp.'943-44), the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments announced that local ordinaries need no longe~ send an annual report to the congre-gation concerning the number of confirmations conferred in their territories by extraordinary ministers of that sacrament. On October 7, 1957 (AAS, pp. 954-58), the Holy Father spoke to a group of sick persons reminding them that they do not suffer alone, for Christ lives in them and makes of them in a real but mysterious sense tabernacles of His presence; moreover, they must complete the Passion of Christ by their suffering and the offering of their pain can preserve the in-nocence of many, recall sinners to the right path, assist the indecisive, and reassure the troubled. In a message dated August 5, 1957 (AAS, pp. 857-61), His Holiness wrote to a group of teachers meeting at Vienna that the Catholic teacher who perfectly exercises his profession I10 March, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS performs an activity which is equal to the best lay apostolate', adding that this is true of those who teach in Catholic schools and almost more so of those teaching in non-Catholic schools. In a later letter dated September 18, 1957 (AAS, pp. 830-36), and directed to Cardinal Siri, President of the Italian Council of Social Weeks, the Pope urged the necessity of protecting the human values of rural life and stressed the need for an increase of faith in agricultural areas. On November 4, 1957 (AAS, pp. 966-69), the Holy Father addressed the parliamen-tary representatives of the European Coal and Steel Authority, congratulating them on the success of their work and expressing the wish that their accomplishments may lead to a greater federation ofEurope. On September 8, 1957 (ASS, pp. 849- 53), His Holiness addressed a group of dentists, showing a competent grasp of the latest phases of dentistry and manifest-ing a delightfully human side of his personality by his solicitude for children who suck their thumbs or bite their nails and by' his hope that the newly discovered method of painless drill-ing of teeth may prove to be really effective. The Sacred Consistorial Congregation issued three decrees by which it canonically established military xiicariates in Argen-tina (AAS, pp. 866-68), in Belgium (AAS, pp. 940-43), and in the United States (AAS, pp. 970-73). The Sacred Con- ¯ gregation of Seminaries and Uni~iersities by a decree of July 28, 1957 (AAS, pp. 975-77), canonically erected De Paul University, Chicago, as a Catholic University according to the norm of canon 1376; moreover, the faculty of music of the same institution was a~liated to the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. Finally, by the same decree the metropolitan archbishop of Chicago was made grand chancellor of De. Paul Catholic University. In the last document to be noted, an apostolic letter of May 9, 1957 (AAS, p. 823), the Holy Father announced the inauguration of an apostolic internhntia-ture for the country of Ethiopia. 111 Book Reviews [Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.] MARIOLOGY, VOL. II. Edited by Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M. Pp. 606. The Bruce Publishing Company, 400 North Broadway, Milwaukee 1. 1957. $9.50. This second volume of a most ambitious trilogy on Marian theology contains fourteen articles by some of America's leading theologians. The treatment is scholarly; the articles are well docu-mented; proofs are advanced soberly in an attempt to shed light, not generate heat. . Primarily a reference work, Mariology, Vol. II, covers the major fea'tures of Marian dogma: Mary s-- predestination, divine maternity, perpetual virginity, fullness of grace, knowledge, universal queenship, etc. Among the better parts of the volume are Father Cyril Vollert's two introductory essays, "The Scientific Structure of Mariology" and "The Fundamental Principle of Mariology." The latter serves as a natural basis for some of the articles that follow. Father John Bonnefoy's article "The Predestination of Our Blessed Lady" and Father Gerald Van Ackeren's "The Divine Mother-hood" should provoke discussion and stimulate theological specula-tion among readers of the book. The latter article contains a brief interesting account of modern Protestantism's attitude toward the Mother of God which is worthy of study. Since the volume's bent is less devotional than scientific, the reader should not expect from it what the editor and his contributors did by no means intend. This second volume offers the reader considerable insight into the past progress and present status of the science of Mariology; it makes a distinct, and quite co~ivincing, apology for Mariology's place in the traditional theological dis-ciplines. Religious and priests will especially profit from a thoughtful reading of the book. Seminarians and teachers will find in it a concise and ready reference work on the more important tenets of Marian dogma as it has developed to this day. But for the study of Marian devotion we must await Volume III. To prove the numerous theses presented in Mariology, Vol. II, the individual authors invoke the Church's magisterium, Scripture, tradition, and theological reasoning--the traditional approach. The 112 BOOK REVIEWS general method of presentation is excellent; it is orderly and clear. If there be a flaw in this mode of argumentation, it will probably be found in the scriptural interpretations advanced by some of the theo~ logians in this volume. Quite briefly, they fail to convince. This is especially true of the treatment given the oft-invoked text of Genesis 3:15, which, according to Father Wenceslaus Sebastian, refers to Mary alone "and that in the strict literal sense" (p. 355). The case for Mary's prerogatives as found in the Old Testament seems in this article--fis well as in some others--to be somewhat overstated. But these are slight blemishes on the canvas. No better reason for this entire series can be assigned than that employed in a more specific context by Father Francis Connell. At the conclusion" of his article on Mary's knowledge, he asserts: "And so it is not unprofitable to seek some definite ideas on Mary's knowledge, since a study of this kind helps us to understand the sub-lime dignity of the Mother of God and inspires us to be more ready to seek through her intercession the wisdom and the understanding that we need in the journey of life" (p. 324). What Father Connell remarks about Mary's knowledge may legitimately be predicated of the other facets of her unique personality and character, about which a volume such as this affords us all the opportunity to learn more and more.--THo.x~AS G. SAVAGE, S.J. MANUAL FOR NOVICES. By Felix D. Duffey, C.S.C. Pp. 232. B. Herder Book Company, 15 South Broadway, St. Louis 2. 1957. $3.50. Father Duffey is to be congratulated on his book Manual for Novices. As the title indicates, the book is written primarily for novices and those who have the care of novices; but it is pertinent, profitable, and of interest even to those formed religious who have been away from the novitiate training for a number of years. Is not a good treatment of the vows always a welcome book for our spiritual reading! Manual for Novices is geared to a better understanding of the three vows and their corresponding virtues, which we know to be the essence of the religious life. Father Duffey's thesis is that novices should be carefully schooled in the science of the vows; they should know what the vows entail, what is demanded by the rules and con-stitutions that they might enter the life of the vows with "minds pre-pared." Thus the novitiate is a place where the novice is to form 113 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious the proper religious attitudes, where each novice has ample time to test himself and to be tested to see if he can live the life of the vows. It is a time to consider and pray over the great privileges and duties of being a vowed laborer with Christ; /~ time to examine his intention and motives and even to purify them if necessary; the novitiate is a time to understand himself as he has never understood himself before and establish a correct hierarchy of valui~s based on Christ, the model of the vows. Father Duffey tries to give, and quite successfully too, the moral and canonical demands of the vows together with a doctrinal back-ground and ascetical incentive for the faithful living out of the vows. He emphasizes over and over again that the vows are a supernatural way of life led in imitation of Christ; they are something positive, and not a series of "suffocating denials" nor a legalistic ladder to heaven. The living of the vows gives the religious freedom from creatures to do God's will. It is on this positive character of the vows that novices should fix their minds and hearts, for it is the vows that permeate the whole day of the religious! The-book is well planned. There are twelve interesting chapters dealing" with such subjects as: The Novitiate, The Religious Life, Perfection, The Meaning of a Vow; two chapters on each of the three vows; one on Authority and Obedience, which is a very fine treatment of the duties of superiors; and a final chapter on Religious Profession. As the book stands it is broad enough to embrace all spiritualities. It is not meant to be a substitute for the instruction that the master or mistress is accustomed to give, but rather a complement to that instruction. The novice has a source to which he can go if he wishes to refresh his knowledge. The great insistance on the dynamism of the vows as the religious way of living in imitation of Christ is to be commended. "The chap-ters on chastity and obedience are especially well done and bring out the positive character of the vows exceptionally well. However,' the chapters on poverty fall short when compared with the treat-ment of the other two vows. In general the book is instructignal, motivational, full of good common, as well as supernatural, sense. It will be easily understood by the novices. Like a good teacher, Father Duffey repeats his key ideas throughout the book and frequently makes a summary of what has been seen in various chapters. In all the book is most worth-while, highly recommended, and will repay with. interest the time one spends reading it.--RALPH H. T~.LK~N, S.J." 114 March, 1958 BOOK REVIEWS THE YOKE OF DIVINE LOVE. By Dom Hubert Van Zeller, ¯ O.S.B. Pp. 238. Templegate, Springfield, Illinois, 1957. $3.75. The tireless pen of Dom Hubert has, in this small volume, pre-sented another challenge to comfort-loving nature, this time taking for his audience the seekers after conventual perfection. He makes it clear from the outset that he is not writing merely for monks, and certainly not exclusively for those of Benedictine Rule, but for all religious, men and women, though the medium through which he aptly chooses to impart his lessons and deliver his frank and kindly blows is Benedictine vocabulary culled from the wisdom of St. Benedict and his greatest interpreter St. Bernard, The whole concern of his book, as he tells us in the preface, is to show how to work up from the fundamentals of religion, prayer, reading, silence, labor, and enclosure to God and not inward toward self. Such a caution is of vital interest to all religious; and they will eagerly submit to Dom Hubert's admoni-tions, delivered with a freshness and candid realism not too often encountered in spiritual treatises. The volume might almbst be ~ermed a "Book of Sentences," or another version of The Following of Christ, with its many incisive, diminutive paragraphs. Thus the first chapter on Supernatural Motive of less than nine pages is presented in gixty-two thought-packed para-graphs. Any one of them might serve as an outline for a more pro-found meditation. And almost a good third of them would present the thesis of the book, the yoke of divin~ love, in a nutshell. There is always love in the background to give light and warmth whenever it does not appear explicitly or at the head. But it is not an easy doctrine of love the book preaches. It can and does issue startling warnings. "The heart of the monk, if it deviates from the love of God alone, can become an unquiet evil. It wanders, looking for rest and finding none. It fastens on other hearts and drains them of the love of God. If it shrivelled up in solitude it would be a waste enough, but the heart that has tired of the love of God and that hungers still for love is a menace." Dom Hubert tells us exactly what his method in writing the book will be. "What we have to do is to find principles common to most religious orders and examine them in the light of love, prayer, and faith. To agree on foundations is at least a start." From' this humble beginning he develops a gripping code of religious life as he finds it substantially presented by all religious founders. The Yoke of 115 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religious Divine Love, a clever title for the book that follows, is broken down into three minor "books" treating of the religious life, prayer, and community life. Each of these essential constituents of religious life is reviewed with a freshness and vigor that opens the eyes of the reader to a number of surprising subterfuges and alibis that even sincere religious may construct for themselves to escape the more exacting pressures of the yoke of love. One might cite countless instances of plain-spoken axioms of religious living which in one form or another bear out the author's verdict: "The trouble about renouncing the world is that it comes back in another form. You bar the windows of your cell against it, and it comes up through the boards of the floor. You throw it out by the door, and it comes in through the ventilator." It appears that this candid volume to be truly appreciated had better be read first cursorily, with many a smile and more than one mea cull~a, and henceforth be left on the desk or priedieu as a vade mecum for the purpose of snatching now and then tiny crumbs from its pages to be refreshed by its invigorating frankness. More than one reader will be disappointed at the lack of definite references to the many scripture passages cited. St. Thomas, too, St. Benedict, and the Fathers are frequently quoted by name only. ~ALoYSIUS C. KEMPER, S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCI:MI:NTS THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 400 North Broadway, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin. Conferences on the Religious Life. By Aloysius Biskupek, S.V.D. You will find these conferences refreshing and original both as .re-gards the topics chosen and as to the treatment accorded them. Some of the unusual topics are: The Religious Habit, Patrons, The Refectory, Living the Mass, Sick Religious. The author is forthright in his treatment. Part of his answer to those who say that they cannot meditate reads as follows: "Meditation requires the exercise of memory, mind, and will; the use of these faculties is wholly or partially impossible in the case of infants, mental defectives, and insane persons. Does any one who claims he cannot meditate classify himself as belonging to these categories?" Pp. 204. $3.50. Live in the Holy Spirit.By Bruno M. Hagspiel, S.V.D: This is a book" of conferences onthe religious life written for religious 116 l~larch, 1958 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS women. The author speaks with the authority 6f one who has done much work for religious women and knows their virtues as well as their faults. It is a modern book and does not omit to discuss modern topics such as motion pictures, radio, television. Pp. 170. $3.50. You. By Father M. Raymond O.C.S.O. Living in an age that looks on the individual as expendable and negligible, we have great need to realize anew the dignity, sublimity, exalted vocation, and priceless character of even the least of the children of men. Father Raymond emphasizes these truths not in the abstract but in the concrete; not as applied to some one else but to you. His exhortations, . each chapter is a fervent exhortation, are addressed to both religious and lay people. There are no chapters applicable only to religious, and only one (14) intended specifically for parents. It makes encouraging spiritual reading. Pp. 301. $4.50. My Sunday Reading. A Popular Explanation and Application of the Sunday Epistles and Gospels. By Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M. We have all heard the Sunday Epistles and Gospels oftener than we care to admit. Do we understand them? This .book serves as an excellent introduction to such understanding. It is written primarily for the layman, but even the religious can profit by a study of this volume. Pp. 345. $5.00. A Christian Philosophy of Life. By Bernard J. Wuellner, S.J. We are guided on our journey through life on earth by the light of reason and by the light of faith. Both are necessary, and both should come into play many times each day. Both also need to be developed. As we may grow in faith by the study of revela-tion, so we perfect reason by the study of philosophy. If you have had the advantages of a college education, you will find Father Wuellner's book an excellent refresher course in philosophy; if you have not, it will give you a brief introduction to the most significant course a Catholic college has to offer. A great merit of the book is that the author does not hesitate to appeal to revelation to supplement the findings of reason. Here is a book which a religious can afford not only to read but to study. Pp. 278. $4.25. Angels Under Wraps. By Edward. Vincent Dailey. A book of stories, all about angels. They are interesting and enjoyable, and it would be surprising if they did not increase your devotion to your own guardian angel. Pp. 149. $2.95. 117 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS .Review for Religious FIDES PUBLISHERS, 744 East 79th Street, Chicago 19, Illinois. One in Christ. By Illtud Evans, O.P. The author accurately describes this collection of essays in these words: "The purpose of these pages is not to argue or to prove. It is simply to say that the life of the Church is the life of Christ continued in time and place, made available to men. The truths we believe are declared every day and the prayer of the Church (which is the prayer of Christ) exists to express them. The life of charity exists to make them incarnate here and now." Pp. 82. Paper $0.95. The Modern Apostle. By Louis J. Putz, C.S.C: Priests and religious will be interested in this book as a means to learn more about the modern lay apostolate and to help to spread this move-ment among the laity. It was written by a priest who has probably done more for this movement in America than any other. The material in the book first appeared as a series of articles in Our Sunday Visitor. Pp. 148. $2.95. Key. to the Psalms. By Mary Perkins Ryan. More and more lay people are beginning to discover the treasure of the Psalms. To help them Mary Perkins Ryan has written this book. She has made her own all the latest findings of the scripture scholars and has written a book that is both authoritative and popular. The translations of the Psalms are particularly excellent. Read this book and discover for yourself why the Church has always made the Psalms such a large part of her liturgical prayer. Pp. 187. $3.50. Together in Marriage. By John J. Kane. This i~ another volume in the "Fides Family Readers Series." It is of special interest to priests who are engaged in Cana Conference work and very suitable for the libraries of 'all houses for lay retreats. Pp. 154. $2.95, The Meaning Of Christmas. By A. M. Avril, O.P. Translated by S. D. Palleske. This is a volume of sermons that were orig-inally broadcast on the National "French Chain. Their subject matter is the Christmas cycle, from the first Sunday of Advent to the sixth Sunday after Epiphany. Pp. 153. $2.75. Going to God. By Sister Jane Marie" Murray, O.P. This is the first volume of a four-year series of textbooks in religion for high schools. The series bears the title "The Christian Life." These books are the product of much thought, study, planning, and con-sultation with fifteen experts in the fields of theology, Sacred Scrip- 118 March, 1958 ~BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS ture, education, the apostolate, and art. All four of the volumes are to be available by the summer of 1958. Before adopting a new set of texts for the religion classes in high school~ be sure that you examine these new books. Pp. 430. GRAIL PUBLICATIONS, St. Meinrad, Indiana. Pope Plus XII and Catholic Education. Edited by Vincent A. Yzermans. We owe a debt of gratitude both tb the editor and to the publishers for collecting in d single volume twenty-two addresses of Pope Plus XII on Catholic education. Teachers will find in them encouragement, wise directives, and much matter for fruitful examination of conscience. Pp. "180. Paper $1.00. B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, 15-17 South Broadway, St. Louis 2, Missouri. The Sacred Canons. A Concise Presentation of the Current Disciplinary Norms of the Church. Volume I, Canons 1-869; Vol. II, Canons 870.2~14. Revised Edition. By John A. Abbo and Jerome D. Hannan. The purpose of this commentary on the Code of Canon Law is explained in the preface: "The work was begun to answer in some degree the spontaneous demand for a better knowledge of ecclesiastical law that has arisen in~ English-speaking countries among religious who are not clerics and among laymen, especially those engaged in the professions." Vol. I, pp. 871; Vol. II, pp. 936. $19.00 the set. P. J. KENEDY & SONS, 12 Barclay Street, New York 8, New York. Handbook of Moral Theology. By Dominic M. Priimmer, O,P. Translated by Gerald Shelton. Adapted for American usage by John Gavin Nolan. This is0 an English compendium of the justly celebrated four-volume Latin edition. It requires no gift of proph-ecy to predict that it will prove very popular with priesis, sem-inarians, and any who have frequent occasion to familiarize them-selves with the moral teachings of the Church. Pp. 496. $4.00. Maryknoll Missal. If you are looking for an English missal, you will want to examine this one, the first to be published since the recent decrees simplifying the rubrics. It is dom. pletely up-to- . date, and the translation is in modern English. References have been reduced to a minimum. It is a very handsome and convenient missal. Pp. 1699. 119 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review ]or Religious LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY, INCORPORATED, 55 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, New York. Catholicism and the Ecumenical Movement. By John M. Todd. Introduction by the Abbot of Downside. Mr. Todd, author, as-sistant editor of the Downside Review, and radio commentator, writes for both Catholics and non-Catholics. His aim is: "(1) To inform Catholics of the nature of the ecumenical problem and of the solu-tions that are offered by the non-Catholic world; (2) To inform non-Catholics of the reasons for the contemporary (Roman) Catholic attitude to the problem, and to show how a Catholic layman ap-proaches the situation today." Pp. 111. Paper $1.50. THE NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Maryland. God's Bandit. The Story of Don Orione, Father of the Poor. By Douglas Hyde. The author, a newspaper reporter by training and temperament, writes the dramatic story of a priest possessed of an immense love of the poor and unfortunate. To promote his work he founded four religious congregations, of which the principal one is the Sons of Divine Providence. As a boy he spent two years with St. Don Bosco. As a priest he was on intimate termswith St. Plus X. He died in 1940 and already many legends have grown up around his memory. It is probable that we shali one day honor him as a saint, for the causeof his beatification has been introduced in Rome. Pp. 208. $3.50. New Life in Christ. By Ludwig Esch, S.J. Translated from the German by W. T. Swain. The author spent forty years working for youth and in' this very comprehensive book gathers together what he has learned so that others may profit by his experience. There are four main divisions. ¯ The Fundamental Principles Gov-erning Our Growing Up in Christ, Our Life in Christ, The Growth of Life in Christ, and Maturing in Christ. Any of the problems that youth must meet today you will find treated in these pages. The book will be useful not only for youth but also for all those who have to assist in their training and education. Pp. 294. $4.50. SHEED & WARD, 840 Broadway, New York 3, New York. Martyrs from St. Stephen to John Tung. By Donald Attwater. Here are fifty-eight graphic and gripping accounts of martyrdom. They will make many a saint you know only as a name come to life for you and, as a result, become a real influence in your life. Pp. 236. $4.00. 120 March, 1958 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS The Roots of the Reformation by" Karl Adam; Marriage and the Family by F. J. Sheed; Confession by John C. Heenan; The Rosary by Maisie Ward; The Devil by' WC'a[ter lCarreI[, O.P., and Bernard Leeming, S,J. These are the first five books of a new series called "Canterbury Books." They are paper-covered books that average one hundred pages and sell for seventy-five cents. They treat their subject matter in greater detail than is possible in a pamphlet but more concisely than a full-length book. They are to be on religious topics and are intended for both Catholics and inquiring non-Catholics. The Making of Church' Vestments. By Graham Jenkins. Part One details the history of the liturgical vestments. Part Two gives easy-to-follow instructions abundantly illustrated on how ~o make church vestments. Pp. 32. $0.95. The New Guest Room Book. Assembled by F. J. Sheed. Illus-trated by Enrico Arno. Here we have a miniature library guaranteed to contain something to please any taste. Pp. 448. $7.50. ( ues ions and Answers [The following answers are given by'Father Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., professor canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland.] When you repeatedly state that sisters are overworked, don't you realize that almost universally the blame is cast on their superiors? And yet what can the superiors do? Are they to blame for the num-ber of Catholic children to be educated? for the opening of new schools? for the vacation schools? for the added demands of modern education? The fact that sisters are overworked is an evident and incontro-vertible fact, and the harmful effects are equally evident. The sense of the remarks on this point has never been that superiors are wholly to blame but that they can do something to lighten the burden. This thought is also completely evident and has been expressed by many others. "In my opinion, a policy almost heroic adopted by certain superiors is deserving of signal praise, that is, the refusal to accept 121 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious new works, certainly useful, but which would overwhelm their religious men or women. A more cogent reason is that these religious are already overburdened as they become too few to accomplish the works already accepted which become progressively more compli-cated. The religious who is overburdened, exhausted, iaervous is in danger not only of doing his work poorly but, what is more serious, of being unable to draw spiritual profit from the time of prayer pre-scribed by the constitutions. He thus falls into activism, and there is no need to demonstrate here that this is the contradiction of the . primary and common purpose of the state of perfection" (Reverend A. Pl~, O.P., ztcta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Per-fectionis, II, 146). "Superiors should be forbidden to accept new foundations unless they are able to staff them in such a way that their subjects are given the leisure needed for their own souls. What 'is needed are fervent foundations, not mere physical buildings in which a few religious, overwrought and exhausted, live and work in a frenzied round of activity. I believe that the cause of the Church would prosper far more with fewer buildings and projects, erected at the cost of the religious spirit, and with more prayerful religious" (Reverend F. Rice, C.P., ibid., III, 517). "Overwork will inevitably pull down the sl~iritual life. It is al-most impossible to live up to the ideals of the religious life when we are launched upon a troublesome sea ill-prepared and ill-equipped. Careful training and a good, broad education will do much to obviate this and so help considerably in preserving the religious spirit" (Brother P. C. Curran, F.S.C.H., Religious Life Today, 181). Since we are not contemplative, couldn't we dispense with the rule of silence? You are partially contemplative. The mixed religious life is the harmonious union of the contemplative life with apostolic activity. Every religious is supposed to attain a deep spirit of prayer and interior life. Neither of these is possible without recollection

Issue 15.4 of the Review for Religious, 1956. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious JULY 15, 1956 To The Sons of Ignatius . Pope Plus XII For the Greater Glory of God . Henry Willmerlng Sisters' RetreatsmlV . Thomas Dubey The Occasional Confessor . Meurlce B, Welsh Mother Theodore Guerln . Sister Eugenla Thoughts on Transfers . Winfr~d Herbsf Book Reviews Questions and Answers Communicafions VOLUME XV No. 4 R V EW VOLUME XV FOR RELIGIOUS JULY, 1956 NUMBER 4 CONTENTS TO THE SONS OF IGNATIUS--Pope Pius XII . 169 SOME PAMPHLETS . : . 172 FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD--Henry Willmering, S.3. . 173 ST. IGNATIUS AND THE EUCHARIST . 176 PICTURE MEDITATIONS . 176 SISTERS' RETREATS--IV--Thomas Dubay, S.M . 177 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 184 THE OCCASIONAL CONFESSOR-~Maurice B. Walsh, S.3 . 185 VOCATIONAL FILMSTRIP . 188 MOTHER THEODORE GUERIN--Sister Eugenia . 189 PAMPHLETS . 201 THOUGHTS ON TRANSFERS---Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S . 202 COMMUNICATIONS . 206 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS-- Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 210 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 24. Obligation for Postulants ~o Make General Confession . 2i9 25. Helpful Canon Law Books . 220 26. Putting Water in Finger Bowl Before Mass . 220 27. Too much Canon Law in Constitutions? . 220 28. Why Frequent Mass in Black Vestments . 221 29. Beginning Noviceship While Hospitalized . 222 SOME BOOKS RECEIVED . ¯ . 224 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1956. Vol. XV, No. 4. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November, at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, .Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter, January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.3., Gerald Kelly, S.J., Henry Willmering, S.J. Literary Editor: Edwin F. Falteisek, S.J. Publishing rights reserved by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing o us, please consult notice on inside back cover. To the Sons d Igna!:ius Pope Pius XII [EDITORS; NOTE: We present here the text of the letter sent by the Holy Father to John Baptist Janssens, General of the Society of Jesus, on July 31, 1955. The footnote references have been omitted.] IT was a real joy for Us to hear that the Society of Jesus, which you, beloved son, have been governing for the past nine years, is about to celebrate with solemn festivities the memory of its holy founder on the fourth centenary of his death; to the end that all its m'embers may be aroused to a more ardent love of their beloved father and lawgiver, and a more perfect observance of his Institute. These centennial celebrations receive Our hearty approval and We join thereto Our prayers for their success, all the more willingly for the well-founded hope that rich benefits will flow from them not only to the sons of St, Ignatius but also to the souls of the faithful. For, just as by an" Apostol.ic Letter expressing Our affection on the occa-. sion of the fourth centenary of the founding of your Society, as a gesture of comfort to Ourselves as well as to you, "We reckoned up with gratitude those remarkable achievements which God in His providence had brought about in the course of the past four hundred years "through'the Society of old and today," so We take pleasure in recalling the same on this occasion as a precious pledge for the future. We are also happy to exhort you once more from the heart of a father to carry forward with untiring earnestness, especially in the spiritual sphere, all your activities, your ministries and everything by which you may give timely answers to the changing and ever-increas-ing needs of our own times. We have been informed that all your provinces throughout the world have with a will set themselves to celebrate this centenary year by devoting themselves with still greater zeal and fidelity to the Spi6tual Exercises of their father and founder and to spreading their use more Widely. In truth, St. Ignatius has left his sons no legacy more precious, more useful, more lasting than that golden book which,: from the time of Paul III, sovereign pontiffs and innumerable saints in the Church have frequently praised most highly. If there is truth in that which Father La Palma wrote, that the book of the Spiritual Exercises was the firstborn of St. Ignatius, the saintly author can be equally well said to have been the firstborn of those Exercises. They are what invigorated his soul with new life, guided his first steps in the way of perfection, increased his strength to enable him 169 POPE PIUS XII Review for Religions to choose the divine King wearied by toil, harassed by insults, sub-missive to torture and death in the service of His eternal Father, and to follow Him to the very summit of love, so that, ablaze with the fire of divine love, he ardently desired to bring not only himself, but the whole world, to the feet of Christ our Savior. Ignatius, who had tested the great force of these Exercises, on one occasion declared that in them was contained ".everything that is most excellent that I can think of, feel and comprehend in this life, to enable a man to make fruitful progress in his own soul, and be of benefit and a stimulus to others." So no one will be surprised that your saintly founder wished to be fully tested in these Exercises each one who desired in this Society "to fight God's battle under the banner of the Cross, and to serve solely our Lord and His Spouse, the Church, guided by the Roman Pontiff, Vicar of Christ on earth.'; He wished his sons to imbibe that spirit, which is the foundation of the Society, from the same source from which he had drunk his new life. This spirit is a mar-velous and holy ardor of mind, aroused by the grace of God work-ing in the Exercises, which would make them not only desirous, but prompt and eager, to devote themselves to God's glory, and for the sake of the same, to undertake exacting labors. Hence, forgetful of their own convenience, shunning leisure, devoted to the practice of prayer based on personal mortification, they would strive with all their might to attain the end proposed to them in the Society. Btit when Ignatius, authorized by Pope Paul III, Our predeces-sor of happy memory, later composed the Constitutions and gave them to his companions, his intention was not that rigid laws should replace the living and life-giving law of interior love. And after the Society was established, he did not lose sight of the meaning of that phrase, "to be at the special service of the Holy See" under the stand-ard of the Cross, that Cross to which Jesus Christ affixed the decree written against us, after He had wiped it out, so that all men might be freed from Satan's power and march in the light of faith and warmth of charity. The command given on Mr. Olivet sounded clearly in his ear: .',and you will be my witnesses . . . to the ends of the earth." Later Augustine would write: "spread charity through the whole world, if youl want to love Christ because Christ's mem-bers are throughout the world." And Ignatius himself was destined to see over a thousand of his followers serving under the standard of the Cross in the distant lands of Europe, America, India, Ethiopia. This was the beginning of that apostolate which would call his sons 170 ~ 1956 TO THE SONS OF IGNATIUS to the vast field of the I~ord, some to the heathen missions, which the popes over the years would be entrusting to them to till with un-remitting labor, exact knowledge, 'even with their blood; others tO labor close to heads of state, or among those oppressed by slavery; still others to direct schools of youth or to occupy university chairs; still others to give the Spir.itual Exercises to every class of men, or to enrich and brighten the world of letters by their writings. It will be for the Constitutions to open the road by which the whole So-ciety and all its members, though dispersed throughout the worId yet united to each other and its head by the same love of the eternal King, might in the spirit of the Ignatian Institute attain that perfect manner, of life which is the chief fruit of the Exercises. Beloved son, who of the Society, in this fourth centenary year, will not listen .to that word, once Paul's now Ignatius': "Be con-tent, brethren, to follow my example and mark well those who live by the pattern we have given them." Through God's goodness, the Society never lacked saintly men, who, exactly obedient to the Exer-cises of Ignatius, kept that pattern unmarred, and drew energy and strength to live precisely according to the Constitutions, so as to re-produce in themselves more perfectly that patte,rn, and work more effectively for souls. Plus VII, of immortal memory, sought men of this stamp when he wished to equip Peter's storm-tossed bark with strong, expert oarsmen; Holy Mother Church in these troubled times asks the Society for helpers of the same mould. May today's sons of Ignatius, therefore, strive to follow in their footsteps. Under the standard of the Cross may they stand firm against all the at[acks of the princes of this world of darkness. Loving and ready obedience must be shown to superiors, especially the Supreme Pontiff; this is their most honorable badge. To worldly desires, love of poverty must be opposed; to empty pleasure a certain austerity of life and un-tiring labor; to the discords and. quarrels of the world, gentle and peace-bringing brotherly love, love for each other and for all men; to materialism that sincere and earnest faith which always acknowl-edges and reverences the presence of God in the universe. If all this comes to pass, Ignatius, though dead, will live on in his sons. As We write these lines, dear son, with all the love of a father's heart, Our thoughts turn to those fathers and brothers who have suffered or are actually suffering bitter exile and torture at the hands of their persecutors. Surely they are most worthy sons, echoing the most glorious traditions of the Society of Jesus. They are confessors of the Catholic faith,, who are aft" honor to their brethren as well as 171 PoPE PIUS XII an example. May God strengthen them; most willingly do We bless them. But it is to all the softs of Ignatius that We extend our lov-ing greetings, begging God that under the patronage of your founder, father, and lawmaker, protected by the ever Blessed Virgin Mary, they may day by day increase in virtue, thus moulded by divine grace into a strong instrument so that all things may be guided aright by the di~,ine hand, and happily contribute to the greater glory of God. In testimony of Our special benevolence towards the Society of Jesus, We lovingly bestow on you, dear son, and on all those re-ligious throughout the world entrusted to your charge, the Apostolic Blessing. SOME PAMPHLETS All That 1 Want. The story of John F. Logsdon. Edited by Paschal Boland, O.S.B. Grail Publications, St. Meinrad, Indiana. Pp. 107. 25c. In Silence Before God. Examination of Conscience. By M. M. Philipon, O.P. Translated by A. M. Crofts, O.P. The Newman PresL Westminster, Maryland. Pp. 46. 30c. Family Limitation. Modern Medical Observations on the use of the 'Safe Period.' By John Ryan, M.B., B.S., F.R.C.S., F.I.C.S. Foreword by .Alan Keenan, O.F.M. Sbeed and Ward, 840 Broadway, N. Y. 3. Pp. 36. (Price not given.) Sacramentals, Medals, and Scapulars. By Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. Society of St. Paul, 2187 Victory Blvd., Staten Island 14. Pp. 55. 35c. Your Child's Religious Liberty. By Virgil C. Blum, S.J. Catechetlcal Guild, Educational Society, St. Paul 2, Minnesota. Pp. 64. 15c. Mental Prayer. By Cyril Bernard, O.D.C. Clonmore and Reynolds, 29 Kildare St., Dublin, 1955. Pp. 48. 2/6d. The Canon of the Mass. By Dom Placid Murray, O.S.B. Part I deals with the history of the canon. Part II gives a new English translation. Here is new light on an old problem. Pp. 14. Fourpence. The Furrow, St. Patrick's College, May-nootb, Ireland. The following pamphlets are from the Queen's Work, 3115 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis 18, Mo., and are 10c each. How Brave Can You Be? By Bakewell Morrison. S.J. Pp. 31. Personality and Mental Health. By Hugh P. O'Neill, S.J. Pp. 27. These Lucky Catholics. By Daniel A. Lord. S.J. Pp. 40. Mary's Morning Minute. Compiled by Florence Wedge. Pp. 40. Mary Always Remembers You. By T. N. Jorgensen, S.J. Pp. 32. What a Sinyle Girl Can Do fdr Christ. By W. B. Faherty, S.J. Pp. 32. Which Rites Are Right? By Brother Aurelian Thomas, F.S.C. Pp. 29. The Tree of Life. Also, Seven Supernatural Powers. By Rev. Joseph A. Lauritis, C.S.Sp. Holy Ghost Fathers, 1615 Manchester Lane, N.W., Washington 11, D. C. Pp. 32. 10c each. Why a Priest Is Called Reverend Father." By Dora Rembert Sorg, O.S.B. Plo Decimo Press, Box 53, Baden Station, St. Louis 15, Mo. Pp. 22. 20c. 172 For Ehe reat:er lory ot: Henry Willm.ering, S.J. THIS well-known maxim of St. Ignatius Loyola ,aptly expresses his devotion to a great cause: the. spread.of God s kingdom on earth. We consider here how he came by it, lived by it, prayed for it, suffered and died for it; and how, realizing that he could not carry out God's work alone, he gathered disciples about him, who embraced the same cause: namely, to pray, labor, and suffer for this ideal, the promotion of God's greater glory. Inigo of Loyola lived in an era of conquest and discovery. The year of his birth, 1491, marked the conquest of Granada and the liberation of Spain from Moorish rule. In this conquest Inigo's father took a prominent part. The next year Columbus discovered a new world; and during Inigo's youth great national heroes, like De Soto, Cortez and Pizzaro, added many provinces to the Spanish empire. A brother, Hernandez, died in the conquest of Mexico; and two otherbrothers fell on Europe's battlefields. What wonder that the youngest son of Loyola should wish to distinguish himself in the service of his ~sovereign majesty and devote his talents to the promotion of the greater glory of Spain. In this ambitious career, God halted him after his first display of heroism. A far nobler course and loftier ideal was revealed to him. He was invited to enlist in the service of an eternal King. But the thought of transferring his allegiance frightened him at first; it seemed so fantastic to give up a promising career and disappoint all his friends. After a hard struggle, he yielded to divine grace, though the plan he bad for the future was still rather vague and imaginative. After making a pilgrimage to Palestine, he thought he might live as a hermit: pray, fast, and practice other austerities, as did the saints, in atonement for his past sinful life. Before God can use an instrument for His purpose, He must first temper it in the fire of suffering. The desire of doing and suffering great things for God is often "an illusion of self-love, and nothing so effectively blocks the designs of God as this human failing. Accord-ingly Inigo had to be purged of every vestige of self-complacency. After a brief period of peace of soul and heavenly consolations, he was continually troubled with harassing fears and scruples. He re-doubled his penances and prolonged the time of prayer and sought relief in works of mercy, but all in vain. Neither repeated confes-sions, nor the. advice of spiritual directors offered him the least con- 173 HENRY WILMERING Reoieto For Reliqious solatioh. It was only after his soul had been stirred to its very depths and he-had been led to the brink of despair that finally he regained his composure of soul; and then he had, as he said, "mar- ,,ellous illuminations and extraordinary spiritual consolations." He seemed io himself like a new man, "who had been awakened from a 'drugged sleep." Ever after he had a different outlook on life and cdncentrated all his efforts and care on promoting the greater glory of God. During this period he began to note down material for what was to become the book of the Spiritual Exercises. Briefly he set down in writing the truths upon which he had meditated, the ex-periences through which he passed; and, by combining them into a systematic course, he forged a weapon that would be serviceable, not merely to the soldier who first wielded it, but which would pass from one generation to the next as a trenchant "sword of the spirit, th'at is the word of God." ¯ We so often emphasize the infinity, knowledge, and providence of Gc;d. In the Spiritual Exercises we find another aspect of the divine nature made central: the will of God. St. Ignatius points out to us that God has a purpose, a plan, a will for each one of us. His Mm ih the Exercises is to make men realize this important truth and to bring them to that disposition in which they will say with our Lord: "I seek not my own will, but the will of Him that sent me." Because God is infinitely wise and good, His will represents the o. nly thing in life worth living and dying for. The man who seeks continually to know and do God's will lives for the greater glory of God. St. Ignatius made this the bed-rock principle on which he built up his own spiritual life. So firmly did he hold to it, that some years before his death he could say, that for thirty years'he had never put off anything which had been de-cided for God's greater glory. As a trained soldier, however, be wished to receive God's orders through a. captaih. The thoughtful perusal of the life of Christ dur-ing his convalescence had convinced him that Jesus Christ was the divinely appointed leader, whom all must follow. Since the prin-ciples taught by our Lord are the expression of His Father's will, and the example of Christ is the norm by which we may measure our conformity to it, the imitation Of Christ is the fulfillment of God's. will. The ideal is, that even when "the praise and glory of God would be equally served, I desire and choose poverty with'Christ poor, rather than riches, in order to imitate and be in reality more FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD like Christ our Lord; I choose'insults with Christ loaded with them, rather than honors; I desire to be accounted as worthless.and a fool for. Christ, rath'er than to be esteemed as wise and prudent in this world. So was Christ treated before me." Our divine'Lord had a mission entrusted to Him by His Father: to call all men to His standard and encourage them to embrace His principles. He trained apostles and sent them throughout the whole world to spread His doctrine among men. Similarly St. Ignatius gathered disciples," taught them the principl~s of Christ. through the Spiritual Exercises, and, when they were well trained, he sent them to every land to spread G0d's'kingdom and promote His greater glory by word and example. With a view to perpetuating this work, he organized his companions into a "company," and called it "the Company or Society of Jesus." That this new religious order should, meet with opposition and persecution was inevitable. It introduced many innovations in re-ligious discipline that were demanded by the spiritual labors it planned to carry on. In a period when drastic reforms were urgently called for amoog both clergy and laity in the Church and when heretics were preacl~ing their false proj6~ts of reform in almost every part of Europe, St. Ignatius and his companions set about effecting a true reform. By means of the Spiritual Exercises many prelates and priests were induced to seek not their own advantages in life but the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ. The preaching and teach-ing of Peter Faber, Peter Canisius, Claude LeJay, Alphonse Salmeron, and other Jesuits in countries infested with the new doctrine of the heretical reformers saved many districts for the Catholic faith and converted countless souls from heresy, Yet this activity caused them to be calumniated, persecuted, and drixien from place to place. Along with their Founder, they bore such ill treatment #ith admirable fortitude and patience. Once when St. Ignatius was asked what was the most certain road to perfection, he answered, "To endure many and grievous afflictions for the love of Christ." Once the Society was founded and bechosen to direct the same, Ignatius lived in Rome for the rest of his life. He took the deepest interest in all the labors carried on by his companions and invariably showed the affection of a devoted father to every member whom he admitted into his Society. He ardently longed to share their labors: and, even when broken with age and infirmity, he said that should the Holy Father order it, he would immediately set out for any part of the world to spread God's kingdom. He was asked one day which 175 HENRY WILMERING he would prefer: to die immediately with a guarantee of his salvation ' or to continue for some years more, with opportunities of helping souls but with no guarantee at the end. Knowing his burning zeal for God's gIory and his all-consuming zeal for souls, we are pre-pared to hear that he. declared for the second alternative. Now four hundred years have passed since his death. Ever since and in every land the sons of St. Ignatius in his spirit and according to his principles have labored for God's greater glory. He is ranked by the Church among the great founders of religious orders, Sts. Benedict, Francis of Assisi and Dominic; and rightly so. As a prac-tical organizer and great lover of Christ, he served his Leader and King with an un'divided heart and induced numberless souls to live, labor, suffer, and die for the greater glory of God. ST. IGNATIUS AND THE EUCHARIST Few people realize the tremendous efforts of St. Ignatius Loyola and his early followers in behalf of frequent Communion. A thorough study of their Eucharistic apostolate was published in 1944 by Father ,Justo Beguiriztain, 8.2., on the oc-casion of the Fourth National Eucharistic Congress of Buenos Aires. The Spanish original has recently been translated by 3bhn H. Collins, S.,I., and published in a very attractive form under the title The Eucharistic Apostolate of St. Igr~atius Loyola. It is an excellent souvenir of this Ignatian centenary. Price:' $I.00. Order from: Loyola House, 297 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston 15, Mass. PICTURF.' MEDITATIONS Father Aloysius ,L Heeg, S,J., has prepared four charming booklets entitled Picture Meditations for the use of all who want to learn and practice a simple form of mental prayer. Each booklet contains seven meditations on the life of Christ, and each meditation is illustrated by a picture in full color. Not only are the booklets ideal for teaching youth the practike of mental prayer and, for helping the sick to pray~ but they should also be very useful for religious who find it hard to concentrate during the period of mental prayer. There are also two picture rolls. each containing 14 full-color enlargements (21x33 inches) o'f the pictures in the booklets. The price of the booklets is 10 cents each, 35 cents per set; special quan-tity prices. The price of each picture roll is $2.15 net. Order from: The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Boulevard, St. Louis 18, Missouri. 176 Sist:ers' Retreats--IV Thomas Dubay, S.M. WrE leave now in this series of articles problems dealing with retreat approaches, techniques, and mechanics and enter the less tangible realm of understanding and aims. While less palpable, these latter are at least equally crucial if not more so. UNDERSTANDING OF RETREATANTS' NEEDS Judging from their conferences and meditations, do you think that retreat masters understand your rea! spiritual needs? __yes, very well __sometimes yes, sometimes no __no, not too well Further comment (space provided) With this question the sisters were invited on to thin ice, for it can be at times genuinely difficult to know if one is understood or not. However, even though certain knowledge may often be impos-sible on this point, opinion is not: and it is the latter that was sought. Of those answering the question 192 (27.8 %) thought that re-treat masters understand their needs very well; 466 (67.7%) be-lieved that some priests are successful on this score and some are not; and 31 (4.5 %) thought that retreat masters usually do not under-stand them. The overall picture is a trifle disconcerting, not chiefly because of those in the third category, but because of the high percentage of sisters in the second. Any physician likes to think that he under-stands the patient, and any retreat master hopes that he possesses at least a good general understanding of a majority of the sisters' needs. However, it seems questionable their a large number of retreat masters hold.the sisters' confidence on this point. That a considerable num-ber of priests do hold that confidence cannot be doubted, but none-theless we would like to think that all enjoyed it. But most clouds have a silver lining, and we need not look in vain for a cheering side to this problem. The sisters' readiness to understand the difficulties the retreat master faces and charitably to explain any lack of understanding on his part is encouraging. We think that this spirit of kindliness is evident in their further corn-ments: It is difficult for a priest not living your rule to understand your spiritual needs. He tries his best, but he sometimes draws on his knowledge of other communities. A friendly chat on various subjects with the superior before retreat might help. .17,7 THOMAS DUBAY Review [or Religious This is only natural. Religious life among women differs from that among men just ~as] the dispositions of men "and women differ. How can the retreat master understand unless the Holy Spirit enlightens? A sister can usually tell the first day whether such is the case. Some priests seem afraid to get down to particulars--everything is so general that it i~ va.gue. Those who are teachers themselves seem to understand our spir.itual needs as teach-ing religious better than those whose main work is giving retreats. Sometimes I'd like to interrupt and say something like, "Yes, I know, but I can't .do that: this is my problem, see?" But on the whole they are understanding. Very few retreat masters understand the life of a hospital sister. It is very hard to be united to our dear Lord, because everything is rush, rush in hospital work today. We are sometimes too tired to pray. A really good retreat master is rare! Most do not understand the psychology of women. They miss real evils in religious life and fail to get at real problems. They judge what needs to be talked about by confessional difficulties which their own talks have often inspired. Many times they hit the nail on the head. Too frequently a retreat master judges by his own life and community. The activ-ities of nuns and their life is very different. Amazingly well. Too much attention, I think, is given to the needs of the purgative way and too little of a challenge to advancing sanctity. Because they are busy we get their courses which aren't what we need when our physical and mental state is mighty weary. The master would needs be pretty good to know all the spiritual needs of nuns. mean real feminine needs for a virile spirituality. Most priests do a pretty good job. Sometimes I feel they're not too patient with our problems. Sometimes I don't think they understand all the interior struggles of women. Wo-men are not, unfortunately, as "'manly" as men are. They can be very petty. Depends on the individual. Then, too, it is hard to reach everyone from age 20-80, engaged in all kinds of work. If the retreat master wants to know, he might pass out questionnaires after the retreat. Most of the time. It would seem that the more fully they live their own religious life the better their grasp of the problems of others. They try to, I believe, so why not give them credit? If one comes along who's dull, I make my own retreat find a good spiritual book for in between and get my spiritual needs supplied there. God's grace helps. Essentially our needs are the same and it is up to the individual and grace poured in to put his words to work (application). I love retreats for that reason--the exercise of that part of soul and brain! 178 July, 1956 SISTERS".RETREATS--IV Too often they seem to"forget we have voluntarily chosen a life of striving for per-fection and are therefore not, interested in minimum standards. It might be well "for us to single out for explicit mention the precise problems that the sisters think cause or occasion a lack of understanding in the retreat master: 1. The psychological differences between men and women. 2. Differences in the religious life as lived by men and as lived by~ women with the consequent failure to see the real problems in the latter. 3. Differences in the religious life as lived by different communi-ties of women. 4. Problems connected with particular kinds of work in which the sisters engage, e.g., teaching and nursing. 5. Tendency to be vague due probably to a lack of application of principles to concrete cases. 6. The assumption that sisters are interested only in mediocre goodness. The last two observations lead us naturally to the next sections of this article. HEIGHTS OF HOLINESS Thus far in our study the reader may have noticed that one of the deepest and most frequently reoccurring undercurrents causing muddy retreat waters is the wide variety in personality, background, and gifts of grace found in the sisters making any retreat. Perhaps nowhere in our study is this undercurrent more in evidence than in the present question, dealing as it does with the heights of sanctity. What one religious considers the "heights" another may regard as a mere stepping stone. A goal that discourages one religious may serve merely to whet the spiritual appetite of another. And, to make the truth all the more difficult to discover, most of the sisters in registering their affirmative or negative views are talking about entirely different retreats and retreat masters. We might reasonably hope for more agreement if all had made the same retreats. At most, therefore, we can seek to bring common ideas into relief and through them work out retreat approaches that will serve to meet the spiritual aspirations of even greater numbers of religious. The question put to the sisters was worded as follows: Do you think that retreat masters ordinarily urge you sufficiently to the very heights of holiness? ~yes __no Further comment" 179 THOMAS DUBAY Reoieto [or Religious A majority of the respondents, 410 (63.1%), felt that their retreat masters usually did urge them sufficiently to the heights of sanctity. Many of these sisters pointed out the fact that some of their retreat masters did not so urge them to sanctity but that most of them did. A minority of 240 (36.9%) were of the opinion that ordinarily their retreat masters did not do enough urging to the heights of holiness. Again the importance of the word "ordinarily" in the question was brought out in that here also some sisters in-dicated that an occasional priest was an exception to their statement. The sisters' further comments cgnnot fail to throw light on the problem. Respondents voting "yes": The greater number of retreat masters were splendid spiritual men with a fund of understanding human nature. Much or almost all depends on the retreatant herself. I believe in climbing the heights of holiness: however, most of us keep firmly on "'terra /irma" and practice observance of the rule which eventually will help us to attain sanctity. In a general way they do. I think they ought to do more of it in the confessional. Ordinarily retreat masters have that ability. Sometimes it is the sister's fault. Either she gets a poor start because she is so tired or she is not well physically. And some-times she does not work hard enough. Retreat masters cannot do it all. What is sufficient for a group, many members of which need'practical advice, is not necessarily sufficient for every individual. This answer is relative. I think this is my own fault because I am not fully relaxed or able to concentrate. Our life is so full of activity. We go from one thing to another all in working to save souls, but I think we need to take more time out to consider our own heights of holiness. Yes, and it helps very much if they use the small everyday occurrences and show us how to use these as stepping stones. This, no matter how often it is repeated, never gets old. I just wait for a retreat to hear this again--to open my eyes again. At the close of every retreat I feel like a new person, ready to conquer the world for Christ. Retreat masters certainly encourage holiness. Yes. I have my troubles trying to reach the heights I've heard about. Nevertheless, it all serves to make me very thirsty anyway. Maybe some day--who knows? We have had very good retreat masters these.last years. I don't blame the retreat masters for my lack of spirituality. They most likely remember that there are weak and strong souls, and therefore most of them' stick to a happy medium. Otherwise the weak would end in dis-couragement. It is often the retreatants' fault if they do not cooperate in heeding the good ad-vice retreat masters present, that they do not advance in holiness. Again we do not reflect seriously enough on the many beautiful truths explained to us. We feel and 180 dul~ , 1956 SISTERS' RETREATS--IV depend [sic] too often that it is the retreat master's task, rather than ours, to make the retreat profitable for our spiritual welfare. Normally the idealtis well presented and one leaves the retreat aiming high. The trouble lies not with the retreat master, but with th'e individual in carrying out the good resolutions formulated. Respondents voting "no": Not in a definite and practical way. The human element too often is used as a modifier--and we use that very skillfully ourselves. No, but the one who pointed persistently to those heights has influenced my life more than any other. Very few point to supreme holiness as a possible achievement. I would say, out of the 14 retreats I have made, in only two of them did the retreat master approach this. Perhaps they wish to be too considerate of our feelings. So they highly praise the very least we do, and are inclined to consider it sufficient to discuss just average or ordinary goodness. No one can impart to others what he himself does not possess. Holiness cannot be found or imparted in eloquent terminology. Many do not cha!leng~ the sisters to strive for great holiness. What they say is good, but they do not go far enough. Even if one soul answered the call and rose to eminent sanctity, much (vould be accomplished. Too much emphasis on the trite. Some conferences taken from books. Sometimes A waste of time to listen. More help could be gleaned from reading a go~d spiritual book. Many seem, like all too many sisters, content with "getting by." I think each of us longs for sanctity or at least at times longs to be aroused to do so. This I think is the retreat master's grand opportunity. We all entered religion to become holy. The evidence here advanced certainly does not warrant any blanket conclusion or recommendation. Many retreat masters are manifestly doing a superb job of leading these spouses of Christ to sublime reaches of sanctity. Others might profitably examine both themselves and their message to see if they are teaching the complete and undiluted doctrine of the saints both by example (in-sofar as in them lies) and by word. All in all we may conclude that sisters do decidedly want to be urged to the heights, but in a way that (1) does not discourage the "weak," (2) spurs on the generous, (3) enlightens all, and (4) is practical and concrete. IMPLICATIONS OF SANCTITY Our last point above brings us to the next item of inquiry: in retreats is the perfection of holiness (attainable in this life) clearly 181 THOMAS DUBAY Reoieto for Religious explained both in what it is and in how it is to be reached? The question as put to the sisters was worded thus: Do they usually explain sufficiently what those heights really involve and how they are to be reached? ~.yes __no Further comment : Of those answering the question 339 (53.8%) replied in the affirmative and 291 (46.2%) in the negative. It is interesting to note that a considerable number of sisters shifted their yes vote in the previous question to a no in the present one. There were also some--much fewer in number--who did the opposite, i.e., who shifted their no vote to a yes. These split votes would seem to in-dicate that approximately one-half of the sisters questioned are dis-satisfied with some one or both aspects of the retreat master's treat-ment of this matter of perfection. On the other hand, of course, it also indicates that approximately one-half are satisfied with both aspects' and that more than half are content with at least one or other of them. The mere numerical compilation points to the fact that more of the sisters are satisfied with the amount of urging to sanctity than with the explanation of what sanctity is and bow it can prac-tically be attained. This conclusion is confirmed by the observations of the respondents who selected the negative answer. Sisters voting "yes" commented: Yes, but I don't think they make these heights sufficiently desirable. This could be explained really adequately only over a long period of time. I think they do so as well as time and circumstances allow. Yes, I suppose they do, but some retreat masters make it seem more real and actually possible of attainment than others. Perhaps I only say this because I'm a very young religious. In general, yes. Again, they can't reach everyone present. It's much like a classroom procedure--some can't absorb the rfiatter. They explain the heights of sanctity very thoroughly. The main thing is living our rule and vows to the utmost. Personally, I feel I am not ready for the heights. I must first get a footing on the road to holiness. Perhaps most of us feel the same way about it and "the retreat master must help us make the first steps rather than scale the heights. Yes, but the manner is often presented as being very difficult rather, than as something to be faced with joy and confidence. I have always found great satisfaction through the spiritual guidance of the retreat master. 182 dulg, 1956 SISTERS' RETREATS--.IV Some do. Others, it seems, get lost in lesser details. Let us have a clear-cut picture of ends. They aren't too great for us to try. It is wonderful to struggle after great prlzes--more wonderful than to win the lowest. Sisters registering negative views: Never have I heard a really good explanation of this sort in a general retreat medi-tation. I don't think so. It seems to me to be too idealistic and not practical enough. It gives the desire but often not the way . Perhaps I have stressed the practical too much, but young religious still have the ideals and theories in mind, but often lose the ideal in trying to apply it to daily life. This may be the opposite with older religious, I don't know. I think that a theme or subject of the entire retreat which is stressed in every conference will be long remembered by the sisters. Practical ex-amples from daily life and lives of the saints are also helpful. Many religious do not know the graces God has in store for those who give all. Nor do they know the sufferings involved. But if the door of God's grace were thrown wide .open before them, they would want the sufferings involved. I've made retreats already xvhere I went back to the notes of other retreats in order to get sufficient material for a meditation, or for motivation to greater sanctity. Do you think. Father, that enough retreat masters have a central idea or in simple words have some theme about which they weave their meditations? Many times one comes out with fragments rather than one piece from" which to take a slice during the year as the need presents itself. They often explain in very general terms, e.g., in regard to the degrees of humility. But really, you can't give what you haven't got; therefore, only holy priests can do this satisfactorily. Sometimes too much emphasis is placed on (mere) ascetic life. I have met sisters who recoil at the mere word of mysticism, which is no other thing than a very close union with God. We want that, but we don't know how to go about it. Mystical union is a free gift of God, but even that should be explained. It involves sacrifice and generosity, but I think that if we realize better the tremendous grace of union witb God, we will be more ready to immolate our petty likes and comforts. I hope it is not unfair to our retreat masters to give them such a negative rating. But I do not believe their training prepares them adequately to do a competent job in explaining these matters to sisters. They either evade the topic, or suggest it is not for "ordinary" people, or emotionalize, etc. All of which leaves one with a lurking suspicion--and perhaps we are speaking euphemistically--that all is not quite as rosy as he might hope. These questions dealing with being understood and with attaining sanctity are crucially important, and yet it appears that many sisters are not satisfied with the treatment they are receiv-ing in retreats. Allowance certainly must be made for the variables of back-ground and spiritual development often so intimately bound up with problems of this type. But yet there are too many negative 183 THOMAS DUBAY votes to allow for any great stress on so facile an explanation. Per-haps the praise and/or blame involved in the varying responses are to be borne to some considerable extent by the [ndio[dtml retreat master. If this diagnosis be correct, the remedy lies in no blanket recom-mendation, no handy adage that is cut for every case. Each ~etreat master should appoint himself a committee of one to discover by every possible means whether or not he--not retreat masters in gen-eral, but he in particular--understands the sisters, whether he urges them to sanctity sufficiently and explains it adequately. To make this discovery a careful analysis of each of the sisters' written comments would probably be of immense help. For ex-ample, on reading the statement of a hospital sister that retreat masters often fail to understand her problems, the master would do well to examine carefully just how much he knows about the prob-lems of nursing religious and how capably he handles them. Or on noticing that some sisters complain of being urged only to mediocre holiness, the retreat master should examine his own attitudes, medi-tations, and conferences to discover whether or not they escape the censure. We feel--and so do many of the sisters--that a good percentage of our retreat masters would come out of such a self examination with flying colors. Those who would issue forth with slightly droop-ing standards would have lost nothing, but rather they would have gained much for God, for themselves, and for consecrated souls. OUR CONTRIBUTORS HENRY WILLMERING, a member of the editorial board for REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, is a professor of Scripture at St. Mary's College, St. Marys' Kansas. THOMAS DUBAY teaches theology and homiletics at Marist College, Washington, D. C., the major seminary of the Marist Fathers' Washington Province. MAURICE WALSH, a professor of canon law at Westo~ College, Weston, Mass., is a mem-ber of the Fordham Mission Institute and has recently returned after several months spent as canonical consultant in the chancery of the newly erected diocese of Kingston, Jamaica. SISTER EUGENIA, editor of the Coleridge Concordance, is vice-presi-dent of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, and supervisor ,of the high schools of the Sisters of Providence. WINFRID HERBST is'spiritual father at the Divine Savior Seminary, Lanham, Maryland. 184 The Occasional Cont:essor Maurice B. V~ralsh, S.J. CANONICAL legislation on confessors for religious women seeks to combine two contrasting advantages--advantages which are not always easy to reconcile: a) The requirement of peculiar jurisdiction for the confessor seeks to assure continued and competent spiritual direction in the confessional for sisters. b) At the same time, proper liberty and peace of conscience is protected by provision for extraordinary, supplementary, special, and occasional confessors. Historically, ' it is the first point (a) which early received em-phasis, with a trend more and more in the direction of personal liberty (b). The trend towards greater freedom in the matter of confes-sion for religious women has continued even since the publication of the Code of Canon Law, especially in the interpretation of canon 522, which provides for the so-called "occasional confessor": "If, notwithstanding the prescriptions of canons 520 and 521, any re-ligious, for the peace of her conscience, has recourse to a confessor approved by the local ordinary to hear the confessions of women, this confession, whether made in a church or oratory, even a semi-public oratory, is valid and lawful, every contrary privilege being revoked; nor may the superioress prohibit it or make any enquiry concerning it, even indirectly;, and the religious are under no obliga-tion to inform the superioress on the matter." Since 1918, the interpretation o~ this canon has become gradu-ally more liberal in canonical works. Authentic interpretations of the canon have genera!ly resolved doubts in the direction favoring freedom of choice.1 The same trend towards freedom is seen in 1Thus," the confession is lawful and valid not only in a church or chapel but also in another place legitimately designated (Code Commission. November 24, 1920). Though the requirement of the proper place is for the validity of the con-. fession, "have recourse" in the canon does hot mean that the religious herself cannot summon the confessor (Code Commission. December 28, 1927). The permission of superiors is not required, but the canon gives no exception from domestic disci-pline or the rule, nor are superiors required to grant any such exception in order to provide the occasional confessor (Private Letter of the Secretary of the Congregation of Religious, December 1, 1921---reported in the Canon Law Digest). Further-more, the place "legitimately designated" wherein the confession may be heard law-fully and validly does not exclude a place designated for a particular instance or one legitimately selected by the confessor himself (Code Commission. February 12, 1935). 185 MAURICE B. WALSH Reoiet~ ~or Religious the De Religiosis section of the Code for the Oriental Church, pro-mulgated in 1952. In the canon which parallels canon 522 of the Latin Code, the lawful place is not required for the validit~l of the confession heard by the occasional confessor. (The Commission for the Interpretation of the Code declared on December 28, 1927, that the circumstance of lawful place was a condition of validity for Latins.) The new Oriental discipline does make the special juris-diction required less stringent: it may even foreshadow a similar relaxation for the Latin Church, if and when a new edition of the Latin Code is promulgated. While canonical commentaries on canon 522 published in the 1920's were inclined to stress the necessity of authorization'and the benefits of continuity in confessional direc-tion, those published in the 1940's and 1950's tend more to warn against the dangers of undue interference in the choice of a confessor. A good many periodical articles have been published on the occasional confessor, both scientific and popular; the majority seem to bare had as their purpose the warning of superiors to be liberal in making the use of the occasional confessor possible. In fact, the last canon of the Code itself, canon 2414, is a sort of Demosthenic whip which lashes the overstrict mother superior wh6 refuses to grant her subjects the liberty of confession which the law concedes them. Perhaps the canonists, too, have done more than their share of lashing at poor mother superior in this matter. But--if you. will let me mix my metaphors--there is another side of the coin, and a good many suffering mothers superior probably would like to see a canonist flip it in the other direction for a change. The Canon Law in this matter still aims at the double benefit-- continued and authorized (therefore, presumably competent) con-fessional direction as well as freedom of choice. Some mothers su-perior have mentioned to me real problems that have arisen because canonists may have overstressed the liberty of the sisters in the choice of the occasional confessor. Some sisters have not always been en-tirely reasonable in their requests (or demands), either to 1~ave the convent at odd times for confession or to bare a particular confessor summoned on the spot. Requests of this sort are not easy to refuse. True, superiors are not obliged to disrupt domestic discipline or even to grant any special permissions in order that a sister may have the opportunity of confessing "for peace of conscience" according to canon 522. Still, in the light of all that has been written on the dangers of obstructing freedom of conscience (and the dangers are real), many have been inclined to accede to all requests in this mat- 186 Sulg, 1956 THE OCCASIONAL CONFESSOR ter, even when the request may seem to be, and is, unreasonable. There is no denying the fact that this general inclination on the part of many superiors is a good result of the present widespread knowl-edge of canon 522. If there has to be an error, it is better that it be in this direction rather than in the opposite. These few com-ments do tend towards that "opposite," because I am a little unwill-ing (perhaps unreasonably) to admit the absolute necessity of error in either direction. Occasional use of the concession ofcanon 522 is certainly proper and may even be necessary for the peace of soul of an individual religious. It would be Polyannish to assert that every ordinary con-fessor of every convent is always fully competent as a confessor of religious. Aside from the Missions, more normally the ordinary confessor is not himself a religious; many zealous secular priests have become good confessors for religious, but certainly no priest miracu-lously acquires by the mere fact of episcopal appointment the pro-found knowledge of religious life desired in an ordinary confessor. Even if the ordinary confessor be a religious, his profession of the religious state does not make him automatically the best confessor for every confession of every religious in the community. Where the ordinary confessor is less competent, there is likeli-hood of more frequent occasion for the use of canon 522. But even in this case, the occasional confessor is to be used (as the name in-dicates) only on occasion. If the occasions become so frequent that the .occasional confessor, without any authorization of the bishop, becomes equivalently the ordinary confessor of the community or the special confessor of an individual sister, then at least the lawfulness of these confessions may be called in question. In these cases, the occasional confessor is assuming that continued or habitual direction which requires episcopal appointment. Similarly, if a sister con-stantly "shops around" so that she really has no regular confessor, she has simply dispensed herself from that continuity of confessional direction which has always been required and which still is required of religious. This does not mean that canon 522 is to be used "for peace of conscience" only in a crisis and for the solution of an acute spiritual need. It would be erroneous to suppose (as some seem to do) that the occasional confessor is provided only for the case where the sister might find it embarrassing or extremely difficult to confess a particular sin to a priest who knows her and all the members of the community. Some have the false impression that this canon is pro- 187 MAURICE B. ~v'ALSH vided only as a kind of emergency exit, as an absolutely last resort. The Church intends canon 522 as much more than an emergency exit. On occasion, occasionall~, any sister is justified in using it merely for greater devotion, as a mearis of getting out of the mechanical routine of weekly confessions; this use, too, is for bet "peace of conscience." I suppose one might say the canon may just as well be used for pre-serving the peace as for stopping the war. A sister does not need a serious problem of conscience in order legitimately to use canon 522 for the peace of her conscience. The misuse of the canon comes when a notable proportion of confessions are made to the occasional confessor or confessors. Ex-cessive demands for a special confessor or too frequent recourse to the occasional confessor may be a sign of spiritual pride. A sister can rather easily deceive herself into thinking she is something of a mystic, that her spiritual life should become a full-time job for the best spir-itual advisor available, that the best is not at all too good for her. She can exaggerate the need for peculiar competence in the task of guiding her spiritual destinies. Too much solicitude about the choice of her confessor is rather a sign of spiritual immaturity than of real growth in sanctity. Perhaps I might try to sum up all these observations in this way. Canon 522 helps keep the balance between the two desired ends of competent, continued confessional direction and of that liberty in the choice of a confessor which favors peace of conscience. Much has been written to combat the abuse whereby canon 522 is unduly re-stricted. Though the opposite viewpoint has been less stressed, the too-frequent use of canon 522 is also an abuse. Clearly the canon is.being misused when there results a lack of continuity in confes-sional direction or a continuity which is unauthorized by the bishop. VOCATION FILMSTRIP Behold the Handmaid of the Lord is an audio-visual, full-color filmstrip repre-sentation of a specific religious vocation. It comprises !06 frames, two 10-inch LP records, and a teacher's manual. Price: $18.75. Order from: Sisters of Christian Charity, Mallinckrodt Convent, Mendbam, New Jersey--or from: Sisters of Chris-tian Charity', Maria Immaculata Convent, \Vilmette, Illinois. 188 Mot:her Theodore Guerin Sister Eugenia Foundress of the Sisters of Providence ~ of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana IN the designs of providence times of great struggle and great need in the world bring to light great leaders. This is true riot less in the world of religion than it is in the political sphere. Such a woman, a leader of eminent character, is the subject of this sketch. Born in the little seaside town of fltables, on the northern coast of Brittany, on October 2, 1798, Anne-Th~r~se Gu~rin entered the world in the turbulent and unsettled period of the post-revolutionary days of the Directory. She was given as much education as was avail-able at that tim~ and was fortunate in having a cousin, a young dis-placed seminarian, to direct her study and reading during her adoles-cent years. Her family was a deeply pious one but tried by unusual misfortunes. Her father, an officer in Napoleon's navy, was attacked and killed by brigands on his way home on a furlough. One brother bad been burned to death in an accident just before the father's death; and these calamities so unnerved the sorely tried Madame Guerin, that Anne-Th~r~se, at fifteen years of age, had to take over the man-agement of the home and the care of the remaining two children. Anne-Th~r~se had a strong inclination to the Carmelites, but her home duties prevented any such step. For ten years more, she remained with her family; and, at twenty-five years of age, she en-tered the young Community of the Sisters of Providence at Ruill& sur-Loir. This community, established in 1806 by a fe~v pious women, h, ad, since 1811, taken on a recognized form. Under Mother Marie Madeleine du Rosc6at (1817-1822), and Mother Marie, her successor, the community began to increase. Founded by Pere Jean- Fraricois Dujari~, the cur~ of Ruill&sur-Loir, the little community was governed by this holy priest, conjointly with the Brothers of St. Joseph whom he had also founded. He administered the affairs of the communities thus allied and financed them from a common purse, but after 1827 the two communities were separated. Under the direction of Mother Marie, the Sisters of Providence carried on a fruitful apostolate. Some misunderstandings arose between sub-jects and superiors over the separation, and these were the cause of sorrow for those involved, and for those who were innocently drawn into them. In 1823, while Pere Dujari~ still was active in the affairs of the 189 SISTER EUGENIA Review for Religious sisters, Anne-Th~r~se Guerin entered Ruill~-sur-Loir. From the first her superior qualities of mind and heart were manifested. The bene-fits of her careful education, her good judgment, and maturity of mind soon inclined her superiors to regard Sister Theodore as a most promising subject. Even though ill-health, to which she was always subject, showed itself in her year of novitiate, nevertheless, she was admitted to profession and named as local superior of a large estab-lishment at Rennes. During her incumbency here, she demonstrated that the confidence reposed in her had been justified. She was suc-cessful, not only in reforming the school affd the children of a troublesome district, but her influence extended through the children to the homes. What had been a disorderly parish became a model and well-regulated region. From this large place, Sister Theodore was changed to a little country parish of Soulaines. Here she had the opportunity of study-ing medicine and ph.armacy under the local physician and later sup-plemented this instruction by courses under Dr. LeCacheur in Paris. Her work in the parish school drew the attention of the inspectors of the neighboring academy at Angers, and medallion decorations from the French Academy were conferred upon her publicly in the presence of the cur~ and the town authorities for the excellence of her methods in mathematics. In addition to her scholastic achievements, she had interested a local nobleman, M. de la Bertaudiere, in the ruinous condition of the church; and as a consequence, a handsome and costly edifice was erected. This phase of her missionary life in France was soon to come to an end. In 1839, Pete de la Hailandi~re, named auxiliary bishop with the right of succession to the See of Vincennes, learned in Paris of the death of the saintly Bishop Brute. Accordingly, the new pre-late was consecrated in Paris and began to gather together missionary sisters and priests for the Vincennes diocese. When his plans for a group of sisters from a community at Ribeauville were frustrated, the Bishop came to Mother Marie to ask for a group to make the foundation. Before going to America, he had been stationed at Rennes and knew the Sisters of Providence there. The thought of a foreign mission had never been entertained by the Sisters of Providence; but even so, Mother Marie proposed the mission to the voluntary action of the community. Sister Theodore did not volunteer, feeling that her poor health would be a disad-vantage to any new foundation. However, when Mother Marie represented to her that unless she would head the mission, it could 190 dulg, 1956 MOTHER THEODORE GUERIN not otherwise be made, Sister Theodore gave her consent; and im-mediate preparations for the departure were begun. Friends were kind and interested in helping them with the financial concerns of their trip, and very soon the foundress and her chosen five sisters ~vere prepared for their new venture. Much of the information concerning America that had reached France dealt with the lives of the missionaries among the Indians, and certainly the imaginative narratives of La Rochefoucauld clothed the United States in an aura of romance. The novels of J. Fenimore Cooper, and his "noble Indians" were widely known and had, in fact, contributed to the foundation of Sainte Marie, Illinois. But of the igrivations and the vast loneliness of the forests very little was stressed. The sisters, however, were little concerned with romance and adventure. They were going into the New World to save souls and to answer the plea that Bishop de la Hailandi~re had made for the pioneers who were venturing into the newly opened lands of the Midwest. They hoped to spread the Faith here and to keep up the good work begun in Indiana. The technical details of government and the relationship and de-pendence of the new foundation upon the French mother house were discussed by the two bishops, Bishop J. B. Bouvier of Le Mans and Bishop de la Hailandi~re of Vincennes. The discussed points were agreed upon in writing: Mother Theodore was to be foundress and remain superior general of the Indiana mother house and all subse-quently formed establishments until the two bishops should jointly decide upon a change of administration; the sisters from Ruill6 might return to Ruill~ if they became dissatisfied in America, but Ruill6 would not assume responsibility for the American subjects. That was to be Mother Theodore's work. Mother Theodore also interviewed a young girl, Irma Le Fer de la Motte, who had intended to go to Vincennes with the sisters from Ribeauville; but, since that plan had failed, she entered the novitiate at Ruill~ with the intention of joining Mother Theodore as soon as her novitiate year was completed. Delicate, frail, and "good for nothing except to pray," as Mother Marie declared, this young sister was to function as a cofounder with Mother Theodore when she came to Indiana the next year and by her firmness and loyalty put to shame many a stronger person. Finally the little expedition set out in July, 1840, on the mer-chant ship, the Cincinnati. A timely gift of 3000 francs from Countess de Marescot was a godsend to them as their finances were 191 SISTER EUGENIA Religious limited. The "fifty days of penance," as Mother Theodore called the voyage, certainly merited the name. Mother Theodore herself was prostrated with seasickness accompanied by an inflammatory fever and lay practically at death's door. The sisters themselves feared that she would die on the way. A goodly part of their money had been stolen by a passport agent: and their baggage would have gone also had it not been for the watchfulness of one of the French work-men who, although intending to go to Vincennes, later followed them to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. Afte~ the long trip, the sisters were welcomed by the Parmentier family in New York who sheltered them while they awaited news from the Bishop and funds for their trip to Indiana. They visited the publishing houses and gathered information regarding text-books, maps, charts, and school supplies. They were dismayed to learn that a group of American Sisters of Charity were already lo-cated in Vincennes and wondered why they were needed if the situ-ation had already been met. They were to learn that the Sisters of Charity were withdrawing from the field and merely awaiting the arrival of the French sisters. They learned also that the scope and requirements of education in America were much more extended than in France and that consequently more things must be taught. The insistence on music impressed them, as they were told it was an ab-solute necessity to any kind of school. ' One of their great sufferings was their ignorance of the language; and, without adequate ability to make'themselves understood, they had yet to travel fifteen hundred miles into the interior. A short stop in Philadelphia, where they awaited their official guide, made them acquainted with the Sisters of Charity. They visited St. ~Jo-seph's Orphan Asylum to see American methods in operation; and, finally, under the care of Reverend William Chartier, the Bishop's representative, they began their month-long journey westward by railroad, steamboat, stage, and canal. At various, stopping places they met the Sulpician Fathers at Saint Mary's Seminary, Baltimore; the ,Jesuit Fathers at Frederick, Maryland, where they then had their novitiate; and Mother Rose White, Mother Seton's successor, at the Academy of Sisters of Charity, since transferred to the Visi-tation sisters. Mother Rose gave them some disconcerting informa-tion: "Sciences hardly known in our French schools are needed here, but the indispensable thing in this country, even for the poor . . . is music." From Wheeling they boarded the emigrant steamboat for the 192 dulg, 1956 MOTHER THEODORE GUERIN four-day trip to Cincinnati, the most painful part of the journey due to the lack of privacy, the rude passengers, the primitive arrange-ment for sleeping--mats on the deck of the vessel--and the crowded quarters. A steamboat ride took them to Madison where the Bishop met and welcomed them and acquainted them with the name of their future location, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, near Terre Haute, not Vincennes as they had naturally expected. On to Evansville by boat, and from thence to Vincennes by stage over a corduroy road was sufficiently discouraging, but the appearance of the ramshackle churches, the ppor quarters of the.clergy, and the wild aspect of the scenery, combined to increase their anxiety about their future. The sisters had expected to be located in a center of population; all their previous experience and training had equipped them to meet the need of such places; but, abandoning themselves to providence, they accepted the change in plans, and consented to go on to "that dreaded Terre Haute." Even though she could see no way in which she could take care of her community and provide for it in a dense forest, nevertheless Mother Theodore acquiesced and set out for" the chosen place. The trip from Vincennes to Terre Haute was fraught with dangers and hazards. The banks of the Wabash bad been inundated by the heavy torrential rain that poured for thirty-six hours; the corduroy roads were unsafe, but the trip must be made. The travelers, leaving Vincennes at ten o'clock on the night of October 20, encoun-tered many mishaps. Their stage was overturned, and they were compelled to seek refuge in a nearby farmhouse. They resumed their way again in the early morning and reached Terre Haute by late afternoon, too late to cross by ferry the yet unbridged Wabash. On the morning of the twenty-second, they continued their journey by ferry and rough overland wagon until about six o'clock in the eve-ning of the same day, Father Buteux, their chaplain, who had ac-companied them, uttered the momentous words: "We have arrived." No human being was in sight. Through the deep forest the heavy-hearted sisters made their way to the small log chapel where they knelt and dedicated themselves anew to the work of the Indiana mis-sion. The poverty of this chapel touched Mother Theodore to tears at the sight of the Lord of Hosts dwelling in such solitude. "No tabernacle, no altar," she wrote, "nothing but three planks forty inches long, supported by stakes driven into the corners." The Blessed Sacrament was reserved in a smalI pyx kept in a covered custodfurn. They united their poverty to that of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, 193 SISTER. EUGENIA Review [or Religious knowing that they could never equal His sublime destitution. Mr. Thralls, the farmer, and his wife, had prepared supper for them in the adjoining frame house, and in his generosity, offered to share his house with them until theirs could be built. The house consisted of two rooms and a porch on the first floor and a loft where corn and provisions had beeen stored. Mr. Thralls gave them the use of one room downstairs and ball of the loft above. In this small space were accommodated the six French sisters and the four postu-lants who had been awaiting their coming. On the day after their arrival, the sisters assisted at Mass in the log chape! and received Holy Communion. The request that they might have daily Mass as often as it was possible was practically the only condition that Mother Theodore stated in accepting the Indiana assignment. During their first weeks they were fortunate in having Mass daily; but, since Father Buteux was a missionary priest as well as their chaplain, there were times in the future when this privilege was not possible. The quarters allotted the sisters were sadly inadequate for the group of ten persons who were trying to live the religious life and to prepare for professional work. Accordingly Mother Theodore puchased the whole house from Mr. Thralls for the sum of $'400 which she took from the little fund that Countess de Marescot had given her. The Thralls family moved farther west and gave the sisters full possession. Even at that; the severe winter brought them much discomfort. Snow and rain came in through the poorly roofed loft which they continued to use as a dormitory. The rooms below served by turns as kitchen, dining-room, community room, study room, and one of the rooms as infirmary when Sister Marie Xavier fell ill of a fever and could not be left in the loft. On November 1, their trunks arrived from New York in good condition. The contents were soon put in place: statues of our Lady and Saint Joseph on the flat top of the bureau and a crucifix suspended from the nail in the wall. Plates and tinware were stowed away in the rough pine cupboard. One chair apiece and an all-purpose table completed their furniture. Thin mattresses or pallets of straw placed on the floor of the loft served as beds. The impossibility of opening a school in this deserted spot seemed to Mother Theodore more evident day by day. The half-finished brick building which was to have been their convent still remained unfinished. Bishop de la Hailandi~re remained adamant, however, to any suggestion of finding another location; and time 194 dulg, 1956 MOTHER THEODORE GUERIN proved his attitude a wise one. The uncertain trends of population in Indiana could not be relied upon: the canal towns seemed to be the prosperous ones; yet later on they were to be reduced by the rail-ways to small hamlets, and the canals rendered obsolete. Above all, there remained the utterance of Bishop Brut~ when he renamed the Thralls Station Saint Mary-of-the-Woods: "Some day there will be sisters here. You will see what great good will come from this place." Work proceeded slowly on the brick building. Mother Theodore then decided to retain the old Thralls house as their convent and use the brick building as a school. She was anxious that the school, when opened, should be of superior grade; and, later on, when it was pos-sible to incorporate the Institute, she had it chartered (1846) as an institution for the higher education of women; and she and her suc-cessors were "empowerd to do all necessary for the promotion of artsand sciences." Thus did sbe found the first Catholic institution for the higher .edudation of women in the state of Indiana. Insecurity and anxiety were constantly with Mother Theodore for the first seven years of her stay in Indiana. She could not obtain the deed for the property even though it had been bought by money given expressly for the sisters and their foundation. They could not build in a place they did not own and from which they were likely to be dispossessed at any time. The privations of the first years were very great. The sisters had to help fell trees, sow the grain for the harvest, plant potatoes and fruit trees'. Food was cheap in the markets, but nothing is cheap if one does not have money. In order to maintain a boarding school, the sisters must provide food for their pupils: and they hoped and prayed for a good harvest. In July, 1841, the brick building was sufficiently prepared to open school; and on July 2, 1841, the first of their pupils arrived. As one of the novices was a good English teacher, classes were opened in English as well as French. Music and art were to develop rapidly as soon as a place could be provided for holding these classes. Illness, ever attending Mother Theodore, reduced her many times to a critical state; and it seemed only the prayers and sacrifices of the sisters could restore her. Mother Theodore's first care, sick or well, was the instruction of the sisters and their formation in the spiritual life. She met them daily at five o'clock in .the evening and explained the meaning and importance of the Rule, preparation for the sacraments, the meaning 195 SISTER EUGENIA Reoieu~ for Religious and obligations of the vows. At other times she gathered them around her to help them with teaching methods and to impart to them her own skill. The little community numbered at the end of the first six months, four professed, four novices (two of the French sisters were still novices), and eight postulants. Mother Theodore began to think that her work as Foundress was now finished and implored Mother Marie to send a more experienced and stronger person to take over the mission, meanwhile stating in detail her needs, her relations with the sisters, and her very precarious health, but also her resig-nation to whatever was decided. But little help came from France. The mother house there was engaged in building a larger house; and, with the usual economy of the French, the superior felt that all the funds should be in hand before the building was commenced. Ne-gotiations were also going forward for the final approbation of the rules; and; to this plan, the faraway foreign mission .was a dubious asset. In Indiana the violence of the Know Nothing Movement was beginning to gather strength; the financial panic of 1842 limited" credit greatly; and the final cross of the fire of 1842 reduded the sisters to the deepest destitution. The fire was thought to be of in-cendiary origin as its occurrence could not otherwise be explained. The granary, the stock of fruit gathered, the barn with the plows, farm implements, and wagons, all were lost in the great conflagration. Only the prayers of the sisters s~ved the convent from destruction. Very little help was at hand to assist them in this disaster. The sisters cut down trees, moved logs, labored .to put out the fire, and almost all of them suffered burns and injuries as a result. In addition to this, they were haunted by the fear of future fires, having in mind the burning of the Charlestown convent. But the sisters had to face the reality. They had no money, no friends, no food, no credit, nothing but their invincible confidence in the providence of God; and this trust, by the mercy of God, Was never to abandon them. Mother Theodore appealed to the Bishop for help and discussed with him the pla'n of going to France for aid. His Lordship gave them funds to tide them over their immediate difficulties and felt that the trip to France would be an excellent means of securing help. He also issued the-required letters of introduction and permission to solicit alms. Necessary delays set their departure date for May !, 1843. Mother Theodore took as her companion a young American novice, Sister Mary Cecilia, whom she wished to have .the advantage 196 dul~, 1956 MOTHER THEODORE GUERIN of seeing the French mother house and of studying music under pro-fessors during their stay. Last-minute preparations were made, and the journey was deemed more n, ecessary when letters from Mo'ther Marie regarding a proposed return of the French sisters and the formation of an entirely new com-munity under Father Buteux made known to them a situation they knew nothing about. The plan was unknown to Bishop de la Hailandi~re also, although his attitude toward Mother Theodore and the sisters became more hostile than before. To his demands that the community become a diocesan one, change its Rule and Constitu- ' tions to fit his ideas, the sisters had set up a firm opposition. To gather enlightenment as to the course to pursue was one of Mother Theodore's objectives in returning to France. The voyage was made, and the two petitioners arrived i}t France only to find that many of their friends had left Paris for the cooler mountain-country places. Their quest seemed disheartening at first, but through the help of Mssrs. Aubineau and Veuillot who pub-lished their story in L'Univers, M. Martin du Nord, through whom they secured an interview with Marie-Amelie, Queen of the French, and M. de Choiselat, treasurer of the Association of the Propagation of the Faith, they were able to secure permanent and steady contribu-tions of funds which came to them regularly for many years. The news from Indiana was very disquieting. The Bishop had called for an election of superior-general, even though Mother Theo-dore had been appointed as Foundress with an unlimited term of office. The results of the election confirmed Mother Theodore in 6ffice, ¯ but the effect of this exhibition of loyalty was hardship for the little band of sisters. Acting on Mother Marie's advice, Mother Theodore prepared.to return to America, much fortified by the help and advice she had received from Bishop Bouvier. Before leaving France she affiliated the community with the Association of Our Lady of Vic-tories in Paris. Mother Theodore had also secured three postulants to make the return voyage with her. Hastily, Mother arranged the necessary details for the work she had begun: Canon Lottin agreed to act as her treasurer, receiving the funds from the various persons collecting for Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and arranging for some of it to be placed on interest. Mother and her companions embarked at Havre on November 28, on an old sailing vessel, the Nashville, which hardly seemed sea-worthy to them. Their fears were well grounded, for the ship was almost split asunder by the violence of a storm which arose in mid- 197 SISTER EUGENIA Review for Religious ocean. Their rescue from shipwreck was nothing short of miracu-lous as their ship actually capsized, but by a contrary wind, which miraculously arose, the ship was righted. Mother Theodore felt that this was an answer to the fervent prayers of the sisters to St. Anne, the patron saint of Brittany and promised a chapel and an annua! procession in her honor if they reached port safely. Hardly had this danger been averted when another equally perilous threat-ened them. The captain, who had been overexerting himself in buf-feting the storm, was stricken with apoplexy and lay on the deck as if dying. Mother Theodore's knowledge of medicine stood them in good stead then; she saw that the captain should be bled; and, call-ing for some necessaries,, she performed the operation. The captain soon rallied and was able after a few hours to resume his post. Mother Theodore's nursing skill was also called upon to take care of a dying man whose wife had fled from his side at the sight of death. She also baptized a new-born infant who died shortly after. The anxiety and care pressing upon her spirit completely wore out Mother Theodore's strength: and,.when the ship finally reached New Orleans, she was taken very ill and had to remain for several months under the care of the Ursulines of New Orleans. The news she received from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods increased her alarm. She sent Sister Mary Cecilia on with some of the party and was finally able, some months afterwards, to make the neces-sary trip by way of Vincennes. Here she met with many misunder-standings on account of the money she collected and the money which was accumulating for her in France but, after a stormy and painful two days, was permitted to return to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. For three years more this situation continued with more or less feeling. In 1846, the sisters, postulants and workmen were prepar-ing to leave Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and take refuge in another diocese where they could follow their Rule in peace, when the news of Bishop de la Hailandi~re's resignation reached them and caused them to remain. Their credit at the local stores was established as soon as the word was given that the sisters were receiving steady help from France. They were able to provide the necessaries, not only of life, but of good instruction for their pupils. Their own personal poverty re-mained. Their clothes were mended and patched, and the furniture of the mother house remained the simplest possible. Straw ticks served as beds, but were placed on the floor. Until 1862, the novitiate possessed one good bed which was always given to the latest comer 198 July, 1956 MOTHER THEODORE GUERIN among the postulants. W6e to the unhappy one who was the first one of two to arrive on the same day! With the succession of Bishop Bazin, whose administration lasted but six months, and the long administration of Bishop de St. Palais, his successor, the troubles of the first seven years seemed to vanish, to be replaced by other minor cares. The deed to their property, se-cured at last, entitled the sisters to build and develop their institution and to lay the foundations of their future extension. At the time of Mother Theodore's death in 1856, the community was teaching in ten missions in addition to the Institute at, Saint Mary-of-the- Woods. The community had received a few subjects frorn France, some from Belgium, but the majority of the new candidates were from the United States. Calls came from all sides for the sisters to open new schools: but Mother Theodore, realizing that she must first instill the religious spirit into her incoming subjects, was slow to send them on a mission. She instructed them herself, and visited the missions diligently, braving the discomfort of the rough wagon, the canal boat, and the primitive railroad. She did not spare her-self in serving: but at last toward the end of 1855, she conceded that her strength was definitely broken. Poor as the community was in worldly goods, it did not lack all the spiritual blessings that Mother Theodore could obtain for it. The first Sodality of the Children of Mary was formed in 1854, but May devotions had been held every May beginning with 1841. The Bishop had given permission for midnight Mass which was celebrated with few interruptions year by year~ In 1843, permis-sion was given for the private celebration of Forty Hours Devotion before it was canonically erected in any diocese in the United States. The devotion was held on the three days preceding Lent, and was continued on that date thereafter with but one or two interruptions in the long survey of 113 years. In 1843, Mother Theodore had affiliated the community with the Association of Our Lady of Vic-tory in Paris, and through the Parmentier family had registered the sisters' names in the Confraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and later in that of the Sacred Heart of ~Jesus in the Frehch Church in New York. Little has been said here of the loyal service rendered to Mother Theodore and the community by the delicate little Sister St. Francis Xavier, once thought to be "good for nothing but to pray." Her courageous spirit belied her delicate frame, and her sure sense of jus-tice- was a strong support to the often-harassed Foundress. During 199 SISTER EU.GENIP, Review for Religious Mother Theodore's absence in France and the consequent troubles in Indiana, Sister St. Francis never failed in her appointed trust--that of keeping the community intact until Mother's return. Death was now to claim this valiant sister, and in ~lanuary, 1856, she went to her reward. In May of that same year, Mother Theodore succumbed at last to the long series of illnesses which had tried her ¯ strength. In her sixteen years in Indiana, Mother had finished the work given her to do: she had established a mother house, and had formed to the religious life sisters of such moral strength that they were able to continue her work, and to transmit to others the essen-tial spirit of the congregation. She had established an incorporated institution for the higher education of women which was later to be known internationally as Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. Her work seemed to be completed. Tribute~ to her memory poured, in. The desuits Who had given the annual retreats to the community for many years held her in high esteem. Reverend dohn L. Gleizal, S.d., who had overheard her in-structions to the sisters, told them that their mother was a second Saint Teresa. Her acquaintance with ecclesiastics was very wide. Many of the bishops and priests laboring in the Middle West had come from the same land of Brittany. The first sixteen years of the existence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods coincided with the development of the Vincennes diocese, and Mother Theodore's Life, Journals and Letters, ¯ and other documents, are firsthand sources which supplement the ecclesiastical history of the times. Her full account of the first synod of Vincennes is the only cgmplete record of that part of the synod which was open to the public. In addition to their historical value, the above mentioned sources are human documents which tell the tale of Mother Theodore's patient suffering and heroic endurance. In 1907, her remains were'exhumed from the grave in the ceme-tery to be reinterred in the crypt of the newly dedicated Church of the Immaculate Conception. In the course of the exhumation it was discovered that her brain was ~intact and presented an appearance similar to that of the brain of a living person. This unusual happen-ing, coupled with the common belief and knowledge of the sisters that Mother Theodore's life was characterized by holiness, led to the introduction of her cause for beatification. The first process held at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods had, as witnesses, many who had known Mother Theodore, and. some who had been the recipients of favors through her intercession. Later it was found that similar 200 SISTER EUGENIA Review for Religiou~ processes must be conducted in France in order to cover Mother Theo-dore's early life, but the troubled condition of European affairs de-layed action in this regard. In 1954, Monsignor Emidio Federici was appointed postulator of the cause. Through his efforts an Italian translation of the biography of Mother Theodore was prepared, and together with the Positio, or pertinent data of the cause, was placed in the hands of the Cardinals and Prelates of the Rites for study. On December 6, this august assembly was addressed by Cardinal Piazza, Ponente of the cause, who read the Relatio and forcefully presented the cause to his colleagues. After the general discussion, the cardinals returned a favorable vote. On February 19, 1956, the Holy Father, after hearing the detailed account of the session from Cardinal Cicognani, chairman of the assembly, promptly granted his approbation for the introduction of the apostolic process. The cause is now entering upon the second stage of its advancement. The Life and Life-Work of Mother Theodore Guerin, by Sister Mary Theodosia, appeared in 1904; but it was necessarily incom- 'plete owing to the fact that it was not possible to use all the ma-terial in the archives. In 1937, Sister Mary Theodosia edited The Journals and Letters of Mother Theodore Guerin. During this same year a vast amount of material was sent to the community from the diocesan office at Alexandria, Louisiana, comprising letters from Mother Theodore and the early sisters to Bishop Martin, ordinary" of the diocese then known as Natchitoches and many letters from bishops and other ecclesiastics who had known the sisters. The con-tents of these letters cleared up many disputed points and vindicated the position Mother Theodore had taken. In 1948 appeared the first volume of the Historv of the Sisters of Providence in America. by Sister Mary Borromeo Brown, in which all available letters and archive material are incorporated. PAMPHLETS Titus Brandsma, Carmelite, Champion of the Catholic Press. By Rev. Aquinas Houle, O.Carm. Mary, 6415 Woodlawn Ave., Chicago 3 7, I11. Pp. 29. 10c. Holy Hour Pamphlets. The Sentinel Press, 194 East 76th Street, New York 21. N. Y. 10c. Faith. gcv. Gerald Dorais. S~S.S. Hope--Bv the Side of a Grave. Rev. Hector Lemieux, S.S.S. Fraternal Charity!. Rev. Gerald Dorais. S.S.S. Watch and Pray. Blessed Sacrament Fathers. Institution of the Hol~! Eucharist. Rev. Daniel Sullivan, S.S.S. Hol~t Hour Guide. Rev. Lionel Vashon. S,S.S. 15c. 201 Thought:s on Transfers \Vinfrid Herbst, S.D.S. A religious once wrote to his major superior: "If I may confide my innermost sentiments to you, here they are: I have a deep longing to go back to my borne country and labor there-- but not against the will of God." Another said that it was his wish to have no wish at all in this matter. What is to be said about those attitudes? No doubt the most perfect frame of mind is to wish that the most just, most high, and most amiable will of God be done in all things. The most difficult but most meritorious thing to do is silently to offer to the Savior the sacrifice of one's dearest wishes. A religious who does that has surely mounted high on the ladder of perfection. He has scaled heigh.ts that all should endeavor to reach. It is natural to have preferences, that is, to be drawn more to one person or place or thing than to another. But to cling to those preferences, to nurture them, and when occasion offers to give ex-pression to them with a view to influencing the superior and in order to obtain what would be most pleasing to us, is a sign of im-perfection. We ought to make ourselves indifferent in the Ignatian sense of the word. To make ourselves indifferent to all created things is to be on guard against our natural affections and exclude any one of them that is not ultimately reducible to God and subordinate to Him. It is to fight against our will when we find it bent on having something against the will of God. It is good to hear a religious say that be has no special preference for this or that study, that occupation, those surroundings, such and such a country or section of a country. But it makes a bad impres-sion when he nevertheless straightway, either directly or indirectly, lets it be known that he would like to do what be is doing and stay where be is and hopes that arrangements can be made to prevent a change. That is not the spirit of perfect obedience. "Behold in the days of your fast your own will is found," says Isaias (58:3) ; and we may add, behold in your obedience your own will is found. All religious know that there are some who are as eager to be transferred to some different place or country as others are to re-main where they are. Perhaps it might be a mooted question whether more would rather go or stay. We are not deciding that. What is of prime importance is that, whether they are transferred or whether 202 THOUGHTS ON TRANSFERS they have to hold down the same position in the same old place, they are content in doing the will of God. Religious also know that superiors are very considerate when it is a case of sending men to countries with bad climates, difficult languages, handicaps of all kinds, when the post will put a man's mettle to the test. They usu-ally ask for .volunteers, or at least ask those selected whether they have any solid objections or whether there is any impediment in the way, of which the superiors perhaps do not know. But they generally do not ask the subjects whether they have any special prefer-ence for the work, whether they feel attracted to it. If they do, it is merely a concession to human weakness. It should be each one's preference to have the example of the Divine Savior before his eyes. "In the head of the book it is written of me that I should do thy will, O God." "Not my will but thine be done." The transfer of religious from one house to another is a matter of special attention also on another score, one that vitally concerns the welfare of the whole order. It sometimes happens that superiors hesitate to transfer subjects, with resultant stagnation. Theoretically the superiors know that, if the constitutions of the respective order provide for it, and according to such provisions, any member may be transferred to any house of the province or order; but, when it comes to practice, they are often reluctant to transfer subjects unless there is a grave and manifest reason for doing so. They have the feel-ing that they must give the subject a reason why they are transferring him, because of the false notion that a transfer is a sort of a penalty. Were such an attitude of hesitancy or apology to prevail in a given province or order to the extent that it would become a sort of custom or a thing that is understood ("He couldn't get along there, so the major superior had to transfer him!"), it would be to the common detriment of the order; indeed, it is not too much to say that it would be the beginning of a gradual decline. Not to be transferred may never be the privilege of any individual .religious. Things would have come to a sorry pass when a remark like this could be made: "So, you transfer me; just transfer X and Y and you will see what happens." Of course, a transfer is not a casual matter. Each superior must give much prayerful thought to the matter, decide before the Lord where each one is needed or where he can best be used--and then act accordingly. It is simply taken for granted everywhere, particularly in the matter of transfers, that a religious must obey. Even the Holy See stresses this, as in the reply to an appeal made to the Sacred Con- 203 WINFRID HERBST Review fo~" Religious gregation for Religious. "He should submit to his superiors." ¯ Certainly, it is sometimes hard to obey. But Christ goes before us and we know the reward, as we read in that famous passage: "He humbled himself and became obedient to death; yes, to death on a cross. This is why God has exalted him and given him the name above all names" (Phil. 2:8, 10). Now, when a superior needs new men in his house, he has his own ideas of what they should be--ideas usually shared by all local superiors. These are some of the marks that should distinguish them: 1. They should be humble, unpretentious men who let them-selves be told a few things, who understandingly adapt themselves to their surroundings, who do not think that they know everything better but silently learn to weigh the pros and cons of things as they are. They are not men of whom the philosopher says, "'Statira sapit~nt, statiro sciunt omnia!'" It is hard to translate this, but the expression means something like "The. smart aleck knows it all and spouts high and far all that he thinks he knows!" Such characters can be extremely irri(ating. 2. They should be men who are not afraid of sacrifice, who are not afraid of a bit of rough going. The timorous, hesitant, weak-ling type who sees difficulties everywhere and hesitates to do and dare is as undesirable as the overbold and the conceited. In many ways the life of a religious is a life of real sacrifice, and pampered and spoiled individuals will hardly find conditions suitable to their liking in any house anywhere. Such, no matter where they are, will, to a greater or lesser extent, be a cross to themselves and to others. 3. They should be men who pitch right in to do the work .that is to be done, not the kind that give it a wide berth, always presup-posing that they ar~ fulfilling the superior's wishes and are not in-terfering in the affairs of others. Men who close their eyes to the work that is awaiting willing hands or, if they see it, unconcernedly pass by and let it be loaded onto others, are of no help to a house; on the contrary, the burden is doubly heavy when one sees that others who ought to help do not do so. "A brother who is helped by a brother is like a strong city," says Holy Writ; and only when all do their generous share is anything worthwhile accomplished. Indeed, such unified action is of the very essence of a community. Get a number of people together, and you have a group or a multi-tude or perhaps a mob but not yet a community. In order that they may be a community in the real sense of the word, they must work together, uniting their efforts for the attainment of a common goal. 204 July, 1956 THOUGHTS ON TRANSFERS If in one way or another a religious does not apply himself to the promotion of the common cause, he is not doing his bounded duty, no matter what other' qualifications he may have. 4. The men should be capable of doing the work for whicl~ they were assigned to the house. It stands to reason that that work differs greatly. One is the task of the teacher, another that of the spiritual director, the retreat master, the missionary, and so on down the line to the least (?) lay brother peeling potatoes in an isolated corner of'the kitchen. This means, too, that the men should as far as possible be specially trained and prepared for the work they are to do; for, as the expressive Latin phrase hasit, non omnia possumus omnes--we cannot all do everything. 5. The men should have a spirit of mortification. It is .prob-ably too much to .expect that they should be so advanced in the spiritual life as directly to long for and avidly seek the cross, that is, suffering and sacrifice, as did, for example, St. Andrew the Apostle, who greeted the cross on which be was to die with "O good cross, so long desired!" or St. Ignatius the Martyr, "I know what is good for me; I would be ground by the teeth of beasts that I may be found a pure bread!" or St. Teresa of Avila, "Either to suffer or to die!" or St. John of the Cross, "To suffer and to be despised for Thee!" Yes, it is too much to expect that of the men. Saints such as we have mentioned were rare blossoms in the garden of God; and, when we ordinary religious contemplate anything like that, we are heartily ashamed of our pitiable weakness. They were spiritual giants and followers in the truest sense of the word of the Savior who carried the cross and died upon it for us men and for our salvation. We are, generally speaking, merely delicate members of the Mystical Body of Christ. When it comes to the patient endurance of suffering for the love of God and to be mbre like Jesus, who died upon the cross, we really ought to strive after this ideal: to desire to be naturally very sensi-tive to suffering and at the same time to be placed in such circum-stances as will put our endurance to the test--and by the grace of God to come forth from the test triumphant. But this ideal postu-lates a degree of perfection which, alas! we generally do not possess. Since we are as a rule not so advanced in spirituality, are in fact the kind of men who have to reckon with marked weaknesses, we shall do well if from the start we learn to overcome ourselves in little things: to bear bodily discomforts (heat, cold, hunger, thirst, pains and aches and indispositions, misunderstandings, false imputations, 205 COMMUNICATIONS Review [or Religious or whatever it may be) and to harden ourselves at least to the ex-tent that we carry on in the patient endurance of what simply has to be borne. Eventually we may reach that degree of perfection in which we no longer feel very much. the disagreeable things of daily religious life. This may sound very much like advice unto imperfection! But no--there will still be a healthy spirit of mortification, considering the variety of circumstances in the various countries of the world and the different religious houses of the order. St. Paul says to Tim-othy, "Train yourself in piety." And with that as a foundation we might add: Train yourself also in self-denial and mortification, to bear heat and cold and hunger and thirst and labors out of love for God; otherwise you will be disappointed with yourself and will be a disappointment to others; otherwise you will experience as true of yourself the words of Solomon: "He that nourishes his servant delicately from his childhood, afterwards shall find him stubborn" (Prov. 29:21). This servant is your body. Unless it is kept down, hardened, it becomes more and more rebellious, querulous, demand-ing. It will be hard to meet all its demands, impossible to satisfy them fully. 6. In a word, they should be men who, if an assignment calls for it, can take whatever is demanded of them as regards climate, oc-cupation, primitive housing conditions, poor or distasteful food, and such like hurdles. With the Apostle Paul they should be able to say: "In whatever circumstances I am, I have learnt to be con-tent. I know how to live in privation, and I know how to live in abundance. I have been initiated into each and every condition: of satiety and of hunger, of abundance and of want. I can do all things in him who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:11-13). Communica :ions Reverend Fathers: A rather peculiar situation presents itself annually in religious communities as a result of new assignments, wherein an individual suddenly finds himself a member of a new household. Ordinarily, the mere physical and exterior adjustments offer no special difficulty, but their psychological counterparts are quite another matter, and it may take months, perhaps years, before an individual religious finds himself completely "at home" in his new surroundings. In 206 dulg, 195 6 COMMUNICATIONS such circumstances we may be too prone to intimate that any diffi-culty encountered is solely on the side of the individual entering the community. This, it seems to me, is an over-simplification, because the community, the individual, or both together, may be at fault. Let us presume that the community is a normal one, composed of religious who, with high ideals of personal perfection and of their apostolate, are striving in a concrete manner to perfect themselves therein. Such a religious house presents a solid, integral supernatural organism with unity of pursuit and of purpose. However, one must ¯ remember that the individual members of which it is composed, though leading the supernatural life perhaps on a high level, remain human beings. As such they are not exempt from personal foibles, character weaknesses, prejudices, and in extreme instances, wild ec-centricities. Naturally these will present a more or less serious hurdle to the smooth psychological adjustment of the newcomer. Problems may arise variously, depending on the qualities of the particular in-dividual and also on those of the community into which he is en-tering. An awkward and at times almost impossible circumstance of ad-justment might exist in the setting of a community in which through many years changes have been few. Certain offices and privileges have been apportioned in the same way over a long period of time. Those holding positions of trust--spiritual, academic, or otherwise --have not only kept them, but hold to them tenaciously. A species of religious "aristocracy" has been built up which constitutes a "block" in the lives of others. This need not be a large group or clique; even a "two-some" that works behind scenes, or openly for that matter, may not only dominate but actually tyrannize an en-tire community. By their judgment is arbitrarily determined who is and who is not to be accepted. Anyone on whom they chance :o frown is regarded as of little consequence. A newcomer entering such a house is, in common parlance, automatically "in" or "out." If he meets favor with the "aristocracy" he is definitely "in," though from the standpoint of virtue, integrity of character, and personality, he may be far lower in any objective scale of values than his less favored companions. Contrariwise, if the individual be not favored by this "'upper stratum" he is automatically "out," and it may be for his whole religious life, though ~he possess personal qualities of a high caliber. This situation is understandably aggravated when the same su-periors remain in office over long periods of time, by means of a 207 COMMUNICATIONS Review /'or Religious circle of superiorships from one house to another of their order. No one with a different outlook; mentality, or background is ever allowed to rule; this makes for an unfortunate system of inbreeding detri-mental to any religious congregation. Things never change; the same abuses remain; nothing is ever done to break down the "block." On entering a community operating under such a regime, a religious may find himself through no fault of his own, ostracized, and relegated to the "out" members of the lower stratum. Though be possess su-perior qualities of intellect, heart, and will, he is never consulted, nor are matters ever discussed with him. Should obedience require that a religious remain in such an environment his only way to peace is within--in the living of an intense interior life. And, if he has been accustomed to find his spiritual sustenance in doctrine and in truth, not in pious emotionalism and sentimental devotions, he should, with God's grace, which may come down on him like an avalanche, be able to work out for himseif a reasonably happy life. But it will have to be led on an almost purely supernatural level, since for him, any compensation on the~-human level scarcely exists. This is his only solution, and one dare not say it is an unfortunate one. It may be a special dispensation of grace leading to a marvelous culmination of his whole spiritual life. On the other hand, there is the religious who, on receiving his transfer to a new house, is of the opinion that it is solely the re-sponsibility of its resident community to see to it that he is adjusted thereto happily. He may entirely overlook the fact that he too has a personal responsibility in the matter. Instead of assuming the at-titude of one who waits to receive everything from others, such an individual must go out of himself and become aware that he too has a contribution to make to the happiness and well-being of others. To state it bluntly, instead of "Here I am. What are you going to do or not do to make me happy?" let him reverse the pronouns and the emphasis to "What can I do to make others happy?" Such an attitude is intuitively perceived by the other religious, and he will be accepted automatically. Or, by way of a positive approach, a re-ligious may, on entering a new community, pause to make an honest personal evaluation: "Do I possess spiritual, intellectual, social gifts, perhaps, by way of the virtues of prudence, humility, compassion, for instance, by which I might enrich the hearts and minds of my fellow religious?" It may be some specific human gift of a charm of manner, or a social grace, which will not only endear him to others, but also enhance the cultural texture of his community. God 208 ,lul~l, 1956 COMMUNICATIONS may have placed him here precisely to share these gifts with this particular group of religious. Or it may be that some one person here, yet a stranger, has, in God's designs, need of him. This may be the most important reason why God sent him to this place. Not infrequently an individual has a fellow-religious approach him in later life and say, "The remark that you made on such and such an occasion has made all the difference in my life!" In any event, a whole-hearted bestowal of oneself will be irresistible and at once break down all defenses. Whereas should the newcomer begin by shutting himself up ~vithin himself, and present himself as a closed cosmos, he will never arrive at that true rapport which charity re-quires. It may also happen that a religious skilled in a certain field such as journalism, drama, music, or the like, is sent to a house in which there is another who, without his qualifications and benefit of de-gree has, over a period of years, adequately performed that service. Even before the newcomer arrives the individual whom he is obvi-ously not to assist but, in all likelihood, to replace, forgetting the vir-tues of his calling, looks forward to him as little less than an intruder, and strives to alienate the community against him. On the other hand, the newcomer may be a shade too conscious of his training and skills, assume a superior attitude, and act as if nothing of good had been done before. He proceeds to a complete turnover. Though this is likely an extreme case, it nevertheless can result in much unhappi-ness for both religious concerned. A heart-to-heart talk between the two might be indicated, the overtures being made by the newcomer. But only the spirit and charity of Christ in whose name they serve, can eliminate the unpleasantness of such a situation. A last emphasis, though by far not the least important, is the crucial role of a religious superior in such situations. He must be alert to the problem as it exists for both parties concerned. \Vith a deep human insight and true supernatural solicitude for all of his subjects, he will intervene and, having carefully determined on which side the blame chiefly rests, take immediate and if need be, stringent measures to remedy matters. If he be just, prudent, and God-fearing, showing no preferences, his attitude of mind will be at once apparent to both parties to the problem and they will be docile to his counsel. This may be difticult, but where prejudice is concerned, rooted as it is in the emotions, reason will not easily break through. Nor should he stoop to a solution of mere expediency. So too in the problem ¯ of community adjustmenL rather than circumvent it by expediency 209 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious the superior will act as a sort of referee between the members.' For the situation not only objectively, but most probably subjectively as well, is reciprocal. Finally, for religious of either sex who, because of their work and the structure of their communities are of necessity moved from place to place in the course of their lives, a reflection on Christ's, words, "i was a stranger and you took me not in," may prove highly pertinent. ,Also, "what you have done to these . . . you have done to me!" The truth of these words is so direct, so simple, that it is a marvel how we miss it! A noted master of the spiritual life once questioned. "Are we so busy being religious, that we fail to be Christians?" The answer to this question, as regards the newcomer in our midst, can be given a pointed application.--A SISTER. (Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.) FATHER VINCENT McNABB, O.P. Por÷rolt of a Grea÷ Dominican. By Ferdinand Volenfine, O.P. Pp. 418. The Newman Press, West-minsCer, M~r~l~nd. I%~. $~.00. Father Valentine deserves the gratitude of all, both within and outside his Order, for the excellent book he has offered us. It is ex-cellent because it succeeds so well in achieving precisely that goal which Father Valentine clearly sets for himself. He does not intend to write a biography. But he wants to produce a "portrait of a great Dominican"--and he does. For here is the portrait of a "very great Dominican"--to borrow the appraisal of the present provincial, Father Carpenter. The book will inspire the diligent reader and make him grateful for this unveiling of the workings of grace in the impetuous, childlike soul of Father Vincent McNabb. As Father Valentine says, "the one and only person who could fittingly and adequately write the biography of any man would be his guardian angel." But xqithin the limits of human competence. Father Valentine has painted a masterful portrait of Father Vincent dynamically cooperating with the Holy Spirit working as the artiste merueilleux within his soul. The author achieves his goal by his very extended research. He seems to have tapped almost every conceivable channel which might 210 July/, 1956 BOOK REVIEWS carry some reflected image of Father McNabb's character. He uses many direct quotations, a large number of letters from Father Mc- Nabb, some of his articles, together with historical backgrounds, recollections by intimates, and even handwriting analyses. Added to this rich amassing of the facts on Father Vincent's life, the book is marked by a rather successful approach to that impossible ideal of perfect objectivity in interpreting facts. The author is careful to dis-tinguish between the particular theory of character development which he uses to explain Father McNabb's life and the facts themselves. Of these latter he records some that favor Father Vincent, but a good number that are not very flattering to him. The book is composed of four parts with appendices. The first part sketches more of the external historical picture of Father Mc- Nabb's life. It stresses the psychology of the growing youngster and his character formation, particularly under the influence of his mother. Part two shows us more fully the heart of Father McNabb. How the brethren viewed their fellow Dominican and superior, what he was in the e~'es of the people to whom he ministered so charitably, and what activities his own zeal, social ideas, and humiliations led him to are here presented to the reader. Part three lets that reader see Father McNabb through the eyes of those xvho either were near-est him, like his family, or were very apt to form just appraisals of the man, such as Hilaire Belloc and Gilbert K. Chesterton. The last part is a collection of Father McNabb's letters, covering a period of almost fifty years and giving many an insight into his character. This section also corroborates the author's sketching of the spiritual development that occurred in Father McNabb's life. The book makes interesting private reading. There are lines memorable for their local color or for the vividness with which they picture Father McNabb in one of his many moods. With careful screening of some of the more documentary parts, the book might make profitable refectory reading. One specially enriching section is entitled "Father Vincent's Reminiscenses of His Priestly Life." From it the reader possibly will gain his greatest appreciation of the stature and spirit of Father McNabb. As a substitute for the somewhat loose connection of the four parts and of their subdivisions, some readers might desire a more closely knit narrative which in a unified procedure would portray all the facets of the hero's character. But this would seem to be ask-ing for something that approaches a biography. Again some readers may not agree with the author's confidence or the method employed 211 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious when he analyzes the dominant factors forming Father Vincent's character. But the author himself is the first to admit that this is an optional part of his theory and not an essential in the foundation of the facts he has established. If you pick up the book, you will find that in Mmost every chap-ter you will be in violent disagreement with one of Father McNabb's views or practices and then suddenly be in love with him for some sacrifice or statement he makes; and yet through it all, you will be delighted and inspired by this unique character striving heroically for humility and obedience because of his deep love for Jesus, Mary, and Josepb.~FRANK M. OPPENHEIM, S.J. GOD AND HIS CREATION. Theology Library, Vol. II. Edi÷ed by A. M. Henry, O.P. Transla÷ed from fhe French by Charles Miltner, C.S.C. Pp. 511. Fides Publishers Association, Chicago. 1955. $6.50. The s~cond volume of the Theology Library, following the plan. of the Summa, treats of God and His creation. It is divided into three books: Book I, God Exists, has three chapters which con-sider the revelation about God, His existence and essence, and the Trinity. Book II, God Creates, presents, in five chapters, the doctrine of creation, of evil, of the angels, of the octave of creation, and of man. Book III, God Governs, studies the mystery of divine govern-ment, the angels and divine government, the two economies of divine government. The different chapters are all by different theologians. Certain features call for special praise. Before the treatment of each of the twelve general topics, we are given a r~sum~ of the scriptural basis for the truths involved. The very first chapter is an excellent ex-ample of this. It takes the reader through the whole of Scripture to showy him the growth in the idea of God, and to emphasize the tremendous deepening of the concept in the New Testament through the Incarnation of the Second Person. Father Paissac's development of the theology of God's attributes has many deep and helpful in-sights. One of the best is his close association of the notions of the good and the beautiful (pp. 62 and ~3). The idea of the beautiful helps very much to see the meaning of the truth that a thing is "good in itself." Another feature is the clear way in which each topic is approached so as to highlight the essentials of theological method. The second chapter furnishes an instance: first the question is stated, then the data of revelation are gathered as the answer to the question of fact (An est?), and finally the theological explanation is given (Quid est?). A word of criticism is, however, iri order here. In the 212 Julg, 1956 BOOK REVIEWS first volume Father Liege had made it clear that the starting point in any theological investigation must be the teaching of the magis-terium. As Pius XII insisted in the Encyclical Humani Generis this is the starting point even for the theologians. Yet, in the places where the data of revelation are gathered preparatory to theological elabor-ation, we find the order of the older manualists used: Scripture comes first, then the Fathers of the Church, then the documents of the magis-terium follow in their historical place. But it is imperative to show even in the scheme of presentation that the first of the theological loci is the teaching of the rnagisterium. A third feature is the con-sciousness of modern problems manifested in the treatment of each topic. Added to this is the presence at the end of each chapter of a few pages called reflections and perspectives in which topics for further study and for discussion are suggested. Finally, a short bibliography of easily available works in English is given after the reflections and perspectives. In the review of the first volume of the Theology Library doubt was voiced as to whether the work was adapted to those who had not had formal training in philosophy or theology. These doubts must be raised again. For the treatment of the matter is, in general, too compressed, and the style is full of technical terms or of allusions which only a person trained in philosophy would understand. The translation is very disappointing. Not that there are many inaccuracies. Rather it is the presence in the English of so many features that smack of the original French, features which make the reading unnecessarily difficult, confusing and exasperating, which leads to this criticism. For example: the plethora of nominative ab-solutes is retained; the inversions of French style remain; the use of the English it to refer to antecedents which the French clearly marks either by pronouns of different genders or by words with different suffixes retard the reader and often leave him undecided as to just what the antecedent is; the rather common use of the present tense in French in passages of somewhat animated narration is kept in the use of the English present.--JAMES J. DOYLE, S.J. PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY IN PRACTICE: By Willlbald Demal, O.S.B., D.D. Pp. 249. P. g. Kenedy and Sons, New York. 1955. $4.00. This is a difficult book to review, and not merely because its print is so fine. It is addressed to priests and "educators "to whom God has entrusted the task of pastoral care." (p. ix) This audience has a degree of competence and professional alertness. The author seems tO count heavily on the discriminating powers of his prospec- 213 BOOK REVIEWS Review for RMigious tive readers, for he says many things that are, at best, questionable. He is anxious to score a point, and to do it he will at times exag-gerate: or" use a universal negative, when he must know that an exception, will come readily to mind and so convict him of falsity. He is dogmatic on matters that are merely probable, and it is only the refusal of the informed reader to take him literally that saves some statements from being unorthodox. No clerical reader will get far into the book before turning to its beginning to find out if it has an imprimatur. And many, I think, will be surprised to find that it has. It must be said in justice that the text itself contains the cor-rective of, and antidote for, many of the extreme positions, which would, then, seem to be advanced for the sake of good, clean argu-ment. There is, of course, a danger that the unwary will carry away some false impressions. Before giving a critical analysis of a few of the author's tenets, let me indicate, with some passing observations, the range of topics one is asked to consider ~vhile reading this book. His remarks on the psychology of the sexes are penetrating, though one will not always agree with what he says. Assessing re-sponsibility for acts that are commonly considered grievously sinful is often beset with difficulties. Kindness and understanding, tact and charity are well insisted on as requisites for work in the confessional. When he tells us that the Holy Ghost is the real guide of souls and that God guides them through the priest as His instrument, he seems to contradict his position that the priest needs psychiatric lore. He seems to concede an overpowering influence to the unconscious and to be too ready to admit that men are "determined" and consequently are not free. He opposes coeducation because it tends to destroy the polarity of the sexes, but then goes on to say that both sexes benefit from mutual contact. Judgment weakens in old age, which, sur-prisingly, is characterized by good judgment (p. 124). He gives a good test to determine if our ruling passion is sensuality or pride (p. 126). The temperaments are well done and the reader will be sure to classify all his acquaintances--and perhaps himself-~ as choleric, sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic, or a mixture of them. A brief outline is given of the contributions of Kretschmer, Kiinkel, Freud, dung, and Spranger. It is a disappointment that the author makes no attempt to. digest this mass of theory and evaluate it, per-haps in terms of temperament. He has some rather penetrating re-marks on the scrupulous and some which will occasion debate. Should a priest discourage a psychopathetic person from marryin.g? 214 dulg, 1956 ¯ ¯ BOOK REVIEWS Few pe6ple are healthy and most people are in one way or another psychopathetic (pp. 210, 237). Let me now give .a few illustrations of the author's penchantto exaggeration. Conversion is well said to be "the triumph of divine grace over human nature with its inclination to sin." Teresa of Avila was converted at the age of 40, though she entered the convent at the age of 18. When conversion finally does occur, "it excludes the possibility of oscillations and relapses." (p. 7) This seems to be our idea of confirmation in grace. What of St. John Fisher's remark about the condemned criminal being led out to execution, "There but for the grace of God, go I"? "Man is incapable of true resignation to and union with God before 40." After that, presum-ably, he can be converted. Father Demal may quote mystics for his opinions, but he is out of touch with the battles human nature must wage to get into heaven, even after the age of forty and bulwarked with the best of resolutions. A conversion such as he envisages would spread endless sunshine over this de facto vale of tears. The author is little tolerant of "casuists who pass moral judg-ments on human acts by means of stop watch, yard-stick and scales." (p. 9) "It is impossible to formulate exact laws and directives which would clearly separate venial from grievous sins . . . the just de-cision will be made by God, not by moral theologians." (p. 118) Even St. Alphonsus comes in for some mild criticism, since he is said to have "underrated the importance of natural disposition for the preservation of chastity and overrated the importance of divine grace." (p. 181) In sober fact there are times when a prudent confessor is in doubt whether a sin is mortal or venial and this is the point Father Demal must be striving to make. He does not seriously mean that a con-fessor can never know that an infraction was mortal, for he tells us that when penitents come to confession "without any sincerely spiritual intention of amendment . . . the only course is the refusal of absolution." (p. 11) When an infraction is venial, one scarcely refuses absolution. If one searches diligently, he will find in Father Demal most of the accepted canons of the "moral theologians." In his final chapter the author notes that some priests are suc-cessful in their treatment of psychopathic persons and others are dismal failures, and offers this as the explanation: "Of first im-portance is the priest's knowledge of the various psychopatbies, their distinguishing symptoms and the indicated therapy." (p. 237) This is questionable. Were a priest to fancy himself as a psychiatrist, his 215 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review [or Religious thought would tend to be concentrated on the discovery and listing of symptoms rather than on a manifestation of genuine sympathy.

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

Part one of an interview with Settimio "Babe" Pellechia. Part of this interview has been redacted as per Mr. Pellechia's wishes. Topics include: Family history. How his parents came to the United States from Italy and settled in Leominster, MA. His father's work at the Leominster Button Company and then as an ash collector. Babe's memories of growing up in Leominster during the Depression. His father's construction work. The work his siblings did. What it was like for Babe working with his father on construction jobs. How his brothers turned the construction business into a concrete block manufacturing business. The different businesses Babe started and worked in. What the Lincoln Terrace neighborhood was like when Babe was growing up. His mother mainly spoke Italian and knew very little English. Speaking Italian in the home. What his mother was like. The types of food his mother would prepare. Babe's work in the motel business. What life was like when Babe was running an ice cream shop and a motel. His children's education. ; 1 BABE: And [DeMazzio]… [Icelano], and then after would actually be Joseph… Enrico. LINDA: Enrico? BABE: Enrico. LINDA: Enrico. BABE: Uh oh, we got caught. Enrico, and then myself, and then Olga. LINDA: Hi, I'm Linda. SPEAKER 3: Hi nice to meet you. BABE: Now there wasn't -- of course Dave passed four years ago. There was another DeMazzio [unintelligible - 00:00:53] Icelano. LINDA: Oh, there were two others that died? BABE: Well, they died at the age of three and one in the same weekend. LINDA: Okay. BABE: Before the others. That's why they renamed the others. LINDA: They renamed -- so. I'll put that in here there were two others. You want that in there? There was another one DeMazzio that died and they named it the next one DeMazzio. And Icelano was one that died, and they named the next one Icelano. SPEAKER 3: I would like that in there. LINDA: Okay. SPEAKER 3: [Unintelligible - 00:01:21] you should have hired her. LINDA: How are you, Tina? TINA: Oh good. I'm… LINDA: Now, your marriage. BABE: Now, there's a bad part. You had to spoil it. October 5, 1945. I'm sorry, October 6, 1945. LINDA: Uh-oh. SPEAKER 3: I was just waiting. I didn't want to say anything. LINDA: October 6, 1945 and you married Augustina, what? SPEAKER 3: Traini. BABE: T-R-A-I-N-I. 2 LINDA: Augustina Traini. BABE: This comes out of that because [unintelligible - 00:02:01] that's part of the book [unintelligible - 00:02:05]. SPEAKER 3: Babe, you're going to have to do this because -- I'm sorry, I have a class. I'm teaching down the college, so… BABE: What was that last one? LINDA: Your children, the names of your children. BABE: Okay, Linda… LINDA: Another Linda. BABE: And Barry David. LINDA: And Barry David. Residential history. Now, you lived on Grove Avenue. BABE: The different places we lived? Well, we started in Lincoln Terrace where I was born, and Miller Street, [Union] Street. After Union Street we went to Sterling, Westminster, to Grove Avenue, and then over here. LINDA: Norfolk, okay. BABE: I missed one, Litchfield Street. LINDA: Where was that at? BABE: That would before Union. LINDA: Litchfield? BABE: Litchfield. Is it recording now? LINDA: Yes. BABE: Then I can't joke as I go on. LINDA: Oh, you can joke. I just wanted to make sure that… BABE: Had I graduated it would've been the class of '40. LINDA: Okay. Work history. What did you do? Your father? BABE: What did I do? I started with contracting with my father. My father was a contractor, so I fit in that very good. And then I was self-employed in the following businesses: Babe's Ice Cream, Dennison Motel, West [unintelligible - 00:04:06] Motel, and Babe's Miniature Golf, subdivision of the real estate [unintelligible - 00:04:07] houses. LINDA: Subdivision of real estate? For housing? 3 BABE: Mm-hmm. That's all I did. LINDA: What about Blocks? BABE: Yes, true. That was another corporation. These were all my own. Blocks was a corporate… LINDA: That was with your father? SPEAKER 3: At least she remembered. LINDA: Contracting with father, Blocks -- was that the name of it? BABE: Well, Blocks was the name of the four brothers. SPEAKER 3: It's a great thing you guys are doing, you know. I'm so glad you got that older woman, that 100 year old lady, 106. Thank God you got her before she went. LINDA: We got a little bit. You didn't get to see her [unintelligible - 00:05:09]. SPEAKER 3: Not me. It was someone who was working before. BABE: To show that we're not always hiding. That first sheet down there, what's that say? SPEAKER 3: This one? BABE: Yeah. SPEAKER 3: The Joy of Growing Up Italian? BABE: No, no, the one above it. SPEAKER 3: American? BABE: No, what's the next one you have there? SPEAKER 3: This one, the Americans? BABE: Oh, that's what you had. [Unintelligible - 00:05:26] LINDA: Babe, my next question here is St. Anne the Church, and that's St. Anna. You always belonged to St. Anna Church? BABE: Off and on. LINDA: Off and on. SPEAKER 3: Yeah. BABE: And now it's off. SPEAKER 3: I'm just going to say bye. And I'll see you. LINDA: Good luck. Nice meeting you. [Unintelligible - 00:05:58] 4 BABE: It was a pleasure. SPEAKER 3: I got pineapples for my still life. LINDA: You're going to paint still life? SPEAKER 3: No, they're drawing. It's a drawing class that I'm taking [unintelligible - 00:06:05]. BABE: Before -- do you want to shut it for just a minute? SPEAKER 3: Not on there, so… LINDA: Thank you, Ann. I would have checked. Okay, we have to start again. I'm Linda Rosenblum with the Center for Italian Culture. It's Tuesday, October 30th at 1:20 p.m. We're with Babe Pellechia, and Rosa Farrell is with me, and we're at his home at 27 North Fourth Drive in Leominster. Hi, Babe. Thanks for letting us come and interview you. I thought that you could tell me a little bit about your parents first. Are they the ones that came to Leominster? BABE: Yes. My father came to Leominster in 1906, and… how far do you want me to expand on that? What he did? LINDA: Sure. Well, first of all, where did he immigrate from? BABE: From Rome. LINDA: Rome? Did he travel with your mother? BABE: No, she came in 1909. LINDA: Okay. Who did he travel with? BABE: He just came on his own, I believe, at that time or whatever, people were coming. He left from Roma and landed in New York then came to Leominster. LINDA: Do you know why he came to Leominster? BABE: You know, that's one of the questions we never asked him, and I'm still trying to find out why he came to Leominster. It must be because of friends; that's where most of them was. You know, there was quite a colony of the Santa Maria Del Combo, and that's from the section of Italy where they came from. So it could have been from other friends where he… 5 LINDA: What do you call that, Santa Maria? ROSA: Del Campo. Santa Maria Del Campo. BABE: It's an Italian organization. ROSA: The particular region in Italy. LINDA: So, close to Rome? BABE: It's south of Rome. It's actually -- El Vita, and [unintelligible - 00:08:00]… which is part of -- give me a minute. My notes over there, please, these little papers here. It's [unintelligible - 00:08:17] Costa Lata. C-O-S-T-A, L-A-T-A, I believe it is. And that's where most of them came from. LINDA: And I had just read in some of the papers over here that he studied industrial agriculture when he was in Rome? Did you know that? BABE: He was a farmer, whatever that may mean. You know, like I say, [unintelligible - 00:08:41]… authority, and that sometimes these things happen like a good friend of ours that was a garbage collector, and he did wonderful things. The city of New York gave him an award, and they said he is a sanitation engineer. And the guy got up and says I am a garbage collector. So I don't think he did much studying at that age because there was -- things were pretty rough there in Italy. LINDA: Did he ever tell you any stories of Italy? BABE: Oh yes. LINDA: Would you like to share some? BABE: Well, he would say the way they used to work and so forth, and their living conditions, which was pretty rough at that time. That was the reason why they came here. Of course, supposedly our roads were paved with gold, and that's out there. But he was always a very hard worker and always wanted to do more, learn more, do more, which he did do in his life. Like the first thing he did when he came in to Leominster was he headed down to Leominster Button Company, which is near, 305 Whitney Street, and they're called [unintelligible - 00:10:01] now. And he was a rubber of buttons and combs. They used ashes, and it's surprising that 6 they [unintelligible - 00:10:11] health in that year one of the filthiest jobs that -- the men worked, and this is outlined -- let's see, this is put out by the Board of Health of Massachusetts. LINDA: So he was called a rubber? BABE: Mm-hmm. LINDA: Did you remember him explaining what he did? BABE: Well, what it is, you take the buttons or the combs or whatever they're working on [unintelligible - 00:10:37] was turtle, made from turtle then [unintelligible - 00:10:39], and what the ashes and what the wheels going at the RPMs that it does go, and the water, that polishes up, really polish it. But of course if you got water and ashes and a wheel going you know what that does to the person, and that's what he did for a few years. Surprisingly though in 1914 he sold that fine ashes -- this was a business for him. LINDA: So he realized that there was a use for that ash. BABE: Mm-hmm, and they got him out of that filthy working conditions. LINDA: I'm wondering what does an ash dealer mean? What would he do with the ashes? BABE: You go around and pick up the ashes from people's home, 10 cents a barrel, bring them down and screen it through a screen that water won't go through, and that's what they used for rubbing. That's the compound that they used for rubbing these plastic -- not plastic but the horns or hooks or whatever they were doing. LINDA: Did he get that idea from someone else, to go and collect the ash? BABE: Well, he got the idea from being in business. He got some wagons to collect the ashes, which were -- and the rubber district was a good business at the time, and then he felt that he had that, why not screen the ashes and sell it to the industries, which he did. Another byproduct of that too that the -- when you screen the ashes you always get the coal that never burnt, and half of Lincoln Terrace was the Italian Colony. He used to go down and pick up the coal, and it kept a lot of people warm up there 7 at that time, so that they would go down -- it was on Middle Street where they did that. So [unintelligible - 00:12:33] he helped out a lot of people by letting them go and they go through these screenings and pick out all the little black diamond gold that heats the house, and that was it. LINDA: So this 75 Lincoln Terrace, was that where you lived, or … BABE: That's where I was born, and that's where we lived at the time. LINDA: So he actually -- I just want to make sure that we get this on tape, so sorry to keep asking you… BABE: That's all right. LINDA: It's an old art, and it's not easily explainable. So he would go around to people's homes, or… BABE: Yes. Because everybody burnt coal in those days. You'd call up and you'd go there and then take the barrels out where -- which as he said was very, very heavy, because you'd either have to go up the stairs if they didn't have an outside door or to the bulkhead or something like that, and he aggravated at some people to get more ashes in the barrel [unintelligible - 00:13:26]. And so that's more weight, and then you couldn't screen it. Other than that he had the horse and wagons, put them on, bring them down -- the screening plant was on Millet Street, which is just off of Lincoln Terrace, and there he would screen what he picked up from the people's homes and separate it and sell the extra fine screened ashes to industry. And he shipped it to a few places all over the United States at the time. LINDA: Where did he get the money to begin this type of a business? BABE: By what most foreigners other than Puerto Ricans, saved their money [unintelligible - 00:14:09] saved their money and do it that way. LINDA: So at this time was he married? BABE: Probably should strike that out. That isn't too nice to say, but it's already on tape. 8 LINDA: Well, it's going to be edited. BABE: Okay. LINDA: What did I ask -- was he married to your mother by this time? BABE: Oh yes, he married my mother in 19… I'll put my glasses on. It would help, wouldn't it? LINDA: Okay, but we can figure out the dates later. BABE: Hmm? LINDA: We can figure out the dates later. BABE: Okay. LINDA: So we'll figure it out. So can you tell me a little bit about growing up on Lincoln Terrace? BABE: It's a good thing that we didn't know better. We enjoyed ourselves. It was a happy life and so forth, but I just wonder what would happen today if children had to go through what we did. Our fun would be getting in a sandbank and digging holes and whatever we could find, cups and make objects out of it. We'd play baseball. Whoever had the baseball and the bat would be the one that would pick the teams and when we'd play and how we'd play. And it was -- on today's standard it was really very, very rough living at the time. We had no entertainment to speak of. We hardly go to movies only it was only a nickel to go to the Gem Theater; we didn't get there too often. And the main highlight, or one of them, was at Christmastime at the -- one thing my father would do, he did everything for Christmas. You know, for food and things like that. And one of the big games as I remember would be getting the table like this and putting sawdust on it, and he'd hide coins in the sawdust, and you each had a shape to pick out a shape where you'd want hoping to get more coins than your brothers and sisters and so forth. So that was one of the fun things that we did. 9 But myself as I grew up I always had a tendency to follow him and get involved with his work. By that time [unintelligible - 00:16:36] he was in the contracting. He was more doing contracting at that time, became a contractor. So I always followed him around on jobs and things like that. So I learned more. I think even for myself I think I grew up real fast as far as a youngster. LINDA: Is that partly because you were the seventh son? BABE: No, because that's what I wanted to do. LINDA: Explain to me though what your name means again. BABE: Settmio is seven in Italian, and that's what it means. It's just that the Sette is seven, and that's where the name comes from. LINDA: So I forgot now. You're the seventh son or seventh child? BABE: Seventh son in rotation. LINDA: And how many sisters? BABE: Out of eleven. There was three girls in the family. LINDA: So by the time you came around your family already had six boys? BABE: Yes. I was the seventh and the last boy in the family. LINDA: So how were your brothers' lives different than yours? Were they harder? Were they… BABE: Oh yes. Well, my oldest brother was quite active in the business and so forth. He did all that. But then my next brother was a -- he worked very, very hard, and entertainment was out as far as that got. No vacations and things like that. It was strictly, as I remember it, when -- don't forget I'm entering about the time, well, 8 years old and that was the beginning of the Great Depression. I remember that quite well. The families were living on $12 a week, quite a few of them, which is what the welfare would give you. LINDA: So during the Depression your father was working? BABE: Whenever [unintelligible - 00:18:44] work. Yeah, he was doing contracting, whatever work he could get. On one job he was a supervisor for doing some work at city hall, and this is choosy but you have to do it 10 by the WPA program at the time. And to do a [unintelligible - 00:19:02] for city hall you did it at the time but they send them 30 men. You know, other people that were on the WPA, and they were on top of one another so my father had to let them be -- he had them closing doors, open doors and sweeping, everything but working because they were all in one another's way. But he was a supervisor at that time. But he did work like that there and then we plowed snow in the wintertime—there was income from plowing the snow, keeping the truck busy. Then he did odd jobs as they came up, but nothing -- it was a tough time. To backtrack, my father was very, very successful up until 1929. He owned 33 houses, and one by one he lost them all because people didn't have money to pay the rent and the banks wanted their money and they would just keep taking the house. You know, the foreclosing, keep doing that. LINDA: So he owned 33 homes and he lost every single one? BABE: All but the one we were living in. LINDA: Oh. BABE: Yeah. LINDA: How did he afford to buy 33 houses? BABE: Because he got to be a good-sized contractor. Like he built – he had the contract for all the concrete work in the Leominster post office, which was quite a job in those days. In 1926 he built the Main Street garage down on -- he did the fence around St. [Lido's] cemetery, which is quite a sizeable job, and he built numerous homes. In those days the first homes he built, regular homes like on Lincoln Terrace, there's probably eight homes up there that he built and was sold for the big sum of $2,800. LINDA: Wow. BABE: That's what they were at that time. In fact, numerous times, her dad would work for my father on his trade. You know, blocks and bricks, plastering 11 so that he and [unintelligible - 00:21:22], whenever they had a job that required brickwork and plaster and so forth, they were the first two that he called to do the work. So you see we would all get things first class with first-class people. But he couldn't -- the Depression was too much for everybody at that time, not only him. LINDA: Before we go on, let's back up a little bit. He came to this country, he started -- he used ash to rub buttons et cetera, then he opened his own business selling ash. BABE: He started that, yeah. LINDA: Right. So what kind of time frame are we talking about? BABE: I beg your pardon? LINDA: What's the time frame that we're talking about? BABE: [Unintelligible - 00:22:05] LINDA: Where was it, 1914? BABE: Yeah. LINDA: So he was selling ash in 1914, and then he went into the construction business? BABE: I can give you year by year. Let me show you. See, this is the -- you know, all the concrete work on this job there's his -- do you see that there on the box [unintelligible - 00:22:27] and Company? LINDA: Mm-hmm. Oh that's interesting. That's in '29, so this was a bad time. BABE: No, that was the good time; the beginning of the bad started right after that. So that the -- well, he worked the button shop, at Leominster Button… then he -- let's see as we go along here. Okay, now in 1913 he put a grocery store in the house. LINDA: He put a grocery store in your house? BABE: Well, [unintelligible - 00:23:14] to sell groceries, yeah. LINDA: So at 75 Lincoln Terrace? BABE: Yeah, that's still 75 Lincoln Terrace. And then of course he got both here the ashes and the grocery that he did. LINDA: So who's running the grocery store? 12 BABE: My mother. LINDA: Oh, was it your mother? BABE: Yeah. It's just on Lincoln Terrace a small street though, there wasn't -- no store, like you think of stores today. And it keeps on changing. Now right now, then in 1916, he added trucking to that too. LINDA: Trucking? So that's when he's an ash dealer though? BABE: No, he started with regular trucking after that. Sand and gravel and so forth at that time. LINDA: So again, he'd buy the sand and gravel, and then… BABE: No, we had our own pit. LINDA: You had your own pit? BABE: Yeah. He owned the land down on Miller Street, which was back in there. LINDA: So at least we understand the chronological. BABE: Hmm? LINDA: At least we understand it a little bit more, I think. I was going from the ash business right to building. BABE: [Unintelligible - 00:24:43]. LINDA: That makes more sense. We get into trucking, gravel and sand, and then construction. And he would build these buildings himself? BABE: He did all kinds of construction work. He even built the 38 -- he had the contract for the bridge on [unintelligible - 00:25:05] Street in Pittsburgh, which was Route 2A at the time. ROSA: He put the sand and the gravel and the ashes. Didn't he make his own blocks, make blocks for construction? BABE: Started making blocks around 1920. That was part of the… LINDA: So he would use the materials that he was gathering or buying and selling? So who would he sell the blocks to? Or would he use the blocks for his own building? BABE: He would use the blocks or sell them to whoever needed them. LINDA: And how would he make the blocks? 13 BABE: From our own pit, with the sand and gravel we had there on North Smith. He would make the blocks at that time. LINDA: Was it a mold, or did people do them… BABE: It's a machine, the machine that the mold would take care of it. LINDA: What was the name of the construction company? BABE: Pellechia and Company. LINDA: Pellechia? Did they have many people working? BABE: At some times he had quite a few people. LINDA: You don't have to worry so much about those dates, because I can look through that after. I'm just trying to understand how someone comes here from nothing and owns 33 homes. BABE: It was 1925. LINDA: Sand and gravel, ashes and store. So he goes from his buggy to his truck. Now, who's Charles? BABE: That's my oldest brother. LINDA: Your oldest brother. Okay, so your brothers went into business with him? BABE: Yep. LINDA: All six of them? BABE: We all worked for him. We all worked for him. We built a lot of gas stations, too. We had quite a team. Because amongst the team there was my father, who strictly did supervisory work, figured the job and things like that. And then we had Charlie, who was [unintelligible - 00:27:09] equipment as well as piping and so forth; Red was a great laborer; Rico was a carpenter first class; I was a mason, but what I picked -- I went to trade school to be a mason, you know. So when we would get on a job we were pretty much able to do quite a bit of it ourselves. LINDA: Now, who's Red and Rico? Are those brothers? Red and Rico? BABE: Brothers. LINDA: So those are nicknames? BABE: Mm-hmm. LINDA: For who? 14 BABE: Well, DeMazzio and Enrico. LINDA: And where did you get your nickname? BABE: Babe? After 11 kids it's time to call somebody Babe. No, my sister Lena gave it to me as she said when I was a baby at that time. LINDA: So how did your brother Red learn how to build pipe for -- what did you say that he did? BABE: When you run a gas station there's a lot of pipings involved. You know, water and gasoline and so forth. That was how he -- my brother Red was a hard worker and the one that never asked for too much and always -- education-wise Red was very, very limited. In fact, one of the side stories on that is he couldn't learn his general orders in the Army, and as a result of it, on his record, they said he would never be anything other than a private, and he couldn't get any Class A pass. So they went overseas, and he had two companies that he was in that were completely all injured or so forth, and he became the top sergeant of the whole group. So he knew what to do when it was important. He had the smarts for that, but as far as the learning he just didn't have the ability to learn. LINDA: So, how did you all learn and know -- was it, were you apprenticed? Did you have any kind of… BABE: No, no you just learned from one another. That's how [unintelligible - 00:29:19] families just keep going, and it was just, you know, you started off -- and our father knew what was what and we picked it up real fast and just kept going on it. LINDA: Can you tell me or share with me an early experience of working with your father? BABE: Well, I just started, just jumped and started doing it. In fact, I was 15 years old and I built the gas station on the corner of Walnut and Main Street in Leominster. I was supervisor and so forth because they had other jobs, but it all came natural. I just enjoyed it and I just did it. In fact, 15 when I was with the trade school, at the end of the school year I was in the brick mason department, and the instructor told me, "Don't come back; you're wasting your time." LINDA: Wow. And is that why you didn't go back? BABE: Well, I had to go to work. LINDA: Well, bring me back though to a day when you're working with your father. What was it like? Did you all kind of disperse and go to different jobs? BABE: Go to different jobs. He never drove, so one of us had to drive him. One thing about him he was very honest, and he was very thorough. In fact whether we were doing a job contractor or day work he would even tell us, you do the same thing whether it's day work or contract, even if you lose money. So you know, with a bringing up like that, you can't go wrong. So of course when I was very young and we were doing a lawn on Berne Avenue, and we had the big roll that you use to roll with, and I was very young and the roll was banking, and I'll never forget I came close to the bank and I couldn't hold the roll, and it went down and right through a flower garden. That was one of the unpleasant days. [Unintelligible - 00:31:33] let me know that I did wrong. He never hit us or anything like that. But I was worried for a while on that score. But then I'd go figure jobs and then he'd take me with him, because I'm the one that probably liked it the most and did it the most. That was good days. I enjoyed it. I never resented -- I think he taught us an awful lot, so we couldn't lose with that combination. And with a mother that would watch us like we're all just a baby -- whether you're six years old or 40 years old, she wouldn't go to sleep until you were in the house. It was good times under the conditions. As I said though, we didn't know better. If I did that like -- I know that many a times on the job when things 16 were that the -- come time to eat and all we had the money for was probably a cheese sandwich or something like, that you know, just limited, which is -- my son now later on was putting in overhead doors, he had a business he did that, and he was developing by the South Shore there and he came home and he said, "Dad, you know I forgot my money today," he says, "I didn't eat." "What do you mean you didn't have no money at all?" He said "Well, I only had a dollar." I said, "You know, you still could have had a cheese sandwich." He said, "Dad, those days are gone." So that's the difference. LINDA: So, when you'd go with your father to figure jobs you said, did someone call him? Not call him probably, but contact him to build something? BABE: Yeah, people would call from his advertisement. He did advertise, and they'd call him too. You know, a lot of people wanted bids; you have to bid it. So I'd go with him a lot of times and do the bidding and help him do the bidding and so forth. As I grew older. LINDA: So would he write a contract out and then have a company sign it, or…? BABE: Most of the time you just did it with the individual, it was all by -- in those days everything was with a good shake hand, which they meant. Very rarely was there a contract drawn up. Unless it was a big job, and then they'd have that. LINDA: And who was his competitor? BABE: A lot of competitors. There was a lot of competitors. Must have been -- Leominster probably had about 15 to 20 contractors at the time when it got to contracting. LINDA: Were there any other Italians? BABE: Oh yeah. There was probably half a dozen or so I think Italians. LINDA: Did your father apprentice anyone? Did anyone begin working with him and then venture out on their own? BABE: Well, we wouldn't call it apprentice. They just did that, which is the American way to do things. You never met anybody better than 17 themselves, so that -- yeah, we had somebody. I mean, that never bothered him. LINDA: How long did your father do this kind of work? BABE: Until he retired at about age -- he stopped working I think at about age 60. LINDA: And did the company survive? Did the sons take it over? BABE: Well, what happened, we kept the thing going quite a while. Even by that time, the brothers, we went into the manufacturing of concrete blocks on a real production method. We used to manufacture quite a few a day, and that became our sole business then. LINDA: So tell me about that then. BABE: Well, we came back from the Army, and with the -- three of us were veterans, and we got a loan from the government on the G.I. Bill, and we bought this production machinery and put up a whole plant and went into manufacturing of concrete blocks all type on full production. We used to make at that time about 4,000 blocks a day and get out -- plus the building supplies that went with it. And my father first saw [unintelligible - 00:36:15] he gave us the land and he also would watch the building of it when we did that. That was in 1945. In 1946 we started selling the blocks from our new plant. LINDA: And what was the name of the company? BABE: Blocks Incorporated. LINDA: Blocks Incorporated. And you and your three brothers started… BABE: And myself yeah. [Unintelligible - 00:36:42] Well, there were three veterans, but then one wasn't there. One didn't go into the Army and he was part of the corporation. LINDA: So four brothers plus yourself? BABE: No, four brothers. LINDA: Oh, four brothers. Three [unintelligible - 00:36:55]. So you would make these blocks and then sell them to… BABE: To whoever wanted to buy them. LINDA: Do you have advertisement for that company too? 18 BABE: Yeah. LINDA: Good. And how long did you do this? BABE: We did it up until 1979. LINDA: Oh, so what happened to the business? BABE: Well, at the age of all of us at that time it was time to liquidate it, and we did. We just sold off the -- we had an auction for the equipment, we sold the real estate, and by that time we were all -- other than myself all my brothers were ready to retire. Well, one other brother, the one next older to me, he had passed away. So it was just the two oldest brothers, and it was too much at that time to run the business of that, because we built another plant after that. The original plant was at -- our second plant we were doing 8,000 a day, so -- but it's, it was competitive, and getting out to sell them and everything else, it was quite a job. So I decided -- well, what happened was actually while I was out doing all my things at the time, I left. I was still part owner, but I left to do my motels and everything else with it, and they did get in trouble financially. And I went in and helped them straighten it out again, and when we straightened it out. That's when I told them we're selling the business, and so that's what we did. So we sold it in good graces [unintelligible - 00:38:47]. LINDA: So did any of your sons -- well, you have one son, but you must have some nephews. They didn't want to take over the business? BABE: We tried and it didn't work out. My son actually went to college and so forth, so he didn't fit into that. Then my -- there weren't too many boys in the family [unintelligible - 00:39:12], and Red had two boys, and one didn't want nothing to do with it all, and the other tried and he didn't like it. So it really was limited as to who could run it after that. LINDA: Now, did you sell the blocks locally or out of state, too? BABE: Well, out of state, New Hampshire, we sell New Hampshire. And we made a special block that we did one delivery in New York City with a special block, but we also had -- my brother had invented a new face for the blocks, and the -- it was a glazed block, and we did manufacture them, 19 and there are three school in Leominster have them. The Army has it in Leominster, and we sold a school in Gill, Mass. and [unintelligible - 00:40:07] and in Worcester, so that we did do quite well with that glazed block, which did very, very good. But like I say, age probably got that business why we finally sold it. LINDA: So the blocks though were they pretty standard size? BABE: They were all standard. LINDA: And then it only changed when your brother invented the glaze? BABE: Well, they were a standard block; it was just something added to it. LINDA: Added. Did he patent that invention? BABE: We worked on patenting it, but surprisingly when you patent something, there's always something close to it. In other words they did a whole lot of research on it and we didn't think it was patentable at the end, because the concrete goes way back year and years and years, and there's always somebody that did something close to it that you -- it just wasn't patentable. LINDA: So how did he develop the glaze? Do you know? BABE: Just working at it. In other words he just -- that was Joe, and Joe was the one in the family that was probably ahead on thinking of doing things and so forth. He was the one that always experimented, in other words, come up with ideas of doing special things. LINDA: So during the time as you're part owner of this company, you did other things. Can you explain? BABE: Did he do other things? LINDA: Yes. BABE: Yes, I did all those things that you wrote down in the book there. There were a few of them. LINDA: Yeah, I know. But could you explain some of them? BABE: Okay. What do you want me to start off? Which one, the first one, the ice cream place? 20 LINDA: Is that the first one that you started? BABE: Maybe I had a little of father in me that you do different things, you know. I went to an auction, and they had an ice cream machine, a brand new one, at the auction for sale, and I bought it for $1,000. And before I left, the salesman that sold it from the Mills Company came there and he found out that I bought it, and he offered me $1,500 for it. The minute he said that I immediately said if this thing is worth $1,500 to the salesman, I'm going to see what this machine will do. And I built an ice cream place around it. That was the beginning of Babe's Ice Cream at the time. LINDA: And where was that located? BABE: On Route 12. LINDA: Route 12. BABE: [Unintelligible - 00:42:44] started that, which is very interesting. We were going to open up on July 4th, and this was in 1950. On July 2nd it was one of those hot, miserable days, miserable, real miserable, [unintelligible - 00:42:56]. And this busload pulls in. There was 38 people on the bus, and one came out. They were monks from Rhode Island of the Vow of Silence, and one came in and he said could he please have 38 glasses of water. So my wife and I packed up 38 sandwiches, 38 ice creams, 38 cold drinks, and the bus leaves. And as the bus is going out of the circular driveway, there's a bus leaving, people just funneled in. And of course I knew most of them, and they said, "Babe, how can you be so lucky that you aren't even open and you get them by the busload?" not knowing what happened. And I said I hope I don't get too many busloads, I don't want to close before I get -- so that's how we started that there. But it growed real fast after that, just kept on growing and growing and growing. It meant nothing to sell a thousand ice cream cones on a Sunday afternoon. LINDA: So you knew nothing about ice cream? 21 BABE: I knew nothing about ice cream. I knew nothing about motels, and I built a motel and ran that. I bought another motel and ran that. But the -- I didn't know anything about subdivisions, but I did that. I think a lot of my father's in me. In other words, you just keep going. As long as you do what's right, work hard, you accomplish it. In other words I won't take no for an answer when it comes to trying to do business. Because I've had people, when I went into the [unintelligible - 00:44:41] and doing hardware, I didn't mention that one. When we were doing hardware, in other words it was on the wholesale level to sell to contractors. I did that, and that was very, very difficult because they felt that I should have went to school, you know, because you got to know what hardware's proper for certain jobs. You've got to know your fire codes and so forth. And a lot of people in the beginning wouldn't sell me. They said in other words we don't want to sell to you, you do things wrong and it could come back to us. So I made it clear to them if I got to go from here to California I'm going into the business and I'm going to buy the stuff. You're either going to sell it to me or somebody else is going to sell it to me. And what that did, I got them, built up that business, which was real good. So I just did it. I think maybe I was just blind. I just went into some of these things. We got kind of carried away. We're supposed to be talking on the Italian Colony, aren't we? ROSA: This is all part of that. LINDA: This is all part of it. But as far as getting the ice cream machine and maybe the motel, were you just in the right place at the right time? Just kind of… BABE: That's probably the story of my life, yeah. I think that -- I really believe the gift of the seventh son really played a part on me. Because everything always works out. 22 LINDA: So would you like to tell us a little more about Lincoln Terrace? You're the first person I've interviewed, I'm thinking, isn't it true that grew up on Lincoln Terrace? BABE: You read this book? LINDA: I've looked at it. I haven't finished it. BABE: You haven't finished it? LINDA: No. BABE: Our family's mentioned in that quite a few times. But first of all he just about hit it on the way it was, you know. It was close-knit, Lincoln Terrace, and it was different than what today is. If you did something wrong and somebody scolded you and you went back and told your parents that the neighbor or whoever it was did this to you, you would get a call down again from him. It isn't that knock at the door saying what -- like today, you got assault and battery like that. In other words, they all watched one another. It was really a family unit up there. So you couldn't do anything wrong, and if anybody came on the street that wasn't part of the street, everybody knew about it and they watched them. So it was quite a neighborhood, it really was. And like I say, we enjoyed the -- now, the early part of it is I can look the -- they all had gardens the way they all had pigs in the back of the house, and when the fall of the year come they would all slaughter and they'd all help one another. I got that on film by the way, 8 mm. LINDA: What, the slaughtering the pigs? BABE: Yeah. LINDA: Oh, that's interesting. Now, was there a smokehouse? BABE: No. They did things themselves. They take the hams and they make the prosciutto out of those. You know how they do that? LINDA: Nuh-uh. BABE: Actually, they take the hind of the pig, and they really salt it and pepper it, all that it will take, and then they put it in most cases in the cellar up 23 against some beam or another beam, and then with a hydraulic jack or whatever kind of a jack, they keep squeezing it until the ham starts this big until it [unintelligible - 00:48:37] that big, but the salt and the pepper is actually curing it out. You heard of that, did you? No? So they did that. They made the meat, they made the sausages. Very few people used to cook the blood. We never did that, but a few of them did and make the… use that. But the whole pork chops, the whole thing, they saved every bit of it. LINDA: Now, did most people have a pig? BABE: In Lincoln Terrace they did. LINDA: They did. BABE: Yep, in those days. LINDA: So they'd all get together on one day and … BABE: They always worked together. Helped one another do things. LINDA: Was that day called something in particular? BABE: No. LINDA: No. BABE: No, and then like the -- I got a large grapevine. See, the whole hill did [unintelligible - 00:49:37] grape used to make his own wine. Then they all had big gardens. And another thing the Italian women up on Lincoln Terrace, on tomato time they would actually make tomato paste. I don't know if you ever saw that. They would have all these boards of pine nice and clean, they spread all the tomato on it, and then put one of those nets on it that they used to cover babies in a carriage to keep the flies out and so forth. And just by working that they made their own tomato paste. And they'd do all different things like that, you know, which they don't do today. It's easier to go to the store today and buy it. 24 LINDA: So when they slaughtered the pig and they made the prosciutto and et cetera… BABE: [Unintelligible - 00:50:24]. LINDA: When they slaughtered the pig, how did they store the -- how did they store what they had made? BABE: Mostly in the cellar. The meats [unintelligible - 00:50:34] like they'd make the sausage and they'd hang them up to dry. They had them covered and they'd hang them up to dry, and they would dry until they dried out with the [unintelligible - 00:50:45] it was all ice boxes what they had then, you know. But they'd have a place in the cellar which was damp enough or so forth that would last -- none of it wasted; they certainly ate it all before anything got to be wasted. LINDA: Was there any trading between families? BABE: I wouldn't say so, no. They had it all. They would give it to somebody like that, but there wouldn't be any trading. If somebody needed something, they would give it to them. LINDA: For some reason I can't remember what you call this, but when you dig out, let's say, a little hill when you keep food in it, what is that called? BABE: They didn't do that. They had it all in the cellar. ROSA: They just used the cellar cold. They can't do it today -- you can't do it today with the heat in the houses, but in those days the cellars were damp and cold sausages could be strung up in the rafters. And prosciutto. They made their sausages with the tubing, I remember seeing them. LINDA: Was that a long process, making the sausage? BABE: Well you got a 300-pound pig; you got a little work to do. You've got quite a bit of meat there to… ROSA: They'd grind it … LINDA: Now, was that woman's work, men's work? BABE: Oh, they all worked. The women did the cooking. They did a lot of that there, and the women probably -- some of the women would put the 25 [rosin] in the hot water to clean the hair of the animals. Hot water and rosin [unintelligible - 00:52:29] take the hair all off. LINDA: Was the skin used for anything? BABE: Yeah, they cooked that up. ROSA: Salt pork. BABE: Yeah. LINDA: So that's really what salt pork is? BABE: There was no waste. Probably threw the hoof away, didn't use that. ROSA: The head. LINDA: Did they throw the head away, or did they use part of it? BABE: Some people ate the head. Yeah some did. We didn't. ROSA: The ears, too. BABE: They all had chickens. LINDA: [Unintelligible - 00:53:05] throw the head away! BABE: And they all had chickens. In fact, my mother had her own little hobby [unintelligible - 00:53:11] times she had chickens and the eggs, and you know, feed the family, and if there's any eggs over she would sell them to the neighbor. So she would do that. My mother never learned to speak English too well even though she did the answering for my father, but it was -- my father could interpret what she would say even though she was saying it wrong. Like there was a company called Bowen and Fuller in Leominster, and my father always said this to people that they called my mother and have your husband come, we've got some deliveries to make, and she asked what company they said Bowen and Fuller. She said "Damn Fool?" He said no, Bowen and Fuller. She asked two or three times and yes. So my father came home, and she said, "Damn Fool wants you to pick up." So he knew them when he went there. The guy says, [unintelligible - 00:54:09] your message and the guy says yes. But they did understand one another. Of course the guy knew that she wasn't doing it to insult him 26 or anything. She didn't know any different on that. But she never learned the -- very, very little English. My father, working with the French people, he learned to speak French, and he learned the English right away, and of course he had the Italian. LINDA: Well, what about you and your brothers and sisters? Did you speak Italian? BABE: We understood it and so forth. They can speak it, but very [unintelligible - 00:54:50], and I can understand quite a bit what happens. Incidentally the three oldest children went to a French school at that time, and they learned French also. LINDA: What school? St. Cecelia's? BABE: St. Cecelia's, yeah. They went three years and then the French people needed a school for themselves and they transferred to St. [unintelligible - 00:55:14] school. LINDA: Now, I heard some people tell me that they weren't allowed to speak Italian in their homes after they learned English at school. Was that true for your family? BABE: Nope. No, we always spoke it. But my wife now, when she came over -- she came from Italy, and I didn't -- and when she came home with the school -- she's not from here, she's from Pennsylvania. But she refused to learn English until the teachers got -- one friendly teacher, "But why don't you want to learn?" She says, "I won't be able to speak to my mother and father then." She thought she'd lose the English. And after that day she made all kinds of honors in school. So she -- but in our house, now, my children, two of them they didn't speak -- we never spoke in Italian, but -- so we [unintelligible - 00:56:12] secret family thing when you're in front of the children, we'd speak Italian, my wife and I, not to be heard, but that's all done now because my daughter went out and became a professor of Italian history, so that brought us out. We can't even… 27 LINDA: So was it important for your family, your father and mother, for their children to assimilate, to become more American? BABE: We never discussed that. I don't think that ever came a thing -- you do the best you can do. That was about the biggest teaching that my father ever gave. Do the best you can do, stay out of trouble. And the other thing he always was a stickler for was he said you always respect authority. He said if someone does something wrong you respect it, you do it when you come home, you tell me about it, and I will take care of it. Of course it was just [unintelligible - 00:57:06] he never did anything everything after it, but meanwhile he kept peace in the family. LINDA: So he didn't want you to confront an adult; he would. BABE: Nope, and you know, in most cases you don't win with authority. You listen to it, and that's it. LINDA: So tell me about your mother. What was she like? BABE: My mother was strictly a loving for her children. She'd do anything for us. To quote my wife, which we shouldn't put on tape… LINDA: You don't want to? BABE: No, I'll tell you what my wife says about my mother. If it's not on tape. LINDA: If it's not on tape, okay. BABE: One of the things that happened though before [unintelligible - 00:57:56] we got married, my wife would go with my sister shopping and so forth. And in our house everybody -- they're all married now, but everybody would end up at the kitchen table at nighttime after the day's work, and my mother would -- you know, there was just the two of them, my mother and father at home, but there was always two or three pounds of spaghetti made, and we'd all eat there and then go home and say we're not hungry. But there was this one day we're there and my wife and my sister went shopping. They were late when they came in, so my brother-in-law and I said so let's have some fun. So the minute they came in, I says "Tina, where have you been? You know I worked all hard all day. I come home 28 and I want to eat." And so she says, "Well, we shopped." And my mother spoke up, she says, "That's not right. You got to feed your husband when he comes…" Well, then my brother-in-law to my sister says the same thing, you know. And my mother spoke up, and maybe she had something important to do. Same conversation. So -– but she was [unintelligible - 00:59:07] she was sick for a while. She had lost one eye too, and so for a while she was a -- but she could find -- after that she could find things that we couldn't, with that one eye. We would lose something and she would find it, even a pin or something like that, but… LINDA: Did she come from -- she came from Italy but differently than your father? I mean … BABE: Three years later. 1909 she came. LINDA: Did she come directly to Leominster? BABE: Well, she landed in Boston. Now, how she got there from Italy I don't have any information on that. LINDA: Do you know how your parents met each other? BABE: Probably out in the farm someplace, I would guess, because that's all they did; they were farmers. Even the woman worked the farms out there and so forth. So, a lot of them out there worked in [unintelligible - 01:00:03] actually who worked for the people that owned the land. LINDA: Where? BABE: In Italy. LINDA: Oh, they knew each other in Italy? BABE: Oh yeah. LINDA: Oh. 29 BABE: When she came here she -- well, that picture there shows her when she came in 19 -- with her children there, that's the picture when she came in 1909. LINDA: Okay. BABE: One of those. LINDA: Okay, so they knew each other in Italy? BABE: Yeah, they got married in Italy. They got married in Italy. LINDA: Then came here separately. BABE: Yes. LINDA: Not at the same time? BABE: No. LINDA: Okay, I didn't understand that. Did they have children [unintelligible - 01:00:45]? BABE: Yeah, yeah. This one here it was 1910 when she came. There was three of them. There was the three. They would be 1, 2, 3 that she came back with. Of course she came here in 1909, 1910 there was another one added at that time. LINDA: So your father came without the family first and then brought them over? BABE: They all did that. They all boarded. If you will look at the directory, they all, the Italians all boarded someplace. They -- none of them had their own home or anything like that in the beginning, so their wives came over and then they would find a place. LINDA: So growing up and you're working with your father, did you work six days a week? BABE: Sometimes seven. Not too often, but sometimes we'd have things to do and we'd do it. So in other words you have to realize when I got to the working age, I was in the Depression, actually. So you took it as you could get it as far as work is concerned. LINDA: Did you work out during the daylight hours? 30 BABE: Oh yeah. We generally got home [unintelligible - 01:02:06] unless there was an emergency job you stayed later. We'd get home about five, five thirty from a job, start at eight o'clock in the morning. LINDA: And then you would eat dinner with your parents? BABE: Mm-hmm. LINDA: And who made the dinner? BABE: My mother. LINDA: What about your sisters? BABE: They were married by that time. Don't forget, they were completely -- they were much older than I was, so they were -- by the time that I started eating, you know, they were married. LINDA: So tell me what kind of things you ate. The types of things your mother made. BABE: All the good things that I like. LINDA: Which is what? BABE: She made spaghetti, pasta [la jour], even polenta. I know you know what that is. LINDA: Mm-hmm. BABE: In those days that was a poor man's meal. Today you go in restaurants you pay a fancy price for it. LINDA: I should have said no, I don't know what it is so you can explain to us on tape. I'll have to get that sometime. So what's polenta? BABE: Lentils, I like lentils. She used to make that, different soups. I'm sorry, what did you say? LINDA: What's polenta? What is it? BABE: Corn -- mush is what it is, actually. LINDA: How would she serve that? BABE: We'd put it on the board, on the table, you spread it all over a board, and then what we'd do, the fun we'd have is try to decide what we're going to carve, and everybody would just carve whatever shape we wanted. And another thing she'd do too at times would be so we would eat all of it, 31 she'd put meat in the middle, and you had to work your way. If you didn't work your way you wouldn't get to the meat. You know, whether it was a meatball a piece of pork chop something like that. LINDA: So it was kind of polite eating. You eat from the outside in? You don't just dig in. BABE: No, no you have to work your way in, clean the road as you go. But on holidays, surprisingly, my father would do the cooking. I know on Easter especially he would make the ham and fix it all up and put the garlic in it and so forth. He always did that. LINDA: Now, during the Depression, did you eat meat at all, or was that really a luxury? BABE: It was a luxury. LINDA: Were different foods prepared on a Sunday compared to the rest of the week? BABE: Yes, Sunday you would have a bigger meal. And during the height of the Depression, we'd probably get oranges at Christmastime, maybe a banana at Christmastime. The rest of the year you didn't need it, so you didn't get it. LINDA: Do you want to go back to your jobs then? BABE: My jobs? LINDA: Yeah, jobs. BABE: Such as? LINDA: Or your companies or your interests. Like the motels. How did you get involved in the motels? BABE: Well, we went out to get some materials. It was in New Jersey, picking up some pallets for the block plant at that time, and it was next door to a motel, the pallets and so forth, and I started talking to the fellow and so forth. And [unintelligible - 01:05:44] the business, and now I had the ice cream place, I had the tourist stopping, so the brain just clicked in it would be nice to have a motel in Leominster. We had none. That was the first one. So that's what I did. I built a motel. 32 LINDA: Where did you build it? BABE: On Route 12 right next to my ice cream place. So that -- I didn't have any money at that time, so that was a problem. I went to the bank, it was the first bank I went to, told them I wanted $25,000, to borrow $25,000, said what are you going to do and I explained. They said you can't do that for that price. I said oh yes, I can I buy all my materials wholesale, and I do all the work myself. And he said well, in that case you have to give me a list of what it's going to cost you because I can only loan you 80 percent of what you're going to pay. So my answer to him was you really don't want me to build the motel, do you? But I fought it. Like I say, I made up my mind I was going to fight it and I did, so I just kept going and we built it. LINDA: So did you end up borrowing the money from a bank? BABE: Oh yeah, I got money from a bank—not that bank though, another bank. But then I started with eight rooms and built another eight and built another eight, and then four more on that same site, and so that worked out good. That was a good business. LINDA: And you kept the ice cream business in addition? BABE: Yeah. LINDA: So who ran the motel? BABE: Hmm? LINDA: Who ran the motel? BABE: I did. There was nobody else to run it. My wife was busy with the children at that time. LINDA: I thought there were only 24 hours in a day! That's why I'm asking. BABE: Well, I still slept three hours. You get up in the morning at eight o'clock. About eight we'd go have some breakfast and then close about two o'clock. Three nights a week I'd make ice cream until about three or four o'clock in the morning. Then with the motel beside it, you get -- break up during the night, people checking in late, so that was the schedule for a number of years. 33 LINDA: Where were you living at this time? BABE: We built a house in back of the motel and ice cream place. LINDA: Okay. So did you advertise for the motel? BABE: Yeah, we did advertise on that. LINDA: So who was staying in the motel, people visiting? BABE: We had -- mostly it was a commercial motel and we had mostly salesmen, engineers, buyers. It was all very good class of business that we had, and tourists and so forth, but we had quite a reputation that we even had quite a few of the national companies that if they were within 50 miles of our place such as Gates Rubber from Colorado, Singer Sewing Machine, if any of their people were within 50 miles of our motel, we had direct billing with them, they'd stop with us. But we made it very, very comfortable for them, because we learned very early that a salesman or an engineer or anybody that's traveling alone is the most lonesome guy in the world. So the thing that we would do is if a guy comes in and he could be with the plastic industry, he's alone, somebody else we know is in the motel in the plastic business he's alone, we have them meet one another. They'd go out and from then on they'd come back, because they knew that it was always -- they were going to meet somebody there instead of just sitting in a room all night long. And we built up a wonderful business that way. In fact, even -- we had a regular customer of ours once got in an automobile accident, and he couldn't go back home and we were full, and we asked [unintelligible - 01:09:51] two people of other customers that one of our customers was in an accident and can't go home, would you mind packing up and leaving? They did. LINDA: Wow. BABE: You know, which is so unusual. We explained what it was, but even that was a family affair that they would. It was a lot of fun. We had a lot of 34 fun doing that. One of the regulars that came in would we would always be pulling jokes, stuff like -- one time he brought somebody in and my wife was in Florida with her mother at the time, so I don't know what made me do it, but this guy was saying I've got to meet your wife, I hear so much about it from the other guys. So I said, yeah, but you know, when you talk to her she's hard of hearing, so then I pick up my wife and I said this wonderful guy from Chicago is in room 9. Wonderful guy. He was doing management surveys for the [unintelligible - 01:10:58] on Adams Street. So I told Tina he's hard of hearing. So now when they come in, they're all there, because they always -- we had a lawn area that we sit at, and so I said, Tina there's the guy, so, "How are you," and they're hollering like two idiots back and forth, and everybody starts laughing. But it was good for a joke. But they all accepted it as such, and that's it. Now, the one I got to say on the ice cream place now, I'm going to take a [unintelligible - 01:11:30] had his favorite place. I gave ice cream to every church in Leominster but my own. We'll have to continue. LINDA: We were talking about you had a story about churches and giving ice cream. BABE: Yes, I gave ice cream to every church in Leominster but St. Anne's, my church. Because what would happen, even the synagogues, the Jewish would call up and they want ice cream, how much is it. And I'd say $5 a tub. When I'd bring it up I'd give them a receipted bill. My own people, when they'd call, they'd say, "Oh, we can buy it for $4.50," so I never had the opportunity to give it to them, right? LINDA: Really? BABE: That was in six years I think I gave to every church in Leominster but my own. Now, I never told them I was going to give it to them for nothing. They asked me what the price was. The price was $5 a tub. So I guess that's all right. We all still made it. 35 LINDA: How long did you keep the ice cream? BABE: From 1950 to 1958. LINDA: And what about the motel? BABE: Motel, sold that in '64. LINDA: You had two didn't you? BABE: Yep, sold the other one about the same time. The other one I bought. I didn't build the other one. LINDA: And what was that, West… BABE: West [unintelligible - 01:12:59] Motel. LINDA: Is that the one that's across from -- well, it's Sam's now -- I mean, not Sam's, Walmart. Is that the one? BABE: No, it's up further. It's at the junction of 110 and 12. LINDA: All right. So again, give me an idea of what a day was like for you when you owned both the ice cream shop and the motel. BABE: Hectic. Get up in the morning, help out at the place… you know, noon time was busy there and so forth. And then at night start checking in people at the motel, then come back and make the ice cream. Like I said, I did all my building in the wintertime, too. [Unintelligible - 01:13:48] like I built the motel myself, I did that all. And the other thing we did during that time again was one summer, which was really -- my wife got me involved, and we built -- with the people of Leominster now, they're very generous; we built a swimming pool for the Nazareth Home for Boys. So I'm the owner, I'm doing the blocks, and I'm doing all the rebuilding of it. And people always like to have fun, and I had fellows working for me, a police officer mowing my lawn at the motel and stuff. And I know that the day I laid blocks I was just about dead, and I come home and [unintelligible - 01:14:35] is really doing good you hired people to do work for you, you're getting lazy. 36 But that was all, it was a lot of work, just busy, busy. But I enjoyed it. I think someone said one time that work won't kill you, and it didn't. LINDA: It sounds like your wife was supportive. Very supportive. BABE: Yeah, she is. She did. She had to take care of the children, and she also, at the same time, she was taking care of her sister's. She was one of the waitress I had. She had to waitress, she took care of their two children too, then at night she would come up and help with serving customers. Although she was a troublemaker. She's the one that liked to joke with the customers. For example, we used to have -- a new product came out, the ketchup that you squeeze it, the pump it, they called it. On Saturday night we'd get those big gang of dancers come in, dress suits, ties. So this one guy was trying to get the ketchup on and it wouldn't work on a hamburger. We said, "Tina, why don't you throw these away? They don't work." So she says, "You don't mind if I squeeze it at you?" "Go ahead," he says, so of course, ketchup all the way down his face. She never worked on Saturdays, but one Saturday she's working and one of our good customers from Connecticut would come by every Saturday with his wife and family going to New Hampshire camping. I'm outside talking to the guys and he came out and said, "You know, I don't know who that new waitress you got, but you better fire her or you won't have no customers left." I said, "Which one?" I said, "I can't fire her, she owns it!" But it was always funny, and I think that's what kept it going. It wasn't -- we enjoyed it, and that's probably what kept us going. We didn't look at it as a job or as work. We looked at it as something to do, and we were happy while we did it. LINDA: Did you have many employees? 37 BABE: Well, probably on the weekends was the most. It was probably about eight or nine of us on a weekend working. LINDA: Working at the ice cream shop, or… BABE: As far as the motel, it only required -- two girls would work just in the morning. That was separate girls, you know. A few hours they would have the rooms all ready. Then my children, we had the miniature golf. LINDA: Oh, that's right did. You built the miniature golf next to the ice cream shop? BABE: Yeah. LINDA: Now, where did you get that idea? BABE: I saw one, and I thought it would be nice to have, so I built one. LINDA: So, again, would that be the first miniature golf place in Leominster? BABE: No, there had been one for years and years up on North Main Street behind the bowling alleys. The motel was the first one in Leominster. LINDA: Well, then tell me about building the miniature golf. You actually designed it and built it? BABE: No, I didn't design it. The people I bought the equipment from did the designing of it. But I built it, I put it in there. Everything was designed by them, and I bought all the fixtures and so forth from them. LINDA: And then your children worked there? BABE: Yeah. LINDA: So how did you and your wife feel about education for your children? BABE: We felt tops for education. We probably made a couple of mistakes educating our children. To be very honest, I think St. Ann's, my son went there, and I think that was a mistake because there was [unintelligible - 01:18:44] 60 kids in the first grade. And had he went to where I went to school, they had 11 children. It would have been almost like a private tutoring. So what we did with him to pick up, we sent him to Julie Country Day afterwards, which is a private school, and from there he went to Worcester Academy. LINDA: I guess I'm interested to know how something like that happens. 38 BABE: Like what? LINDA: Like that you went to the 9th grade, you said, and your father is an immigrant who came over here to work so hard, and you know, he may not have had much schooling, and then all of a sudden your son is going to Worcester Academy. BABE: Because I wanted him to go there. LINDA: Because you wanted him… BABE: Oh yeah. LINDA: And why did you want him… BABE: In fact, [unintelligible - 01:19:34] when people ask me what I did I say I'm a bum. And of course my son must have heard me two or three times and, I know when he was ready to go to college, he said, "Dad, I don't want to go to college. I want to be a bum." I said, "You're going to be an educated bum." And he went to college, which he did very, very good [unintelligible - 01:19:51]. But no, we felt that the he lacked the basic knowledge at the very beginning. /AT/pa/mlb/es

Issue 52.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1993. ; rel i gious Christian Heritages and C0mempora~ Living JANUARY-FEBRUARY1993 ,,VOLUME52 ¯ NUMBERi Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ 5001 Eastern Avenue ° P.O. Box 29260 Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1993 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Anti Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ S~fin Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JM',/UARY-FEBRUARY 1993 ¯ VOLUME 52 " NUMBER 1 contents 6 feature The Religious Life Futures Project: Executive Summary David J. Nygren CM and Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ provide a summary of "The Future of Religious Orders in the United States" (FORUS), a comprehensive study of the opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and practices of men and women religious. 56 69 growing spiritually A Developmental View of Salesian Spirituality Joann Wolski Conn examines a process of self-knowledge through the lens of the lives of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. The Cloistered Heart Nancy Shuman provides snapshots of her journey into a heart cloister for finding a union with God. discerning vocation 86 The Transfer and the RCIA: Process and Ritual 102 Kathleen Hughes RSCJ and Barbara Quinn RSCJ draw outlines of development from the RCIA process for the transfer of a religious from one community to another. Vocations among Teaching Brothers Eleace King IHM provides the encouraging results of the CARA study of vocations in teaching brothers communities. 2 Review for Religious 111 119 131 living religious life Internationality: Intentional or Accidental Catherine M. Harmer MMS focuses on the structural aspects necessary for a religious group to be intentionally international. Mission before Mission: God's Mission within Us A. Paul Dominic SJ develops the insight that the mission of individual Christians is one and the same as God's mission in themselves. Talents for Living in Community Melannie Svoboda SND proposes eight "lesser" gifts of personality and attitude which enable people to live more graciously with others. departments 4 Prisms 140 Canonical Counsel: New Communities 147 Book Reviews January-February 1993 3 prisms Anew year ushers in new life. Newspapers in every city vie for the picture of the first baby born in the early moments of a new year. Perhaps all of us need to image ourselves in that picture of a newborn and ask our-selves what kind of fresh life we seek in this year 1993. As we enter into this new gift of time, God's grace con-tinues to be a light to our mind and a strength to our will. In 1993, what light do we seek for our faith, and what strength do we need to live in closer union with our Lord? Review for Religious hopes to focus some light where it will be helpful by highlighting an article in each issue of this new volume. Our present issue is privileged to publish "The Religious Life Futures Project: Executive Summary." David J. Nygren CM and Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ have worked some three years on a major study of religious life and its future in the United States. By means of this arti-cle, they present in a concise and understandable form the conceptual background, methodological considera-tions, research findings, and major implications of their three-year study. Because this article attempts to provide easy entrance to the complete study shortly to be pub-lished in book form, it also gives our readers a ready ref-erence for use with future articles that will either critique assumptions and method or suggest further developments implied in this study. The importance of the study lies especially in the breadth and thoroughness of its col|ection of data, rep-resented in it~ six independent elements: a national survey, leadership studies, a study of caring people and one of visioning groups, individual interviews, and a final theo-logical/ historical monograph. There is no doubt about its timeliness gince the church is now looking forward to the Review for Religious ninth assembly (in 1994) of a worldwide synod of bishops. The theme of the synod is "The consecrated life and its role in the church and in the world." Since bishops, priests, lay people, and religious need to be involved in the preparation and the followup of this and every church synod, Review for Religious hopes to be a channel of grace by bringing to its readers clear informative articles as well as inspiring motivational ones for the ever richer living out of the spiritual heritages found in particular religious families such as the Benedictine or the Franciscan. It is especially crucial that members of the institutes of con-secrated life become active participants in the presynodal reflec-tion. As for the hierarchy, the apostolic pronuncio reminded the assembled bishops of the United States in November 1992 that every bishop has a special responsibility regarding consecrated religious life. Ultimately all active Catholics need to become involved because the church is as healthy as religious life is healthy. For if the Spirit's charismatic structuring of the church, represented in the ever fecund religious-life form, appears to be weakening or becoming attenuated, then the body of the church in all its members suffers. Such an interrelatedness is reflected in the Pauline principle about the Body of Christ, and church history provides the data of its reality. While special articles will highlight this synod preparation, Review for Religious through its usual wide variety of spiritual topics will continue to bring fresh understandings and applica-tions of spiritual legacies to our Christian life. We hope that our readers will find both light and strength for their spiritual growth in 1993 through the contributions of our many authors. I would like to draw your attention to a new name added to the listing of our Advisory Board members. Joann Wolski Conn, with her doctorate in theology, teaches in the Neumann College Graduate Program in Pastoral CounselinF and Spiritual Direction, a program which assists spiritual.directors to use four great tra-ditions (Franciscan, Ignatian, Carmelite, and Salesian) in their ministry. Her books, Women's Spirituality (1986) and Spirituality and Personal Maturity (1989), have been well received. In this very issue our readers will profit from her "Developmental View of Salesian Spirituality." We look forward t6 her contribution to our board discussions and decisions for the good health and progress of this journal. David LI Fleming SJ 37anuary-February 1993 5 DAVID J. NYGREN and MIRIAM D. UKERITIS The Religious Life Futures Project: Executive Summary feature In this Executive Summary we attempt to provide in as concise and understandable a form as possible the conceptual back-ground, methodological considerations, research findings, and major implications of the Religious Life Futures Project. VVe also recognize the range of interests and various needs of the many persons like yourself who bare expressed great interest in reading the results. With that in mind, the following description of the con-tents of the various sections may assist you in selecting the point at which you would prefer to begin your reading. Section I presents the purpose of this research project. Section H provides the theoretical perspective. This includes some background information on the concept of trans-formation as used in studying groups and organizations. It also David J. Nygren CM, an organizational psychologist, and Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ, a clinical psychologist, began work on this three-year study at Boston University in 1989 and completed it at De Paul University in Chicago in 1992. Nygren is now director of the Center for Applied Social Research and assistant professor of organizational psychology at De Paul University. Ukeritis is director of the Institute for Leadership of Religious Organizations at De Paul and a research associate in its Center for Applied Social Research. They may be addressed at De Paul University; Center for Applied Social Research; 2219 North Kenmore Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60614. NOTE. This study in modified form was originally pub-lished in Origins 22, no. 15 (24 September 1992). 6 Review for Religious provides some information on the levels of change (social institution, congregational, and individual) considered in this project. Section III provides a description of each of the six research units and of the methodology for each of them and then offers summary find-ings. Results are presented in terms of the analysis described above. Section IV, "Conclusions: Shaping the Future, "presents the summary conclusions of the entire project. If you are interested in "bot-tom lines, "you may want to start your reading with this section. Some may wonder why we did not present this chapter first. When, in shar-ing our results with some groups, we began by presenting a summary of our findings, we were repeatedly asked, "Where/bow did you reach these conclusions?" Hence, in this executive summary, we begin at the begin-ning and work through to the conclusions. Subsequent publications of the results of this study will refer to these findings as The Future of Religious Orders in the United States (FO~U3). Table of Contents I. Introduction and Purpose .8. II. Theoretical Perspective . 9 A. The Concept of Transformation . 9 B. Levels of Change . 12 III. Research Units . 16 A. National Survey . 17 B. Leadership . 30 C. Visioning Groups . 35 D. Caring People . 38 E. Individual Interviews. . 40 E Theological/Historical Monograph .42 Conclusions: Shaping the Future .42 Acknowledgments . 51 References . 51 Bibliographical Notes . 52 January-February 1993 7 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project I. Introduction and Purpose The 30 years since the Second Vatican Council have been turbu-lent ones for Roman Catholic religious orders in the United States. The average age of the members of many congregations has increased to 67 years, while the number of religious has decreased approximately 45% for brothers and sisters and 27% for religious priests. Sevei'al "traditional" works, have been called into question while other works and other definitions of mission have arisen. The understanding of ways of living the vows ha~ changed substantially within many congregations. The distinction between religious life and the "laity" has also decreased considerably, with many "lay people" now developing some type of formal associa-tion with religious congregations and many religious identifying more clearly with lay people. How can such phenomena, which apply in many congrega-tions and across the traditional distinctioris of religious life (con-templative, monastic, mendicant, and apostolic), be best understood? How do individual religious and congregations expe-rience and understand the changes that have taken place in reli-gious life? What do these changes portend for the future of religious life? And, most important, what changes must yet occur if religious life is to remain a vital gift to the church into the next millennium? These were the questions with which we began the Religious Life Futures Project in 1989. Our own congregations, the Vincentian Fathers and Brothers and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, are but two of the hundreds of congregations that were seeking to transform their lives, ministries, and institutions. With the support of our respective congregations and with a gen-erous grant from Lilly Endowment, we designed a comprehensive study of religious orders in the United States. Basic Purpose of the Research Our purpose was to examine the changes that are occurring in the experience and the understanding of religious life. To accom-plish this end we embarked upon a project that would have as its outcomes: 1. identification of the norm~ative beliefs about religious life and how they will likely shape the future of religious life in this country. 2. building a national data base of all male and female religious 8 Review for Religious that includes current demographic data, membership informa-tion, existing and emerging structures, current member atti-tudes on multiple dimensions, and projections for the future. enabling the leadership of religious orders to identify the current paradigms of effective management of transformation, consol-idation, merging, or extinction. labeling the changes that must yet occur if religious life is to remain a vital social and theological gift to the church into the next millennium. In this summary we hope to indicate how the lives of 121,000 religious are reflected in the opinions of the more than 10,000 religious priests, sisters, and brothers who took time to share their ideas and beliefs with us through personal interviews, ques-tionnaires, workshops, and written communications. We worked from several assumptions: that only religious can describe their experience of faith as religious; that the sociological data we gath-ered would serve them in their own self-direction; that without significant change religious life in the United States will continue to decline an, d, more important, that those who most need the help of religious will not be cared for; and that the generosity and self-sacrifice still present in the lives of religious must be articulated for others if they are to consider following Jesus in this manner. The study sought the broadest possible input from leader-ship, membership, and those with unique perspectives to offer. These latter were persons identified by their peers as possessing vision about the future of religious life and/or possessing notable caring attributes. This summary combines all the results and shows what, after all these scientific undertakings, we believe will make a difference to individual religious, to the various congre-gations, and to their ministry. II. Theoretical Perspective A. Transformation "Transformation" is perhaps most familiar to Christians in Paul's call to "be transformed into Christ," but the dramatic change undergone by religious orders and organizations has expanded the meaning to include organizational considerations. In the organizational realm it refers to qualitative, discontinuous shifts in members' shared understandings of the organization, accompanied by changes in the organization's mission, strategy, January-February 1993 9 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project and formal and informal structures. In contrast to simple and gradual changes, organizations undergoing tranoCormation come to understand themselves and their: .missioh very differently from their original understanding. Studies of transformation focus on one or another level at which .the change occurs: either the industry or the social insti-tution considered as a whole, or a particular organization, or a part of one (individual persons). In contrast, we investigated issues related to change in religious life on all three levels: Religious life as a whole (the social institution). This inves-tigation revealed that, while congregations may differ in their expression of religious life by virtue of gender or tradition (apostolic, monastic, mendicant, or contem-plative), all groups share broad-based beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. ¯ The particular congregation (organization), namely, the 816 groups that participated in the survey. This survey investigated the shifting ways in which the groups expe-riencing transformation interpret a shared past, select value priorities, allocate resources, and assess mission opportunities. It also investigated the shifting metaphors and rituals which members use to express their beliefs and which draw them together with a shared sense of belonging. ¯ The individual (126,000 sisters, brothers, and priests). The study investigated the implications of transforma-tion for the individual members of religious congrega-tions. These three approaches enable a more complete understand-ing of how intercongregational, congregational, and individual experiences can affect each other and of how the various types of change can occur. A Model for the Process of Transformational Change Transformation usually begins with a crisis, an awareness that the understandings currently shared by the organization's mem-bers are no longer adequate. Several types of crisis may occur: performance may be poor, leadership transitions occur, some pow-erful subgroups' interests may no longer be served, management practices may no longer be successful, or, most typically, a major environmental shift may.confront the already existing interpretive schemes. The easiest response for the organization to take is to defend itself against the challenge and perhaps not to respond at 10 Review for Religious all. For transformation to begin, the experience of crisis must "unfreeze" the members' present understandings of the organi-zation by presenting a strong enough challenge to their validity. After unfreezing takes place or in conjunction with it, various individuals and groups begin developing alternative understand-ings. These lead to new types of action and most likely to changes in the structures of the organization. Moreover, the new types of actions that take place are likely to occur out-side the organization's traditional boundaries (for example, AT&T's work moved beyond telephones to include computers and other forms of communication as well); bound-aries are likely to break down. There is likely to be considerable conflict among the original and the developing interpretive schemes and the. subgroups espousing them. Groups that hold one particular new perspective, for example, are likely to find themselves in conflict with indi-viduals or groups that espouse the original perspective or a different new one. The conflict may take various forms: one perspective may clearly dominate various other perspectives and may stand aloof from them, or leaders may acknowledge the potential value of, and .thus encourage, interac-tion between several different perspectives. Leaders can have a strong impact on the outcome of the con-flict between perspectives. If they support only one perspective, they are likely to decrease the creativity of the transformational process and the active involvement of members whose perspectives are not taken into account. If they "separate out" the different perspectives, they are likely to perpetuate splits between the groups. If they enable conflicting perspectives to interact with each other, they will increase the chances of paradoxical trans-formations, of new and creative shared understandings that emerge from the interaction of the competing perspectives. The process of transformation is not affect-free. Rather, it is often paralyzing and disorienting and is experienced as a sequence In contrast to simple and gradual changes, organizations undergoing transformation come to understand themselves and their mission very differently from their original understanding. ~anuary-February 1993 11 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project of deaths and rebirths. Initially, various members' primary feelings are likely to include shock, defensiveness, loss, and anger. Throughout the development of new interpretive schemes, mem-bers will experience both ambiguity and confusion, not only when it is unclear that any satisfactory new understanding is develop-ing, but also when there are multiple potential perspectives. The conflict among subgroups will create additional tension. If and when a new synthesis is reached that people experience as acceptable, there is likely to be a sense of rightness and satisfac-tion, at least among members whose perspectives have been incor-porated. Summary Application of the Conceptual Model In this study we assume that religious life, congregations, and religious priests, brothers, and sisters are in the midst of a trans-formational process and that the new understandings of religious life held by significant numbers of members have not yet been fully developed. We also assume that the environmental change that most stimulated the transformation process was the new understandings of the church proclaimed during Vatican II and incorporated shortly afterward in documents directing religious congregations to begin the analysis and revision of their basic principles and practices. Presently, diverse, sometimes contradictory understandings of religious life have been developed among groups of religious. In addition, environmental forces that strongly support the devel-opment of particular understandings are present (for example, among the hierarchy and in various segments of the laity). How can the process to this point be best understood? What will hap-pen next in the transformational process? To what extent can leaders influence the transformation process? B. Levels of Change Change at the Level of the Social Institution The changes that have taken place generally in religious life have, of course, occurred in many different congregations. Schneiders's (1986) work describes a shared shift across many congregations--in the understanding of many of the components of religious life such as the vows and community. In addition, books suggesting that religious are meant to be "prophetic" or 12 Review for Religious "countercultural:' (for example, Woodward, 1987; Foley, 1988) are written to religi6us as a group, not to particular congrega-tions. Thus, the first level this study will consider is religious life as a shared entity across congregations. Shifts in understanding are frequently intertwined with shifts in structures, both formal and informal, and these structural shifts include not only new types of relationships and divisions among subgroups, but also the breakdown of formerly established orga-nizational boundaries. At the level of the universal church, Molinari and Gumpel (1987, p. 19) ask, "Is the consecrated way of life a structure in the church or a structure of the church?" The latter phrase implies only one structure of divine origin, namely the hierarchical one, while the former implies multiple divinely willed structures in the church. At the core of the dis-tinction is the degree to which the hierarchic structure governs the pneumatic components, the charismatic dimensions, of the church. Depending on the response to the question of one structure ¯ or many, structural diversity and change will occur in very dif-ferent ways. Many religious believe that their traditions repre-sent the pneumatic or charismatic dimension of the church that was evident in their founders and foundresses, and that these tra-ditions are better structured and controlled without the influence of the hierarchic structure. Areas for Investigation. In addition to the changes occurring within religious life in relation to the church, intercongregational structures have also been developing. We examined in a limited way intercongregatiofial changes such as mergers that are associ-ated with shifts in understanding or direction. What in particu-lar has happened to the boundaries separating religious from the diocesan clergy and from the laity? Change at the Level of lndividual Congregations Mthough some changes in understanding have been occur-ring across congregations in religious life as a "social institution," others have been occurring differently within different congre-gations. Moreover, many of the changes that have occurred across the board have been experienced by members of individual con-gregations as occurring within their own congregation more than in religious life as a whole. Thus, this study was concerned not only with changes in religious life generally, but also with changes occurring within specific congregations. .~anuary-Febrtmry 1993 13 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project For example, Bartunek (1984) described how the under-standing of the educational mission in one women's congregation shifted from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. At the beginning of the change process, education was viewed as synonymous with activities that took place in schools the congregation adminis-tered. By the late 1970s, however, the educational mission was seen primarily as "seeking justice with the heart of an educator," which might or might not take place in formal educational set-tings, let alone schools the congregation administered. Beres and Musser (1987) have described how during that same period another congregation broadened its mission from particular areas of service to a general philosophy of service, with priorities shift-ing from the works of the congregation to the works of the con-gregation's individual members. Within religious congregations Nygren (1988) found that both male and female religious are adapting their structures and categories of membership to their emerging self-understanding. In a survey of 740 leaders of religious congregations, he found that 70% of the female leaders indicate that they are adapting their membership to include the full or partial membership of lay people. Among female congregations 18% of the total sur-veyed expect to amalgamate with another congregation, province, or monastery to adapt to internal changes. Correspondingly, 25 % of the male leaders anticipate altering membership categories, and 12% of them expect to amalgamate with another entity to adapt to change. These anticipated or accomplished changes affect both the existing members and the organization's self-definition. In one congregation studied by Bartunek (1984), members' shifts in understanding were intertwined with the development of several cross-province groups and commissions. They were also intertwined with the breakdown of formerly established exter-nal boundaries. Many congregational members started working with groups that had been clearly outside the original boundaries of the congregation. These structural changes eventually resulted in a merger of the U.S. provinces of the congregation. Areas for Investigation. How broadly applicable are the types of changes described above? What types of structural changes are occurring? What effects.do these changes have on the develop-ment of new understandings? Next, what are the processes through which new under-standings have be~n occurring? The model articulated above sug- 14 Review for Religious gests that change typically includes an initial experience of crisis, accompanied by strong feelings such as sadness, anger, and defen-siveness and followed by the development of differing under-standings on the part of various organizational subgroups. Feeli.ngs and reactions also accompany this stage: ambiguity and confu-sion about the possible understandings as well as conflict between groups. The introduction of the new Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, for instance, introduces legitimacy to a divergent opinion among religious leadership. When a new syn-thesis is reached, a sense of rightness occurs. If it fails to occur, more destructive dynamics may characterize the group's func-tioning. In addition, from which elements of the environment do members of a particular congregation receive messages or con-straints regarding appropriate (or publicly appropriate) self-under-standing? In particular, how do the hierarchical church and the laity have an impact? How do intercongregational groups and networks affect the development of understandings within the congregations that belong to these groups? Next, how has leadership been affecting the experienced changes in religious life? The role of leadership has been ana-lyzed !n detail for an understanding of how leaders contribute to the development or decline of organizations. Change at the Level of Individual Members of Congregations It is clear ~hat changes have not left individual members untouched. For example, Ebaugh (1977) showed that the changes had strong effects on why members of women's religious con-gregations left the congregation. Others have indicated that one of the typical effects of a transformational process is an increase in the stress level of individual members. This is due to the ambi-guity that accompanies the change and to conflict between sub-groups. There should be more to the experience of individual reli-gious, however, than difficult feelings. Bartunek and Ringuest (1987) found that members of a particular congregation whose work took them across the congregation's original boundaries during the early 1970s, and who remained in their congregation, eventually came to perceive themselves as more influential in the congregation than did members who continued to carry out tra-ditional works. January-February 1993 15 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Thus, we are concerned not only with the change taking place on the congregational and intercongregational level, but also with the way various members of religious orders and particular sub-groups are experiencing the change. In addition, the differences between the experience of men and women religious may be rel-evant. We address two questions regarding this experience. Areas for Investigation. What has the experience of change been like for individual members of congregations? The model we have presented proposes that individual members of congrega-tions should experience a wide range of feelings during the change process. The departure of such a large percentage of religious has also had an impact on those who remain. Those who con-tinue to live the vocation to religious life surely have a unique perspective on their role and are rooted in a spirituality that sus-tains them. With this frame of transformation, then, we designed a .comprehensive assessment that could give us some measure of how change is occurring and affecting religious life at the level of the social institution, congregations, and individuals. III. Research Units The design of the Religious Life Futures Project contained six independent studies. They are described below. Figure 1 depicts the six research units, and a brief description of each unit follows. Figure 1 Religious Life Futures Project Research Units Hist/Theol Monograph Leadership S~udies Interview Survey Caring People Study Visioning Groups 16 Review for Religious The National Survey was a comprehensive questionnaire asking 9,999 religious sisters, brothers, and priests to express their beliefs and opinions about spirituality, motivation, services they provide, issues they consider to be negative or positive influences on the future of religious life, and various other matters of religious life in general and their orders in particular. The Leadership Studies were based on the recognition that leadership is a key factor in sustaining the life of any group. Investigations of leaders' views, of members' perceptions of their leaders, and of the competencies required ~or"~utstanding leadership were pursued in this research unit. The Caring People and Visioning Groups units of our project were constructed on the reason-able assumption that these subgroups could offer distinct perspectives. The caring people were identified by virtue of their exemplary car-ing for others, and participants, in the visioning-groups unit con-sisted of people nominated in virtue of their hopeful, positive, and compelling vision concerning the future of religious life. Individual Interviews, using a standard protocol, were pursued with persons identified as particularly knowledgeable about reli-gious life. These interviews probed for the interviewees' under-standings of the nature and purpose of religious life, of the challenges facing women and men religious at this time, and of the qualities required for leadership in the future. The Theological/Historical Monograph was commissioned to be written by Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, PhD, with a historical postscript by John W. Padberg SJ, PhD. Their material wi!l add perspective to the wealth of information collected, analyzed, and evaluated. The Religious Life Futures Project contained six independent studies. A. The National Survey Purpose and Method The purpose of the National Survey was to obtain informa-tion about members' attitudes and practices regarding religious life. Questions ranged from general demographics to patterns and attitudes about living arrangements and job satisfaction. The sur-vey also sought information regarding attitudes toward vows, var-ious aspects of religious life, spiritual growth, and future plans. .~anuary-Felrruary 1993 17 Nyffren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Early in 1990 each major superior in the United States was contacted by letter with a request for a list of the names and addresses of their members. From the more than 121,000 names received, a stratified random-sample design selected the partici-pants for the survey. This random sample was stratified to ensure statistically valid comparisons according to tradition (apostolic, contemplative, mendicant, monastic) and vocation (sisters, broth-ers, religious priests). The 335-item questionnaire was mailed in October 1990 to the 9,999 religious priests, brothers, and sisters selected in this manner. With postcard and phone follow-ups, an overall response of 77.4% (7,736 responses) was obtained. The data base used for reporting results consists of 6,359 usable surveys. In the data anal-ysis, the responses were weighted to reflect population proportions of sisters, brothers, and religious priests and of apostolic, mendi-cant, monastic, and contemplative groups. All data were analyzed according to age groups that would reflect developmental stages (ages 19-45, 46-60, 61-73, 74-96). Data Analysis and Results The questions throughout the survey represented a broad range of topic categories. Initial principal-components factor anal-yses were conducted on a select number of the items in the sur-vey. Separate factor analyses were conducted for vocation (sister, brother, priest), tradition (apostolic, mendicant, contemplative, and monastic), and age group (19-45, 46-60, 61-73, and 74-96). The results of these analyses, presented in terms of level of analysis and grouped in meaningful clusters, appear in Table 1. As indicated, four major clusters of factors emerged on the level of the Social Institution: structures, innovations, restraints, and cred-ibility. The clusters of factors are listed on the chart and will be defined and discussed below; summary findings, too, will be pre-sented on the following pages. Social Institution: Structures The National Survey factors related to Structures include role clarity, permanent commitment, external authority, systemic change, and hierarchical alliance. Because of the significance of role-clarity findings in this study, we present an extended discus-sion of this issue and then a summary of the other factors. 18 Review for Religious Categorization of Factors Derived from the Religious Life Futures Project Table 1 Social Institution Congregation Individual STRUCTURES Role Clarity Permanent Commitment External Authority Systemic Change Hierarchical Alliance INNOVATIONS Diversity Expanding Lay Roles Greater Inclusion RESTRAINTS Cultural Threats CREDIBILITY Commitment to the Poor Anomie LEADERSHIP ' Spiritual Intensity Charisma/Individual Consideration Intellectual Stimulation/ Inspirational Laissez-Faire Active Management by Exception Contingent Reward DYNAMICS Community Living Involvement Influence Ongoing Development GUIDANCE Procedural Clarity Effects of Renewal Support of Sponsored Institutions SPIRITUALITY Oneness with God Intensified Spirituality Structured Prayer BELONGING Congregational Commitment Affiliation Intention to Remain ACTION Faithfulness to Vows Works of Mercy Role Clarity. Role clarity for religious is defined as "the indi-vidual's perceived level of understanding regarding his or her pur-pose and function within the current structure of the church." On this measure 55% of the sisters reported high role clarity, along with 65% of the brothers and 68% of the priests. More than 30% of the women reported low role clarity, indicating a lack of understanding or clarity regarding their role in the church today. The discussion of leadership issues related to the National Survey may be found in the section which fbcuses exclusively on this topic. ffanuary-Felr~utry 1993 19 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Projea Considering the data by tradition, we find 77% of the con-templatives and 64% of the monastics reporting high role clarity while only 59% of the apostolic and mendicant religious indi-cated they have a clear understanding of their role. Role clarity may be proportionately greater in the future, for, while only 52% of the youngest members reported high role clarity, 71% of the oldest did so. This finding parallels research that finds in many professions greater role clarity among those who have been in the profession for a longer time. Interestingly, the more highly educated members of religious congregations experience lower role clarity as religious. In terms of the fields of study, religious in the more applied disciplines such as business, education, and health care were less clear about their role as religious in the church than religious whose training is in the more theoretical disciplines such as theology, the human-ities, and the social sciences. The role demands of health-care providers or educators may present pressures that replace or com-pete with, rather than complement, the current role of religious in the church. Other research has demonstrated that ambiguity regarding role can, in general, lead to anxiety, reduced ability to meet role requirements, decreased ministerial satisfaction, lower trust and self-confidence, increased sense of futility, and greater propen-sity to leave a religious order. The lack of role clarity that a high percentage of religious experience may contribute to still more decline in the numbers of religious. There may also be some con-nection between the equal number of women and men entering religious life now (in contrast to women's former, three-times-greater number) and the greater number of women now experi-encing low role clarity. Taken together, this data signals the essential need for role clarity if religious orders in the United States are to be revitalized. Permanent Commitment. In responding to questions related to the normativeness of a lifelong commitment for religious life, all groups (considered by vocation, by tradition, and by age) reg-istered barely moderate agreement. On a scale wher~ 1 repre-sents "strongly disagree," 3 represents "neither agree nor disagree," and 5 represents "strongly agree," the group means ran between 3.1 and 3.5 on the matter of their agreeme.nt that permanent commitment is the norm. External Authority. All respondents tended to disagree that 20 Review for Religious reliance on external authority would influence the future of reli-gious life favorably. There was a general rejection of seeking input regarding thought, opinion, or behavior from outside sources such as church or group authority, indicated by the fact that, on the five-point scale described above, means for all groups were between 2.5 and 3.1. Systemic Change. Sisters, brothers, and religious priests experienced little connection between their work for sys-temic change (defined as "efforts to influence the social and political struc-tures which tend to discriminate against disadvantaged persons") and their per-sonal and spiritual fulfilhnent. All means were greater than 3.0 and less than 3.4. This did not change when considered by age groups or tradition. Hierarchical Alliance. The cluster of items that reflect a positive relationship between the hierarchy and religious or a positive attitude regarding the church's hierarchy and magiste-rial authority was not typically rated highly by religious. The more highly educated members of religious congregations experience lower role clarity as religious. Social Institution: Innovations The National Survey included items measuring participants' responses to trends in religious life that introduce greater diver-sity into community living. Items inquired about the conscious inclusion of persons who have declared their homosexual orien-tation, about the comfort level of minority-group members as perceived by members-at-large, and about the impact of includ-ing lay associate members. Admitting Homosexual Persons. Survey participants were asked to respond to this statement: "Declaring a homosexual orientation would not exclude an individual from being admitted to my con-gregation." Sixty-four percent (64%) of all respondents indicated either agreement with the statement or uncertainty. Thirty-six percent (36%) disagreed. Considering the data by vocation, only 16% of sisters agreed with the statement, and nearly 50% expressed uncertainty. This was significantly different from the responses of religious priests and brothers. Agreement of religious priests registered at 43 %, January-February 1993 21 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project with 22% uncertain. Thirty-five percent (35%) of the brothers agreed, with 25% uncertain. Among the four traditions, 53% of contemplatives indicated disagreement, im:plying the least expectation that persons declar-ing a homosexual orientation would be admitted to their con-gregations. "Agree," "uncertain," and "disagree" percentages were rather evenly split among the other traditions. Among monastics the greatest percentage (39%) agreed. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of the members of apostolic groups (again the greatest percentage) indicated uncertainty regarding admission of candidates with a known homosexual orientation. Considering the data by age, 45% of the members under 45 expressed their belief that a person with a homosexual orientation would be admitted to their congregation. Forty-three percent (43 %) of the oldest age group felt that homosexual persons would not be admitted, and 46% of the same age group expressed their uncertainty. Members of Minority Groups. When asked to respond to this statement, "Members of minority groups may feel uneasy in my congregation," the sentiment among religious in general is fairly well split: 36% agree; 22% are uncertain, and 42% disagree. This response pattern reflected the response pattern of the sisters, the brothers, and the religious priests considered separately and also of the apostolic, the mendicant, and the monastic religious con-sidered separately. But 52 % of contemplatives disagreed with the statement, while 27% agreed. Analysis by age reveals the greatest differences. Fifty-two per-cent (52 %) of the youngest group and 44% of the next age group (46-60 years) indicated their belief that members of minority groups would feel uneasy. In contrast, half of the 61-to-73 age group and 53% of the oldest group did not believe minority-group members would feel uneasy in their orders. At present, less than 10% of the members of religious orders in the United States are members of minority groups even though, in the near future, 50% of the U.S. Catholic population will be Hispanic. The real-ity of multiculturalism must be addressed by religious orders. Lay Associates. In response to this statement, "Inclusion of lay associates as members of my congregation may undermine what it means to be a member of my congregation," only 16% of the respondents agreed; 65% clearly disagreed. Lay associates, includ-ing members of the opposite sex and married couples, appear to 22 Review for Religious have widespread acceptance among religious. In general, religious reported little concern about having lay associates as members of their congregation and about the effect their presence may have on the meaning of membership in it. Other Factors. When asked to rate the impact that expanded lay roles in church ministry, feminist thought, the ordination of women, and the inclusion of married persons would have on reli-gious communities, respondents of all groups consistently indi-cated their belief that these situations and possibilities would have little effect if any. Social Institution: Restraints Respondents were invited to rate (on a five-point Likert scale where 1 represents "not at all" and 5 represents "extremely") aspects of contemporary American culture such as capitalism, technology, and affluence in terms of their potential threat to the future of religious life. Data analysis by age and tradition shows that religious view them as minimal threats. Considering the data by vocation, sisters indicated a greater (but not high) concern regarding the impact of cultural realities than did brothers and religious priests. Social Institution: Credibility The "credibility" cluster consisted in working with the poor and anomie. Commitment to the Poor. To measure a member's stated com-mitment to work personally with the poor, survey participants were asked to respond to this statement: "Although there is in.creasing talk about working with the poor, I feel little commit-ment to that." Mean scores for all vocations, traditions, and age groups did not exceed 3.5. (Sisters, members of apostolic groups, and religious in the 19-45 age group yielded the highest means in their groupings.) Thus, members of congregations express little commitment to participate in an activity which has increasingly become a value espoused by many congregations and, quite explic-itly, by the church. These findings suggest that the greatest commitment to work with the poor would be found in a young sister in an apostolic congregation. This group currently shows the least tendency to increase in size. Anomie, defined as a state in which normative standards of January-Felrruary 1993 23 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Reli~ous Life Futures Project conduct and belief are weak or lacking, is characterized by dis-orientation, anxiety, and isolation. Loss of conviction about the vows, lack of clarity about the role of religious, reactance to authority, lack of a corporate mission and ministry, and disillu-sionment with leadership pose significant threats to the future of religious life. The mean scores for all groups were greater than 3.5. These concerns increased with age. Congregational Level." Leadership The National Survey used specifically designed items related to qualities of spiritual leadership along with Bass's leadership scale to assess members' perceptions of their leaders. So that all leadership studies may be reported together, these findings are incorporated into Section III B, Leadership. Congregational Level." Dynamics The National Survey .also measured several factors affecting community living, including involvement, influence, and satis-faction with opportunities for ongoing development. Involvement and Influence. Involvement is defined as "the expe-rience of having, and the desire to be engaged in, activities related to the life of one's congregation"; influence, as "the experience of having and the desire to have some impact regarding the deci-sions and future of one's congregation." On a scale where 1 rep-resents "strongly disagree" and 5 represents "strongly agree," agreement regarding involvement in congregational activities was high (ranging from 3.9 to 4.0.), with nearly the same means across the three vocations (sister, brother, religious priest). Levels of perceived influence wei-e significantly lower, with means ranging from 3.2 to 3.0. Vv-hen the factors of involvement and influence were considered by tradition, the range was the same. Considering the data by age, interesting patterns surfaced. The youngest group had the lowest mean for influence and the highest mean for involvement. The 74-96 age group, in contrast to the 19-45 group, had the highest mean for influence and the lowest for involvement. A consistent pattern did emerge: The members' perceived or desired level of influence in their congregation is consistently lower than their experience or desire of involvement in it. This raises serious questions that touch on group-commitment and ownership issues. 24 Review for Religious Ongoing Development. Respondents' satisfaction with oppor-tunities for ongoing development through education and forma-tion, rated on a scale of 1 ("very dissatisfied") to 5 ("very satisfied"), averaged about 4.0. In general, the high levels of sat-isfaction and the high expectations that possibly accompany that satisfaction may encounter significant frustrations or difficult choices when, as is likely in most congregations, they encounter decliriing revenue and personnel. Congregational Level: Guidance The National Survey also investigated the degree to which a congregation's policies and structures promote the effective func-tioning of the group. Procedural clarity, effects of the renewal process, and members' willingness to support sponsored institu-tions are the focal points for addressing this question. Procedural Clarity. Analyzed by vocation, tradition, and age, religious indicated a moderate level of satisfaction with the clar-ity of their congregation's policies, and procedures. The group means ranged from 3.5 to 3.9. With the scale ranging from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 5 ("strongly agree"), it is fair to say that members do not experience an.overwhelming sense of clarity con-cerning their congregation's policies and procedures. Effects of Renewal, Thirty years ago the Second Vatican Council directed religious orders to examine their structures and update themselves. A return to the spirit of the founder was identified as a critical part of this renewal process. Members' assessments of their congregation's efforts and success in remaining faithful to the founding charism or in maintaining the prophetic character of religious life reflect once again only a moderate level of agree-ment. Across age groups the highest rating (the mean was 3.8) reflected the assessment of the 61-to-73-year-olds. Significantly, this was the group that provided most of the leadership during the past 30 years. The youngest group expressed the lowest satisfac-tion. There were no differences between the various traditions in their ratings of the effectiveness of renewal efforts. Support of Sponsored Institutions. In an effort to assess the com-mitment of members to their congregation's institutional com-mitments, respondents were asked to indicate their willingness to work in an institution sponsored by their congregation and their willingness to live in such an institution. Overall, 93% of the religious responding to the survey January-February 1993 25 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project answered yes regarding their willingness to work there. This rep-resents 94% of the religious priests and brothers and 92% of the sisters who responded. A smaller but still sizable percentage (88%) indicated their willingness to live at an institution sponsored by the congregation; this figure represents 84% of the sisters, 91% of the brothers, and 92% of the priests. ~'hese results present the opportunity to leaders, congrega-tional planners, and institutional decision makers to consider the availability and willingness of members of religious organizations and to direct their efforts toward a corporate mission. The empha-si~ on individual ministries that has evolved in recent years may now be shifting or open to reconsideration by members. Individual Level: Spirituality Spirituality was considered in terms of the experience of a sense of oneness or harmony with God, the degree of increased spiritual intensity, and the value of structured prayer to personal and spiritual fulfillment. Oneness with God. M1 religious report a moderately high level of agreement on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 represents "not at all" and 5 represents "frequently if not always") to questions assessing a sense of oneness with God. Sisters and contempla-tives score highest. Not surprisingly, this sense appears to deepen with age insofar as mean scores for age groups increased as age increased. Intensified Spirituality. The survey also measured changes in spirituality in terms of the degree to which respondents reported finding greater value in religious life and having deeper belief in Jesus Christ and deeper appreciation of the value of prayer since the time of their first profession of vows. While sisters, contemplatives, and members of the 74-96 age group reported the greatest levels of intensified spirituality, the other groups reflected high levels. StTv~ctnred Prayer. The degree to which structured prayer ex~)e-riences such as common prayer, an annual retreat, confession, and devotion to Mary were reported to be a source of spiritual and personal fulfillment was also measured on a five-point scale. Considered by vocation (si~ters, brothers, priests), all resporidents registered agreement beyond a level of 4. I. Consistent with their tradition, contemplatives had the highest mean of the tradition groupings in reporting structured prayer to be a very valuable 26 Review for Religious contributor. The experience of structured prayer as spiritually and personally fulfilling increased with age. Individual Level'. Belonging The National Survey measured individuals' commitment to their congregation as well as affiliation and the intention to remain. Commitment to Congregation. All traditions, vocations, and age groups reported moderately high to very high levels of congre-gational commitment. Not surpris-ingly, levels of agreement steadily increased with the respondents' ages. Affiliation. As was the case for commitment to the congregation, all groups (vocation, tradition, and age) were strong in their agreement with items indicative of high affiliation. Sisters, contemplatives, and members of the oldest age group had the high-est means in their respective cate-gories. Intention to Remain. Members of all groups (considered by age, voca-tion, and tradition) expressed--at or beyond the 4.2 level on the five-point "strongly disagree/strongly agree" scale--agreement with items related to their intention to remain in their congregation. This high degree of durability may be viewed both as cause for celebration and as cause for concern. Religious women report chastity as most meaningful and least difficult, while men report chastity as most difficult and least meaningful. Individual Levek Actions The National Survey also measured respondents' manifesta-tion of belief through their fidelity to vows and works of mercy. Faithfulness to Vows. Self-ratings regarding faithfulness to their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, when analyzed by voca-tion, tradition, and age, ranged between 3.7 and 4.1. Because the purpose of this study was not to delve into the details of behav-iors of religious women and men as they relate to observance of their vows, the research asked only for individual self-reports of fidelity to each vow. Of greater concern in this investigation were those individual that were related to persons who do or do not perceive themselves as faithful. January-February 1993 27 Nyg~ren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Regarding practice of the vows, the researchers learned that religious women report chastity as most meaningful and least dif-ficult, while men report chastity as most difficult and least mean-ingful. In a ranking of difficulty, obedience emerges as more difficult for women than for men. Works of Mercy. The belief that direct action to help the sick or poor made a somewhat valuable contribution to their spiritual and personal fulfillment was registered most strongly by religious priests and sisters. Considering the data by tradition, members of the mendicant and apostolic groups reported that their practice of the works of mercy was somewhat valuable to their personal and spiritual fulfillment. Monastic religious experienced such works as less valuable, and contemplatives, perhaps as a function of their lifestyle, experienced them as least helpful. Factor Conclusions: Social Institution The social institution of religious life in the United States continues to reflect the dynamics of an organization in signifi-cant transition. The lack of role clarity for a large percentage of religious and the ambivalence regarding permanent commitment to the classic vows leave the social institution vulnerable to innu-merable other social and cultural forces. The results would indi-cate that the population of religious in general is moving toward a much more permeable system of membership, commitment, autonomy, and inclusion. While on the one hand this reinforces innovation that includes diversity and broadened assumptions about religious life, the research also indicates that religious do not see how clearly they are influenced by cultural assimilation. Likewise, the credibility of many religious may be lessened in the eyes of those they serve and in the society in which they func-tion because of the discrepancies between their espoused values and their practice. By their own admission, religious see indif-ference and a lack of passion to be a major threat to themselves as persons and to religious life overall in relation to other social sys-tems in society. Factor Conclusions: Congregation Leadership is a critical force for the clarification of the role identity of religious in the United States. Within congregations, 2 8 Review for Religious particularly among women, there exists a fair degree of satisfac-tion with leadership. The hidden side of the satisfaction is that it may signal complaisance among members who at the same time find it difficult to influence the direction of the congregation. For many, the congregation lacks a coherent approach to col-lective action, particularly regarding sponsored institu-tions. In addition, the efforts at renewal have not met indi-vidual hopes. Community life continues to engage mem-bers, and they feel deeply committed to congregational life, willing to be more involved than they currently are, but also feel less influen-tial with leadership in the matter of setting the direction of the congregation. The high need for affiliation noted in the survey results may, in fact, stifle the creativity necessary to move groups into the future. Leadership is a critical force for the clarification of the role identity of religious in the United States. Factor Conclusions: Individual A facet of the research that addresses optimistically the lack of role clarity for many religious is the data that suggests how important spirituality and a vital relationship with God really are for many of them. Structured prayer, however varied the forms, continues to be a value. Individuals feel genuinely called by God to religious life and see an intensified spirituality as desirable. They are personally committed strongly to the community, they derive satisfaction from belonging, and most intend to remain in religious life. It is fair to say that the data indicates a stronger ecclesiology than Christology. Individuals emphasize participation in the life of the church and community as foundational to their spirituality. Their relationship to the person of Christ is less clearly drawn, perhaps because of the design of the study itself or maybe because of shifting language schemes to describe one's spirituality. What is clear from the research is that their spirituality will define their uniqueness in the church and their belonging will satisfy their affiliative needs. January-February 1993 29 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project The data suggests also that, if religious experience difficulty, it has to do with the impact of the vows on their life and with their fidelity to the vows. The personal sacrifice that has been the foundation of the vowed life has found support in the effect it has had on the mission of the congregation and the church. Profound shifts have occurred in the interpretation of the vows and the willingness to live them. More fluid interpretations of poverty, obedience, and chastity are widely observed. In addition, some religious describe new vows--of ecology, for instance--as descriptive of the future. Personal understandings of religious life and the commitment required to live the life are very broad. This results in part from lack of role clarity and from the vast cultural shifts in American society that have had a significant influence on religious life. Most religious would see some return to normative behavior as neces-sary, but they are reluctant to do so if that means returning to the sect-like distinction of religious life of the past. B. Leadership The recognition and identification of leadership as a critical factor in the transformation of religious orders prompted the investigation of leadership from many perspectives. These included: 1. a series of regional gatherings attended by 192 leaders of religious congregations; 2. members'oat-large perceptions of their leaders through the National Survey; 3. a separate "Leadership-Competency Assessment of Leaders of Religious Orders" with personality psycholo-gist David McClelland PhD. One of the first issues to surface during the course of the Religious Life Futures Project was the urgency of selecting and training leaders who not only can manage the complexity of reli-gious life that is predicted to intensify during the next 10 years, but also can focus the attention of their communities on a vision that will unite individual efforts inspired by the mission of their founder or foundress. The most striking weakness among cur-rent leaders is their inability to formulate a strategy to achieve a purpose or mission. Also of concern was the increasingly widespread use of con- 30 Review for Religious sensual processes and team leadership. The findings indicate that, while potentially effective, such approaches can often lead to mediocre management, representing the least common denomi-nator within an organization. Uninformed implementation of consensual methods often paralyzes the visionary leader. Leadership Workshops At the Leadership Workshops the participants were asked to write, in the form of a letter to their members, their vision for the future of their congregation, of the people whom their congre-gation serves, and of religious life in general. A content analysis of these "letters" yielded four categories of leadership: Value-based leaders expressed a sense of direction for their con-gregations or themselves in terms of the conceptual and cultural aspects of religious life. They were able to give expression to their values, but were unable to ide.ntify strategies to actualize them. For example, the author of one letter expressed concern about the environment, but only vaguely proposed that the congregation become involved in recycling. A letter simply urging the eradi-cation of "oppressive structures" without any suggested imple-mentation illustrates another value stated without a strategy. Visionary leaders, on the other hand, expressed a sense of direc-tion in terms of the structural and organizational aspects of reli-gious. life. The articulation of a strategy to accomplish their vision marks the difference between visionary and value-based leaders. One of the letters, besides proposing a new form of community in which nonvowed members would participate in governance, named specific guidelines and thus coupled a vision with a strat-egy. Conflicted leaders were unable to address change and often expressed frustration, anger, sadness, and even despair. These feelings were frequently directed toward members of the con-gregations. One such leader wrote, "It seems to me that some of our religious are unconcerned. They seem to have lost the orig-inal enthusiasm for their religious calling. Life has become drudgery for them, and membership in our congregation is a bur-den. Nothing we do or try to do seems to change this picture, and it is of great concern to me." Incognizant leaders, those who are unconscious or unaware of major issues facing their orders, failed to address any of the con- January-Felrruary 1993 31 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project cerns facing their congregations or the church. For example, one leader wrote, "There is no secular history/profane history; there is only sacred history. God is present in everything and in all. God journeys with us, with all people. God is the force, the life, the purpose behind everything and everyone." The researchers note that, while God is ultimately the means and the end of reli-gious life and leadership itself, incognizant leaders do not realize their role in enabling the action of God. From these workshops, the researchers concluded that there is often a gulf between the responsibilities of the office and the abilities some leaders bring to it. In many cases, leaders lack the necessary competencies or training to function effectively. Members' Perceptions of Leadership from the National Survey The National Survey measured members' perceptions of their leaders, using a measure of leaders' spiritual intensity and Bass's transformational and transactional leadership scales. The spiri-tual intensity of their leaders is rated highly by both men and wbmen. Both female and male religious expressed a slighdy higher degree of satisfaction with individual leaders than with leader-ship teams. Women were generally more satisfied with their lead-ership than men were. The survey measured the degree to which members viewed their leaders as transformational and transactional. Transforma-tional leaders provide vision and a sense of mission while instill-ing pride and gaining respect and trust. Transactional leaders focus on administrative and operational details. Typically, trans-actional leaders orient subordinates toward achieving goals by monitoring their performance, rewarding their accomplishments, and taking corrective action when necessary. Sometimes they abdicate responsibilities and avoid decision making. Both women and men tend to consider their leaders to be transformational people who embody charisma and individual consideration as well as intellectual stimulation and inspiration. On a scale where 1 represents "almost never" and 5 represents "frequently if not always," sisters' mean ratings of their leaders on charisma and intellectual stimulation were 3.67 and 3.57, respec-tively. Conversely, male religious consistently rate their leaders higher on transactional qualities, contingent reward (brothers' mean was 1.78; priests' mean was 1.70) and active management by exception (brothers' mean was 2.38; priests' mean was.2.26), than 32 Review.for Religious do female religious (contingent-reward mean was 1.62; manage-ment- by-exception mean was 2.06). The findings showed that, while spiritual intensity was the most frequently observed behavior of all outstanding leaders, charisma or individual consideration of members was the most significant predictor of satisfaction with an individual leader or a leadership team. Leadership Competency Study This research unit assessed systematically the competencies required for outstanding leadership. The model of competency assessment developed by McClelland and associates at McBer & Co. was employed. It began with the convening of a panel of experts to assist in identifying a criterion group of 24 present or former leaders of religious congregations regarded by their peers as "outstanding." Using the "Behavioral Event Interview" (BEI) method also devel-oped by McClelland, the research team interviewed this group of 12 women and 12 men. Similar interviews were conducted with a control group of 15 "typical" leaders (11 women and 4 men) matched with the criterion group for age, gender, tradition, size of congregation, and length of tenure. These interviews were then transcribed and coded by two separate raters for leadership competencies. Analysis of the data revealed that outstanding and typical lead-ers share certain "threshold competencies," including an ability to articulate the mission of their congregations, an inclination to act efficiently, basic conceptual and analytical skills, self-confi-dence, and avoidance of impulsive or emotional expression. These can be regarded as foundational competencies for leaders of reli-gious orders. Outstanding leaders, however, were found to differ from typ-ical leaders in several significant ways. For instance, outstanding leaders expressed, nearly three times as often as did typical lead-ers, a desire to perform tasks well or better than they had been performed in the past. They stated more than twice as often as typical leaders that they wanted to find new ways to achieve goals and to make things better for the people their order serves. Approximately 65% of the outstanding leaders mentioned taking initiative to deal with anticipated problems at least five times. Only 22 % of typical leaders referred that often to taking such actions. January-February 1993 33 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Outstanding male leaders are more likely to start projects dealing with problems anticipated in the coming years than are typical male leaders and female leaders in general. The study also found that outstanding leaders were signifi-cantly more likely than typical leaders to mention using their power to influence group decisions or behavior; to build consen-sus and team spirit by soliciting the views of others; to attempt to see issues from different perspectives; and to draw on divine assis-tance in their leadership roles. Conversely, typical leaders were more inclined than outstand-ing leaders to mention that they had threatened sanctions to control the behavior of subordinates; had acted out of formal authority, not by building consensus; and had involved themselves with the per-sonal problems of individual mem-bers as opposed to the problems of the entire congregation. Typical leaders seldom refer to God in their leadership activity. The study' also found differ-ences between outstanding men and outstanding women leaders. Outstanding men appeared more likely than outstanding wo~nen to have begun new projects; to have acted assertively; to have offered more opinion, s, particularly negative ones, to subordi-nates; to have developed the leadership capacity of others; and to have experienced the benefit of God's support. The outstanding women, on the other hand, appeared more likely to have focused on consensus building; to have pointed to the spiritual significance of events; and to have positive expecta-tions of others and of religious life in general. The leadership-competency assessment revealed that out-standing male leaders are more likely to start projects dealing with problems anticipated in the coming years than are typical male leaders and female leaders in general. Neither ?utstanding nor typical female leaders appear to initiate such projects. While all male leaders report more behavior that threatens members with termination of an assignment or with dismissal from a con-gregation than do female leaders, this is strikingly true of typical male leaders. Outstanding female leaders behave in this manner more frequently than their typical counterparts. This suggests the desirability of a moderate use of sanctions. 34 Review for Religious C. Visioning Groups Recognizing that various groups of members could offer distinct perspectives, the study was to include the views of persons who could provide specifically clear opinions regarding the future of religious orders. Individuals identified as future oriented yet rooted in their order's charism were invited to participate in one of four Visioning Groups. This research unit was conducted through a series of weekend gatherings. The aim was to learn about the personality characteristics and beliefs of the individu-als and to develop strategies and agendas that could implement the visionaries' images of the future of religious life. Their prospec-tive views would also be compared with those of both leaders and members-at-large of religious orders. Selection of Participants Subjects for the Visioning Groups were recruited through a nomination process that began with a letter sent to the major superiors of 550 randomly selected congregations. The superi-ors were asked to consult with their councils, similar groups of advisors, or members-at-large to nominate one member of their order to participate in a group experience. Criteria for selection asked that the nominee be a person of vision who is recognized for his or her ability to live the charism of the congregation in today's society and that the nominee be able to articulate a sense of hope and a belief in the future of religious life. A total of 92 religious-- 48 women and 44 men (12 brothers and 32 priests)--participated in the Visioning Groups' gatherings. "The Dilemma": Affiliation vs. Transformation One of the most significant findings of the Visioning Group workshops emerged from an exercise conducted during the course of each gathering. Participants were organized randomly into groups of three or four people and given the task of identifying those elements critical to the future of religious life. After a period of private reflection, participants were asked to gather in their assigned groups and share the results of their reflections. Each of these groups then joined another, resulting in groups of 6 to 8. They continued the conversation and were then asked to con-struct an image or metaphor that captured visually and graphically the components they considered essential to a future vision of religious life. The results of their work included such images as a January-February 1993 35 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project kaleidoscope, a prism, a jazz band, a symphony orchestra, and the spiral of unitive consciousness. After all groups in a session had ~'eported and presented their images of the future of religious life, each person was asked to consider all the models and to stand near the one he or she found most compelling in terms of a future vision. Participants were asked to base their choice on their willingness to make a personal commitment and to devote their energy to realizing that future vision. This request invariably created a dilemma for the partici-pants. Preferring a model designed by another group produced in most individuals a sense of guilt, of betrayal and abandonment of the group with which they had worked to produce an image. This process replicated the dilemma which many members of congregations experience in wanting to be involved in actualizing a compelling vision of the future, but desiring also to maintain existing relational bonds. While this sense of loyalty or affilia-tion that inhibits change is not unique to religious groups, it does represent a critical factor in groups moving toward changing the future. Affiliation is generally stronger than vision. This tension is particularly important to consider in light of the National Survey's finding that members of religious orders experience a particularly high need for affiliation. This dynamic is an important challenge for religious leaders. Visioning Groups Conclusions: Social Institution Revitalized religious life, rooted in Jesus Christ and the gospel's values, will manifest that spirit in the world by challeng-ing systems that oppress others, by living in visible simplicity, and by renewing congregations' fidelity to their founding pur-pose. The visioning groups view authority as power that is shared among communities of equals. This perception, however, may level the traditional notions of the vow of obedience and bring more democratic ideals into the classical traditions of religious life. Viewing the global community as the locus of redemption, sisters, brothers, and religious priests will face alterations in prayer, expanding their language for a greater inclusivity. They will choose to share in the world's suffering and will shift away from the rigidity of regional and juridical thinking. Members of reli- 36 Review for Religious gious orders will express their relationship with Jesus in the con-text of belonging, in shared symbolic life, and possibly in a shift in primary language. The dominant language of religious life has shifted from theological constructs to social and psychological paradigms. Many religious no longer use sacramental or tran-scendental frames of reference to describe their experience of God. Multiculturalism as normative is desirable, but confronting the personal and systemic racism that marks our society and reli-gious orders could be the single greatest challenge in the area of membership. Conclusions: Congregation Religious congregations ought to provide opportunities for structural expressions of emerging forms of religious life. To do so, they will have to discern the contemporary expression of their founder's charism, redefine or reestablish boundaries for mem-bership and behavior, and confront the discrepancies between espoused and lived values. The images (discussed above) of a future vision of religious life that were constructed by small teams were efforts to isolate and highlight a particular manifestation of a charism, not as an end in itself but to show a possible direction for the congregation to move in. At present, such efforts to regain the founding spirit are often viewed by the majority of members as marginal. When those who may have the vision are pressured to conform to the group, revitalization may be undermined. Conclusions: Individual Individuals within religious orders will shift from an internal to a global focus. They will need to acquire new interpersonal skills and an ability to cope with moving from stability and secu-rity to change and risk that lead to a more clearly focused mission. Challenging a culture that has supported privatism and indi-vidualism, members of religious congregations will need to reex-amine nonnegotiables. Relinquishing many previously held tenets, they will respond to the call of serving absolute human need in the spirit of their founder. New members must demonstrate the maturity to live a life of sacrifice, must possess or acquire the skills for leadership posi- .~anuary-Fetrruary 1993 37 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Reh~ious Life Futures Project tions in global and church communities, and must be able to sus-tain intimate relationships in the context of a celibate commit-ment. Current members, too, who continue to belong to religious congregations will need these skills and qualities and must prepare to live in communities that require them. D. Caring People The Caring People unit studied the characteristics of persons identified by members of their congregations as "uniquely car-ing" or "unusually helpful, thoughtful, understanding, or caring persons." All selected subjects received mailed packets that included a cover letter, a six-picture story exercise (projective technique), the National Survey questionnaire, and a variety of open-ended and short-answer measures. Because traditional question-and-answer research does not easily permit the study of unconscious motives, open-ended (projective) techniques were used to study the motive structures of these persons. This approach was espe-cially important because much research about traits and behavior typically depends on self-reports which introduce the possibility of bias in the direction of socially acceptable responses. In other words, what might have been measured in other studies was the need for consistency of self-image, not necessarily the subject's willingness to go to the assistance of a needy person. By coding responses to some open-ended questions, we were able to con-struct a profile of caring people. Findings The Caring People study found that, in contrast to typical religious, religious who are perceived as unusually helpful, under-standing, and caring feel closer to and more trusting of God, who is seen as the source of healing and care. On projective measures, caring religious score higher in trust and lower in mistrust than typical sisters, brothers, and priests and tend to portray authority as benevolent. Caring religious con-nect divine assistance, in contrast to individual effort, with heal-ing experiences. They are less self-controlling and more spontaneously inclined to generosity. Caring people state that they often find the experience of contemplative prayer very valuable. They also demonstrate a 3 8 Review for Religious greater interpersonal involvement in caring experiences. Caring religious describe these relationships as growing and mutual and as containing a wider meaning or significance beyond the imme-diate relationship. Finally, these religious experience more joy in caring and more zest for living. This contrasts with typical religious, who describe caring for others in tension-reduction terms. That is, typical religious report their caring as a response to a need in themselves such as caring out of duty or as a repayment, or car-ing in response to special needs such as the illness, rejection, or trauma of other people. Presence of God This research suggests that, for caring religious, helping is not simply a transaction between two people. There is a third force in the relationship that .might most generally be called a "benevolent authority" or, more simply, God. The caring reli-gious stays in close touch with God and wants to share this behev-olent authority with others. When encountering a person in need, the goal of the caring religious is not primarily to relieve his or her suffering, but to create a three-way relationship in which Jesus and the gospel's values are deeply involved. Helpers of this type do not see themselves as agents in the process; at most they are partners with or assistants to the real source of helping. They do not feel ultimately responsible. For this reason and also because the helping is in itself joyous, caring religious do not as readily "burn out." This description also explains why caring religious who are so motivated are perceived to be helpful rather than manipulative. Because they so obviously believe that of themselves they can do nothing and because they want to establish a mutually rewarding i'elationship, caring religious are not perceived as egoistically threatening the self-esteem, interpersonal power, or indepen-dence of others. To the extent that responding to absolute human need is embraced anew as the ultimate mission of religious congrega-tions, the formation and development of this motive for religious life is clearly essential. Caring People Conclusions: Social Institution This part of the research effort assumes that a fundamental ffanuary-Felrruary 1993 39 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project component of the role identity of religious is their call to care for others. It also assumes the motive of desire for oneness with God. Perhaps the future of religious life will be defined increas-ingly by these attributes or actions on behalf of others that medi-ate the presence of God. Caring religious live an operative Christology that is simultaneously immanent and transcendent. Conclusions: Congregation The Caring People study suggests that the heart of congre-gational life is the life of Jesus Christ in the gospel. The imme-diacy of the presence of the caring person to another is possible because of this effort to mediate God, whom they see as a benev-olent authority and the source of their action. Conclusions: Individual The focus of individual formation must be increasingly spir-itual. This research would indicate that those who learn to be authentically caring are inclined spontaneously to generosity, are trusting, and are aware that God acts in and through them. This level of freedom requires viewing God as a benevolent authority in whose name one acts as mediator. E. Individual Interviews Using a standard protocol developed for use in the Individual Interviews phase of the study, the researchers 15robed persons identified as particularly cognizant and understanding of religious life's nature and purpose and of the challenges now facing women and men religious and identified, too, as having the qualities required for leadership in the future. The purpose of this por-tion of the study was to verify the beliefs of members-at-large about the nature and purpose of religious life and its mission, about emerging forms and structures, and about future directions and to compare these beliefs with those surfacing in other forums. Conclusions: Social Institution Interviewees noted that the mission of Jesus will be the cen-tral focus and that the spirituality of congregations will be rooted 40 Review for Religious in their charism. Driven by pressing social and ecclesial needs, charity and justice will be the focus of mission and ministry, and most apostolic community life will be in proximity to the poor. Although a clear church identity will be maintained, the struc-tures of religious life will be based on mission rather than canons, and the unique charism of religious life will remain largely distinct from hierarchical functions. An inclusive atmosphere will be marked by multiculturalism, a clear inclusion of women and the feminine, and a genuine respect for diversity. Perhaps the most striking discrepancy in the portrait of the future of the social institution of religious life that emerges from the Visioning Groups, the National Survey, and the Individual Interviews involves commitment to the poor. The random sam-ple of members reveals at most a moderate commitment to par-ticipate in an activity which has become increasing!y a mission espoused by many religiou~ orders and quite explicitly by the church. Conclusions: Congregation Some of several changes in congregational living could strengthen the religious orders of the future. Specifically, inter-viewees indicate that religious community life will be marked increasingly by the intentionality of sha~ed values, purpose, and resources. Some congregations whose charisms are similar will merge, the number of apostolic groups will decrease, and many groups will become smaller. Because their members report greater clarity of focus and mission, membership in monastic orders may increase. The ranks of religious orders will be marked by older mem-bers, with few younger members and many second-career entrants. New congregations, though few, will contribute to the revital-ization of religious life. Religious congregations must examine the impact of what has often been an uncritical introduction of associational and affilia-tional forms of membership. This will entail a focus on the mean-ing of membership and in many cases the reestablishment of boundaries. Congregations that are vital to the church will have an explicit focus, and their effectiveness will be enhanced by the members' commitment to the collective mission. January-February 1993 41 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Conclusions: Individual In the view of those who participated in the interviews, com-mitment to works of mercy is critical. Most individuals who belong to religious orders were motivated at the outset by their impulse to generosity and are sustained by their special relation-ship with God. By serving those with absolute human need, sis-ters, brothers, and religious priests will dedicate themselves to a high-cost, high-commitment life in communities that can be wit-nesses to Jesus Christ and the gospel. E Historical/Theological Monograph Because it is important also to understand the findings of the study from both historical and theological perspectives, the researchers commissioned a theological/historical monograph. Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, PhD, of Fordham University, will write a theological monograph focusing on religious life since the Second Vatican Council. John W. Padberg SJ, PhD, of Saint Louis University, will provide a historical postscript to her work. This work, projected for completion in 1993, will add perspective to the wealth of information collected, analyzed, and evaluated in this research effort. IV. Conclusions:Shaping the Future of Religious Life If religious life is to continue to be a vital force in the church and the world, the FORUS study concludes that dramatic changes must occur in most religious congregations in the United States. Fidelity to the spirit of the founder and responsiveness to critical and unmet human needs are basic to the ongoing mission of reli-gious communities. Yet, while individual examples abound, only in limited ways have religious acted collectively to address absolute human needs, new forms of poverty, and demands that seemingly outstrip the capacity of any group to respond. Vatican II called religious to a return to the "spirit of the founder." While most congregations have engaged in much study and have made great efforts to move in this direction, the absence of corporate commitment to meeting currently unmet needs in the light of gospel imperatives stands in contrast to the collective vision and action inspired by God that marked the birth of most apostolic, monastic, and contemplative congregations. Religious 42 Revieva for Religious life as a social institution in United States society is at a crossroads. To achieve a desired future, religious as a group as well as indi-viduals must confront the forces that currently restrain them and reinforce the dynamics that will allow them to be in fact respon-sive to absolute human need in accord with their particular charism. A future marked by significant revitalization will emerge for congregations that--in union with God, in fidelity to their founding purpose, and in response to absolute human need--confront the current gap between the gospel and the culture. The research concludes with an equation of sorts, depicted in Figure 2 below, that can be applied to all con-gregational traditions in vary-ing degrees. The interaction of eight critical factors in the context of personal and collec-tive conversion will move con-gregations from their current states to their desired futures. The research also concludes that for other groups the The absence of corporate commitment to meeting currently unmet needs in the light of gospel imperatives stands in contrast to the collective vision and action inspired by God that marked the birth of most apostolic, monastic, and contemplative congregations. restraints on advancement are severe and may lead to decline. What follows is a brief summary of the conclusions drawn from the various facets of the study. 1. Individualism and Vocation Since Vatican II, shifting paradigms of vocation and con-comitant cultural trends have deemphasized the distinctiveness of the religious life. The research suggests that the personal call to holiness given to all Christians in Lumen Gentium did in fact impact religious life and the understanding of the religious life. Religious feel somewhat ambivalent about their current state while at the same time celebrating the advances of the laity in the church since Vatican II. The age of experimentation in the church paral-leled vast cultural shifts in kanerican society towards individualism, cultural assimilation, and the democratization of all authority. ~anuary-February 1993 43 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Figure 2 Shaping the Future of Religious Life in the US Restraining Forces ~ lndividualisrn]~ ~Average Loadershipl_~ Aut"orit V'i

Issue 50.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1991. ; Review fOl~ Religious Volume 50 Number 4 July/August 1991 P()STMAS'I'I'.'ll: Send mhh'c.~.~ chang~'s Io Rl.:Vll.:W 1.~ nt ll,.:i.i~ ;i, ~i,s; P.(). Box 6071); l)llhli h, M N 55806. .~lll~scriplioll raics: .~illglc c.py $3.51) plus lll~lililig 1991 RI.:VIEW I)avid L. Fleming, ~.l. Philip C. Fischen S.I. Michad G. I-hzrter, ~.l. Elizabeth Mcl)omm~h, 0.1: Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Edilor Asxocial~" Cammical Co.nsc/Edilor Assistant Editors David J. Hassel, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Wendy Wright, Ph.D. Advisory Board Mary Margaret Johanning, S.S.N.D. Sean Sammon, F.M.S. Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. July/August 1991 Volume 50 Number 4 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor should be sent to R~vl~w rot R~lous; 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Elizabeth McDonougb, O.P.; 5001 Eastern Avenue; P.O. 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This order is for [] a new subscription [] a renewal [] a restart of a lapsed subscription MAIL TO: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ¯ 3601 LINDELL BOULEVARD ° ST.LOu1S, MO 63108 1-91" PRISMS. The word ordinary seems to imply the bland, the unexciting, the run-of-the- mill, the everyday. In fact, for many of us even the liturgical year of the Church suffers from being divided into two parts: the Seasons and Ordinary Time. Although liturgy properly speaks of our celebrations, we tend to find it hard to celebrate what is called ordinary. Perhaps the very distinction which the Church highlights in so dividing the liturgical year calls us to a deeper reflection upon our understanding of the ordinary. God creates the ordinary., and calls it good. It is true: the ordinary is the very substance of our world. While being itself God's cre-ation, the ordinary is also the substance with which God works. We, by being ordinary, can be touched and molded and transfigured by God. Often we try to escape from being ordinary, and in the process we shut ourselves off from being available to God's action in our lives. In the bibli-cal accounts of creation, we find the lure of an escape from the ordinary the root crisis of properly using our God-given freedom. The story of Lucifer and the fallen angels is a story of beings discontent with being ordinary. As they try to move beyond the ordinary by shutting out God, this becomes their hell. So, too, the story of Adam and Eve is a story of two people, in the freshness of human life, already desirous of escaping the ordinary--to be like gods. Sacramentally we are reminded that God continues to take the ordi-nary- water, bread and wine, oil--to make extraordinary contact with us. Even when our prayer or the spirituality we live is--try as we may---ordi-nary, we thus have the very quality which allows it to become the vehicle of God's action. The difficulty for us in accepting the ordinary is not just from an inherent human tendency to want to be noticed and praised, but also from the graced impetus to strive, to struggle, to desire to grow beyond where we are. How are we to distinguish these spirits within us, distinguish move-ments that would lead us to close ourselves off to God by our self-focus from movements whereby God is drawing us ever closer in our surrender? Our writers in this issue provide us with various approaches to a lived answer. John Wickham goes right to the heart of our reflections in the lead article by focusing on our choice of being "just ordinary." McMurray and Conroy and Kroeger turn our gaze to the whole complexus of activities 481 482 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 which make up our spirituality--how do we work at making a spirituality our "ordinary" life-source? A different question is posed by Samy and Fichtner when they ask whether the ordinary practices which we find in a spirituality which is not Christian can be an aid in our openness to God. Vest and Schwarz and Gottemoeller draw our attention to various aspects of the ordinary Christian lay life as influenced by a spirituality which is described as monastic, by a new kind of membership relation to a traditional religious congregation, or by a new responsibility within the institutions formerly identified with a particular religious order. In the midst of some of the liturgical renewal stimulated by Vatican II, the practice of a daily Eucharistic celebration has sometimes been a point of dispute, especially among those priests and religious whose congregational rule or custom clearly called for such observance. The confusion often turned on what was celebratory and what was ordinary or daily. John Huels weaves his way through various schools of thought in order to provide a group with a whole cloth of ordinary spiritual practice. Although contemplative life in its dedicated form is recognized as truly a special calling in the Church, Clifford Stevens would have us all draw some nourishment today from its age-old sources. And finally, four different writers--Navone, Monteleone, Seethaler, and Billy--lead us further along in the most common activity of human interaction with God, our attempt at praying. As portrayed in the gospels, Jesus had to spend a lot of his efforts both in his ordinary apostolic life and then again in his resurrected life to prove his ordinariness. He gets tired, he eats and drinks, he needs friends, and he takes time to pray--all ordinary activities for us humans. And yet it was in these very ordinary dealings that God is fully present to us in Jesus Christ. Perhaps the part of the Church year we call "ordinary time" is a necessary reminder to us of how God wants to work with us. David L. Fleming, S.J. Choosing to be "Just Ordinary" John Wickham, S.J Father John Wickham, S.J., is a member of the Upper Canada Province of the Society of Jesus. He is the author of The Common Faith and The Communal Exercises (Ignatian Centre in Montreal): His address is Ignatian Centre; 4567 West Broadway; Montreal, Quebec; Canada H4B 2A7. There is something new, I believe, about the feeling often experienced today of being "just an ordinary person." Many recurrently feel that way despite their natural gifts, highly developed skills, or honored positions. Nor do they need to deny those advantages. In contrast to what others may tend to think, or what the world expects of them, their subjective experience of themselves--what it feels like from within their own skins--is that of a worthwhile even if unfinished, rather unique and yet uncertainly striving, interesting enough but still "just ordinary" life. It is midway between what is heroic and what is base. It is not very glamorous, but neither is it paltry. Its special taste, which is quite different from these alternatives, makes it a rather new kind of experience. If at times we do recognize that experience in ourselves, then we may face a range of questions. Should I accept the feeling as a true and good one? Or would I be better off without it? Should I choose it so often and persis-tently that it becomes habitual for me? Or would that turn into an inauthentic pose? Should I try to find some part of my real identity there? And what exactly would that imply? For example, would it mean I am choosing to be mediocre? The fact that a feeling arises, St. Ignatius tells us, does not prove it to be from God. The latter point needs to be discerned. And kinds of feeling that become widespread in a given society need to be discerned just as much as do feelings that arise only in a particular individual. In fact, our faith com-munities must often set themselves against cultural trends in the world around them. 483 484 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 In order to get at underlying issues, I wish to consider this topic in two stages. The first will be restricted to the phenomenon itself of a "just ordi-nary" feeling as a secular event in our world. Only then will I turn to the sec-ond stage, namely, to take up the kinds of faith response which we might wish to give it today. The first part, then, attempts an analysis of the "feel-ing." The second considers when, or in what circumstances, we might "choose" in faith to make it our own. Our New Cultural Situation To rephrase my opening statement, I believe that a "just ordinary" feel-ing about oneself is somewhat new as a more widespread and recurrent experience in Western culture. In recent years nearly everyone I have spoken to about this has nodded at once and said, "Yes, that's exactly how I often feel." While I possess no statistical data on its prevalence, my impression is that quite a few people have come to recognize its presence in themselves. Let me try to locate this experience more precisely. I am referring to something secular in origin and not necessarily Christian or religious in itself. Like God's rain and sunshine, it may affect everyone, just :and unjust, believer and unbeliever alike. Perhaps it was triggered off by the countercultural movement of the nineteen-sixties, since during the seventies commentators often pointed out the exaggerated attention then being given to inner feel-ings- to the personal self of each one apart from their external involvements. At that time many were being thrown back upon their subjective states of awareness to a degree that had rarely happened before. The seventies were called the "Me Decade," one that belonged to the "Me Generation" whose subjective responses (often referred to then as "getting in touch with your feelings") were given unprecedented emphasis and publicity. What had previously been mostly private now became blatantly public. But perhaps during the eighties not only the novelty but some of the disturbing quality, too, of that rather messy explosion of "subjectivity" in our midst has worn off and subsided to a degree--enough to allow "just ordinary" feelings to rise to the surface and gain attention today. What had occurred, then, was an intensification of self-awareness, a heightening of subjective consciousness among much larger segments of our population than before, and even a thematization of this event in our culture. "Souls" had been transformed into "subjects." Individuals became persons. This had happened much earlier, of course, for some exceptional people and even for smallish groups here and there, but it had never before become such a widespread phenomenon. And it involves matters of considerable importance, not easily dis- Choosing to be "Just Ordinary" / 41~5 missed. Bernard Lonergan has written of "the shift to interiority" in the twentieth century as the emergence of a new "realm" of human reality, i At the opposite end of the scale, the usual wild and foolish misuse of a new gift by the more excitable members of society should not blind us to its underly-ing significance. That is the larger context. More in particular I wish to stress, first of all, the quieter reverberations which those noisy events have left with many per-sons today. The gift itself of interiority is multifaceted, of course, but a first approach would notice that in part it may belong with the newly "expressive self' which has emerged alongside, and often independently of, the older "utilitarian self.''2 While the latter continues to exert a dominant influence in our midst, it must now share the public table with a more mystical parmer. From a slightly different viewpoint the "just ordinary" feeling should be seen mainly as a response to the puritan "strong self' of modern culture. After the nineteenth century in the West we gained the capacity-- appropri-ate to a technocratic society---of developing our ego-strengths. That is, a cer-tain knack, at least for special purposes, of withholding or excluding deeper levels of feeling can free an individual to concentrate on impersonal obser-vations, accurate calculations, and carefully directed efforts of the will. Further development of this inner self-control is required for any kind of efficiency and productivity in the working world. It is clear that the requisite skills are not given by nature but must be culturally developed. Not only our workplaces but our schools and colleges, too, call insistently for the formation of habits (especially of technical reason and will) which enable entry into the competitive society with all the bureau-cratic ladders and graduated salary scales of a successful career---or not-so-successful, as the case may (more often) be. In contrast to this still urgent public arena of "strong selves," individual members also return to private worlds of rest, relaxation, and entertainment, to times of weakness when they may face their own ignorance about the questions posed to them in life and recogn!ze their lack of energy for the continual efforts required. Human beings, it should be stressed, when separated from their social roles and active commitments and thrown back upon their private resources, usually do not find a great deal of their own to sustain them. Modern urban ways have cut people off from the deeply penetrating and densely inter-twined supports of rural societies. As a result, the rootless city dweller becomes conscious of boredom, of empty times to be filled up, of personal neediness and spiritual hungers not easily satisfied. An individual person, after all, is usually endangered by too much isolation from others, and mod- 4~16 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 em technologies often weaken or destroy traditional communities (families, neighborhoods, parishes). Besides, whenever institutions let us down or defeat our aims, or when hurtful clashes disturb our feelings for others, we are left alone to deal with a diminishing present and a more uncertain future. That is when a loving spouse and intimate friends (if available)become essential to our very sur-vival; without them, depressed feelings all too easily turn to thoughts of nonexistence. It was the countercultural movement which reacted against the giant bureaucratic institutions of our world and forced into the broader stream of public life the previously underground resource of subjective feelings. It transformed leisure moments of the kind just mentioned into recurrent times of self-expression which are portrayed and celebrated in our electronic media. This revealed to large numbers of fairly well-off persons in Western societies that their interior selves need to be cultivated in ways that differ enormously from the older patterns of successful selfhood modeled for them in corporate institutions. The counterculture managed to give sustained pub-licity to a host of "alternative lifestyles"---that is, a diverse range of subjec-tive modes in self-identity and interpersonal relating. This vastly expanded "realm of interiority" provides a cultural context for, and is itself fostered by, many recent movements: affirmations of per-sonal rights, the reawakening of charismata, the turn to the East, the renewal of contemplative prayer traditions, and the broadly secular interest in spiritu-alities of all kinds. It is surpi'ising to notice how the word "spiritual" and its cognates have gained such widespread use not only in the arts but in sports, politics, business enterprises, salesmanship, the military--almost every-where today. In our faith tradition, on the other hand, the interior life had a much more restricted meaning. Medieval interiority was exclusively religious--the very opposite of anything secular or worldly. In order to develop one's union with God, according to the late-medieval Imitation of Christ, believers were expected to withdraw from external involvements--at least, from all the habits and attitudes belonging to them--and to cultivate an inner commu-nion with the Lord deep within their hearts. The Imitation, we should remember, is the most popular spiritual classic of all time.3 A crucial aspect of its teaching has to do with the personal self so poignantly revealed by means of a prolonged withdrawal of the kind rec-ommended. But when thrown back upon oneself in this way, what does one find? The oft-repeated answer to this question shows how bare the cup-boards of subjectivity can be: Choosing to be "Just Ordinary" / 487 This is the greatest and most useful lesson we can learn: to know our-selves for what we truly are, to admit freely our own weaknesses and failings.4 I am nothing, and I did not even know it. If left to myself, I am noth-ing; I am all weakness. But if you turn your face to me, [Lord,] I am at once made strong and am filled with new happiness.5 Oh, how humbly and lowly I ought to feel about myself, and even if I seem to have goodness, I ought to think nothing of it . I find myself to be nothing but nothing, absolutely nothing . I peer deep within myself and I find nothing but total nothingness.6 No doubt, older Christians today will recall teachings of this kind as familiar features of their early training. And some of its emphases tend to give us pause. What about the inherent goodness of each human self?. This was occasionally noticed in the Imitation, but should it not have received much more attention? On this question two historical points should perhaps be made. First, the Imitation itself arose from the Devotio Moderna's care for many ordinary members of society who desired to cultivate a devout life amid late-medieval disruptions of Christian Europe (the Black Death and subsequent plagues, persistent warfare, economic hardship, the Great Western Schism).7 Out of their prolonged experience of public calamities came this first popular expression of the personal subject in the West--at least, among the little seg-ments of the population influenced by the "new devotion." The point for us here is that a faith response to those troubled times made possible an interior life for many more persons than before (including lay members living in the world). An inner self could then be cultivated by means of the careful religious teachings extended to them by The Imitation of Christ and similar writings of the movement. Thus, interiority was initial-ly a sacred realm, not a secular one. In order to develop at all, it had to define itself against the secular world. This meant, of course, that the self had precisely "nothing" of its own to fall back upon--no widely accepted norms of individual worth had as yet been formulated. The themes of individualism which we take for granted today as "natural" were simply not available in the Middle Ages. The Devotio Moderna may, in fact, have contributed notably to the first social expression of our individual sense of self. It follows that to blame it for not supplying what it was in the very process of begetting seems misguided. That would be reading history backward--a frequent modern failing. Secondly, it seems that the difference between selfhood (a good sense of self) and selfishness (a bad sense) had not as yet been separately felt. In that 488 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 sacred milieu the differentiation of a secular goodness of creation apart from the fallen condition so frequently stressed in spiritual teachings remained for the future to bring about. In other words, the self-in-its-own-being could not possibly then have been "tasted" distinctly from the self-as-sinful or the self-as- saved-by-grace (or both together). True enough, humility was sometimes considered apart from habits of sinfulness--namely in Mary and in the saints--but even there what received emphasis was the divine grace of their redemption (in Mary's case extending to her prior preservation) from sin's more normal dominion. These excep-tions only proved the rule that humility--as we hear its accents in the Imitation--arises from the sharpened interior taste of one's sinful self that usually follows upon forgiveness. In view of this cultural moment of The Imitation of Christ in the early fifteenth century, its lack of any emphasis on natural goodness for the indi-vidual self is understandabl~. It is true that, by the later sixteenth century, Montaigne's Essays and Shakespeare's Hamlet and Richard II had begun to anticipate modem feelings of individual selfhood, but this was still an excep-tional happening within the sacred medieval precincts, it may be said. So many developments have taken place in the centuries since that time--the Cartesian ego, theKantian turn to the subject, the Romantic movement, nineteenth-century liberalism, as well as the already mentioned "shift to interiority" ~ind countercultural movement in our own century, that we cannot have recourse solely to a retrieval of medieval gifts. In short, the new interiority of our day differs a great deal from the "interior life" handed down to us in our spiritual tradition. The old interiority was (a) fully sacred in meaning, (b) defined in opposition to the "world," (c) low in self-esteem while high in reliance on God alone, and (d) rarely to be shared with others socially. By contrast, the new interiority is (a) mainly sec-ular in meaning, (b) defined against the mainline institutions of society (including those of the Church), (c) self-affirming and self-accepting, even if admitting one's need of friends and of the divine Other, and (d) eagerly shared with others in public lifestyles. Like many others, in my Jesuit formation I was often counseled to ignore, set aside, or "offer up" my individual feelings as distracting or, more likely, harmful to my fuller appropriation of the uniform spiritual teachings provided. These latter consisted in learning the general answers true for everyone alike and in keeping the rules set down for all without exception. That way of forming members, as we know, has been in great part aban-doned in recent decades. In any case, it had introduced painful distortions into our medieval heritage. Choosing to be 'Just Ordinary" / 489 The main "warp" in question was directly related, I believe, to the nine-teent~ h-century rise of the "strong self" already mentioned. Let me briefly review that development. As I have noted, humility had traditionally been ~'ocused on the sinful condition of those converted to the Lord. It did not dwell merely on mortal sins committed prior to their deeper conversion, but much more on the venial sins which they came to recognize in present self-awareness. This medieval tradition may be gathered in detail from Alphonsus Rodriguez's Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues.8 Against that backdrop the modem ideal of a "strong sell" to be fash-ioned in youth by anyone hoping to succeed in the secular world, or even to survive in it, presented a considerable contrast. Prior to 1965, our Catholic parishes and schools managed to combine this modem requirement (a strong selfhood formed in the conscious mind through repression of deeper feel-ings) With traditional teachings on humility (reliance on God alone because of personal sinfulness and the "nothingness" of self). This was made easier by means of the invisible wall erected around the distinctly Catholic world. By the later nineteenth century, of course, Christian faith had already become to a large extent privatized, separated from public life and domesticated in family and parish activities. For Catholics in North America, the immigrant Church had developed its own "garrison" mentality so effective!y that one could cultivate a traditionally humble self in the narrowly religious realm and at the same time a secularly aggressive self in the business, professional, political, or broadly social realm. That was the religious situation in which I was raised, and I did not then advert to its inconsistencies. Perhaps many others today can recall this com-bination of strivings. However opposite they were in character, we tried to attain them both and to some extent we succeeded--by the grace of God. In recent decades that whole effort has disappeared and as a result (among many other quandaries) a whole spectrum of possible selves has become available today. It is a somewhat unsettling set of choices. But amidst all our struggles to find or fashion personal identities (or perhaps to fortify older ways in the very teeth of these developments), the curious new event has made its presence felt--the "just ordinary" feeling. Contemporary Faith Responses At this point I wish to bring into our discussion a distinction rather dif-ferent from any mentioned so far. In a recent book, Hopkins, the Self and God, Walter Ong, S.J., has emphasized the "taste of self" which figured so prominently in Gerard Hopkins's poetry, letters, and notebooks.9 As a chap- 490 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 ter on the Victorian context makes clear, the theme was not unusual even then. But Hopkins, because of his unique attention to it and extraordinary gifts of language and feeling, managed to anticipate many of our present concerns. The distinction employed by Fr. Ong in his discussion is between the self as "I" or "me" in the densely concrete, subjective stance underlying all one's experiences and, on the other hand, the self as objectified in various characteristics, habitual attitudes, and acquired abilities. Ong names the first of these "the subject-self' and the second "the self-concept"--a terminology already in use. More is meant than merely a difference between subjective and objec-tive qualities of the self. The so-called "objective" side points to an individu-al's attempts to gain a sense of developing identity--at first through the reactions :of other people, and then through one's own continued striving. Often a variety of contrasting possibilities are "tried on for size" and lived out for a time, but later modified or rejected. But underneath every such effort lurks a richer source of seifhood that unifies the ongoing and often interrupted sequence. Moreover, the subject-self also feels--at least indirectly--the inadequa-cy of whatever aspects of self-conception are presently entertained. The lat-ter are never quite right. There is always a certain sense of"more to come": Why do I doubt my capacity to keep this up any longer? Maybe I should change my mind about the whole business? Or am I trapped in a "fate" of being the way I am?l° And as soon as some new aspect of the self gains initial clarity, there is often a tendency to react in a different direction. Even if I should rejoice in a rather flattering or at least affirmative symbol of myself, my subconscious feelings may tend to exert a counterinfluence. Or if snubbed by others or blamed in any way, I might resent it at several levels at once (despite a ten-dency to self-doubt), but I will also search for memories of my better qualities. A great variety of varying patterns of such "identity searches" may be noted in spiritual direction. But what I wish to stress here is the unifying "I" in every pattern or in every sequence of changing patterns over years of per-sonal growth. "I" am the enduring (somehow even unchanging?) recipient, resource, and agent of all such reflexive feelings, perceptions, visions, and (as Eliot has taught us) endless revisions. For I am always the one who is unfinished. I exist amid processes that are ever moving me into uncertain futures. This mysterious "I" may be used, of course, in a way that includes the self-concept of my current identity. Most often the two blend together in my Choosing to be "Just Ordinary" / 49'1 experience of them. Wider, more inclusive self-affirmations are normal and even important. For the self-concept can never really be independent of the subject-self--the two functions are inherently connected and interactive. My various self-conceptions (especially at their least vague, most fully articulat-ed stages) need to be tested repeatedly in the subject-self. Do I feel at home in them? In fact, their authenticity becomes known only insofar as they truly actualize my subjectively felt potentials. On the other side, the subject-self cannot long endure without some kind of self-concept. Even when denied previous realizations in the social world, the subject-self may have recourse to fantasy roles in the theatre of imagina-tion. For I cannot avoid notions of selfhood altogether--my neediness finds relief only in the movement to some form of self-realization, however indi-rect, implied, or even self-sacrificial it may become for a time. But what is new today for many persons is that 'T' may recurrently refer quite exclusively to the subject-self alone. In such cases the needful relation to identities is not denied but somehow "bracketed out" or "put on hold." This distinction appears to be called for by what I have named the "just ordi- ¯nary" feeling. More precisely, the "just ordinary" feeling belongs especially to the subject-self. Now, this distinction may unlock several, of the puzzling questions which arise .from our cultural situation today. It might resolve the problem for all who try to decide whether or not--even precisely as a Christian-- they should choose to be "just ordinary." Not Mediocrity, but Limitation A first question to be faced concerns mediocrity. If one settles into a "just ordinary" feeling of oneself, would this not bring an end to growth, to any serious striving for improvement? Would it not ring the death knell of idealism (in a good sense)? Would it banish from the competitive society believers who chose to accept it--as though our economic system as such is inherently alien? Even more traditional spiritualities sought to refute the accusation that Christian faith necessarily inclined believers to accept the established pow-ers and to resign themselves to exploitation by cle4er elites (Marx's "opium of the people" view about the role of religion in society). But that false use of Christian faith is not in question here. If a devout life means acceptance of manipulation and coercion by others, then it has simply lost its roots in the prophetic teachings of Christ. Instead, what is relevant here is the insight that only the subject-self can feel "just ordinary." Such a feeling cannot rightly belong to the self-concept. 499 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 My position is that only insofar as one becomes aware of one's "purely" sub-jective selfhood in contrast to current or possible fulfillments of one's poten-tials (the self-concept always means that) does the "just ordinary" feeling arise in the first place. It would follow, then, that for persons who do not experience this newish feeling (and no one is required to do so!) a decision to be "just ordinary" might mean choosing to be mediocre. That is not the case, however, for those who do recognize the new feel-ing in themselves; what they experience, I would say, is a new sense of per-sonal limits. No doubt, our knowledge of limitations is pluriform. Each person would tend to stress different aspects of the overall human "contin-gency" (its more technical name) as this comes home to individual lives. Limits are reached in our work, our relationships, our different life-stages, our suffering of reverses, rejections, sickness, injuries, or close encounters with death and dying: Our knowledge and abilities have a great variety of limitations, but so do our energies and our capacity for making creative responses. There are traditional ways of coming to know and accept our littleness, but what I have in mind here gives a different resonance to these more familiar events. In Western cultures it may seem natural to invest one's whole identity in a career role, with its achievements, or with honors already received (here the "strong self" makes its presence felt). But against this tendency I find it possible, like Hopkins, to identify mainly with my subject-self--even though my developed talents, skills, and other acquisitions (whatever their true worth) may be kept in view. I do not deny the crucial importance of these factors in my life as a whole. But I know I could lose all use of them if I suffered a grave stroke or a debilitating heart attack, for example. And throughout that illness, whose effects could be long-lasting, I would contin-ue to experience myself as "me"--a limited person, unique in my special taste of self, the same as I was as a child and teenager, and surely to remain so until death. If I am unable to make this sort of self-identification, but insist on claiming my developed self-concept as the only true "me," the danger is that a debilitating illness may tend to destroy me altogether. And those who live into old age, even if they never suffer a health crisis of the dramatic sort mentioned, may eventually experience their subject-self as "just ordinary"-- stripped of any actual use of their various gifts. In traditional Christian teaching our need for reliance on God will nor-mally be heightened and dramatized by major experiences of suffering (',limit" situations). This will surely continue to exert a central influence on personal realizations of Christ's paschal mystery. The unusual note to be Choosing to be "Just Ordinary '" / 493 sounded here, however, concerns the dimension of selfhood which our cul-tural moment may be bringing alive. The 'T' whom Jesus calls and unites to himself, the "I" who undergoes spiritual deaths and who may then receive new life in the risen Lord--this 'T' may now choose to identify with "just ordinary" feelings rather than either "nothing" or "something good denied." It is a form of limited selfhood available today to a much larger number of persons than ever before. Humility in a New Key As cultural events bring forward different ways of experiencing not only the humanized world but also the human subject in and by whom the world is humanized, individuals growing aware of their own gifts are always exposed to new dangers from pride. In his "Two Standards," we remember, St. Ignatius highlights the time-honored medieval teaching that pride is the source and origin of every other vice, and that humility, as St. Bernard puts it, is "the foundation and safeguard of all virtues." It follows that the emer-gence of a "just ordinary" feeling raises another question: precisely what effect might this have on our traditional sense of what the virtue of humility requires? No doubt, the rise of modern democracies brought a stronger emphasis on equality into social relations in the West (in contrast to earlier ideals of "subordination," of submission to those in higher orders). Every member, rich or poor, is supposed to stand on the same ground, in a civil sense as well as "before God," as every other member. But this opened the way to compe-tition in the public "free marketplace," where the many levels of social clas-sification become even more clearly marked than in the premodern world. Personal evaluations and interpersonal judgments are so much more intense than previously that the "neurotic" society of our day has become familiar to US.11 In this context modern teachings on humility tended to stress the differ-ence between the office and the office holder. And this traditional distinction was often combined with a focus on teamwork or group contributions. In sports, the heroes who score the highest number of points, even the winning goals, humbly acknowledge the help of their teammates and the glory of the whole team, rather than their individual merits. In short, modern humility consists mainly in putting oneself down. Self-abasement, especially after some signs of achievement appear in the struggle for success over others, is felt to be essential. This means that humility and humiliation are closely approximated in modern competitive societies. But in the postmodern world (if that is where we are today) many are 494 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 beginning to sense their subjective distance from the very structures of suc-cess and achievement themselves. Perhaps this is why human vulnerability and powerlessness have received so much attention in recent years. If I am right in this--to some extent and for some members only, of course--then the "just ordinary" feeling would denote an ability to experience self-worth independently of competition for successful contributions in the established institutions of the world. When the feeling does mean that, I would argue in favor of seeking to realize it in one's life. This would not necessarily signify nonparticipation in the large struc-tures of society--whether in business, politics, sports, communications, or whatever. But it could qualify the style of our participation because our main sense of self would no longer consist in whatever we might be able to achieve. To gain this rather sophisticated balance, of course, might not always be easy. It would mean learning how to give one's whole energies to highly skilled performances without pinning one's sense of self to success in performing well. Whatever the-degree of success or failure realized over time, those who contribute would continue to experience themselves to be "just ordinary" members of a community which regularly affirms their worth on a basis other than that of competition, success, or failure. This would bring a newish tone, a new chord, I think, to the age-old music of humility. Sacred and Secular Community The "just ordinary" feeling may also raise a question because of its very secularity. Normally the Church lives in a certa{n state of tension with the secular society in which its witness to Christ's message is to be given. But the quality of that "creative tension" can vary a great deal. In our day the tension may disappear whenever a new secular discovery affecting human growth is announced in a book or magazine, or its virtues are proclaimed in the media. It may then be taken up by skilled practitioners and made available in local programs. In recent decades we have received many such gifts. An example might be the interpretation of dreams by means of Jung's psychological theories. This can become quite an interesting activity, valu-able in itself. But there is a danger that believers who are attracted to it may then transfer most of their religious energies to essentially secular programs of this kind (think, too, of the many self-help groups claiming attehtion today) and thereafter give little attention to more central Christian practices. In particular, our own question concerns the "just ordinary" feeling. Is it another "brand-new discovery" of the type just mentioned? Does it not sug-gest a secular facet of human life which may all too easily replace more Choosing to be 'Just Ordinary" / 495 authentic 'teachings? Are we simply "shaking holy water" on secular objects and calling them Christian? I would reply that, while its potential misuses are undeniable, its right use may also be safeguarded if the underlying issue is kept clearly in sight-- the issue of the human call to transcendence. I will conclude this essay by exploring that deeper concem. At one level we remember that any new discovery may be claimed by Christian faith because all that is human belongs to God the Creator. Thus, we may recognize and welcome every fresh gift of human expertise, inte-grate it within the larger faith (making it subordinate, not dominant), and in this manner sanctify all things in Christ. No doubt this should be so. But at a deeper level of analysis the question arises in a new form because secularity (secular realities taken in a good sense, as differing from secularism) is always related to the sacred as its opposite. In this way Judaism and Christianity themselves initiated a radical process of secularization. For us the world is no longer "full of gods" since we believe in the one Creator who is beyond all created things (transcen-dent). Our faith has secularized the cosmos. Later on in history the civilized world, too, took further giant steps on the same journey. In great part today our political, economic, social, and cultural institutions are experienced not as immediately God-given but as humanly devised. In this more radical sense, then, whenever ongoing secularization enables a new gift of human life to be realized, the sacred powers of tradi-tional faith need to be adapted to the new situation. What had formerly been handled indirectly by religious beliefs has now come directly (even if incom-pletely) under human management. In faith we may welcome such events as fulfillments of God's intentions in creating humans "in his own image and likeness" (that is, cocreative with him). But we also note an important clue: there should be no change in secularity without a corresponding change in sacrality. The frequent failure here is a simple transfer of energies from the sacred into the secular realm while reducing religious operations to empty words alone. More specifically, if the emergence of "just ordinary" feelings can bring new aspects of human existence within the range of human competency, then we may rejoice in this prospect on condition that a corresponding, positive change occurs in our sense of specifically sacred gifts. But if the change should be merely negative, a loss of religious energies, then something has gone wrong. For example, the work of Carl Rogers and others on self-actualization and self-realization has an obvious bearing on our topic, but even here the 496 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 "just ordinary" feeling takes the process a step further, I think. All of these factors, we should remember, are secularizations of human powers which previously had been contained or implied within sacred gifts. 12 In Gerard Hopkins's poetry the sacred envelope remained untorn: Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves--goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying What I do is me: for that I came. I say more: the just man justices; Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is-- Christ--for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his . 13 Even more to the point are his famous closing lines in another poem: In a flash, at a trumpet clash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, Is immortal diamond. 14 The eternal worth to be realized at last in Christ is anticipated by a believer who knows his subject-self as "poor potsherd" and "matchwood." Surely this comes close to our "just ordinary" feeling even if its validation depends on faith in the resurrection. If we look back to Hopkins, we can per-ceive its secular potentials lurking within his very religious lines. In any case, now that it has emerged to stand on its own feet in our midst, we are challenged to respond afresh in faith to a new aspect of human self-realization. We may rejoice inthis event, but without a positive religious response of some kind the 16ss of transcendence becomes palpable. We may happily accept the growth of a human value, but its simultaneous excision from religious meanings calls for new initiatives, for real adaptations which do not downgrade the relevance of our transcendent faith but rather give it fresh impetus, redirecting its energies in new ways. Two principles may be l~ormulated in this regard. I have already been exploring the first of these, which might be put as follows: The Principle of Adaptation: Every new growth of secular competence should stimulate a corresponding renewal of sacred powers. The second may'be named: The Principle of Intensity: In our creative response to a given process of secularization, one important criterion would be a specific heighten-ing, rather than any lessening, in the experience of transcendence. Choosing to be "Just Ordinary" / 497 Whenever the Christian component is subtly reduced to a comfortable repetition of now irrelevant phrases, this second principle has been ignored. The urgency of transcendent faith for human affairs can easily be diminished without any advertence to its loss. Our "just ordinary" feeling, for example, simply cries out for creative faith responses. But what are these to be? That is the real issue. Will our sense of Christian humility be intensifie~l instead of being replaced? What fresh meaning can we now give to the crucial "poverty of spirit" which indicates membership in the Lord's kingdom? The heightened subjectivity that often seems to afflict us may also serve to awaken creative potentials previously unknown. Even though it makes us experience our human limits as never before, our acceptance of "just ordi-nary" feelings could, in fact, lead to new dimensions of liberation. But this will not be automatic. Our spiritual behavior will need to adjust itself cre-atively to the new gift. Possible responses are always at hand. Whenever in faith the members of our new communities reflect upon the significance of feeling "just ordinary" togetherl I believe the Real Presence of the risen Christ may receive a fresh emphasis. This heightened communal awareness may correspond in a unique way to our traditional poverty of spir-it. Precisely here a new intensity of faith may be gathering force. During the nineteen-twenties T.S. Eliot insistently employed the symbol of the Angelus bell, a traditional reminder of the moment of Incarnation. In that extraordinary instant, and whenever it is made present to us today, tran-scendent powers cut through the secular time dimension to disturb our mod-em preoccupations. In similar fashion a few decades earlier, wher~ striving to resist new inroads of modernity Pope Pius X led Catholic parishes to give renewed attention to the Real Presence in the Eucharist (mainly as reserved in the tabernacle or received during Holy Communion). Whatever judgments we may wish to pass upon those earlier modes of resis-tance, it seems clear that a creative response for today will need to focus on the Eucharist as an action performed by the whole community. We may be able to enter the eucharistic action as full participants because we surrender in faith to the Lord who makes his Real Presence felt in our ways of relating to one another. The "just ordinary" feeling may be chosen as a means to that effective recognition. When in a small faith community the members have learned how to act and speak out of their newfound sense of ordinary selfhood, all their gifts may be appreciated warmly and without exaggeration. They can be put into action zestfully since the members are set free from the anxieties of personal competition. Each one's acceptance by all the others may become intensified through the distinctly felt presence of the risen Lord in their community today--not merely by anticipat.ing the Second Coming. 498 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 In short, we are being graced, membered in a new life, invigorated, and turned in hope to the future by this much more active presence of Christ. That intensification of God's "reigning" in us may correspond accurately and be found to dovetail beautifully with the newly released "just ordinary" feelings of the members about themselves. NOTES l Method in Theology, New York: Herder & Herder, 1972, pp. 257-262. 2 On this distinction see Robert Bellah and others, Habits of the Heart, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: Univ. of California Press, 1985, pp. 32-35 and passim. 3 SeeThomas ~ Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Wm. Creasy, Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press, 1989; "Introduction," pp. 11-13. Also Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings, trans. J. van Engen, New York: Paulist Press, 1988; "Introduction," p. 8: "The Imitation of Christ has undoubtedly proved the most influential devotional book in Western Christian history." It has also been translated into all the great lan-guages of the world. 4 Book I, chap. 28; trans. Creasy, p. 32. 5 Book III, chap. 8; trans. Creasy, p. 95. 6 Book III, chap. 14; trans. Creasy, p. 102. 7 Details are given in J. Leclercq, E Vandenbrouke, L. Bouyer, The Spirituality of the Middle Ages (vol. 11 of The History of Christian Spirituality), London: Bums & Oates, 1968, pp. 481-486 (text by F. Vandenbrouke). 8 Trans. Joseph Rickaby, S.J., Chicago: Loyola Univ. Press, 1929; vol. II, pp. 165- 352: "The Eleventh Treatise: On Humility." See chap. IIl: "Of Another Main Motive for a Man to. gain Humility, which is the Consideration of His Sins." (The first main motive, given in chap. II, is "To know oneself to be full of miseries and weak-nesses.") 9 Walter J. Ong, S.J., Hopkins, the Self, and God, Toronto, Buffalo, London: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1986; see especially pp. 22-28. For a recent philosophical discus-sion see Frederick Copleston, S.J., The Tablet, 11 Nov. 1989 (vol. 243, no. 7791), pp. 1302-1303. l0 Cited by Alphonsus Rodriguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues, p. 168, see n. 8, above. Chap. II, "That Humility is the Foundation of All Virtues," pp. 168-170; chap. III, "In Which It Is Shown More in Detail How Humility Is the Foundation of All Virtues, by Going Through the Chief of Them." ~l On this, see Bellah and others, Habits of the Heart (n. 2, above), pp. 117-121, for its development in the U.S.A. But similar versions of "modem nervousness" and "therapeutic culture" could be gathered from the other Western traditions (Continental, English, Canadian.). ~2 Confer Paul C. Vitz, Psychology As Religion, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977, pp. 20-27, for a discussion of Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, and Rollo May as moving from religious into secular concerns. Choosing to be "Just Ordinary" / 499 ~3 The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. W.H. Gardiner and N.H. MacKenzie, 4th ed., London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967; poem no. 57, p. 90. 14 Ibid, poem no. 72, p. 106. The Hunter Yahweh's manifest love has all the proud and fierce majesty of a turkey buzzard flying with outstretched wings upon hot afternoon breezes, which are thrust upward unconstrained from ocher grabens below. This carnivorous bird is the other side of the symbolic dove. It is the Master of the Universe when he is not content waiting for hesitant or indifferent souls who fail to seek him. Rather, he becomes the strident hunter pursuing those who choose hiding in dark shadows caused by lichen-covered trees, or along cow-trodden riverbanks, where brown mud oozes into slowly flowing, opaque waters. Yahweh spreads his wings, searches for the goats and lambs, such as you and me, when we forget how to look for him circling over us in the translucent sky. Brother Richard Heatley, F. S. C. De La Salle, "Oaklands" 131 Farnham Avenue Toronto, Ontario Canada M4A 1H7 At the Threshold of a Christian Spirituality: Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal Method John McMurry, S. S Father John McMurry, S.S., cun'ently serves at the St. Mary's Spiritual Center and as a spiritual director for St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland. He has taken part in thirty workshops led by Dr. Ira Progoff since 1976, and he has led some sixty Intensive Journal workshops since 1978. His address is All Saints Church; 4408 Liberty Heights Avenue; Baltimore, Maryland 21207. Since 1978 1 have been teaching Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal method occasionally at weekend workshops. Dialogue House, the umbrella organiza-tion covering all of Progoff's works, describes his method as a program of "professional and personal growth with a spiritual point of view." It is a non-analytic means for individuals to attain two goals. First, it enables individu-als to recognize and accept the wholeness of their life without denying the reality of any of its contents, no matter how unpleasant or embarrassing. Secondly, it enables individuals to get a feel for the consistency in the direc-tion that their life is taking as they discover potentials for the future hidden within their personal past. The goals of the program are attained by means of a variety of written exercises which are done in a group setting under the direction of an experi-enced leader who is committed to follow authorized guidelines. Individuals in the group work in private with the contents of their own life. The only prereq-uisites are an atmosphere of quiet and mutual respect, and an attitude of open-ness and acceptance on the part of each exercitant toward his or her own life. The program is not only nonanalytic; it is also nonjudgmental and is structured to help people experientially discover answers to questions such as the following: Where am I in the course of my life right now? How did I get to the place where I am in the course of life? Where is my life trying to go from here? What is the next step? 500 Progoffs Intensive Journal Method / 501 The Intensive Journal method itself has no content. The method is a dynamic structure to which each person supplies the content from one's own life. The structure aims at enabling individuals to establish deeper contact with the flow of creative energy in their own life. It is especially useful for people engaged in decision-making, for people who feel confused about the next step in life, for those who have lost contact with the direction their life wants to take, for those who feel alienated, isolated, or meaningless, and for those who simply want to expand their personal horizons of creativity. In creating the Intensive Journal program, Progoff had in mind people in a secular culture who are unfamiliar with or alienated by traditional religious language. However, the awarenesses stimulated by the exercises of his method serve to help Christians experience meaning in traditional doctrines which might otherwise remain merely propositional. In the case of people who approach it from the perspective of faith, the Intensive Journal program is a form of prayer. The Intensive Journal Method as Prayer In a chapter entitled "Prayer as Dialogue," Karl Rahner discusses prayer in terms apropos of the Intensive Journal method. He is addressing a com-mon problem of people who are earnest in their efforts to enter into dialogue with God. They often state the problem something like this: "When I pray, I cannot tell whether I am talking to myself or to God." Rahner challenges the presupposition that God says "something" to us in prayer. He raises some "what-ifs": What if we were to say that in prayer we experience ourselves as the utterance of God, ourselves as arising from and decreed by God's freedom in the concreteness of our existence? What if what God primarily says to us is ourselves in the facticity of our past and present and in the freedom of our future? Rahner concludes that when, by grace, we experience ourselves as the utterance of God to himself and understand this as our true essence, which includes the free grace of God's self-communication, and when in prayer we freely accept our existence as the word of God in which God promises him-self to us with his word, then our prayer is already dialogic, an exchange with God. Then we hear ourself as God's address. We do not hear "some-thing" in addition to ourself as the one already presupposed in our dead fac-ticity, but we hear ourself as the self-promised word in which God sets up a listener and to which God speaks himself as an answer. 1 Rahner is suggesting that God's word to me in prayer is not an idea; rather, God's word to me in prayer'is myself, that is, my personal, individual life story--past, present, and future. The implication is that my life story is 502 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 important in my relationship with God because it is the way God speaks to me and I to God. A further implication of Rahner's proposal is that I enter into dialogue with God ipsofacto under three conditions: 1) when I experience my life story as God's word addressed to himself; 2) when at the same time I understand that God is really present in my actual life story--past, present, and future-- as a free and undeserved gift of himself to me; 3) and when I freely accept my life story as the word of God in which God promises his Word to me. The Intensive Journal program is an instrument which lends itself to the discovery of the real presence of God in one's own personal life story. The content of the program is the content of the life of the Journal-writer; hence it is through the life of the Journal-writer that Christian faith may enter into the individual's use of the Intensive Journal exercises. Progoff has described the prayer dimension of his method as follows: The Intensive Journal work is indeed a species of prayer and meditation, but not in isolation from life and not in contrast to active life involve-ment. Rather, it is meditation in the midst of the actuality of our life experiences. It draws upon the actualities of life for new awarenesses, and it feeds these back into the movement of each life as a whole.2 The Intensive Journal Method and Spirituality In his "handbook of contemporary spirituality," Rahner raises the ques-tion whether the term "spirituality" is good, understandable, useful, or even has any meaning. Then he makes the observation that the crucial point for personal and pastoral life today is not so much a matter of getting the "spiri-tual" dimension of existence into our heads or other people's by means of abstract and conceptual indoctrination (which he says is ineffective anyway) as it is a matter of discovering the Spirit as that which we really experience in ourselves.3 Perhaps Rahner slightly understates the case. It may be that the crucial point for us personally and in our pastoral work today is simply to discover "the Spirit" as a fact of our own personal experience and to help others do the same. Furthermore, in order to be able to use the word "spirituality," we might let it refer simply to the individual's .relationship with God or, in other words, to what goes on in the creative process between God and each of us. This article presents Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal program as an aid to the process which is going on between an individual and God. The program adds no content to the life of the individual; it mirrors the movement which is already going on and stimulates that movement by feeding new aware- Progoffs Intensive Journal Method / 503 nesses back into the movement of life. ("Journal feedback" is one of the main features which distinguish this method from an ordinary diary.) This program, then, is a dynamic structure for evoking self-transcendence from the factual contents of a life story. For a person of faith it is a way of discov-ering the Spirit "as what we really experience in ourselves." Genesis of the Intensive Journal Method Following Progoff's discharge from the U.S. Army, he earned a doctor-ate in the area of'the history of ideas from the New School of Social Research in New York City. On the basis of his dissertation, Jung's Psychology and Its Social Meaning, published in 1953 and still in print, Progoff was awarded grants for postdoctoral studies with Carl Jung for two years. By virtue of those studies Progoff was licensed as a therapist by the state of New York, where he went into private practice after returning from Switzerland. In 1959 Progoff founded the Institute for Research in Depth Psychology at Drew University in New Jersey and served as its director until 1971. During those twelve years-he and his graduate students searched out the dynamics of creativity in published biographies of creative people whose life stories had ended. From his research Progoff concluded that creativity occurs through the interplay among various dimensions of life which may at first seem disparate. On the surface it may appear that the process in one dimension is unrelated to the process in another dimension, whereas in fact something new comes into being when the individual makes correlations among the dimensions of life. It is as though the individual is a complexus of certain processes which occur throughout life on different planes. Progoff has developed, the Intensive Journal method over more than a quarter-century of helping his clients apply the fruits of his research by dis-covering hidden sources of creativity within their own lives. He began teach-ing his method to groups in the late 1950s. In 1975 he published At a Journal Workshop, a thorough description of his haethod up to that time. In 1980 he published a companion volume, The Practice of Process Meditation, which added another dimension to the program. Dimensions of Human Existence In Progoff's view, the artist is paradigmatic. Each individual is both the artist and the ultimate artwork of life, and yet individuals execute the art-work which is themselves by engaging in outer activity which has inner meaning for the one doing it and beneficial consequences for society. In other words, in order for each of us to be fulfilled as an individual, we must 504 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 do some work (opus as distinguished from labor) which is both personally and socially meaningful. At the same time as we are creating our lifework, the doing of the work is creative of us. The basic dialogue of life is the dynamic actual (as distinguished from logical) dialogue between human cre-ators and their works. In Progoff's words, "Outward activity propelled from within is the essence of creative existence.''4 From his research on the lives of creative people Progoff learned to dis-tinguish certain dimensions of life as loci of the components of creativity. The Intensive Journal method recognizes those dimensions as sources of the raw material of creativity in anybody's life, They are the dimensions of time, ¯ of relationships, and of personal symbols. The Intensive Journal workbook uses color-coded dividers to mark off various sections in each of which the Journal-writer deals with the move-ment in one particular dimension of life. Within each of the main sections are tabbed subdividers of the same color as the main divider. Each tab bears the name of the specific exercise to be entered there. For example, the "Life/Time Dimension" is indicated by a red divider and contains four tabbed red subdividers; each of the four tabs bears the title of the written exercise to be entered there by the Journal writer. Similarly, the dimension of personal relationships in life, called the "Dialogue Dimension," is indicated by an orange divider and comprises five tabbed subdividers for each of the five "dialogue exercises." The part of the Intensive Journal workbook for making entries which deal with dreams and personal imagery is called the "Depth Dimension." It is indicated by a blue divider and five tabbed blue subdividers. In summary, the workbook comprises sections which reflect and stimu-late the movement of an individual life in each of its dimensions. Each of the main sections of the workbook represents a dimension of life and comprises several subsections for various written exercises which deal with the con- "tents of that life in styles appropriate to that particular dimension. The Dimension of Life/Time We do not get the chance to start life over, but the Intensive Journal pro-gram does offer us a tested means of restructuring our life from the perspec-tive of the present. At the same time it provides a means of discovering unactualized potentials which we may have overlooked the first time around, or which were not ripe then and may at some point in time be able to take a form they could not have taken originally. In studying the biography of a deceased person generally recognized as creative, the end or goal of that career may be clear and unmistakable, even Progof['s Intensive Journal Method / 505 though the lif'e story includes setbacks, stalls, reversals, and obstacles. It may be easy to see how everything in that life was leading up to some great scientific or philosophical work because we are viewing it from the perspec-tive of the end. But what if I am the life story I am working with? In that case the life process is still in progress. I am not looking at a still photograph but a mov-ing picture, and I am looking at it from the inside. In that case I start with the present epoch of my personal life and get a feel for this period of life from the inside. That is, I allow myself to feel the quality or tone of my life during this present period and record it objectively. The record I make of the pre-sent period will be an objective statement of my subjective experience of life at present. Then I am in a position to allow the course of my life to present itself to me from the perspective of the present in the form of about a dozen significant events. Each of those significant events serves to characterize a whole period of life. Of course, many other things also happened during that period. There are other exercises for dealing with them. The idea in this exercise is to get a feel for the wholeness and continuity of my life as I allow it to present itself to me in an articulated form so that I can use other Journal exercises to deal with it one period at a time. All the Intensive Journal exercises presuppose the attitude of openness and receptivity mentioned above, a nonjudgmental attitude toward life. It is not so much the objective contents of a life that affect its degree of creativi-ty, as the subjective attitude toward that life. In the creative restructuring of a life, a relaxed, friendly approach which allows surprises is important. Dimension of Relationships In the life/time dimension treated above, there is a principle of whole-ness, continuity, and direction,toward-a-goal at work. In the dimension of relationships, the dynamic is that of dialogue, that is, the give-and-take of equals listening and responding to each other in a spirit of mutual trust and acceptance. The principle of "dialogue relationship" applies first of all to significant people during various epochs of life. The. same dynamic applies analogously to meaningful work-projects (opera), which, like persons, seem to have a life of their own. In his research on creative lives, Progoff discovered that creativity occurs when people approach several kinds of meaningful contents of their life not as inert matter to be manipulated but as personal entities. That is, he discovered that creativity occurs when people acknowledge that each of sev-eral meaningful contents of their life has a life story of its own analogous to 506 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 that of a person. Each of these contents of life has a life story with blockages to growth toward a goal, with hopes, disappointments, successes, and so forth. He found that for the sake of movement toward acceptance of life and all it holds, it is of paramount importance to establish a "dialogue rel~ition-ship" not only with persons and works but witl~ the physical and societal dimensions of life, and with events, situations, and circumstances of life which "just happen." Progoff's research into de facto creative lives yielded two important corollaries. First, the movement which the dialogue relationship fosters is intrinsic to the "creative spirit. Secondly, in the dimension of relationships as well as in other dimensions of life, the factual contents of life are less impor-tant in the creative process than the way people relate to whatever the con-tents of their life are. The "Dialogue Dimension" of the Intensive Journal workbook offers a format for a variety of exercises which enable the Journal writer to engage in written dialogue with people who have played meaningful roles in their life, with work projects, their own body, sources of values in their life (v.g., fami-ly, ethnicity, religious commitment), and things over which they had no con-trol. The purpose of these dialogue scripts is to give a voice to the meaningful contents of life, that is, to provide them a forum in which mutu-ality can flourish in the form of a "dialogue relationship" rather than a mere-ly utilitarian relationship. This leaves the Journal writer open to the possibility of something new emerging from an old relationship from the past. That new something may contribute an insight or an awareness which is of benefit to another relationship or which creatively affects the movement in another dimension of life. The Dimension of Inner Symbols This dimension of life refers to dreams, "twilight imagery" and personal wisdom-figures as the vehicles which come forward spontaneously to carry the movement of life further. The aim of the exercises in this part of the Journal, called the "Depth Dimension," is to facilitate spontaneous correla-tions between inner imagery and outer life so that new insights, awarenesses, and possibilities for action and decision-making might come to the surface of consciousness. Then, by means of appropriate Journal exercises, they can be fed back into the ongoing movement of life and thus stimulate growth by creating new configurations in the way things fit together in life. Progoff tends to shy away from the use of dreams in his method because many people seem unable to deal with them except analytically. The Intensive Journal method of working with dreams is basically to allow the movement Progoffs Intensive Journal Method / 507 in a recurring dream or in a cluster of dreams to suggest some correlation with movement in one of the other dimensions of life. Then the exercitant may use appropriate Journal exercises to work in that dimension of life. The Fourth Dimension: The Spiritual As mentioned above, Progoff sees the Intensive Journal work in geoeral as "a species of prayer and meditation., in the midst of the actuality of our life experiences." However, he came to appreciate the role of the spiritual dimension in creativity only after he had developed Journal exercises in the three dimensions of life treated briefly above. The specifically spiritual dimension is reflected in his program as the dimension of meaning. The procedures for working in that dimension are called "Process Meditation." In the Intensive Journal program, formal work in this dimension is reserved for those who have already taken part in the "Life Context Workshop," which deals with the three dimensions of life treated above. As Rahner has said, "A basic and original transcendental experience is really rooted [in] a finite spirit's subjective and free experience of itself.''5 The "process" of "Process Meditation" refers to "the principle of conti-nuity in the universe" which is found on three levels: the cosmic, the s6ci-etal, and the personally interior.6 The Intensive Journal method helps the individual relate to "process" on the interior level. The movement of life in the three dimensions treated above is character-istically movement toward personal wholeness and the integration of the individual with oneself. Progoff calls that movement "core creativity." "In terms of individual lives," he writes, "the essence of process in human expe-rience lies in the continuity of its movement toward new integrations, the formation of new holistic units [of life/time].''7 In the spiritual dimension of life the movement is characterized by rela-tionships which transcend the core creativity of the individual. The roots of such relationships--even the personal relationship of the individual to God--are to be found in the stuff of everyday life, but at a deeper than ordi-nary level. Rahner speaks of the knowledge of God as "concrete, original, histori-cally constituted, and transcendental." He further says that such knowledge of God "is inevitably present in the depths of existence in the most ordinary human life.''8 Progoff interprets "meditation" broadly. In his usage it refers to whatev-er methods or practices one uses in the effort to reach out toward meaning. "The essence of meditation," he says, "lies in its intention, in its commit- 508 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 ment to work inwardly to reach into the depths beyond the doctrines of our beliefs.''9 Hence, "Process Meditation" refers to a set of exercises which draw on the individual exercitant's intimations or experiences of connected-ness to the principle of continuity in the universe. Progoff describes his method of Process Meditation as follows: Our basic procedure is to reenter the process by which our individual spiritual history has been moving toward meaning . We reenter that pro-cess so as to reconnect ourselves with the inner principle of its move-ment, and especially so that we can take a further step toward the artwork that is our personal sense of meaning,l° Conclusion In a review of The Practice of Process Meditation, William V. Dych, S.J., translator of Rahner into English, compares what Rahner calls "the uni-versal presence of grace and the Spirit" with Progoff's thesis that "there is in every human being an inner source of new light and life that expresses itself whenever the circumstances are right." Dych views Progoff's thesis as so supportive of Rahner's position that it would be hard to imagine a more pos-itive affirmation of it. ~ NOTES i Karl Rahner, The Practice of Faith: A Handbook of Contemporary Spirituality, ed. Karl Lehmann'and Albert Raffelt (New York: Crossroad, 1984), pp. 94-95. 1 Ira Progoff, The Practice of Process Meditation: The Intensive Journal Way to Spiritual Experience (New York: Dialogue House Library, 1980), p. 18. 3 Rahner, op cit, p. ! 86. 4 Ira Progoff, At a Journal Workshop: The Basic Text and Guide for Using the Intensive Journal (New York: Dialogue House Library, 1975), p. 35. 5 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. William V. Dych (New York: The Seabury Press, 1978), p. 75. 6 Progoff, The Practice of Process Meditation, p. 40. 7 Ibid, p. 58. 8 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 57. 9 Progoff, The Practice of Process Meditation, p. 34. l0 Ibid, p. 82. II William V. Dych, "The Stream that Feeds the Well Within," Commonweal, 25 September 1981 Our Journey Inward: A Spirituality of Addiction and Recovery Maureen Conroy, R.S.M. Sister Maureen Conroy is co-director of the Upper Room Spiritual Center; EO. Box 1104; Neptune, New Jersey 07753. [~qany of us travel a great deal throughout our lives. With advanced means of transportation, traveling around the state, country, or world has become second nature to us. However, no matter how much or how far we travel, as we journey through life we discover that there is no journey more challeng-ing and scary than the journey inward, the journey to find true happiness and our most authentic self. We search for what is fulfilling and life-giving, but at times our searching takes us down the dark road of addictive behavior. We search for happiness in compulsive ways that deaden us rather than give us life--until we experience a desperate need for help. In this article I reflect on the darkness pervading the addictive process and some ways to journey through the darkness to our truer self. I discuss three aspects of our journey from addiction to recovery--woundedness and wholeness, powerlessness and surrender, and pain and compassion--and describe some dimensions of a spirituality of addiction and recovery related to these three aspects. A Spirituality of Woundedness and Wholeness As human beings God has given us the gifts of strength and freedom; we are called to live in the light. It is also true, however, that we are wounded, weak, vulnerable, broken people. We come from an environment of dark-ness. The brokenness in our ancestry and the dysfunction in our families has influenced our growth as free human beings. We are broken and we are in deep need of healing and redemption. We cannot save ourselves. In our addictive stance we want to avoid our woundedness, ignore our 509 510 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 weakness, and run from our vulnerability. We seek fulfillment through an object, a substance, or a process; that is, we form a pathological relationship with a mood-altering reality in order to find wholeness and happiness. We find it difficult to be honest about the dysfunction in our families and the brokenness in ourselves, so we look for something outside ourselves to keep us from facing our darkness. Spiritual growth and recovery, however, are just the opposite of this avoidance. To grow humanly and spiritually we must journey in and through our woundedness; we must face it head on. We need to feel the messiness of our brokenness and to discover God there. As Psalm 50 says, "a broken and humbled heart, O God, you will not spurn." We must discover that God's heart of love encompasses and holds as precious our wounded hearts, bodies, and spirits. It is through dwelling in our woundedness and vulnerability that we experience our authentic self and that we enable our addictive self to grow less powerful. We come to experience the child within and integrate our dark side with our light side. How do we make this journey in and through our woundedness? We do it by uncovering our addiction layer by layer. By this I mean we allow the walls of denial and layers of dishonesty to reveal themselves; we honestly appraise our unhealthy behaviorL Denial blocks our inner journey. It is a buffer against any reality thatis not acceptable to us, a way to protect our-selves from awareness of realities that are too difficult to face. Spiritual growth happens when we remove layer upon layer of denial that covers over our woundedness and our truer selves. Rather than avoiding our wounds, we need to expose them to the fresh air, to expose our broken hearts to the heal-ing .heart of God, to bring our darkness out into the light of day, to bring hid-den realities out to the light of God's love and the care of others. As Meister Eckhart says, "God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a pro-cess of subtraction." So it is through peeling off layer upon layer of denial and dishonesty that we discover God in our brokenness. We discover the original blessing that we are, our deeper and truer selves. We see and feel the aspects of ourselves--minds, hearts, and bodies--that mirror God's pres-ence. We experience the truth of the Genesis story where God says, "Let us make people in our image and likeness." We discover the authentic self that God desires to be fully human and fully alive. Growth in wholeness, therefore, takes place through integrating our dark side with our light side, through accepting our brokenness as we journey through it, by seeing the original blessing that we are. We discover that "darkness and light are the same" (Ps 139:12), that God is present in every dimension of our being. Thus, our woundedness becomes a gift, so rather Our Journey Inward / S'l'l than covering it over with layers of denial, we come to feel at home there because God is there. We discover our truer self underneath the layers of an addictive self. We integrate our wounded and blessed self, our darkness and our light, and we become more and more a whole person. We experience the truth proclaimed by St. Irenaeus: "God's greatest glory is a person fully alive." A Spirituality of Powerlessness and Surrender The journey through addiction to recovery is also one of powerlessness and surrender. God sent Jesus in the flesh to free us from our enslavement to sin and to show us the way t6 live in freedom. It was through Jesus' total surrender to his death on the cross that he experienced new life and showed us the way to true freedom, the freedom of letting go and surrender. In our addictive stance, we are trying to control everyone and everything around us. We grow hardheaded and hardhearted, and we attempt to control the sub-stance or process that we are abusing--alcohol, food, money, sex, work, or an obsessive relationship. We are out of control, and the more we try to con-trol everyone and everything around us, even the substance we are abusing, the more out of control we become. Our addiction is enslaving us to our own self-centered needs and desires. We are "number one" when we are addicted; our addictive needs come bei'ore everyone else. Our addiction enslaves us to an object or process that we think is going to bring us lasting happiness when it is really bringing us misery and isolation. It enslaves us emotionally, spiritually, physically, and socially. The more we try to control the use of our addictive reality, the more we lose con-trol. We deny the basic reality that Paul~ expresses: "The desire to do right is within me, but not the power. What happens is that I do, not the good I will, but the evil I do not intend. But if I do what is against my will, it is not I who do it but sin which dwells in me" (Rm 7~18-20). In our denial we keep think-ing we can choose to keep this substance in right order; however, the rbality is that our will is not working, it is diseased. We are powerless. So how does spiritual growth and recovery happen in relation to our being out of control? It begins when we admit our powerlessness, realize the insanity of thinking that we can control all aspects of our lives and our des-tiny. Spiritual growth happens through the journey of surrender, not control; it begins at the moment of surrender. We need to admit that our ability to choose has become greatly impaired through the disease of our addiction. Our trying to choose not to drink, not to overeat, not to overwork, not to engage in compulsive sexual activity, is just not working. Our willpower simply does not work. As we begin to admit our powerlessness and surrender to God, we find 512 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 new life. When we surrender rather than control, we are choosing life: "I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse. Choose life, then, that you may live, by loving the Lord your God, heeding God's voice and holding fast to God. For that will mean life for you" (Dt 30:19-20). As we admit our powerlessness and surrender to God, true power grows within us--the power to love others, the power to experience God's love, and the power to love ourselves. Through our surrender we come more deeply in touch with our authentic self--the self that is alive and not dead, free and not enslaved, joyful and not depressed. True freedom grows--a freedom that heals rather than hurts, that brings about growth rather than destruction, that results in life rather than death. In our surrender we begin to make positive choices for recovery, attend-ing twelve-step meetings and living the twelve-step program. We choose to take responsibility for our lives and our recovery, like the paralyzed man who had lain at the pool of Bethsaida for thirty-eight years until Jesus asked: "Do you want to be healed?" We need to respond to that same question in our addiction because recovery is hard work; it involves a gre.at deal of sacri-fice and responsibility. Also, through our daily admission of powerlessness and constant atti-tude of surrender, we discover God in a new way--a God who supports us in our weakness and strengthens us in time of need, a God who will not leave us even in our most out-of-control moments. We discover in Jesus a God " who has experienced weakness and powerlessness, a God who has stood totally stripped and poor, a God who invites us to have the attitude of a vul-nerable child rather than a controlling adult: "Unless you become like a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom of God." We experience a God whose power takes over in our weakness, as St. Paul discovered through his strug-gle: "Three times [which means numerous times] I begged the Lord that this might leave me. God said to me, 'My grace is enough for you, for in weak-ness power reaches perfection.' " It was through constantly admitting his powerlessness that Paul's spiritual growth and recovery took place. So he says: "I willingly boast of my weaknesses instead, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I am content with weakness., for when I am powerless it is then that I am strong" (2 Co 12:8-10). Thus, through admit-ting our powerlessness over an object of addiction and surrend.ering to God our weakness, we experience the power of God, the love of God, new life, renewed freedom. We move forward on the journey ,of recovery. A Spirituality of Pain and Compassion Finally, the journey through addiction to recovery is one of pain and Our Journey Inward / ~313 compassion. One of the hard facts of life is that suffering is an integral part of it. Jesus himself had to suffer great pain in order to bring new life. Our God is not a distant God but a compassionate God who experienced great pain, the pain of loving us. In our addictive stance, we deal with pain in an unhealthy way. We want to run from it, cover it over, deny it. We are caught in a "Catch 22" situation because, in using a substance to avoid our pain, we are really in great pain-- the pain of loneliness, isolation, and alienation from our true self and from healthy relationships with others. As our addiction progresses, it becomes increasingly painful to maintain our denial. We are overcome by the pain of shame and self-disgust. Spiritual growth and recovery take place when we face that pain, feeling it, looking at it square in the face, rather than avoiding it by abusing a sub-stance. As our walls of denial break down, we begin to feel the pain we have been covering up--the pain of living, the pain of loss, the pain of being human, the pain of developing intimate relationships, the pain of childhood neglect and abuse. We find out that healing involves pain, as in the case of lepers. Leprosy causes numbness. When Jesus healed the leper, he invited him to feel pain in the areas of previous nrmbness. The same is true of the leprosy of our addiction: as we begin to let down the walls of denial, we begin to feel pain. We realize that recovery and healing are not easy. As we journey through deeper levels of pain in our recovery, we discover a God who knows what it is to suffer. As Meister Eckhart says: "Jesus becam~ a human being because God, the Compassionate One, lacked a back to be beaten. God needed a back like our backs on which to receive blows and therefore to perform compassion as well as to preach it." Our compassionate God became a suffering God. Our God feels with us, suffers with us. Again, Eckhart says, "However great one's suffering is, if it comes through God, God suffers from it first." What a gift we have in a God who suffers with us! As we experience this tremendous love of a compassionate God, we become people of compassion, persons who can feel with others in their bro-kenness. We become more vulnerable and grow toward greater wholeness because love is the greatest healer. As our walls of denial are penetrated with God's compassionate love and we become more vulnerable, we can be with people in their brokenness. That is one of the beautiful realities of the twelve-step program: it is a group of people who are in touch with their bro-kenness and therefore have great compassion for those who are struggling. They live out these words of McNeill, Morrison, and Nouwen: "Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in broken-ness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with 514 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human" (Compassion, p. 4). As we feel the pain that our addiction has tried to cover, we become wounded healers--people who minister out of our woundedness as well as our strength. "What you have received as a gift. give as a gift" (Mt 10:8). Our pain becomes a gift that we can give to other addicted people as we compas-sionately help them to face the devastation of their addictive behaviors. In sum, our inward journey involves walking down the dark paths of our brokenness into the light of God's presence and our authentic self. A spiritu-ality of addiction and recovery must include two sides of reality: awareness of our woundedness, powerlessness, and pain as well as growth in wholeness, surrender, and compassion. Without a vivid sense of the depths of our bro-kenness in our addicted self, we cannot move toward the wholeness of our authentic self. Without a keen awareness of our darkness, we are blind to the light of God's healing presence. Without an acute sense of our vulnerability, we cannot become compassionate healers who stand with others in their pain. Though scary and challenging, our journey through our own darkness will lead us to the light of true happiness, deeper fulfillment, and new life. Awareness Examen for Recovering People In God's presence, take ten to fifteen minutes to prayerfully reflect on your day. Contemplate your day together--you and God. Prayer of Thanksgiving I thank God for the gift of this day, the gift of my sobriety, the gift of my recovery. I thank God for specific git~s of life that come to mind, such as my health, my family, my community, my friends, my job, my twelve-step program. I thank God for gifts of my inner life, such as the ability to feel and think, energizing feelings I had during the day (name them), specific values and beliefs that guided my actions, ways I used my thinking and imagination for growth, positive choices for recovery which I made today, God's life within me. I thank God for two or three concrete life gifts and inner gifts that I am particularly aware of and grateful for today. Prayer for Light I humbly ask God to help me see myself and my life today as God sees Our Journey Inward them. I ask God to remove blindness and denial from my mind and heart. I ask God for the gift of honesty with myself and God. I ask God for a dis-ceming heart and a truthful mind. Prayer of Awareness God and I contemplate my life, my heart, and my thinking this day from the moment I woke up until now. What specific feelings did I feel today? When did I feel most alive today? most my true self?, most joyful? most peaceful? most in tune with my deeper self?. How did I feel God's presence today? What was that feeling like? What was God like? At what moment did I feel God's presence the strongest? When did I feel powerless today? out of control? enslaved? unfree? What was I powerless over? Did I surrender that reality to God? When did I feel vulnerable today? When did I feel pain today? What was the pain about? Did I share that painful feeling with God or another? With whom have I been most honest today? myself?, another? God? What was I honest about? How did I struggle with honesty today? With what issue or feeling? ' What were my feelings underneath the struggle? fear? anger? guilt? Which of the twelve steps was my strength today? How did I live it, carry it out, in a practical way? In what concrete ways did I strive to improve my conscious contact with God? What choices did I make for my recovery today? How do I feel about those choices? When did I feel compassion for another person today? How did I reach out to others today? show concem and care? make amends? Prayer of Amends I ask God to forgive any specific wrongdoings of today. I ask God to have mercy on any negative attitudes or feelings that I got stuck in today. Prayer of Surrender I surrender all to God: my life, my will, my brokenness, my addictions, my imagination, my thoughts, my feelings. I surrender to God specific attitudes, feelings, thoughts, actions over which I felt powerless today. I ask God's strength to take over in my specific weaknesses. I ask God's power to be present in the specific areas in which I feel helpless and powerless. 516 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 O God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Take, O Lord, and receive my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me. To you, O God, I return it. All is yours, dispose of it wholly according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for this is sufficient for me. (Prayer from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius) RECOMMENDED READING Larsen, Eamie. Stage H Recovery: Life Beyond Addiction. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985. May, Gerald. Addiction and Grace. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988. McNeill, Donald; Morrison, Douglas; and Nouwen, Henri. Compassion. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1966. Nakken, Craig. The Addictive Personality: Roots, Rituals, Recovery. Center City, Minn.: Hazelden, 1988. Whitfield, Charles L. Healing the Child Within. Pompano Beach, Florida: Health Communications, 1987. A Gift to Share The Jesuit Heritage Today "Ignatian prayer puts the history of salvation into the present tense." --Walter Burghardt, S.J. A Spirituality for Contemporary Life ¯ presents six stimulating reflections on the Jesuit heritage today. Theologians Walter IBurghardt, David Fleming, Monika Hellwig, Jon Sobrino, ElizabethJohnson, andJohn Padberg speak about living with God in ordinary life. ISBN 0-924768-02-9 112 pages List Price $5.95 A Resource to Keep See Order Form Inside Back Cover for Special Offer for Readers of Review for Religious Apostolic Spirituality: Aware We Are Sent James H. Kroeger, M.M. Father James Kroeger last appeared in our pages in May/June 1988. He has a doctor-ate in missiology from the Gregorian University and has published five books. His address: Maryknoll Fathers; EO. Box 285; Greenhills Post Office; 1502 Metro Manila; Philippines. Adequately capturing realities in the spiritual life always demands the use of dynamic, expansive language. For this reason, spirituality is frequently described in relational categories--between a Christian and a personal God, between the servant-herald and the crucified and risen Lord. Such a relation-ship of intimacy is at the heart of biblical spirituality: "I will be your God and you shall be my people"; Christians are Jesus' friends and call their heavenly Father "Abba." Spirituality may also variously be described as growth, an evolution toward maturity, a pilgrimage. Each category presents an authentic, albeit partial, grasp of the human-divine dynamic operative in our lives. In this article, "consciousness" or "awareness" is the category for our insight into spirituality, and it naturally overflows with an apostolic or missionary dynamism. Consciousness: A Window into Spirituality Consciousness may seem to be an elusive concept, yet no one would deny the reality. An individual is in a conscious state when perceptual and cognitive faculties function normally. One continuously synthesizes various stimuli from within and from without; ideally, the result is a healthy personal integration. Notice that many constitutive elements are included in consciousness: seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, desiring, experiencing. Consciousness incorporates perceptions, emotions, observations, thoughts, aspirations, 517 5"11~ / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 choices. It also includes an introspective awareness of the personal impact of all events and experience. In light of this brief and rudimentary description of the phenomenon of human consciousness, one may begin to elaborate the relationship between consciousness and a spirituality of the apostolate. Our service--all focused on raising our God-consciousness and expanding the horizons of our spiritu-al awareness. We want to use our eyes to see perceptively and our ears to hear attentively; we hope to gain deepened insight into our lives through faith's mirror (Jm 1:22-25). In another vein, a look at the venerable Eastern traditions of many Asian nations reveals that the man of God or the God-conscious, God-focused per-son is essentially a seer, sage, or mystic. Such a person "sees" and experi-ences God; God is not an object of knowledge, but a subject of experience. To grow in holistic spirituality is concomitant with an experiential awareness and consciousness of God's presence and activity in all dimensions of one's life (Arguelles, 50-51). The beautiful prayer in the Upanishads, one of the Hindu sacred books, expresses the aspiration and spiritual desire to come to this deeper conscious union with the divine. In Sanskrit and English it is: Asato ma satgamaya Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya Mrutyu ma amrutam gamaya. God, lead me from untruth to truth Lead me from darkness to light Lead me from death to immortality. Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and spiritual writer (1915-1968), has enabled countless people to gain insights into their spirituality. Merton inti-mately links spirituality and prayer with the transformation of conscious-ness. He sees that a renewed conscious awareness underlies all spiritual growth; Christians must cease to assert themselves as the center of con-sciousness and discover God's presence as the deepest center of conscious-ness within them. Thus, as their self-consciousness changes, they are transformed; their self is no longer its own center, it is now centered on God. It is important to note that for Merton no one will ever be capable of communion with God and others without ttiis deep awakening, this transfor-mation of consciousness. Such transformative growth "consists in a double movement, man's entering into the deepest center of himself, and then, after passing through that center, going out of himself to God" (Higgins, 49). Merton asserts that, unless our spirituality or prayer "does something to awaken in us a consciousness of our union with God, of our complete depen- Apostolic Spirituality / 5'19 dence upon him for all our vital acts in the spiritual life, and of his constant loving presence in the depths of our soul, it has not achieved the full effect for which it is intended" (Merton-A, 67). In today's world, "What is required of Christians is that they develop a completely modern and contemporary consciousness in which their experience as men of our century is integrated with their experiences as children of God redeemed by Christ" (Merton-B, 279). The renowned Indian theologian D.S. Amalorpavadass has written elo-quently on the role of consciousness or awareness in attaining spiritual inte-gration and interiorization: "If wholeness is a state of being at which one should finally arrive in stages, awareness is the running thread and unifying force. Awareness needs to flow like a river, like a blood-stream . Awareness is also the core of spirituality and God-experience." He repeats: "Awareness or consciousness should flow through the various actions of our life. One should maintain awareness in all that one does. It should serve as a running thread and connecting bond., through the various activities of our day, and the different periods and stages of our life, in an uninterrupted and continuous flow. This flow will make our whole life a continuous prayer and a state of contemplation" (Amalorpavadass, 4, 24). Brief glimpses of Scripture, Eastern traditions, a Trappist monk, and a contemporary theologian have shown that "consciousness" helps one grasp the human-divine dynamic operative in the Christian life. Within this catego-ry- which is foundational--a vibrant spirituality and a concomitant mis-sionary dynamism can flourish. And, in a Marian spirit, Christians who are missionary will grow ever more conscious of the marvelous deeds that God is accomplishing in us, our neighbors, our society, our Church, and the entire world. The Consciousness of Paul the Missionary The New Testament describes Paul's radical awareness of God's active presence in his life. Though not naturally prone to humility, Paul admits that he was knocked to the/~round; in Damascus "something like scales fell from his eyes," By grace h~ perceived that he was the chosen instrument to bring Good News to the Gentiles and that he would accomplish his mission only with hardship and suffering (Ac 9). Paul's consciousness of his apostolic calling was certainly at the basis of his extraordinary missionary journeys. Without a vivid perception and faith commitment, no one would willingly endure the challenges Paul faced. Such endurance would be foolishness. Yet Paul is never willing, even momentari-ly, to minimize his authority and commitment as an apostle; the introductory 520 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 verses of many of his letters are clear evidence of this. Paul's conversion was no superficial or passing phenomenon. It penetrated the core of his person and totally transformed his way of thinking and acting--his consciousness. Further investigation into Pauline theology and spirituality reveals the depth of his convictions. Paul is absolutely certain that God has a wonderful, marvelous, loving plan of salvation for the entire world (note his frequent use of the words mysterion and oikonomia). His letter to the Ephesians con-vincingly, almost mystically, explains how "God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the mystery,'~ "the mysterious design which for ages was hidden in God." Pauline reflection on God's loving plan of salvation (mysterion) synthe-sizes his belief that this design has been fully revealed in Christ and will be recapitulated in Christ at the end of time. This manifestation is focused on salvation, not condemnation or judgment, and is open to all peoples. It unfolds in stages: God, Jesus, Spirit, Church, world. Humanity's response is faith or personal appropriation of the mysterion (Fitzmyer, 807-808). A recent scholarly investigation (Plevnik, 477-478) has concluded that "Any center of Pauline theology must therefore include all these components of the apostle's gospel, his understanding of Christ, involving the Easter event and its implications, the present lordship, the future coming of Christ, and the appropriation of salvation. The center is thus not any single aspect of Christ, or of God's action through Christ, but rather the whole and undivided richness and mystery of Christ and of the Father's saving purpose through his Son" (mysterion). Mystery, in one word, captures the Christian message. Paul is the missionary par excellence because he believed, lived, prayed, served, reflected, witnessed, preached, and suffered so that God's mysterion would be known, extended, loved, and freely received. Obviously, Paul's missionary consciousness had the "mysterion encounter" as its central focus and driving force. Paul's self-awareness as an apostle was rooted in being chosen as a ser-vant and minister of God's loving plan of salvation. It might be asserted that the mysterion engulfed and consumed Paul; his consciousness was so trans-formed that he could assert that Christ lived in him, that fellow Christians could imitate him, that life or death no longer mattered, and that he gloried in giving his life for Christ. In a word, the mysterion is foundational to Paul's missionary identity and consciousness. Mission and Mysterion Consciousness The Second Vatican Council in its decree on the missionary activity of the Church places mission and evangelization at the center of the Church-- Apostolic Spirituality / 52'1 not allowing this task to float somewhere on the periphery: "The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature" (AG, 2). Pope Paul VI continues in the same vein: "We wish to confirm once more that the task of evangelizing all peoples constitutes the essential mission of the Church . Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize." (EN, 14). To evangelize--what meaning does this imperative have for the Church? It is to be no less than the living proclamation of the mysterion, God's loving design of universal salvation. As the community of Jesus' disciples, the Church realizes her "deepest identity" and "her very nature" when she ful-fills her mission of evangelization. She is to be always and everywhere "the universal sacrament of salvation" (LG, 48; AG, 1). For her, to live is to evangelize. In contemporary terms, the Church accomplishes her "self-realization" or "self-actualization" through mission and evangelization. She is only authentic and true to herself when she is announcing and witnessing the mys-terion. A nonmissionary Church is impossible; it is self-contradictory. The great missionary pope Paul VI writes that the Church "is linked to evange-lization in her most intimate being" (EN, 15); mission is not "an optional contribution for the Church" (EN, 5). In addition, the Church's missionary identity is not a late afterthought of the risen Jesus--though this outlook may seem true today of some Christians and local churches. Animation and rededication are necessary because Christians "are faithful to the nature of the Church to the degree that we love and sincerely promote her missionary activity" (EE, 2). These few paragraphs may invite the comment "I have heard it all before." True, yet all of us often hear without hearing, see without seeing, and listen without comprehending. It is precisely at this juncture that conscious-ness is poignantly relevant. Many Christians do not deny the missionary nature of the Church, but their level of conscious awareness is weak or mini-mal. This fact is unfortunately true even of many full-time Church personnel. The intention here is not to berate or castigate individuals. Rather, it is a stark statement of the need for "consciousness-raising"; it is a call for Christians to expand and deepen their awareness; all urgently need "conscientization-into-mission." In short, the entire Church herself must experience a profound reevangelization in order to become a truly evangelizing community. Recall the themes presented earlier on the centrality of consciousness in Christian life and spirituality. They seem particularly relevant as the Church struggles with her fundamental missionary identity. Is not this a central burn-ing question in the Church today: What has happened to her mission con- 522 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 sciousness--where is its urgency and dynamism--where are the contempo-rary St. Pauls? A rephrasing in mission terms of earlier quotes on consciousness from Amalorpavadass may prove enlightening. Church-as-mission is "the running thread and unifying force"; it "needs to flow like a river, like a blood-stream"; it is at "the core of spirituality and God-experience"; ira"will make our whole life a continuous prayer and state of contemplation." Trinitarian Basis of Mission Consciousness and Spirituality In the same breath that the Vatican Council spoke of the Church's mis-sionary identity, it presented the foundational rationale of mission. In a word, the why of Church-as-mission is Trinitarian, "for it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she takes her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father" (AG, 2). This mission vision, expressed in Trinitarian language, must not frighten or intimidate readers. Do not say, "I do not understand Trinitarian theology, so I cannot grasp this." While a bit difficult and challenging, this insight is also beautiful and rewarding. It transports us to the heart of mission; it flows from the core of our faith in the Trinity; it greatly enhances our mission con-sciousness and spirituality. The most inviting manner to appreciate mission--via the Trinity--is to remember that it is an eminently personal approach. The Father is a person, his son Jesus is a person, their girl of the Spirit is also a person. This is only a statement of a basic dogma of the faith. Grasping the immanence and closeness of the three Persons appears far more fruitful than grappling with the incomprehensibility of the transcendent Trinity (Billy, 602-611). Growth in conscious awareness, experience, and encounter with each of the three Persons richly broadens our vision of mission. It also manifests that mission theology and spirituality draw from the same wellspring. An appre-ciation of the roles of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in mission produces an integrated missiology, incorporating "Abba" theology, Christology, and pneumatology. The result will certainly be a more holistic theology and spir-ituality of mission. Finally, it is the conviction of this author that such an approach relieves some current tensions and answers some questions in mission. For example, debates centered on interreligious dialogue with the living faith traditions of the world can probably be better resolved more from a pneumatological approach than from only a Christological one. Therefore, if mission theology and spirituality are an integrated endeavor, the deepened consciousness will provide insights for both theoretical and practical questions. Apostolic Spirituality / 523 Our attention now tums to the roles of Father, Son, and Spirit in mis-sion. How does each person of the Trinity send and accompany us into mis-sion? Recall the title of this presentation, which links mission and spirituality with a consciousness of being sent. The Role of the Father The Father is presented in Scripture as the harvest master and vineyard owner. Mission, therefore, originates with the Father; mission is God's pro-ject. The Father determines its parameters. Already this awareness places the Church and her evangelizers in an auxiliary, servant role. Vatican II clearly set aside triumphalistic ecclesiology as well as any simplistic identification of the Church and the Kingdom of God. As servant of the kingdom or laborer in the vineyard, the Church is to be "the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery" and the "the initial budding forth of that kingdom" (LG, 3, 5). In addition, the Council, situating the Church within the larger framework of God's design of salvation (mysterion), entitled its first chapter of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church "The Mystery of the Church." The Church and all missioners must radically see themselves serving the mysterion "according to the will of God the Father" (AG, 2). The Father desires generous cooperators and humble workers for the harvest. He freely chooses them and they are to belong to him (Lk 6:13; Mk 3:13-16; Jn 15:15-16). These passages remind evangelizers that all mission is a sending (missio/mittere), originating in the Father; their vocation is God's gratuitous gift. Missioners do not send themselves; mission cannot be defined in legal terms; all must be according to the Father's gracious design. Affirming mission, therefore, as a gratuitous gift in the Father's gracious vision, emphasizes the centrality of grace. Thus, missioners understand, as the country priest in Bernanos' novel says on his deathbed, in all vocations "Grace is everywhere" (Bernanos, 233). Trinitarian mission is always soteriological; its purpose is liberation and salvation. The Father has no other goal, as Paul clearly reminded Timothy: He "wants all to be saved and come to know the truth." Condemnation or rejection are inconsistent with the Father's design (Jn 3:16-17; Mt 18:14). The Father, overwhelmingly "rich in mercy" (Ep 2:4), extends his great love to everyone, as the universalism of both Luke and Paul make clear. All evangelizers have experienced "the kindness and love of God" (Tt 3:4); it is out of their deep consciousness of the Father's personal graciousness that they journey to all places, peoples, and cultures. They are aware that they have received all as girl, and they desire to give all with the same generosity (Mt 10:8). Any missioner would relish being described as "rich in mercy." 594 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 The Father cannot be surpassed in his kindness and generosity (Jm 1:5, 17); his mercy is made concrete and visible when he sends Jesus, his Son. This is definitely a new mode of God's presence with his people; it is love in personal form. This unfolding of the mysterion far surpasses previous mani-festations of Yahweh's presence to his people Israel (Heb 1:1-2). Missioners strive to be continuations of the love of God manifested personally in Jesus, and this approach brings transformation and deepened consciousness. Our discussion of the Father's role in mission carries us back to the heart of the Trinity: God is love (1 Jn 4:8), and all manifestations flow from this identity. No less than the inner life of the Trinity is founded on the dynamism of divine love. Thus, the mysterion necessarily is a loving design since it arises "from that 'fountain of love' or charity (fontalis amor) within God the Father" (AG, 2). It is imperative that missioners and evangelizers become mystics like John the Evangelist (see 1 Jn 4:7-21); nothing less can explain the love of God for a fallen world and rebellious humanity. No other motivation is ade-quate to the missionary calling--of the entire Church. Mother Teresa of Calcutta has named her congregation the Missionaries of Charity, and she never tires, of reminding her audiences that this is the fundamental vocation of all Christians. It sounds fantastic, but it is true: The love of the Trinity is personally poured into our hearts and it transforms all evangelizers into mis-sionary messengers of God's limitless love. Knowing our personal God as the font of love is the highest level of consciousness possible. Mission spiri-tuality becomes a conscious centering on Trinitarian love. This is the solid missiology-become-spirituality promoted by Vatican II. The Mission of the Son Jesus declares openly that he has been sent by his loving Father; the phrase "the Father who sent me" occurs forty-six times in the Gospel of John. And a salvific thrust is evident in the missioning of Jesus by his Father. Vatican II expresses Jesus' missioning as a reconciling presence "to establish peace or communion between sinful human beings and himself . Jesus Christ was sent into the world as a real mediator between God and men" (AG, 3). In Paul's theology, mediation and reconciliation are vital ele-ments of the mysterion (2 Co 5:19; Col 1:13; Rm 5:1)~ Jesus' continuing "Abba experience" (Kavunkal, 9-15), enabling him to faithfully accomplish his mission, has several dimensions: his coming or proceeding from the Father (noted above), his remaining with the Father (Jn 10:38; 16:32), and his eventual return to the Father (Jn 16:5; 7:33; 13:36). This means that Jesus fulfills his mission in light of a particular conscious- Apostolic Spirituality / 525 ness: continual intimacy with his Father. Luke tells us that, before making such a decisive move in his ministry as the choice of the Twelve, Jesus "went out to the mountains to pray, spending the night in communion with God" (Lk 6:12). Mission in the Jesus mode has its source, continuation, and fulfill-ment in the Abba experience. This dimension of Jesus' living of his mission provides evangelizers an inviting model for their own mission consciousness. In its holistic vision of God's design for salvation, the Council sees the Church as continuing, developing, and unfolding "the mission of Christ him-self" (AG, 5). The apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (13-16, 59-60) and the pastoral statement on world mission of the United States Bishops To the Ends of the Earth (25-27) also confirm mission as an ecclesial act in fidelity to Jesus. Contemporary evangelizers, cognizant of the Jesus-Church continuity, seek to live and witness as the community of Jesus' followers. They recall his promises (Mt 16:18; 28:20), but readily admit they are fragile "earthen vessels." They faithfully accept that "Christ in his mission from the Father is the fountain and source of the whole apostolate of the Church" (AA, 4). A missioner's model is "sentire cum ecclesia'" (feel and think with the Church), frankly admitting that one is "simuljustus et peccator" (concomi-tantly both upright and sinful). Who among Jesus' followers does not need a deeper consciousness of these realities? Central to the mission of Jesus is the mystery of the Incarnation: "The Son of God walked the ways of a true incarnation that he might make men sharers in the divine nature" (AG, 3). This radical identification of our broth-er Jesus with us mortals (Heb 4:15) makes us rich out of his poverty (2 Co 8:9). He became a servant (Mk 10:45) and gave his life "as a ransom for the many--that is, for all" (AG, 3). Consistently, Church Fathers .of both East and West have held that "what was not taken up [assumed] by Christ was not healed" (Abbott, 587, note 9). Thus, when Jesus took to himself our entire humanity, he healed, renewed, and saved us. In brief, incarnation is the fundamental pattern of all mission. Today evangelizers are deeply conscious of the ramifications of mission as incarnation. No missioner worthy of the name underestimates the impor-tance of indigenization and inculturation; they develop a spirituality of "depth identification," becoming as vulnerable as Jesus was in his humanity. This same pattern is the model of growth and development of all local churches (AG, 22). While it is certain that the mission of Jesus is initiated at the Incarnation, his baptism by John in the Jordan is an act of public commitment and conse-cration to mission. Jesus pursues his ministry; though it will encounter grow- 526 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 ing opposition and lead to the human disaster of Calvary, he will not betray his commitment. Note that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all juxtapose Jesus' baptism and the triple temptation in the wilderness. The tactic of Satan is to subvert Jesus with possessions, pride, and power; at the core, all Satan's promises tempt Jesus to renege on his dedication to mission. The more conscious an evange-lizer becomes of the struggle involved in mission faithfulness, the closer he will be drawn to Jesus. "who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." The missioner will constantly and with confidence "approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and favor and to find help in time of need" (Heb 4:15-16). Instructive for the Church and her evangelizers is an appreciation of the continual action of the Spirit in the life of Jesus. The creed affirms that he was conceived "by the power of the Holy Spirit." The same Spirit descends on Jesus at the moment of his baptism (Mt 3:17); he is led by the Spirit to the desert (Mt 4:1); he returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit (Lk 4:14); he begins his preaching mission at Nazareth asserting that "the Spirit of the Lord is upon me" (Lk 4:18). As Jesus was empowered by the Spirit, he sends forth his own disciples saying: "Receive the Holy Spirit" (Jn 20:22). Peter (Ac 4:8), Paul (Ac 9:17), Stephen (Ac 6:5; 7:55), and those who listened to their preaching (Ac 10:44) were all filled with the Spirit. In fact, the entire nascent Church brims with the Spirit's presence (Ac 2:4), and thus the community increases while it enjoys the consolation of the befriending Spirit (Ac 9:31). Jesus, his disci-ples, and likew.ise today's evangelizers all are in mission through the mar-velous action of the Spirit (Kroeger-A, 3- 12). Concretely in the practical order, Jesus carries out his mission through evangelization--proclaimiog the GoodNews of the Kingdom. The first words that Mark places on Jesus' lips are centered on this very theme (Mk 1"15). Luke also portrays Jesus' mission as focused on glad tidings to the "little ones of this world" (Lk 4:18-19). As Paul VI has noted, this theme "sums up the whole mission of Jesus" (EN, 6). Jesus could not be impeded in his ministry: "I must announce the good news of the reign of God, because that is why I was sent" (Lk 4:43). Contemporary evangelizers, reflecting on the urgency and scope of Jesus' kingdom proclamation, will find themselves imitating Jesus' ministry as he lived it in silence, in action, in dialogue, in teaching, and in prayer. Yes, the Good News of the Kingdom for Jesus means an integral, holistic approach to evangelization--because all dimensions of the total gospel are expressions of his enduring love (Jn 13:1). Apostolic Spirituality / 527 Jesus' entire life, from the Incarnation to the Ascension, was a procla-mation. All he said and did were a testimony to the Father's loving design (Jn 3:31-35; 7:16; 8:38; 14:24). Jesus existed on nothing else; his "suste-nance/ food/meat" was to do the will and work of the one who sent him (Jn 4:34). In everything Jesus was faithful to the Father. Reflective, insightful evangelizers interiorize the fidelity mind-set of Jesus (Ph 2:5); they also imitate St. Paul in his concern for faithful transmis-sion of the message of Jesus preserved by the Church (1 Co 15:3, 11). In prayer and meditation missioners refocus themselves on Jesus and his king-dom, and often this demands setting aside personal opinions and ambitions. Mother Teresa of Calcutta notes that Jesus does not always call us to be suc-cessful, but he always invites us to be faithful. This fidelity to Jesus and his message should not be interpreted in too narrow a sense. As announcers of Good News, we consciously interiorize Jesus' gospel values; however, we seek to transmit them to humanity in all its cultural, social, religious, and politico-economic diversity. Certainly, this is a fantastic challenge; it is central to contemporary evangelization. Paul VI expressed it wisely and poignantly: "This fidelity both to a message whose servants we are and to the people to whom we must transmit it living and intact is central axis of evangelization" (EN, 4). Lifestyle is key in any vision of evangelization. For our contemporaries, who willingly listen only to witnesses (not theoreticians), the missioner's authenticity and transparency are generally the first elements in evangeliza-tion; wordless witness is already a silent, powerful, and effective proclama-tion. It is an initial act of evangelization (EN, 21, 41). Jesus himself adopted a particular, concrete lifestyle. His mind-set was fidelity and obedience to his Father; his outward manner manifested the lived values of poverty, total dedication, persecution, apparent failure. The Church and her evangelizers "must walk the same road which Christ walked, a road of poverty and obedience, of service and self-sacrifice to the death" (AG, 5). Bluntly, there is no authentic Christian mission without the cross and all its surprises, foolishness, and scandal (1 Co 1:18-25). True mission is always signed by the cross, and without it we cannot be Jesus' disciples. The evan-gelizer is always generous in bearing a personal share of the hardships which the gospel entails (2 Tm 1:8). Constantly the Christian disciple is measuring his life and apostolate against the lifestyle of Jesus and the patterns of the gospel. Sustained prayerful reflection and an ever deepening consciousness of one's personal relationship with the Trinity are the unique way of interior-izing the paradox of the cross and the power of the resurrection. 528 / Review for Religious, July-August 1991 An anonymous poet, speaking of the centrality of the Incarnation and Redemption in Christianity, noted that there are no definitions in God's dic-tionary for these terms. One must search for the meaning of Bethlehem and Calvary under another category. Their significance is to be found only when one reads how God defines love. Indeed, God's loving plan of salvation is a message of hope for all peo-ples. It is universal and should be preached and witnessed "to the ends of the earth." To spread this universal message demands great dedication and faith, as seen in the practical advice that Paul gave to Timothy (2 Tm 4:1-5). The evangelizer, conscious of his role in the actualization of the mysteri-on, will surrender enthusiastically to the invitation of Jesus: Come and fol-low me in my mission. This conscious surrender will open his eyes to perceive, not so much what his efforts are accomplishing, but how Father, Son, and Spirit are working fruitfully in and through his life. With this vision, contemplation and actibn harmoniously blend and sustain one anoth-er; the evangelizer experiences living the mysterion. Eventually, all will be recapitulated in Christ and God will be

ABSTRAKSI Pemekaran Wilayah kecamatan Tombariri Timur menjadi sebuah kecamatan sangat berdampak pada pelayanan public di wilayah tersebut. Hal itu terlihat khususnya dalam hal administrasi pengurusan Kartu Keluarga yang menjadi objek penelitian tulisan ini. Metode dalam penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif yang akan menggambarkan proses administrasi pembuatan Kartu Keluarga di kecamatan Tombariri Timur serta memperbandingkannya dengan proses yang sama pada saat sebelum di mekarkan. Untuk menganalisa tulisan ini akan menggunakan konsep pemerintah tentang pelayanan public yang tertuang dalam Kepmenpan No. 63 Tahun 2003. Kata Kunci : Pemekaran Wilayah, Dampak dan Pelayanan Publik PENDAHULUAN Memasuki era reformasi pemekaran wilayah atau pembentukan daerah otonomi baru semakin marak sejak disahkanya UU No. 22 Tahun 1999 tentang Otonomi Daerah yang kemudian direvisi menjadi UU No. 32 Tahun 2004. Satu hal yang tidak dapat dipungkiri bahwa pemekaran wilayah ini jelas mempunyai dampak pada pelayanan public. Tuntutan dari pemekaran wilayah yang terjadi selama ini pada umumnya didasari oleh ketidakterjangkauan pemerintah dalam menjalankan fungsi pelayanan yang maksimal sebagai akibat dari luasnya wilayah dan perkembangan jumlah penduduk disamping sarana dan prasarana penunjang lainnya. Hal itu mengakibatkan terjadinya kesenjangan dalam masyarakat, dimana masyarakat yang posisinya relative dekat dengan pusat pemerintahan dengan masyarakat yang relative jauh dari pusat pemerintahan. Seiring dengan era reformasi tersebut pelayanan public juga perlu dilakukan reformasi, baik dari segi paradigma, visi, misi, kebijakan/strategi, hingga konsep pelayanan publik yang prima dan implementasinya. Di beberapa daerah memang hal itu sudah dilakukan walaupun dalam kenyataannya masih berupa langkah awal yang masih memerlukan tindak lanjut dan kerja keras untuk mewujudkannya secara nyata. Fungsi utama pemerintah daerah menurut Undang Undang Nomor 32 Tahun 2004 tentang Pemerintah Daerah yakni sebagai pelayan masyarakat. Berdasarkan peradigma tersebut aparat pemerintah daerah termasuk aparat pemerintah kecamatan dituntut untuk dapat memberikan pelayanan optimal kepada masyarakat. Sebagai konsekuensi dari ditetapkannya Undang-Undang Nomor 32 Tahun 2004, dimana Pemerintah Daerah diberikan kewenangan yang demikian luas oleh Pemerintah Pusat untuk mengatur rumah tangga daerahnya sendiri, termasuk didalamnya adalah pemberian pelayanan kepada masyarakat di daerahnya. Namun berbagai isu yang muncul di kalangan masyarakat, ternyata hak pelayanan yang diterima oleh masyarakat atau perorangan terasa belum memenuhi harapan semua pihak baik dari kalangan masyarakat umum maupun dari kalangan pemerintah sendiri. Pelayanan masyarakat yang diberikan oleh aparatur pemerintah seringkali cenderung rumit dan memiliki masalah seperti : Tata cara pelayanan, rendahnya pendidikan aparat, kurangnya sarana dan prasarana, dan disiplin kerja. Hal tersebut jelas sangat berpengaruh terhadap kualitas pelayanan umum di daerah termasuk di kecamatan Tombariri Timur. Kecamatan Tombariri Timur ini merupakan wilayah yang baru dimekarkan pada tahun 2012 dari wilayah induk yaitu kecamatan Tombariri. Pemekaran wilayah ini diperkuat dengan Peraturan Daerah Kabupaten Minahasa No. 3 Tahun 2012, tentang Pembentukan Kecamatan Tombariri Timur. Seperti yang terjadi pada wilayah-wilayah yang baru dimekarkan, pelayanan public yang sebenarnya menjadi alasan untuk dilakukan pemekaran tersebut justru menjadi masalah yang krusial. Demikian halnya yang terjadi di wilayah kecamatan Tombariri Timur. Hal ini bagi penulis cukup menarik untuk dielaborasi lebih lanjut untuk mengetahui kenapa itu bisa terjadi. Sehingga penulis tertarik melakukan penelitian tentang dampak dari pemekaran wilayah Kecamatan Tombariri Timur terhadap pelayanan public di wilayah ini, khususnya dalam hal pelayanan administrasi pengurusan Kartu Keluarga. Perumusan Masalah Melihat latarbelakang yang sudah diuraikan diatas maka penulis merumuskan masalah yang akan diteliti adalah sebagai berikut : "Bagaimanakah Dampak Pemekaran Terhadap Pelayanan Publik di Kecamatan Tombariri Timur Khususnya Dalam Pelayanan Administrasi Pengurusan Kartu Keluarga? Tujuan Penelitian Untuk mengetahui bagaimanakah dampak dari pemekaran Wilayah Tombariri Timur terhadap pelayanan aparatur pemerintahan Kecamatan Tombariri Timur, khususnya dalam hal proses pelayanan administrasi pengurusan Kartu Keluarga (KK) kepada Masyarakat. Manfaat Penelitian Hasil penelitian ini diharapkan dapat memiliki manfaat : 1. Manfaat Praktis: Diharapkan hasil penelitian ini dapat memberikan kontribusi, masukan/ sumbangan bagi Aparatur Pemerintah Kecamatan dalam memberikan pelayanan yang berkualitas kepada masyarakat. 2. Manfaat Teoritis: Diharapkan hasil penelitian ini akan menambah referensi bagi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan dibidang sosial politik khususnya menyangkut dampak pemekaran wilayah khususnya pemekaran wilayah kecamatan terhadap pelayanan public. TINJAUAN PUSTAKA A. Dampak Secara etimologis pengertian dampak adalah pengaruh kuat yang mendatangkan akibat baik negative maupun positif. Dampak negative adalah pengaruh kuat yang mendatangkan akibat yang negative, sedangkan dampak positif merupakan sebaliknya yaitu pengaruh kuat yang mendatangkan akibat positif. ( W.J.S Poerwadarminta, Kamus besar Bahasa Indonesia, 2005). B. Pemekaran Pemekaran adalah sesuatu bagian yang utuh atau suatu kesatuan yang dibagi atau dipisahkan menjadi beberapa bagian yang berdiri sendiri. (Poerwadarminta, 2005). Jadi dengan demikian daerah/wilayah pemekaran adalah suatu daerah/wilayah yang sebelumnya satu kesatuan yang utuh yang kemudian di bagi atau dimekarkan menjadi beberapa bagian untuk mengatur dan mengurus urusan pemerintahannya sendiri. Undang-undang No. 32 tahun 2004 tentang pemerintahan daerah mengisyaratkan perlunya pembentukan daerah baru yang dimaksudkan untuk meningkatkan pelayanan kepada masyarakat guna mewujudkan kesejahteraan masyarakat. Pamudji (2000) mengatakan bahwa dalam rangka pembentukan suatu daerah atau wilayah pemekaran diperlukan adanya suatu ukuran sebagai dasar penetapan. Pembentukan dan pemekaran wilayah yang baru harus didasarkan atas pembagian-pembagian yang bersifat objektif dengan memperhatikan segi pembiayaan sumber daya manusia serta sarana penunjang lainnya. Gie (2002) menyebutkan lima factor yang harus diperhatikan dalam pembentukan / pemekaran suatu wilayah yaitu : Luas daerah suatu wilayah sedapat mungkin merupakan suatu kesatuan dalam perhubungan, pengairan dan dari segi perekonomian dan juga harus diperhatikan keinginan penduduk setempat, persamaan adat istiadat serta kebiasaan hidupnya.Pembagian kekuasaan pemerintahan dalam pembentukan/pemekaran hendaknya diusahakan agar tidak ada tugas dan pertanggungjawaban kembar dan harus ada keseimbangan antara beratnya kewajiban yang diserahkan dengan struktur di daerah.Jumlah penduduk tidak boleh terlampau kecil.Pegawai daerah sebaiknya mempunyai tenaga-tenaga professional dan ahli.Keuangan daerah yang berarti terdapat sumber-sumber kemakmuran yang dimilikki oleh daerah itu sendiri. Menurut Peraturan Pemerintah No 78 Tahun 2007, pemekaran daerah/wilayah adalah pemecahan suatu pemerintah baik propinsi, Kabupaten/Kota, Kecamatan, Desa / Kelurahan menjadi dua daerah atau lebih. Menurut Peraturan Pemerintah No. 129 Tahun 2000, tentang persyaratan pembentukan dan kriteria pemekaran, penghapusan dan pengabungan daerah, pada pasal 2 menyebutkan pemekaran daerah/wilayah bertujuan untuk meningkatkan kesejahteraan masyarakat melalui : Percepatan pelayanan kepada masyarakatPercepatan pertumbuhan kehidupan demokrasiPercepatan pertumbuhan pembangunan ekonomi daerahPercepatan pengelolaan potensi daerahPeningkatan keamanan dan ketertibanPeningkatan hubungan yang serasi antara pusat dan daerah. Maarif (2003) merumuskan tujuan dan manfaat kebijakan pemekaran wilayah sebagai berikut : Secara Politis adalah untuk menjaga tetap tegak dan utuhnya Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia berdasarkan Pancasila dan UUD 1945 yang dikonstruksikan dalam system pemerintahan pusat dan daerah yang memberi peluang turut sertanya rakyat dalam mekanisme penyelenggaraan pemerintahan dan pembangunan.Secara Formal/Konstitusional adalah untuk meningkatkan daya guna dan hasil guna penyelenggaraan pemerintah di daerah terutama dalam pelaksanaan pembangunan dan pelayanan pemerintahan didaerah terutama dalam peningkatan pelaksanaan pelayanan terhadap masyarakat serta meningkatkan kestabilan politik dan kesatuan bangsa.Secara Administratif Pemerintahan, adalah untuk memperlancar dan menertibkan pelaksanaan tata pemerintahan sehingga dapat terselenggara secara efektif, efisien dan produktif. T Liang Gie (2003), mengemukakan beberapa alasan mengapa kebijakan pemekaran wilayah harus diberlakukan, yaitu : Dilihat dari sudut politik, pembentukan suatu daerah/wilayah yang baru dimaksudkan untuk mencegah penumpukan kekuasaan pada satu pihak saja yang bisa menimbulkan tirani.Dalam bidang politik sebagai tindakan pendemokrasian untuk menarik rakyat ikut serta dalam pemerintahan dan melatih diri dalam mempergunakan hak-hak demokrasi. Dari sudut teknik organisasi pemekaran daerah/wilayah adalah untuk mencapai suatu pemerintahan yang efisien.Dari sudut kultur diharapkan perhatian dapat sepenuhnya dilimpahkan pada kekhususan suatu daerah seperti geografi, keadaan penduduk, kegiatan ekonomi, watak kebudayaan atau latar belakan sejarahnya.Dari sudut kepentingan pembangunan ekonomi diperlukan karena pemerintah daerah dapat lebih bnyak dan secara langsung membantu pembangunan. C. Kecamatan Menurut Peraturan Pemerintah No. 19 Tahun 2008, tentang Kecamatan, pada Bab 1, pasal 1 ayat 5 dikatakan bahwa yang dimaksud dengan kecamatan adalah wilayah kerja camat sebagai perangkat daerah kabupaten kota. Pembentukan sebuah kecamatan menurut Peraturan ini, dapat berupa pemekaran 1 (satu) kecamatan menjadi 2 (dua) kecamatan atau lebih, dan/atau penyatuan wilayah desa dan/atau kelurahan dari beberapa kecamatan. Selain itu pembentukan sebuah Kecamatan harus memenuhi beberapa persyaratan yaitu : syarat Administratif, syarat Teknis dan syarat Fisik Kewilayahan. Yang dimaksud dengan syarat administrative, seperti yang diisyaratkan dalam Peraturan Pemerintah No. 19 Tahun 2008, tentang Kecamatan, pada Bab II dipasal 4 dinyatakan bahwa : Batas usia penyelenggaraan pemerintahan minimal 5 (lima) tahun;Batas usia penyelenggaraan pemerintah desa dan atau kelurahan yang akan dibentuk menjadi kecamatan minimal 5 (lima) tahun;Keputusan BAdan Permusyawaratan Desa (BPD) atau nama lain untuk Desa dan Forum Komunikasi Kelurahan atau nama lain untuk Kelurahan diseluruh wilayah kecamatan baik yang menjadi calon cakupan wilayah kecamatan baru maupun kecamatan induk tentang persetujuan pembentukan kecamatan.Keputusan Kepala Desa atau nama lain untuk Desa dan Keputusan Lurah atau nama lain untuk kelurahan di seluruh wilayah kecamatan baik yang menjadi calon cakupan wilayah kecamatan baru maupun kecamatan induk tentang persetujuan pembentukan kecamatanRekomendasi Gubernur. Sedangkan yang dimaksud dengan syarat fisik kewilayahan, seperti yang diisyaratkan dalam Peraturan Pemerintah No. 19 Tahun 2008, tentang Kecamatan, pada Bab II dipasal 5, dinyatakan bahwa : syarat fisik kewilayahan meliputi cakupan wilayah, lokasi calon ibukota, sarana dan prasarana pemerintahan. Cakupan wilayah dimaksud adalah jumlah desa dan kelurahan yang ada diwilayah yang akan dimekarkan, sementara menyangkut lokasi calon ibukota harus diperhatikan aspek tata ruang, ketersediaan fasilitas, aksesbilitas, kondisi dan letak geografis, kependudukan, social ekonomi, social politik, dan social budaya. Sedangkan yang dimaksud dengan sarana dan prasarana disini meliputi bangunan dan lahan untuk kantor camat yang dapat digunakan untuk memberikan pelayanan kepada masyarakat. Disamping 2 persyaratan yang sudah dijelaskan tersebut maka terdapat satu syarat lagi yaitu syarat teknis, yang meliputi jumlah penduduk, luas wilayah, rentang kendali penyelenggaraan pelayanan pemerintahan, aktifitas perekonomian dan ketersediaan sarana dan prasarana. Persyaratan teknis tersebut harus berdasarkan hasil kajian yang sudah dilakukan pemerintah kabupaten/kota sesuai indicator yang sudah ditetapkan. D. Pelayanan Publik Pelayanan publik dapat diartikan sebagai pemberian layanan (melayani) keperluan orang atau masyarakat yang mempunyai kepentingan sesuai dengan aturan pokok dan tata cara yang telah ditetapkan. Menurut Lay, sebagaimana dikemukakan oleh Ratminto dan Atik Septi Winarsih (2005 : 56), dalam ilmu politik dan administrasi publik, pelayanan publik atau pelayanan umum merupakan istilah yang mengambarkan bentuk dan jenis pelayanan pemerintah kepada masyarakat atas dasar kepentingan umum. Pengertian pelayanan umum menurut Keputusan Menteri Pendayagunaan Aparatur Negara Nomor 63/KEP/M.PAN/&/2003 adalah segala kegiatan pelayanan yang dimaksudkan oleh penyelenggara pelayanan publik sebagai upaya pemenuhan kebutuhan penerima pelayanan maupun pelaksanaan ketentuan perundang-undangan. Adapun yang dimaksud penyelenggaraan pelayanan publik adalah Instansi Pemerintah. Pada hakekatnya Pemerintahan adalah pelayanan kepada masyarakat, oleh karenanya birokrasi publik berkewajiban dan bertanggung jawab untuk memberikan layanan baik dan profesional. Pelayanan publik (public services) oleh birokrasi public adalah merupakan salah satu perwujudan dari fungsi aparatur negara sebagai abdi masyarakat di samping sebagai abdi negara dengan maksud untuk mensejahterakan masyarakat. Menurut Kamus Bahasa Indonesia dinyatakan bahwa pelayanan ialah suatu usaha untuk membantu menyiapkan atau mengurus apa yang diperlukan orang lain. Dalam pelayanan yang disebut konsumen (customer) adalah masyarakat yang mendapat manfaat dari aktifitas yang dilakukan oleh organisasi atau petugas organisasi pemberi pelayanan. Selanjutnya, pelayanan publik berdasarkan SK MenPan No.81/1993 adalah segala bentuk kegiatan pelayanan umum yang dilaksanakan oleh instansi pemerintah dan BUMN/D dalam bentuk barang dan jasa, baik kebutuhan masyarakat, maupun pelaksanaan ketentuan peraturan perundang-undangan. E. Administrasi Kependudukan Berdasarkan Undang-undang Nomor 23 Tahun 2006, Administrasi Kependudukan adalah rangkaian kegiatan penataan dan penertiban dalam penerbitan dokumen dan data kependudukan melalui pendaftaran penduduk, pencatatan sipil dan pengelolaan informasi serta pendayagunaan hasilnya untuk pelayanan publik dan pembangunan. Dimana pendaftaran penduduk adalah pencatatan biodata penduduk, pencatatan atas pelaporan peristiwa kependudukan. Dokumen kependudukan dapat berupa kartu indentitas atau surat keterangan kependudukan. Dokumen kependudukan merupakan dokumen resmi yang diterbitkan oleh instansi pelaksana yang mempunyai kekuatan hukum sebagai alat bukti autentik yang dihasilkan dari pelayanan pendaftaran penduduk dan pencatatan sipil. Peristiwa kependudukan meliputi pindah datang, perubahan alamat, serta status tinggal terbatas menjadi tinggal tetap yang dialami penduduk harus dilaporkan karena membawa akibat terhadap penerbitan atau perubahan kartu keluarga, kartu tanda penduduk dan/atau surat keterangan kependudukan lainnya. Pendaftaran penduduk dilakukan pada instansi pelaksana yang daerah tugasnya meliputi domisili atau tempat tinggal penduduk. Pendaftaran penduduk melayani Penerbitan Kartu Keluarga (KK), melayani penerbitan Kartu Tanda Penduduk (KTP) dan melayani peristiwa kependudukan/mutasi penduduk. F. Kartu Keluarga Berdasarkan Undang-Undang Nomor 23 Tahun 2006, tentang Administrasi Kependudukan serta Peraturan Presiden No. 25 Tahun 2008, tentang persyaratan tata cara pendaftaran penduduk dan pencatatan sipil, dikatakan Kartu Keluarga adalah Kartu Identitas Keluarga yang memuat data tentang susunan hubungan dan jumlah anggota keluarga. Kartu Keluarga wajib dimiliki oleh setiap keluarga. Kartu ini berisi data lengkap tentang identitas Kepala Keluarga dan anggota keluarganya. Kartu keluarga dicetak rangkap 3 yang masing-masing dipegang oleh Kepala Keluarga, Ketua RT dan Kantor Kelurahan. Kartu Keluarga (KK) adalah Dokumen milik Pemda Propinsi setempat dan karena itu tidak boleh mencoret, mengubah, mengganti, menambah isi data yang tercantum dalam Kartu Keluarga. Setiap terjadi perubahan karena mutasi data dan mutasi biodata, wajib dilaporkan kepada Lurah dan akan diterbitkan Kartu Keluarga (KK) yang baru. Pendatang baru yang belum mendaftarkan diri atau belum berstatus penduduk setempat, nama dan identitasnya tidak boleh dicantumkan dalan Kartu Keluarga. METODOLOGI PENELITIAN A. Metode Penelitian Penelitian ini disusun berdasarkan metode kualitatif yang lebih bersifat deskriptif. Metode kualitatif digunakan untuk meneliti kondisi objek alamiah yang yang didasarkan pada fakta-fakta yang ada (Sugioyono,2006). Sebagaimana suatu penelitian dibidang pengetahuan sosial maka model penelitian ini dinyatakan dalam ciri-ciri sebagai berikut : Memusatkan perhatian pada masalah yang ada saat penelitian dilakukan atau masalah-masalah aktual.Menggambarkan tentang masalah yang diselidiki sebagaimana adanya diiringi dengan interpretasi rasional yang cermat dan teliti (Nawawi,1995). B. Fokus Penelitian Dalam penelitian kualitatif terdapat fokus penelitian yang membatasi masalah untuk diteliti. Pada penelitian ini fokus yang ditetapkan adalah melihat dampak pemekaran wilayah kecamatan Tombariri Timur terhadap pelayanan public khususnya pelayanan administrasi pengurusan Kartu Keluarga di kantor kecamatan Tombariri Timur. C. Instrumen Penelitian Dalam penelitian ini, yang menjadi instrumen penelitian adalah peneliti itu sendiri. Menurut Sugioyono (2006), pada penelitian kualitatif peneliti sebagai human instrumen berfungsi menetapkan fokus penelitian, memilih informan sebagai sumber data, melakukan pengumpulan data, menilai kualitas data, analisis data, menafsirkan dan membuat kesimpulan atas temuannya. D. Teknik Pengumpulan Data Data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini diperoleh dengan observasi, wawancara langsung dengan informan kunci dan triangulasi. Pendekatan yang diajukan dalam wawancara yakni menggunakan petunjuk umum wawancara dengan membuat kerangka dan garis-garis besar pokok-pokok yang ditanyakan dalam proses wawancara yang terfokus pada permasalahan penelitian (Patton dalam Moleong, 2001). Disamping kedua tehnik ini digunakan juga studi kepustakaan untuk memperoleh data sekunder yang berasal dari berbagai laporan, terbitan, buletin dan sebagainya yang dianggap relevan dengan penelitian ini. F. Teknik Analisis Data Data yang berhasil dikumpulkan diolah dan dianalisis dengan tahapan-tahapan sebagai berikut : Mengedit data, pada tahapan ini seluruh data sudah terkumpul baik melalui wawancara maupun pengamatan, langsung diadakan pengeditan. Pengeditan dilakukan pada akhir-akhir proses pengamatan dan wawancara.Reduksi data, dilakukan setelah data dibaca, dipelihara dan diteliti kembali dengan cara membuat abstraksi. Abstraksi merupakan usaha membuat rangkuman inti penelitian.Mengkategorikan dalam satuan-satuan, pengkategorian ini berdasarkan sumber-sumber data, teristimewa data yang diperoleh dari hasil wawancara dan pengamatan. Selanjutnya data tersebut disusun dalam bentuk satuan-satuan yang menyangkut sumber, jenis informan, lokasi da memilah-milah menjadi kategori tertentu atas dasar pemikiran, intuisi dan pendapat berdasarkan fokus penelitian kemudian diberikan kode untuk menjaga kerahasiaan informan.Penafsiran data, dilakukan sepanjang penelitian, dimana setiap data yang terkumpul langsung dilakukan penafsiran. Data kegiatan ini dilakukan setelah proses wawancara dan pengamatan diklasifikasikan untuk memperjelas data agar setiap data yang diperoleh dianggap bermakna.Menguji keabsahan data, ini dilakukan dengan cara membaca kembali dokumen-dokumen tertulis yang dikumpulkan kemudian dibandingkan dengan data yag diperoleh dari hasil wawancara dan pengamatan.Penarikan kesimpulan, diawali dengan menetapkan pola hubungan lain dan lain-lain yang terfokus pada jawaban atas permasalahan yang telah dirumuskan sebelumnya sekaligus menjawab tujuan penelitian. HASIL DAN PEMBAHASAN A. HASIL PENELITIAN A.1. Pemekaran Wilayah Dan Pelayanan Publik Pemekaran wilayah pada dasarnya bertujuan untuk lebih mendekatkan jarak antara pemerintah sebagai pelaksana pelayanan public dengan masyarakat sebagai penerima pelayanan. Pemekaran wilayah juga bertujuan untuk menjadikan pelayanan public bisa menjadi lebih efektif dan efisien. Namun yang sebenarnya yang menjadi tujuan utama dari pemekaran wilayah adalah meningkatkan kesejahteraan masyarakat di wilayah yang dimekarkan. Ironisnya, tidak sedikit yang terjadi pada wilayah yang baru dimekarkan justru beberapa fungsi pelayanan public tidak berjalan sebagaimana yang diharapkan. Hal tersebut disebabkan oleh beberapa hal diantaranya kesiapan dari aparatur yang ditempatkan diwilayah yang baru dimekarkan itu. Salah satu masalah utama yang sering ditemui di wilayah-wilayah yang baru dimekarkan biasanya adalah kendala dalam mengisi struktur-struktur pemerintahan yang berfungsi melakukan pelayanan public. Hal ini jelas berdampak pada penyelenggaraan pelayanan public bagi masyarakat. Masyarakat sebagai pihak yang dilayani tentunya mengharapkan bisa mendapatkan pelayanan yang maksimal dari pihak-pihak yang sudah diberikan wewenang untuk itu. Pihak-pihak dimaksud adalah aparat pemerintah khususnya dalam hal ini yaitu aparatur pemerintah kecamatan termasuk di Kecamatan Tombariri Timur. Pemekaran wilayah selayaknya sudah melalui pertimbangan-pertimbangan disamping memperhatikan persyaratan yang sudah diatur pemerintah dalam PP No. 129 tahun 2000 yang telah disempurnakan dengan PP No. 17 Tahun 2008 tentang pembentukan suatu daerah otonom. Dalam peraturan pemerintah tersebut sudah diatur bahwa pembentukan daerah otonom yang baru dimungkinkan dan harus memenuhi faktor-faktor antara lain : kemampuan ekonomi, potensi daerah, sosial budaya, sosial politik, jumlah penduduk, luas daerah disamping factor lain yaitu keamanan dan ketertiban, sarana dan prasarana, rentang kendali yang memungkinkan terselenggaranya otonomi daerah seperti yang diharapkan. Dalam melakukan penelitian tentang dampak pemekaran wilayah Tombariri Timur terhadap pelayanan public, penulis melakukan wawancara mendalam (deep interview) dengan beberapa pihak yang penulis anggap bisa memberikan data tentang objek yang diteliti. Pihak-pihak yang dimaksud selain dari pemerintah kecamatan sebagai penyedia pelayanan di kecamatan Tombariri Timur, juga beberapa pihak yang merupakan penerima layanan di kecamatan yang dalam hal ini anggota masyarakat. Dari hasil wawancara yang dilakukan diperoleh kesimpulan : - Informan FT. (42 tahun), tingkat pendidikan S1, selaku Camat Kecamatan Tombariri Timur Berdasarkan hasil wawancara untuk mengetahui bagaimanakah dampak pemekaran wilayah Kecamatan Tombariri Timur terhadap pelayanan public khususnya pelayanan administrasi kependudukan yang dalam penelitian ini di fokuskan pada pembuatan Kartu Keluarga yang dilakukan aparat pemerintah kecamatan Tombariri Timur kepada masyarakat, FT mengatakan : " Setelah ditetapkan menjadi kecamatan, warga Tombariri Timur jelas terbantu, karena jarak menuju kantor untuk mereka mengurus administrasi kependudukan termasuk Kartu Keluarga menjadi lebih dekat. Sebagai pemerintah yang diamanatkan rakyat, kami berusaha menjalankan tugas kami dengan semaksimal mungkin sesuai dengan peraturan yang ada. Dalam melayani masyarakat khususnya dalam setiap pengurusan hal-hal yang menyangkut administrasi kependudukan, kami berusaha memenuhi akan setiap kebutuhan masyarakat tentunya dengan mekanisme dan ketentuan yang ada. Dalam proses pembuatan Kartu Keluarga, sebagai pelayan masyarakat kami selalu mengsosialisasikan pada pada masyarakat akan persyaratan yang dibutuhkan dan ini juga berlaku untuk setiap pengurusan administrasi kependudukan yang lain, agar supaya dalam proses pembuatannya tidak mengalami hambatan-hambatan yang ada. Selaku aparatur pemerintah yang salah satu tugasnya melayani masyarakat, kami berusaha untuk melayani masyarakat semaksimal mungkin, dan saya selalu menginstruksikan pada seluruh staf saya, untuk menjadi pelayan masyarakat yang baik, agar proses penyelenggaraan pemerintahan yang baik dapat dicapai. Mengenai biaya dan waktu penyelesaian, hanya berupa biaya partisipasi pembuatan sebesar Rp 10.000 dan waktu penyelesaian dapat dilakukan secepat mungkin". - Informan VL, (48 tahun), tingkat pendidikan S1, salah seorang staf kecamatan Tombariri Timur. Berdasarkan hasil wawancara untuk mengetahui bagaimanakah dampak pemekaran wilayah Kecamatan Tombariri Timur terhadap pelayanan public khususnya pelayanan administrasi kependudukan yang dalam penelitian ini di fokuskan pada pembuatan Kartu Keluarga yang dilakukan aparat pemerintah kecamatan Tombariri Timur kepada masyarakat, VL mengatakan : " Dalam proses pembuatan kartu keluarga tidaklah memiliki banyak persyaratan, adapun persyaratan-persyaratan yang harus disediakan masyarakat hanyalah surat keterangan dari kepala desa/lurah, akte perkawinan, dan mengisi formulir permohonan pembuatan kartu keluarga yang disediakan oleh pemerintah kecamatan, selanjutnya pemerintah kecamatan meneruskan permohonan pembuatan kartu keluarga, dalam hal ini di dinas capil. Dalam proses pembuatan kartu keluarga sampai selesai memakan waktu 3hari, namun agar proses pembuatan dapat dengan cepat, masyarakat dapat membuatnya langsung di dinas capil. Dan untuk biaya administrasi dalam proses pembuatan kartu keluarga yaitu Rp 10.000. didalam menjawab akan setiap kebutuhan masyarakat, tentunya kami sebagai pemerintah berusaha semaksimal mungkin sesuai dengan peraturan yang ada untuk melayani akan setiap kebutuhan masyarakat dengan sebaik-baiknya". - Informan SY, (30 tahun), tingkat pendidikan S1, salah seorang warga Tombariri Timur. "Memang setelah sudah ada kantor kecamatan yang lebih dekat seperti sekarang jelas sudah lebih enak untuk mengurus surat-surat di kecamatan. Cuma kalau menyangkut aspek-aspek dalam pelayanan itu masih relative. Karena yang berubah cuma jarak dari rumah dengan kantor kecamatan saja". A.2. Aspek-Aspek Dalam Pelayanan Publik. Kepuasan dan kenyamanan atas sebuah layanan publik tentunya tidak mutlak hanya milik segelintir orang saja selayaknya hal itu menjadi milik semua pihak. Penyelenggaraan pelayanan publik yang berkeadilan sudah menjadi dambaan dan harapan serta dinantikan oleh warga masyarakat sebagai pengguna layanan. Sudah menjadi sebuah keharusan bagi para elit birokrasi dan aparatur pemerintah untuk terus menapaki proses belajar sosial yang mengarah pada kualitas layanan publik sesuai dengan apa yang telah diamanatkan dalam UU No. 25 Tahun 2009 Tentang Pelayanan Publik. Pelayanan publik yang dilakukan juga harus berdasarkan pada prinsip-prinsip penyelenggaran pelayanan publik di Indonesia yang diatur dalam Kepmenpan No. 63/KEP/M.PAN/7/2003 Tentang Pedoman Umum Penyelenggaraan Pelayanan Publik yakni prinsip kesederhanaan, kejelasan, kepastian waktu, akurasi, keamanan, tanggung jawab, kelengkapan sarana dan prasarana kerja, kemudahan akses, K3 (kedisiplinan, kesopanan, dan keramahan), dan kenyamanan. Kecamatan Tombariri Timur sebagai salah satu wilayah yang baru dimekarkan, dalam menjalankan fungsi pelayanan publiknya juga dituntut agar dapat memperhatikan aspek-aspek tersebut karena hal itu menyangkut efektif dan efisiennya sebuah pelayanan public. Untuk mengetahui hal ini penulis melakukan wawancara dengan beberapa pihak yang dianggap memiliki kapasitas dalam pemberian data yang diteliti. Dari hasil wawancara yang dilakukan, untuk apakah prinsip-prinsip pelayanan seperti yang disyaratkan oleh Kepmenpan No. 63 Tahun 2003, tentang Pedoman Umum Penyelenggaraan Pelayanan Publik, sudah dijalankan sebagaimana dengan seharusnya, diperoleh kesimpulan yang dapat dijabarkan sebagai berikut: a. Aspek Kesederhanaan, Aspek kesederhanaan yang dimaksud disini adalah apakah tatacara pelayanan yang dilakukan bersifat mudah, lancar, tepat, tidak berbelit-belit serta mudah dipahami oleh masyarakat. Dari aspek ini setelah dianalisa berdasarkan hasil wawancara yang dilakukan, bahwa pelayanan yang dilakukan oleh aparatur pemerintah Kecamatan Tombariri Timur dalam proses pembuatan Kartu Keluarga sudah dilakukan dengan baik, dengan memberikan pelayanan dengan baik sesuai dengan ketentuan yang ada, dan tidak mempersulit warga masyarakat. Hal ini dibuktikan lewat wawancara yang dilakukan pada Informan VR (45 tahun), salah satu staf kantor kecamatan Tombariri Timur, dimana hasil yang didapatkan : "Dalam memberikan pelayanan pada masyarakat kami selalu melakukannya dengan sebaik mungkin dengan tidak mempersulit setiap masyarakat yang membutukan pelayanan kami, dalam proses pelayanan yang menyangkut administasi kependudukan, menyangkut Kartu Keluarga misalnya masyarakat hanya perlu menyediakan syarat-syarat yait:, surat keterangan dari kepala desa, akte nikah, dan mengisi formulir permohonan pembuatan kartu keluarga yang disediakan oleh kecamatan, dan didalam pelayanan yang ada kami tidak melakukan pungutan selain biaya adminitrasi yang ada". Pernyatan salah satu staf tersebut kembali dibuktikan lewat wawancara yang dilakukan pada informan TP (47 tahun) salah seorang warga Tombariri Timur, yang mengatakan : "Pelayanan yang diberikan pada saya oleh petugas kecamatan menurut saya sudah baik, dimana pada saat saya menyediakan syarat-syarat administrasi untuk membuat Kartu Keluarga, secara lengkap, petugas pun dengan sigap melayani saya dengan segera memberikan formulir untuk di isi dan memberikan arahan-arahan bagaimana mengisi formulir dengan baik agar tidak terjadi kesalahan dalam pengisian". Dengan demikian dapat dikatakan pelayanan yang diberikan dilihat dari aspek kesederhanaan sudah baik, dimana pelayanan mudah, yang tidak melalui proses yang rumit serta lancar tanpa adanya sikap yang berbelit-belit, sehingga masyarakat pun merasa nyaman dan puas terhadap pelayanan yang diberikan. b. Aspek Kecakapan Dan Kehandalan Petugas Pelayanan Suatu pelayanan agar bisa maksimal tentunya dipengaruhi oleh bagaimana kecakapan dan kehandalan petugas yang menjalankan pelayanan. Artinya petugas yang berfungsi melakukan pelayanan hendaknya menguasai keterampilan serta pengetahuan pelayanan yang dibutuhkan, sesuai dengan jenis pelayanan yang diberikan. Dari hasil wawancara yang dilakukan pada informan ER (37 tahun), salah satu petugas kecamatan Tombariri Timur : "Pada saat masyarakat akan melakukan pembuatan kartu keluarga, aparat/petugas segera memberitahu persyaratan yang ada dan proses yang akan dilalui oleh masyarakat, dengan demikian masyarakat pun mengetahui dan mengerti mengenai layanan yang dia butuhkan, disamping itu juga bagaimana aparat/petugas selalu memberi tahu masyarakat mengenai jenis pelayanan dan apa saja yang harus disediakan masyarakat misalnya didalam pembuatan kartu keluarga, masyarakat harus menyediakan surat keterangan dari kepala desa, akte nikah, dan nantinya akan mengisi formulir permohonan kartu keluarga". Dari aspek ini, dapat dikatakan bahwa keterampilan dan keahlian aparat/petugas Kecamatan dalam memberikan pelayanan pada masyarakat sudah baik, hal ini dibuktikan dengan keterampilan dan pelayanan sesuai dengan yang dibutuhkan, dimana dalam proses pembuatan Kartu Keluarga aparat mengetahui segala jenis persyaratan yang dibutuhkan dan juga semua persyaratan yang lain sesuai dengan jenis pelayanan. c. Aspek Keramahan Suatu aspek penting yang juga menentukan apakah pelayanan yang diberikan sudah berkualitas adalah sikap yang ditunjukan atau bagaimana perlakuan petugas pelayanan didalam memberikan pelayanan kepada masyarakat, baik dari kesabaran menghadapi masyarakat, penuh perhatian, empati dan persahabatan, sehingga pelayanan yang bersifat ramah terhadap masyarakat dapat terwujud. Dari hasil wawancara yang dilakukan pada informan RM ( 32 tahun), salah seorang warga masyarakat, pada saat akan mengurus proses administrasi untuk membuat Kartu Keluarga, di kantor kecamatan Tombariri Timur, mengatakan : "Sikap yang ditunjukan oleh petugas yang ada, dengan memberikan salam yang menandakan sikap persahabatan, dan juga bagaimana tutur kata saat melakukan komunikasi dengan masyarakat, dan juga cara pelayanan yang dilakukan pada saat masyarakat belum jelas dan mengerti mengenai persyaratan yang dibutuhkan, dengan sikap yang sopan dengan tutur kata yang baik, petugas pun memberikan penjelasan dengan baik dan masyarakat pun merasa nyaman merasa bahwa dirinya dihargai dan dihormati lewat sikap yang ditunjukan." Dari aspek ini, dapat disimpulkan bahwa, pelayanan yang dilakukan oleh aparatur Pemerintah Kecamatan Tombariri Timur dalam proses pembuatan Kartu Keluarga sudah baik dengan menunjukan sikap yang ramah dalam memberikan pelayanan kepada masyarakat. d. Aspek Kejelasan Dan Kepastian Pelayanan Aspek kejelasan dan kepastian dalam pelayanan khususnya yang menyangkut biaya atau ongkos dalam memperoleh pelayanan merupakan hal yang penting dalam sebuah proses pelayanan. Di kecamatan Tombariri Timur, dari aspek ini dapat disimpulkan bahwa kejelasan mengenai biaya pelayanan dalam mengurus Kartu Keluarga masih pada taraf yang wajar tanpa ada pungutan atau apapun itu yang harus dibayarkan oleh masyarakat. Kesimpulan tersebut diperoleh penulis setelah melakukan wawancara dengan informan FR (43 tahun), salah satu petugas kecamatan dimana ia mengatakan: "Biaya administrasi yang dikenakan pada masyarakat masih pada taraf yang wajar yaitu Rp10.000 dan tidak ada pungutan lain selain biaya administasi tersebut. Pendapat yang sama juga dikatakan oleh informan KM (27 tahun) salah seorang warga masyarakat yang ketika penulis melakukan penelitian kebetulan sedang mengurus Kartu Keluarga di Kecamatan Tombariri Timur, menurutnya pengakuannya : " Biaya yang saya bayar pada saat proses administrasi untuk pembuatan Kartu Keluarga sebesar Rp 10.000 dan aparat atau petugas kecamatan tidak melakukan pungutan-pungutan lain selain biaya administrasi tersebut." Hal yang sama juga dikatakan oleh beberapa warga masyarakat yang sempat ditemui penulis saat melakukan penelitian. Namun mengenai waktu selesai dalam proses pembuatan Kartu Keluarga perlu mendapat perhatian oleh pemerintah. Hal itu terkait dari hasil penelitian yang dilakukan, belum ditemukannya kejelasan dan kepastian pelayanan mengenai waktu selesai. Dari wawancara yang dilakukan pada beberapa warga masyarakat diperoleh waktu yang bervariasi. Menurut pengakuan informan NU (45 tahun), salah seorang warga yang mengurus Kartu Keluarga ketika di wawancara penulis, mengatakan : " waktu yang yang dibutuhkan ada yang 1 jam, 45 menit, bahkan ada yang sampai 2 jam". Padahal dari wawancara yang dilakukan pada petugas kecamatan, mereka mengatakan bahwa waktu yang dibutuhkan dalam proses administrasi pembuatan Kartu Keluarga yaitu hanya 15 sampai 20 menit saja. Terdapat variasai waktu yang ditemukan, namun menurut mereka hal itu masih pada taraf yang wajar karena tidak sampai berhari-hari. e. Aspek Ekonomis Aspek ekonomis di sini yang dimaksud adalah berapa biaya dan tenaga yang dibutuhkan dalam pengurusan administrasi Kartu Keluarga. Biaya menyangkut ongkos yang diperlukan dalam mengurus administrasi Kartu Keluarga. Tenaga di sini dimaksudkan adalah berapa pihak yang harus dilalui dalam pengurusan adminstrasi Kartu Keluarga tersebut. Dapat dikatakan bahwa pelayanan yang diberikan oleh aparatur Pemerintah Kecamatan Tombariri Timur dalam proses pembuatan Kartu Keluarga sudah sesuai dengan ketentuan yang ada dan pengenaan biaya pada taraf yang wajar dan sesuai dengan ketentuan yang ada, namun tidak bisa dipungkiri bahwa, dalam proses pelayanan yang ada, masyarakat masih ada yang memberikan uang kepada petugas dengan harapan petugas bisa memberikan layanan ekstra. Padahal menyangkut biaya sebagaimana yang sudah dijelaskan dari aspek kejelasan mengenai biaya administrasi yang dikenakan berdasarkan hasil penelitian yang dilakukan pada masyarakat dan petugas kecamatan yaitu sebesar Rp 10.000 (sepuluh ribu rupiah), tanpa ada pungutan lain atau biaya lain diluar biaya administrasi tersebut. Hal ini seperti yang dijelaskan oleh AR : "Sebenarnya menyangkut prosedur dan biaya pengurusan sudah jelas diatur bahkan sudah ditempel di dinding, namun terkadang masih ada saja masyarakat yang mencoba untuk menyogok petugas agar mendapat pelayanan ekstra". f. Kelengkapan sarana dan prasarana kerja Berdasarkan observasi yang dilakukan penulis terlihat bahwa sarana dan prasarana pendukung kantor sudah cukup tersedia. Ketersediaan sarana dan prasarana seperti alat tulis kantor, meja, kursi, telepon, komputer, dan printer yang berada pada kantor dirasakan sudah cukup untuk membantu penyelesaian pekerjaan sehingga tidak ada pekerjaan yang terbengkalai akibat tidak adanya peralatan yang dibutuhkan segera. Hal ini seperti pengakuan dari salah seorang petugas DT kepada peneliti : "Kalau sarana prasarana yang tersedia di kantor sudah cukup sehingga tidak ada alasan untuk menghambat proses pelayanan". g. Kemudahan Akses - Ketersediaan Angkutan Umum Menuju Lokasi Kantor Pengguna pelayanan umumnya mengatakan ketersediaan angkutan umum sudah cukup, dikarenakan untuk perjalanan dari tempat tinggalnya umumnya sudah ada. Hal ini seperti yang diakui oleh JR : "Jika dibandingkan dengan sebelum dimekarkan untuk mencapai lokasi kantor tempat pengurusan relatif lebih dekat dan kendaraan umum yang lewat dikantor ini banyak". - Kondisi Jalan Menuju Kantor Masyarakat pengguna pelayanan menyatakan bahwa kondisi jalan menuju kantor sudah cukup baik, walaupun pada beberapa koridor jalan masih ada jalan yang rusak. Namun perbaikan jalan menuju lokasi banyak dijalankan seperti penambalan lubang, penambahan lebar jalan, atau pengaspalan walaupun belum menjangkau seluruh koridor jalan yang ada. Hal ini juga sesuai dengan hasil observasi yang penulis lakukan. Selain itu hal ini sejalan dengan pengakuan dari RM : "Walaupun kondisi jalan ini belum dapat dikatakan baik, namun terlihat berbagai usaha pemerintah untuk melakukan perbaikan sudah dilakukan, seperti pelabaran dan penambalan lubang-lubang yang ada". h. Kenyamanan Keyamanan merupakan salah satu syarat yang harus dipenuhi dalam suatu proses pelayanan public. Hal itu bisa tercermin diantaranya dari : - Kondisi kantor yang berkaitan dengan kebersihan dan keindahan. Pengguna pelayanan menyatakan bahwa kondisi kantor seperti kebersihan dan keindahan, secara keseluruhan sudah baik, hal ini dikarenakan kondisi bangunan kantor yang masih baru dibangun dan digunakan. Akan tetapi, pemeliharaan kondisi kantor sangat diperlukan lebih lanjut dikarenakan pada kantor sudah mulai terlihat kotoran tinta dan kertas, dinding sudah mulai ada yang retak, dan kaca yang berdebu. Mengenai kondisi kantor yang terkait dengan kebersihan juga diakui oleh beberapa masyarakat yang sempat ditemui oleh peneliti, seperti JK yang mengatakan : " Kebersihan kantor sangat baik walaupun dibeberapa dinding sudah terlihat agak kotor. Ini kan masih kantor baru, jadi masih kelihatan bersih" - Ketersediaan fasilitas pendukung seperti ruang tunggu, parkir, toilet. Pengguna pelayanan beranggapan bahwa ketersediaan fasilitas pendukung seperti ruang tunggu, parkir, toilet, dan tempat ibadah dirasakan oleh pengguna sudah cukup. Akan tetapi, pengguna banyak yang complain/mengeluh terhadap ruang tunggu yang minim atau tempat duduk yang dirasakan masih kurang banyak untuk memfasilitasi pengguna pelayanan yang datang. Pengakuan terkait dengan hal tersebut seperti yang diungkapkan oleh beberapa anggota masyarakat yang sempat ditemui oleh peneliti, diantaranya FR, yang mengatakan : " Ini kantor so bagus cuma kwa de pe ruang tunggu kacili deng de pe kursi masih kurangcaba lia banya orang yang dating baurus so nyanda dapa tampa dudu for batunggu. Seharusnya rupa itu kursi harus tamba supaya masyarakat yang datang ba urus bisa antri sesuai dengan de no antrian deng supaya tertib nyanda kaluar maso seperti sekarang". B. PEMBAHASAN Seperti yang diungkapkan oleh Maarif (2003) bahwasanya Pemekaran wilayah secara Formal/Konstitusional adalah untuk meningkatkan daya guna dan hasil guna penyelenggaraan pemerintah di daerah terutama dalam pelaksanaan pembangunan dan pelayanan pemerintahan didaerah terutama dalam peningkatan pelaksanaan pelayanan terhadap masyarakat serta meningkatkan kestabilan politik dan kesatuan bangsa. Dari hasil temuan di lapangan yang diperoleh, dampak dari pemekaran wilayah kecamatan Tombariri Timur terhadap pelayanan public sudah dapat dikatakan tidak ada masalah walaupun dibeberapa aspek pelayanan masih belum sesuai dengan yang diharapkan oleh masyarakat, apalagi sesuai dengan konsep pelayanan public yang ideal. Namun begitu berbagai usaha pemerintah daerah dalam upaya peningkatan kaulitas pelayanan sudah terlihat dan dilakukan dengan bersungguh-sungguh walaupun masih jauh dari sempurna. Hal tersebut juga diakui oleh beberapa informan yang sempat ditemui oleh peneliti mereka pada dasarnya dapat memaklumi hal tersebut karena pemekaran wilayah ini masih baru dilakukan ketika peneliti melakukan penelitian. Hal itu seperti yang diungkapkan oleh MT (45) ketika ditanya oleh peneliti mengenai pelayanan yang masih belum sesuai dengan yang diharapkan. Menurut MT : Kalo dilihat dari pelayanan yang diberikan oleh petugas saat pengurusan Kartu Keluarga memang masih jauh dari sempurna, karena seringkali waktu menjadi masalah terbesar yang sering dialami oleh masyarakat. Namun hal itu dapat dipahami oleh masyarakat karena jumlah petugas yang ada juga terkait dengan pengalaman dari petugas yang melayani. Selain MT sebagian besar informan yang ditemui peneliti mempunyai pendapat serupa mengenai dampak pemekaran wilayah mereka menjadi kecamatan sendiri terhadap pelayanan public yang tersedia sekarang. Sebagian besar mengatakan bahwa pelayanan public sudah lebih baik dari sebelum wilayah mereka di mekarkan. Walaupun demikian, menurut mereka masih ada beberapa aspek pelayanan yang memerlukan perbaikan seperti dari aspek kesederhanaan, kejelasan, kepastian waktu, dan kemudahan akses dalam proses pelayanan public khususnya dalam pengurusan administrasi pembuatan Kartu Keluarga. Penilaian masyarakat terhadap kualitas penyelenggaraan pelayanan public yang menurut mereka sudah baik tersebut, didasarkan pada penilainan mereka terhadap prosedur pelayanan yang mudah dipahami dan dilaksanakan, pengetahuan petugas bagian yang akan mengurusi, pegawai berkompeten terhadap tugas dan fungsinya, pegawai mudah ditemui, urusan sesuai dengan yang dikehendaki, adanya bukti tanda terima yang diberikan, pegawai bertanggung jawab terhadap penyelesaiaan urusan, keluhan mengenai proses pelaksanaan urusan diterima dan diproses lebih lanjut, ketersediaan sarana dan prasarana pendukung kantor yang cukup, ketersediaan angkutan umum menuju lokasi kantor cukup, kondisi jalan menuju lokasi kantor cukup, penampilan pegawai kantor bersih dan rapih, perilaku pegawai ramah dan sopan, kondisi kantor seperti kebersihan, keindahan, dan kenyamanan yang baik, dan ketersediaan fasilitas pendukung yang cukup. PENUTUP A. Kesimpulan Dampak dari pemekaran wilayah Tombariri Timur terhadap pelayanan public sudah dapat dikatakan baik walaupun masih jauh dari ideal.Berbagai usaha untuk meningkatkan pelayanan public oleh pemerintah daerah sudah dapat dikatakan berjalan baik namun masih diperlukan berbagai usaha maksimal untuk lebih mendekatkan tujuan pemekaran wilayah ini dengan pelayanan public.B. Saran 1. Perlu adanya kejelasan prosedur pelayanan publik sehingga tidak ada kesan kalau pegawai berusaha untuk mempersulit prosedur pelayanan. 2. Adanya transparansi biaya yang dikeluarkan sehingga pada akhir pelayanan tidak ada pungutan liar yang tidak sesuai dengan kesepakatan yang telah disetujui sebelumnya. 3. Adanya kepastian waktu penyelesaiaan urusan sesuai waktu yang telah dijanjikan jangan melewati waktu yang dijanjikan atau bahkan lebih cepat dari waktu yang dijanjikan. 4. Adanya kejelasan dalam hal persyaratan teknis dan administratif yang diberikan oleh pegawai sehingga masyarakat pengguna menjadi jelas dan mengerti. 5. Pegawai sebaiknya berkomitmen dan berkompeten dalam menyelesaikan urusan sesuai dengan yang dikehendaki pengguna pelayanan. DAFTAR PUSTAKA A. Buku Dan Artikel G T Liang (2003), Pertumbuhan Pemerintahan Daerah Negara RI, Liberti Yogyakarta. Maarif, S, (2003), Strategi Peningkatan Kompetensi Aparatur Guna Mengantisipasi Kebutuhan Sektor Pelayanan Publik, STIA LAN, Bandung. Moleong. L.T, (2001), Metodologi Penelitian Kualitatif. PT. Rineka Rosda Karya Bandung. Nawawi. H, (1995), Metodologi Penelitian Bidang Sosial. Gadjah Mada University Press, Yokyakarta. Pamudji (2000), Kepemimpinan Pemerintahan di Indonesia, Balai Pustaka Indonesia, Jakarta. Ratminto dan Atik Septi Winarsih. (2005), Manajemen Pelayanan, Yogyakarta: Pustaka Belajar. Sugioyono, (2006), Metode Penelitian Kuantitatif Dan Kualitatif R&D Pitabeta, Bandung. W.J.S Poerwadarminta, (2005), Kamus besar Bahasa Indonesia. B. Peraturan Perundangan : UU No. 22 Tahun 1999, Tentang Pemerintahan Daerah Undang-Undang Nomor 23 Tahun 2006, Tentang Administrasi Kependudukan UU No. 32 Tahun 2004, Tentang Pemerintahan Daerah. Peraturan Pemerintah No. 17 Tahun 2008 tentang pembentukan suatu daerah otonom Peraturan Pemerintah No. 19 Tahun 2008, tentang Kecamatan Peraturan Pemerintah No 78 Tahun 2007, pemekaran daerah/wilayah Peraturan Pemerintah No. 129 Tahun 2000, tentang persyaratan pembentukan dan kriteria pemekaran, penghapusan dan pengabungan daerah Peraturan Presiden No. 25 Tahun 2008, tentang persyaratan tata cara pendaftaran penduduk dan pencatatan sipil Keputusan Menteri Pendayagunaan Aparatur Negara Nomor 63/KEP/M.PAN/&/2003 Tentang Pengertian Pelayanan Umum Surat Keputusan Menteri Pendayaan Aparatur Negara No.81 Tahun 1993, Tentang Pelayanan Publik Peraturan Daerah Kabupaten Minahasa No. 3 Tahun 2012, tentang Pembentukan Kecamatan Tombariri Timur.

ÖZET10 Kasım 1938 tarihinde Mustafa Kemal Atatürk'ün hayatını kaybetmesi ile bir-likte Cumhurbaşkanı olan İsmet İnönü ülke yönetiminde en yetkili kişi haline gelmiştir. İnönü'nün CHP ve ülke yönetimindeki adete tek kişilik hakimiyeti ( Milli Şef ) Celal Bayar başta olmak üzere dönemin CHP'li milletvekili ve yöneticilerinde tepkiye neden olmuştur. Bir şahsın parti ve ülke yönetimindeki hakimiyetine İkinci Dünya Savaşı'nın da etkisiyle halkın büyük çoğunluğunda oluşan ekonomik sıkıntının ve iktidarın halkın muhafazakarlığı ile çelişen eğitim ve sosyal alanlardaki uygulamaları CHP ve dışındaki siyasi çevrelerde ve halkın büyük bir bölümünde muhalif bir tutumun oluşmasına neden olmuştur. Bu süreç hükümetin birtakım radikal uygulamaları ile birlikte örgütlü bir mu-halif hareketin doğmasına neden olmuştur. Yukarıda belirtilen nedenlerden kaynaklanan ve açıktan açığa bir söylem ve ey-leme dönüşmeyen CHP milletvekillileri içindeki bireysel tavırlar ilk defa Çiftçiyi Top-raklandırma Kanunu teklifi sırasında ortaya çıkmıştır. CHP milletvekilleri Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü ve Refik Koraltan, 14 Mayıs 1945 tarihinde bu kanun teklifinin TBMM'de görüşülmeye başlaması ile birlikte hükümetin bu uygulamasına karşı tavırlarını yaptıkları konuşmalar ile ortaya koymuşlardır. Fakat esasen bu kanun tasarısının TBMM'ye sunulmasından önce CHP içinde muhalif bir grubun oluşması Tevfik Rüştü Aras'ın evinde yapılan perşembe toplantılarıyla başlamıştır. 1945 yılının Nisan ayından itibaren Tevfik Rüştü Aras'ın evinde bir araya gelen Emin Sazak, Adnan Menderes ve Fuat köprülü CHP'nin, İsmet İnönü'nün otoritesi altında olduğunu ifade etmişler ve bu durumu değiştirmek gerektiği üzerinde durmuşlardır. İkinci defa bir ara-ya gelen Adnan Menderes ve Fuat Köprülü demokratik bir merkez oluşturma konusun-da görüş birliğine varmışlardır. Daha sonraki toplantılara Refik Koraltan da katılmıştır. Adnan Menderes, partide ve toplum içinde etkili olan Celal Bayar'ı bu gruba katmak gerektiğini açıklamıştır. Celal Bayar ile yapılan toplantı sonunda o da gruba dahil ol-muştur. Grup üyeleri 18 Mayıs 1945 tarihinde yapılan toplantıda CHP Meclis Grubuna vermeyi düşündükleri Dörtlü Takriri hazırlamışlardır.Takrir verilmeden önce TBMM'de 1945 yılı devlet bütçesinin oylamasına katı-lan üç yüz yetmiş üç milletvekilinden İzmir Milletvekili Celal Bayar, Aydın Milletve-kili Adnan Menderes, İçel Milletvekili Refik Koraltan, Kars Milletvekili Fuat Köprülü ve Eskişehir Milletvekili Emin Sazak bütçeye karşı aleyhte oy kullanmışlardır. Cumhu-riyet Dönemi'nde ilk defa bir bütçeye karşı aleyhte oy kullanılmıştır. Böylece muhalif tavırlarını ikinci defa ortaya koymuşlardır. Grup üyeleri 7 Haziran 1945 tarihinde Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü ve Refik Koraltan'ın imzası ile Dörtlü Takrir'i CHP Meclis Grubu Başkanlığı-na vererek muhalif tutumlarını somutlaştırmışlardır. Takrirde CHP'nin işleyişinin de-mokratik ilkelere uygun hale getirilmesini ve TC. Anayasası'nda var olan vatandaş hak ve hürriyetlerinin tanınması talep etmişlerdir. Bu takrir 12 Haziran 1945 tarihinde CHP Meclis Grubu'nda görüşülmüş ve red-dedilmiştir. Takririn reddedilmesi ile birlikte devam eden süreçte bu kadronun CHP içinde siyaset yapma imkanı kalmadığı gibi takrirde talep edilen bir düzenin kurulma-sının CHP içinde mücadele edilerek olamayacağı ortaya çıkmıştır. Takririn, CHP Meclisi Grubuna verildiği günlerde Cumhurbaşkanı İsmet İnönü, Rauf Orbay ile görüşmüş yeni parti kurulması fikrini ona açmıştır. Bu görüşmeden, İnönü'nün yaptığı diğer konuşmalardan cesaret alan grup üyelerine karşı CHP'li yöne-tici ve milletvekillerinin olumsuz tavrı, partinin yayın organı Ulus gazetesindeki ağır sözlerle dolu yazılar grup üyelerinin CHP'den ayrılmalarına neden olmuştur. Zaten Adnan Menderes ve Fuat Köprülü Vatan gazetesinde yayınlanan yazıları nedeniyle CHP Divanı tarafından 25 Eylül 1945 tarihinde CHP'den ihraç edilmişlerdir. Diğer isimlerde istifa etmişlerdir. Partisiz kalan grup üyeleri parti kurma çalışmalarına başla-mışlar ve Demokrat Parti 7 Ocak 1946 tarihinde resmen kurulmuştur. Demokrat Parti, Dörtlü Takrir'in imzacıları: Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü ve Refik Koraltan tarafından kurulmuştur. Demokrat Parti'nin simgesi "DP", genel merkezi ise Antalya Milletvekili Cemal Tunca'nın Ankara Sümer Sokaktaki sekiz numaralı binası olmuştur. Demokrat Parti'nin kuruluş gerekçesinde ve programında Türkiye'de demok-ratik bir rejimin kurulacağı, TC Anayasası'nda demokrasiye aykırı kanunların kaldırı-lacağı, vatandaşların hak ve hürriyetlerinin anayasal teminat altına alınacağı dile geti-rilmiştir. Muhalefet yıllarında ise CHP ve iktidar demokratik olmayan tutum ve davra-nışlar sergilemekle itham edilmiştir. Muhalefet yıllılarında iki parti arasında demokra-siye aykırı birçok olay yaşanmıştır. Hatta 7 Ocak 1947 tarihinde gerçekleşen Demokrat Parti Birinci Genel Kongresi'nde kabul edilen Hürriyet Misakı'nda TC Anayasası'na aykırı olan kanunların kaldırılması ve demokrasiye uygun kanunların yapılması talep edilmiştir. Bu istekler yerine getirilmez ise Demokrat Parti Genel Yönetim Kurulu'na sine-i millet kararı ( TBMM'den çekilme ) hakkı verilmiştir. Demokrat Parti yönetici-leri iktidara gelmeleri halinde vatandaşlara hak ve hürriyetlerinin tanınacağı, demokra-siye aykırı kanunların kaldırılacağı ve TC Anayasası'nın demokrasiye uyumlu hale ge-tirileceği sözlerini vermişlerdir. 14 Mayıs 1950 seçim faaliyetlerinde aynı vaatler tekrarlanmıştır. Hatta 2 Nisan 1950 tarihinde Kasımpaşa'da konuşan Demokrat Parti Genel Başkanı Celal Bayar, grev hakkının demokratik hak olduğunu ve demokrasinin olduğu ülkelerdeki gibi toplumsal düzene ve ekonomiye zarar vermeyecek biçimde işçilere grev hakkının verileceğini ifa-de etmiştir. Seçimleri kazanan Demokrat Parti adına Adnan Menderes 22 Mayıs 1950 tarihinde hükümeti kurmuş ve 29 Mayıs 1950 tarihinde hükümet programı TBMM'de onaylanmıştır.Hükümet programında partinin seçim beyannamesinde olduğu gibi iktidar deği-şikliğinin ülkede maddi ve manevi hiçbir sarsıntıya yol açmasına imkan tanınmayacağı ve özellikle devri sabık yaratılmayacağı vurgulanmıştır. Programda, TC Anayasası'nda vatandaş hak ve hürriyetlerine ve millet iradesine dayanan kararlı bir devlet düzeninin gerçekleşmesini sağlayacak düzenlemelerin yapılacağı ifade edilmiştir. Ayrıca CHP hükümetlerinden ( tek parti dönemi ) kalan, demokratik olmayan kanunların, alışkan-lıkların ve anlayışların değiştirileceği vurgulanmıştır. Programda, işçilere grev hakkının sosyal ve ekonomik düzeni bozmayacak şekilde tanınacağı açıklanmıştır. Demokrat Parti İktidarı Programı'nda sadece vatandaşlara tanınacak haklar yer almamıştır. Ayrıca o tarihlerde azınlıkta olsa da bazıları tarafından hak olarak görülen faaliyetlerin yasaklanacağı da yer almıştır. Cumhuriyet'in ve inkılapların korunması için aşırı sol akımlara ( komünizm ) izin verilmeyeceği ve bunlarla etkin bir biçimde müca-dele edileceği ifade edilmiştir. Bunlara karşı kanuni tedbirlerin alınacağı çünkü bu tür düşüncelerin günün şartlarında fikir ve vicdan hürriyeti olarak görülmediği vurgulan-mıştır. Bu fikir akımların hürriyet maskesi altında yayın yapmalarına izin verilmeyeceği çünkü bu düşünce akımlarının amacının özgürlükleri ortadan kaldırmak olduğu iddia edilmiştir. Komünizm fikir akımının yanı sıra irticai hareketlere de asla müsaade edil-meyeceği vurgulanmıştır. Demokrat Parti Dönemi'nde iktidarın sivil toplum kuruluşları ile ilişkilerine özetlemeden önce sivil toplumun örgütü tanımını yapmak yerinde olacaktır. Sivil top-lum kavramı farklı biçimlerde tanımlanan bir kavramdır. Özellikle devlet ile sivil top-lum arasındaki ilişki farklı tanımlamalara neden olmaktadır. Bu tanımlardan bazılarında sivil toplum, devletten tamamen bağımsız, devleti kontrol eden ve hatta devletin alter-natifi olan örgütlü bir güç olarak tarif edilmiştir. Diğer tanımlarda ise devlet ile sivil toplum arasında bu kadar keskin bir ayrılığın olmadığı, sivil toplumun devlete top-lumsal katılımı sağlama amacının var olduğu ileri sürülmüştür. Modern anlamda sivil toplum kavramı "Non Govern Mental Organizations" ( devletten bağımsız örgütlen-meler ) olarak tanımlamasının yanı sıra "gönüllü kuruluşlar", "kar amacı gütmeyen ku-ruluşlar" gibi ifadelerle de tanımlanmaktadır. Sivil toplum tanımını yaptıktan sonra Demokrat Parti iktidarları öncesi sivil toplum örgütlenmesine devletin müdahalesinin ne zaman kaldırıldığına kısaca yer verelim. Türkiye'de 28 Haziran 1938 tarihinde yürürlüğe giren 3512 sayılı Cemiyetler Kanunu ile Osmanlı Devleti döneminden kalma 1909 tarih ve 121 sayılı Cemiyetler Kanun'u ve bu kanunda yapılan 353 ve 387 sayılı kanunlar yürürlükten kalkmıştır. Bu kanunun dokuzuncu maddesinin h bendiyle "aile, sınıf, ırk, cins" esasına dayalı der-neklerin kurulması yasaklanmıştır. Bu madde ile sendika ve birçok derneğin kurulması yasaklanmıştır. Bu kanunun kabul gerekçesinde, o dönem de bazı ülkelerde var olan ko-münist ve faşist rejimlerin ülkenin yönetimin ele geçirmesini önlemek olduğu ileri sü-rülmüştür. İsmet İnönü'nün 10-11 Mayıs 1946 tarihinde CHP Kurultayı'nda yaptığı konuşmadan sonra 5 Haziran 1946 tarihinde 4919 sayılı Kanun ile dernek kurma işle-mindeki izin alma formalitesi kaldırılmıştır. Sınıf esasına dayalı dernek kurma yasağı da kalkmıştır. Bu kanunun kabulü sırasında Demokrat Parti adına bir konuşma yapan Adnan Menderes, kanunda yapılan değişikliği demokrasiye giden yolda önemli bir aşa-ma olarak adlandırmıştır. Sivil toplum örgütlenmesinin önündeki engeller Demokrat Parti İktidarı öncesinde kaldırılmıştır. Demokrat Parti İktidarı döneminde sivil toplum kuruluşları ile ilişkiler iki bölü-mde ele alınabilir. Birinci bölüm hükümetin sivil toplum alanında yaptığı düzenleme-lerden oluşur. İkinci bölüm ise iktidarın sivil toplum kuruluşlarına yaklaşımı yani onların faaliyetlerine karşı tutumu, ülke yönetimi ile ilgili alınan kararlara ilgili sivil toplum kuruluşlarının tepkileri ve sivil toplum kuruluşlarının kendi alanları ile ilgili alınan kararlarda bu kuruluşların isteklerinin ve itirazlarının dikkate alıp almamasından oluşur.Demokrat Parti İktidarı döneminde sivil toplum alanında birçok düzenleme yapılmıştır. Hükümetin yaptığı bu düzenlemelere günümüzün demokrasi düzeyi ile yaklaşmak zamanın koşullarını ve demokrasi kültürünün oluşum sürecini dikkate almamak anlamına gelir. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanında yaptığı ilk düzenleme 5680 sayılı Basın Kanunu'dur. Kanunun kabulü demokrasi ilkeleri ile bağdaşan bir uygulama olmuştur. Bu nedenle basın ve basın-yayın örgütleri bu yasayı doğru bir adım olarak görmüşlerdir. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanında yaptığı ikinci kanuni düzenleme 5844 sayılı Komünizm İle Mücadele Kanununu çıkarmasıdır. İktidarın programında komü-nizm fikir akımına ve komünist yayınlara karşı mücadele edileceği, bu fikir akımlarının faaliyetlerinin demokratik bir fikir ve vicdan hürriyeti olarak görülmediği aksine de-mokratik rejimi ortadan kaldırmaya yönelik bir tutum ve tavır olduğu vurgulanmıştır. Muhalefetin de bu konuda iktidarla aynı düşünceye sahip olması bu kanunun çıkarıl-masını kolaylaştırmıştır. Demokrat Parti İktidarı'nın bu tür düşünce akımlarına ve onların faaliyetlerine izin vermemesini değerlendirirken zamanın koşullarını ve demok-rasi kültürünün oluşum sürecini göz önünde tutmak yerinde olacaktır. İktidarın sivil toplum alanı ile ilgili yaptığı bir başka uygulama ise 5816 sayılı Atatürk Kanunu'nun çıkarılmasıdır. Atatürk'ün kişiliğine, ilke ve inkılaplarına saldırıların sonucunda kabul edilmiş olan bu kanun günümüzde de geçerlidir. Bu kanunun çıkarılmasına Atatürk'ün kurduğu parti olan CHP'li milletvekillerinin karşı çıkmış olmaları ise üzerinde durul-ması gereken önemli bir husustur. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanında gerçekleştirdiği bir başka düzenleme ise 6761 sayılı Vicdan ve Toplanma Hürriyetini Koruma Kanunu'nun kabul edilmesidir. Kanun, irticai hareketlerin artarak rejimi tehdit eder hale gelmesinin sonucu çıkarılmıştır. İrticai hareketlere izin verilmeyeceğini, demokratik rejimi koruya-cağını programında ilan eden hükümet bunun gereğini yerine getirmiştir. Dinin siyasi veya diğer çıkarlar için kullanılması ve bu tür örgütlenmelerin kurulmasını demokratik ilkelerle bağdaştırmak mümkün değildir. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanına bir başka müdahalesi Neşir Yolu ile veya Radyo ile İşlenecek Bazı Cürümler Hakkındaki Kanun'u çıkarması ile 6732 ve 6733 sayılı basın kanunlarının bazı maddelerini değiş-tirmesi ile olmuştur. Bu kanunlarda yer alan kişilerin şikayeti olmadan savcıların ya-yınlar ile ilgili kendiliğinden harekete geçebilmesi unsuru haber alma ve verme hür-riyetini engelleyen bir koşul oluşturmuştur. Yine gazetecilerin yaptıkları haberler ve köşe yazarlarının yazdıkları yazılar nedeniyle şikayet edilmeleri halinde kendilerini müdafaa edebilmeleri için ispat hakkının onlara verilmeyişi bazı konularda ( iktidar ve mülki amirler ile ilgili yolsuzluk vb) haber yapmalarına, yazı yazmalarına engel olacak ortamı oluşturmuştur. Ayrıca, halkın haber alma özgürlüğüne, gazetecilerin özgür ve bağımsız çalışmasına engel olmuştur. İspat hakkı verilmediği gibi bu tür yazı ve haberler için cezaların arttırılması basın hürriyetini ortadan kaldırmıştır. Bu nedenle bazı basın mensupları hareket içerikli haber ve yazıları nedeniyle ceza almış olsalar da hükümetin politikalarını eleştiren onlarca basın çalışanına hapis cezalarının verilmesi vatandaşlara hak ve hürriyetlerini vereceğini ve devri sabık yaratmayacağını söyleyen Demokrat Parti İktidarı'nın bu uygulamaları onun söylemleri ve adıyla çelişmesine ne-den olmuştur. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanında yaptığı bir başka kanuni düzenleme 6771 Sayılı Toplantılar ve Gösteri Yürüyüşleri Kanunu'nu çıkarmasıdır. Kanun, siyasi partilerin seçim varmış gibi çok fazla miting yaptığı ve bu mitinglerde konuşanların hükümeti ağır bir şekilde eleştirdiği ve hatta bazı hatiplerin hükümet üyelerine ağır sözler söylediği gerekçeleriyle kabul edilmiştir. Bu kanun ile partilerin miting ve kapalı alan toplantıları seçim zamanı ile sınırlandırılmıştır. Bu nedenle bu uygulama demokrasiye aykırı bir düzenleme olmuştur. Bir parti veya dernek kanunlara aykırı hareket etmediği sürece istediği zaman izin almak koşulu ile miting yapabilmelidir. Hükümetin sivil toplum kuruluşları ile ilişkilerine baktığımızda ise olumlu ve o-lumsuz tutum ve uygulamaların varlığından söz edebiliriz. İktidarın sivil toplum kuru-luşları ile ilişkileri dernekler, sendikalar ve basın teşkilatları ile olmak üzere üç ana bö-lüm halinde ele alınabilir. Derneklerle ilişkilere baktığımızda öğrenci dernekleri ile iliş-kilerin daha yoğun olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. Özellikle TMTF ve MTTB gibi öğrenci dernek federasyonları yönetimleri ile ilişkiler öğrenci dernekleri ile ilişkilerin en önemli bölümünü oluşturur. Bu konuda partilerin bugünde devam eden derneklerin yönetimle-rini elde etme isteği Demokrat Parti İktidarı'nın da faaliyetlerinden birisini oluşmuştur. Muhalif olan yönetimleri değiştirmek için çeşitli çalışmalar yapılmıştır. Bu doğrultuda Demokrat Partili dört milletvekili tarafından öğrenci derneklerine hükümetin verdiği ö-deneği dağıtma ve gençlik sorunlarını çözmek amacıyla kurulmuş olan Gençlik Bürosu' nun TMTF ve MTTB'nin yönetim kurulları seçimlerine müdahale etmesi ve sonrası yaşanan olaylar demokrasi ilkeleri ile bağdaşmamıştır. Ayrıca Türkiye Milli Gençlik Teşkilatı adında bir gençlik derneği varken Türk Milli Birliği'nin kurulması ve böylece geçliği farklı cephelerde örgütleme isteği gençliğin birbiri ile kavgalı hale gelmesine ne-den olmuştur. Radyo Dinlemeyenler Cemiyeti'nin İstanbul Valisi Ethem Yetkiner tara-fından kanunsuz bir biçimde kapatılması, Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dekanı Turhan Fevzioğlu'nun görevden alınması nedeniyle eylem yapan öğrencilerin gözaltına alınması ve mahkemeye verilmesi, İTÜTB'nin üniversitedeki yemek boykotu nedeniyle öğrencilerin gözaltına alınmaları, mahkemeye verilmeleri ve hükümet yetki-lilerinin bu konuda yaptıkları açıklamalar demokratik bir iktidar sivil toplum kuruluşu ilişki tarzına aykırı olmuştur. Tahkikat Komisyonu kararları ile örfi idarelerin kurulması ve öğrencilerin tepkilerinin engellenmesi de demokrasi açısında doğru olmayan uygula-malar olmuştur. Kiracılar Cemiyeti'nin istekleri dikkate alınarak Kira Kanunu'nun ka-bul edilmesi, tüccar, esnaf ve sanayicilerin derneklerinin talepleri dikkate alınarak Milli Korunma Kanunu'nda yapılan değişiklik ve kredi imkanlarının artırılması gibi karar-larda dernekler ile ilgili hükümetin olumlu yönde uygulamaları olmuştur. Ayrıca hükü-metin irtica ve komünizm ile mücadeleleri de dernekler tarafından olumlu karşılan-mıştır. Hükümetin sendikalar ile ilişkilerine baktığımızda ise grev hakkı tartışmalarının en önemli sorun olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. İktidarın seçim vaatlerinde ve programında olan grev hakkı ile ilgili sendikalar tarafından onlarca talep gelmiştir. 1951 yılında bir tasarı hazırlanmış olmasına ve ilgili bakanların bu hakkın verileceğini yıllarca söyleme-lerine karşın grev hakkı verilmemiştir. Çalışma bakanları grev hakkının verilmeme ne-denini, genellikle iktisadi ve sosyal düzenin bozulabileceğine dayandırmışlardır. Ayrıca, grev hakkı verildiğinde işverene lokavt hakkının da tanınması gerektiği için sendikala-rın mali gücünün bunu kaldıramayacağını ve işçilerin zor durumda kalacağını iddia et-mişlerdir. Bu nedenlerle grev hakkı için acele edilmemesini dile getirmişlerdir. İşçiye grev hakkının verilmemesinin yanında işçi mitinglerinin yasaklanması; kanunsuz grev nedeniyle bazı sendikaların kapatılması; işsizlik rakamları açıklamaları nedeniyle Çalışma Bakanlığı ile tartışmaya giren bazı sendika birliklerinin Sendikalar Kanunu'nun sekizinci maddesinde yer alan ayrı ayrı iş kolundaki sendikaların sendikal birlik olama-yacağı gerekçesiyle kapatılması; işçi seminerlerinin yasaklanması ve burada konferans verenlerin cahillikle, komünistlikle ve siyasi propaganda yapmakla ile itham edilmesi; Zonguldak Maden İşçileri Sendikası ikinci başkanının muhalif açıklamaları nedeniyle görevden alınması ve sendikanın kongresine müdahale edilmesi gibi olaylar demokratik olmayan tutumlar olmuştur. Kolektif İş Akdi tasarısının TBMM'ye getirilmesi, işçiler için ev yapılması, yıllık ücretli iznin verilmesi, tatil yapamayanlara çalıştıkları gün için yevmiye ödenmesi, sendikal faaliyet nedeniyle işten çıkarılmaların kanunla yasaklan-ması, işçi sigortalarındaki düzenlemelerde işçilerin ve sendikaların lehine olan demok-ratik uygulamalar olmuştur. Basın ve onun teşkilatları ile ilişkilerine baktığımızda Demokrat Parti, muhalefet yıllarında ve iktidarının ilk üç, dört yılında basının büyük bir bölümü tarafından destek- lenmiştir. Fakat hükümet politikalarındaki değişmeler ve ekonomideki kötü gidiş bası-nın büyük bir bölümünün hükümete muhalif olmasına neden olmuştur. Bu nedenle bası-nının muhalif partilerin eylem ve söylemlerini sayfalarına taşıması; hükümet politikala-rını eleştiren yazılar yayınlaması hükümetin yukarıda aktardığımız kanuni önlemleri al-masına neden olmuştur. Bu kanunların kabulüne bazı gazetecilerin hükümet üyeleri ile ilgili eleştirinin boyutunu aşarak hakaret içeren yazıları kaleme almaları da etkili olmuş-tur. Özellikle 1958 yılından sonra basın kuruluşları ile hükümet üyeleri arasında ilişkiler gerginleşmiştir. Basın sanki bir muhalefet partisi gibi muhalefeti hükümete karşı tek cephede birleşmeye çağırırken hükümette basını reklam ödeneklerinin azalması nede-niyle bu yönde hareket etme ve meşru hükümete karşı halkı ayaklanmaya teşvik etmek-le itham etmiştir. İsmet İnönü'nün ve CHP'lilerin yurt gezileri ile Osman Bölükbaşı'nın Kırşehir'i ziyareti ve tutuklanması sırasında bazı gazetecilerin polis tarafından tartak-lanması, fotoğraf makinelerinin ellerinden alınması, gözaltına alınmaları, yargılanma-ları, bu olayların yayının yasaklanması hükümet ile basının ilişkilerini daha da gergin-leştirmiştir. Bu olaylar nedeniyle basın örgütlerinin tebliğler yayınlamaları ve bu tebliğ-lerden birisi nedeniyle İstanbul Gazeteciler Sendikası'nın siyaset yaptığı gerekçesiyle kapatılması ve Beynelmilel Basın Enstitüsü'nün Türkiye'deki basın hürriyeti ile ilgili açıklamasının yayınının yasaklanması basınla iktidarı karşı karşıya getirmiştir. Bu olay-lar bazı gazeteci örgütlerinden istifa edenlerin Demokrat Parti'ye yakın gazeteciler ile radyo ve Anadolu Ajansı'nda çalışan gazetecilerden oluşan Matbuat Kulübü'nün kurul-ması ile sonuçlanmıştır. CHP'nin son olaylar nedeniyle halkı iktidara karşı isyana teşvik ettiği ve silahlı hücreler kurduğu gerekçesiyle Tahkikat Komisyonu'nun kurulması ve bu olay sonucunda örfi idarelerin ilan edilmesi bazı örfi idare kararlarına uymadığı ne-deniyle bazı gazetelerin kapatılmasına neden olmuştur. Tabi ki sadece hükümetin basın-la olumsuz yönde ilişkileri olmamıştır. Başbakan Adnan Menderes birçok kez bazı ga-zetecilere ziyafet vermiş, onların teşekküllerini ziyaret etmiş ve istek ve sorunlarını din-lemiştir. Özetle Demokrat Parti İktidarı Türkiye'de demokrasi kültürünün oluşmadığı ve Cumhuriyet'in ilanının üzerinden çok fazla zamanın geçmediği bir dönemde işbaşına gelen bir iktidardır. Bu nedenle devri sabık yaratılmayacağı ve demokratik hak ve hürriyetlerin tanınacağı, TC Anayasası'nın demokrasi ilkelerine uygun biçimde tanzim edileceği sözleri tutulamamıştır.ABSTRACTOn November 10, 1938 with the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ismet Inonu country, the management of which the President has become the most authoritative person. İnönü, CHP and the state administration dominated by single units (National Chief), especially the period of Celal Bayar reaction caused CHP deputies and managers. Direction of the party and the country is a party to the Second World War due to the domination of the majority of the people and the power of the economic distress of the people in conflict with conservative political circles and outside the CHP applications in educational and social fields, and a large part of the population has led to the formation of an oppositional stance. In conjunction with this process, the government organized a number of radical opposition movement has led to applications.Due to the reasons stated above, and openly turned into a discourse and actions of individual behavior within the CHP has emerged during the bid for the first time legislation for land reform. CHP deputies Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes, Fuat Koprulu, and Refik Koraltan, May 14, 1945 with the start of the discussion in Parliament on the proposal of this law the government's attitude towards the application put forward by their speeches. However, prior to the submission to Parliament of the draft of this law is essentially a dissident group within the CHP meetings began Thursday in the home of the formation of Tevfik Rüştü Aras. Aras Tevfik Rüştü since April of 1945 came together at home Emin Sazak sure, Adnan Menderes and Fuat Koprulu CHP reported that they were under the authority of Ismet Inonu and focused on the need to change this situation. Fuat Koprulu Adnan Menderes coming together for the second time and agreed on establishing a democratic center. Refik Koraltan later participated in the meetings. Adnan Menderes, the party and in the community should join this group Celal Bayar has announced that effective. The meeting with the group at the end of Celal Bayar, it has been included. Group members at the meeting held on May 18, Calm before the Turkish Grand National Assembly without a vote of the state budget of 1945 three hundred and seventy-three deputies involved in İzmir deputy Celal Bayar,Deputy Aydin Adnan Menderes, Mersin deputy Refik Koraltan, Kars deputy Fuat Koprulu and Eskişehir deputy Emin Sazak used negative vote against the budget. Against the budget vote against the Republican period was used for the first time. Thus, the attitudes of the opposition put forward a second time. 1945 was prepared by the CHP Parliamentary Group Quartet Motion to think.Group members on June 7, 1945 at Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes, Fuat Koprulu and the CHP Parliamentary Group of the motion hazard with the signature of President Rafik Koraltan'ın attitudes explicitly put forward by the opposition. The operation of the CHP's proposal to be brought into line with democratic principles and the TC. Recognition of citizens' rights and freedoms of the Constitution claimed that exists.CHP Parliamentary Group on June 12, 1945 This resolution was discussed and rejected. Calm in the ongoing process of this staff within the CHP with the rejection of the possibility of politics as no event requested a proposal to establish an order could not be fighting in the CHP has emerged.The proposals given in the CHP parliamentary group, recently President Ismet Inonu, the idea of establishing a new party he has met with Rauf Orbay. This meeting, the group ventured İnönü his other speeches negative attitude against members of the CHP managers and members of parliament, the party organ of the Nation newspaper articles full of heavy words to leave the group members has led to the CHP. Already published in Homeland Adnan Menderes and Fuat Koprulu writings were expelled from the CHP CHP by the Court on September 25, 1945.Other names resigned. The remaining members of the group began the work of establishing party-Party and the Democratic Party was formally established on January 7, 1946. The Democratic Party, Four signatories to the motion: Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes, was founded by Fuat Koprulu, and Refik Koraltan. Symbol of the Democratic Party, "DP", is headquartered in Ankara Antalya Deputy Cemal Tunca Sumerian has been building street number eight.The justification of the Democratic Party establishment of a democratic regime in Turkey to install and program, contrary to the laws of democracy, the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey removed, will be guaranteed by the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens are expressed. In opposition to the CHP, and the government has been accused of exhibiting non-democratic attitudes and behaviors. The opposition between the two parties yıllılarında many events occurred against democracy. Even the Democratic Party, which took place on January 7, 1947 the First General Congress of the abolition of laws which are contrary to the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey adopted the Convention on Freedom and democracy has been requested to the appropriate law. These requests are not adhered to given the right to withdraw from the Parliament of the Board of Directors of the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party came to power managers to recognize the rights and freedoms of citizens, democracy, contrary to the laws of the Republic to remove the words of the Constitution gave making them compatible with democracy.May 14, 1950 election activities, the same promise was repeated. Even speaking Kasımpaşa on April 2, 1950 Democratic Party Chairman Celal Bayar, that democratic rights and democracy in countries where the right to strike as the social order and stated that the economy will not harm the workers the right to strike. On behalf of the Democratic Party won the elections on May 22, 1950 the government of Adnan Menderes set up and on May 29, 1950 the Parliament approved the government's program.The government program as well as the party's electoral declaration is no shock of the moral and material change of government in the country the possibility to open the account will not be recognized, and in particular sorulmayacağı previous government was emphasized. In the program, the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey is based on the will of the citizens' rights and freedoms and the nation are expressed in stable arrangements shall be made to ensure the realization of a state order. In addition, the governments of the CHP (single-party period) and the remaining non-democratic laws, habits, and understandings change is emphasized. In the program, the workers explained to recognize the right to strike will not disrupt the social and economic order.Programme of the Government of the Democratic Party would get only the rights of citizens were not included. In addition, even though at that time by some of the minority rights in the banned activities took place. Reforms for the protection of the Republic and the extreme left movements (communism) and will not be allowed to deal with them effectively unless otherwise indicated. Legal action will be taken against them because such conditions, the ideas and thoughts of the day is not seen as freedom of conscience is emphasized. This idea will not be allowed to broadcast under the guise of freedom of currents currents of thought because it has been claimed that the purpose of eliminating freedoms. The idea of communism would not be allowed to flow as well as the reactionary movements never be emphasized.Democratic Party Period Before summarizing the power of civil society in its relations with non-governmental organizations would be appropriate to define the organization. The concept of civil society is a concept defined in different ways. In particular the relationship between the state and civil society leads to different definitions. Some of these definitions, civil society, completely independent of the government, which controls the state and even the organized power of the state, which has been described as an alternative. Other definitions of the state and civil society is not so much a sharp separation, has the purpose of ensuring the participation of civil society, the state has been suggested that social. The concept of civil society in the modern sense "Non Govern mental Organizations" (independent of the state organizations), as well as the definition of "voluntary organizations", "nonprofit organizations" as well as the terms are defined. After the definition of civil society non-governmental organization prior to the governments of the Democratic Party has been removed briefly when you let the government's interference.Turkey Associations law no. 3512 came into force on June 28, 1938 and 1909 by the Ottoman Empire era and societies act no. 121 and no. 387 to the law and the law was abolished 353. This is the ninth article of the law bendiyle h "family, class, race, gender" on the basis of the establishment of associations is prohibited. This material association with the trade unions and the establishment of many prohibited. Accept the justification for this law, existing at the time of communist and fascist regimes in some countries to avoid taking over the administration of the country suggested that.Ismet Inonu, 10 to 11 May 1946, after his speech to the CHP congress of the law no. 4919 on June 5, 1946 permitting process and formalities to freedom of association has been removed. Class on the basis of the ban on freedom of association disappeared. Time of the adoption of this law, gave a speech on behalf of the Democratic Party of Adnan Menderes, the change in the law is an important step on the road to democracy, termed. Removed the obstacles to the organization of civil society ahead of the Democratic Party Government.Relations with non-governmental organizations in the Government of the Democratic Party can be considered in two parts. The first part consists of the Regulation in the field of government, civil society. The second part of power approach to civil society organizations, that is, their attitude towards the activities of the country, on the decisions taken on the management of non-governmental organizations and civil society responses in decisions related to their field consists of absence from these organizations to take into account requests and objections.The Governments of the Democratic Party made many regulations in the field of civil society. The government's approach to his time with the level of democracy in today's terms of these regulations and take no account of the formation process of a culture of democracy means. The government's first regulation in the field of civil society Press Act no. 5680. The adoption of the Law has been a practice incompatible with the principles of democracy. Therefore, the press and media organizations saw this as a step towards the law. The second legal regulation in the field of civil society, the government's Struggle Against Communism Act 5844 to issue no. The idea of communism and communist publications program flow of power to fight against the idea of a democratic currents of ideas and activities seen as contrary to freedom of conscience to abolish the democratic regime is emphasized as an attitude and demeanor. Opposition to have the same thought on this subject, power and facilitated the removal of this law. İktidarı'nın Democratic Party not to allow this kind of thought currents and their activities in terms of assessing the time and would be wise to keep in mind that the process of the formation of a culture of democracy. Another application is related to the field of civil society that the government is the removal of the law no. 5816 of Atatürk. Atatürk's personality, principles and reforms of this law which has been adopted as a result of the attacks also applies today. This law established by Ataturk party, the CHP deputies opposed the removal of the need to focus on to be an important consideration. If the regulation is carried out by the Government in the field of non-governmental No. 6761 is the adoption of the Law on Protection of conscience and the right to freedom of assembly. The law was a result of the arrival of fundamentalist movements become increasingly threaten the regime. Harekelere reactionary allowed the democratic regime of government that proclaimed the need to protect the program fulfilled. The use of religion for political or other interests is not possible to reconcile democratic principles and the establishment of such organizations. Another area of civil society through the intervention of the government or the Radio Broadcasting to be covered by the Act on Certain Felonies by extraction with replacement of some provisions of the laws of 6732 and 6733 has been no press. Without these laws, prosecutors publications related to the complaints of the people pass the element of self-motivation has created a condition that prevents the freedom to receive and impart news. Again, journalists, columnists wrote articles for their news and to be able to prove that the right to defend themselves if they are complaining verilmeyişi them on some issues (related to power and corruption, governors, etc.) make news, the media has created to prevent writing to write. In addition, the public freedom of information, has been hampered by journalists to operate freely and independently. Proof is not given the right to increase the penalties for press articles and news like this kind of freedom is eliminated. For this reason, some members of the media even if they are convicted of moving content, news and articles critical of the government's policies, press the dozens of employees and the transfer of prison sentences would be given rights and freedoms of citizens who have no former Democratic Party İktidarı'nın these practices conflict with the name of his discourses, and from what has been . Any other legal regulation in the field of civil society that the Government No. 6771 Law on Meetings and Demonstrations landing. The law of political parties and election rallies like there's a lot of rally speakers heavily criticized the government and even some harsh words said to the members of the government on grounds of orators were adopted. With this law, meetings, parties, rally and off the field is limited to election time. Therefore, this application has an arrangement undemocratic. Act contrary to the laws of association, unless a party or get permission at any time be able to rally with the condition.If we look at the government's relations with civil society organizations can talk about the existence of positive and negative attitudes and practices. Power relations with non-governmental organizations, associations, trade unions and the press offices of three main parts: can be handled. When we look at the relations of relations with associations, student associations say that more intense. Student associations and federations, such as TMTF MTTB especially relations with governments creates the most important part of relations with student associations. Management of associations in this regard the parties desire to achieve, which continues today İktidarı'nın Democratic Party, one of the activities occurred. Various studies the management of the opposition to change. In this respect the government of the Democratic Party the benefit of four deputies student associations established to solve the problems of deploying and youth, the Youth Bureau's board of directors MTTB'nin TMTF and after the elections and the events in the intervention was not consistent with democratic principles. In addition, while Turkey's National Youth Organization is a youth association, and thus the establishment of the Turkish National Union geçliği different fronts at loggerheads with each other to become the youth organization has led to the request. Radio unlawfully by not obeying the closure of the League of the Governor of Istanbul Ethem Yetkiner, Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Ankara University, Turhan Fevzioğlu'nun dismissal of the action because of the detention and court-students who, due to the boycott of food İTÜTB'nin university students detention, without trial and government officials and their explanations in this regard the relationship of a democratic style of government, non-governmental organizations has been inconsistent. Research Commission decisions and the establishment of the legal authorities and the students' reactions have been prevented by applications that are not correct in terms of democracy. Requests, taking into account the adoption of the Law on Lease Tenants Association, merchants, tradesmen, and taking into account the demands of the industrialists' associations, and credit facilities amendment to the Law on Protection of National Associations of decisions, such as increasing the government has applications in a positive way. In addition, the government struggles with fundamentalism and communism was welcomed by the associations.If we look at the government's relations with the trade unions the right to strike is the most important problem söyleyebiliriz.Hükümetin election promises and program discussions with the trade unions on the right to strike has been requested by the dozens. In 1951, a bill has been prepared and the relevant ministers would say that for many years, but the right to strike were not given this right. The right to strike or not to study the cause of ministers, generally relied on the economic and social order can go wrong. In addition, the employer is given the right to strike or lock-out should be recognized the right of the workers to handle this difficult situation will remain the financial power of the trade unions have claimed. For these reasons expressed not to rush to the right to strike. An employee is not given the right to strike of workers rallies next to the prohibition of certain trade unions due to the closure of illegal strikes, unemployment figures into the discussion with the Ministry of Labour for comments eighth article of the Law on Trade Unions located in some of the trade union trade union trade union unity can not be separate business line on the ground, working seminars ban and ignorance of those who lecture here, to be accused of being a communist and political propaganda; Zonguldak Mine Workers' Union and the second president of the union congress to intervene in the dismissal of the opposition, such as descriptions of events were non-democratic attitudes. The introduction to Parliament of the draft collective employment contract for workers to home, paid annual granting of a permit, work groups not on the payment of per diem for the day, because of the dismissal law, the prohibition of trade union activity, labor regulations, workers and trade unions in favor of insurances has been democratic practices.Look at the Democratic Party's relations with the press and its agencies, the opposition and the government die in the first three, four, supported by a large part of the press in. However, changes in government policies and the economy is going bad, the opposition to the government has led to a large part of the media. For this reason, the actions and rhetoric of media sheets to carry the opposition parties and the government to publish articles critical of the government's policies have quoted above, has led to take legal measures. The adoption of this law, the size of some of the criticism of journalists, members of the government to submit written papers has been effective in overcoming-round insulting. Especially in 1958, after the tense relations between members of the press and the government. Press it as an opposition party, the opposition to unite against the government calling a single front to move in this direction due to the decline in government appropriations media advertising and the people to revolt against the legitimate government has been accused. . Ismet Inonu and CHP foreign trips and a visit to Kirşehir Osman Bölükbaşı some journalists during his arrest by the police, beaten, deprived cameras, detention, trial, media relations with the government banning the publication of these events gerginleştirmiştir. This is due to the events of press organizations publish papers and one of the papers due to the closure of Istanbul, on the grounds that the political Union of Journalists and the international Press Institute press freedom in Turkey, the prohibition of publication of the statement on the power of the press has faced. These events are close to the Democratic Party, who resigned some journalist organizations, journalists and radio and printed documents of journalists working in the Anatolian Agency resulted in the establishment Club. Due to recent events in the CHP encourages people to revolt against the government and the armed cells, and this event as a result of the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry on the grounds established by customary authorities declared martial law in some of the decisions of the breach has led to the closure of some newspapers. Of course, only the government's relationship with the press has been negative. Some reporters several times Prime Minister Adnan Menderes feast, I have visited their formations and listened to requests and problems.In summary declaration of the Democratic Party Government of the Republic of Turkey, the culture of democracy are generated does not exceed too much time in power, which came to power at a time. For this reason, touched and democratic rights and freedoms recognized representatives of the previous government, the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey promises to be devised in accordance with the principles of democracy has not been realized.

1. IntroductionOver the last decade, increased attention has been paid to terrorism, particularly to the new wave of terrorist groups, fundamentalist movements, and extremist organisations such as Al‐Qaeda. September 11 marked the beginning of a turbulent phase in which states face a new kind of threat made up of a complex network of insidious revolutionary and nationalist forces. Such transformations have given rise to an unprecedented number of publications. However, both political violence and terrorism remain sources of endless disputes and controversies because of their political implications. At the same time, in the scientific community, terrorism studies lack conceptual and methodological uniformity. In his article, Domenico Tosini synthesises and discusses some major findings from this research. Courses using such a review will be confronted with the four major topics that any analysis of terrorism, to be comprehensive, should take into account: the definition of terrorism; its history and classification; its explanations; and an assessment of the consequences of counterterrorism policies.2. Literature recommendations Bjørgo, Tore (ed.) 2005. Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Realities and Ways Forward. London, UK: Routledge.In this book, based on the analysis of numerous case studies (e.g. Palestinian armed groups, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, right‐wing extremists, state terrorism and state‐sponsored terrorism), experts in political violence examine the preconditions for the emergence of different types of terrorist organisations and the main factors that sustain terrorist campaigns. Cole, David 2003. Enemy Aliens: Double Standard and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism. New York, NY: The New Press.Thanks to its analysis and evaluation of the consequences of counter‐terrorism measures, David Cole's Enemy Aliens is one of the most rigorous discussions of how states (like the United States since 2001) often combat terrorism by adopting emergency powers (such as the special detention at Guantanamo Bay), which, in turn, risk undermining civil liberties. della Porta, Donatella 1995. Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Based on empirical research that compares the origins and development of left‐wing terrorism in Italy and Germany between the 1960s and the 1990s, della Porta offers a middle‐range theory of political violence that combines an analysis of the political opportunities and ideological frames exploited by armed groups, a profile of their organisational structures, and an investigation of the typical patterns underlying their recruitment processes. Gambetta, Diego (ed.) 2006. Making Sense of Suicide Missions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.In this book, a number of distinguished social scientists, while examining the use of suicide missions by political and religious groups (such as the Japanese Kamikaze, the Tamil Tigers, Palestinian organisations, and Al‐Qaeda), specify and discuss the most important methodological questions associated with definitions, data collection, and explanations concerning this form of political struggle. Hoffman, Bruce 2006. Inside Terrorism. New York, NY: Colombia University Press.The book introduces the most important issues of terrorism studies: the controversial problem of the definition of terrorism; a history of terrorism, from anti‐colonial struggles to international terrorism; an examination and explanation of the most recent waves of religious extremists and suicide terrorism; an analysis of the ways terrorist groups exploit old and new media such as the Internet; and, finally, an overview of the strategies, tactics, and organisational aspects of modern and contemporary terrorism. Horgan, John 2005. The Psychology of Terrorism. London, UK: Routledge.Horgan presents a critical analysis of our understanding of terrorist psychology; many shortcomings emerge, particularly the limitations of personality theories in attempting to explain militancy. Based on interviews with terrorists, the book considers the most relevant psychological and social factors underlying involvement and engagement in political violence, and the process of leaving terrorist organisations. Kalyvas, Stathis 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Scholars generally distinguish between terrorism and other forms of violence against civilians – tactics of guerrilla warfare or insurgency in civil wars, for example. However, this work makes a relevant contribution to terrorism studies. Kalyvas clarifies the rationality and micro‐processes of interactions during armed conflicts that account for indiscriminate and selective uses of violence against civilian populations by political actors. Kushner, Harvey W. 2003. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. London, UK: Sage.One of the most accurate and exhaustive dictionaries focusing on terrorism, with more than 300 entries concerning terrorist groups, key events, people, terms, and statistics, as well as biographical, historical, and geographical information. Free access is available at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) (http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/eBooks.asp). Laqueur, Walter 2002. A History of Terrorism. London, UK: Transaction Publishers.Along with Laqueur's Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study (London: Transaction Publishers, 1998), this constitutes a pioneering history of armed organisations, from nineteenth century Europe, to the anarchists of the 1880s and 1890s, to the left‐wing clashes during the 20th century, and up to the most recent terrorist groups. Pape, Robert A. 2005. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York, NY: Random House.Over the last decade, suicide terrorism has become an alarming political threat and a crucial challenge for social scientists. In his work, which compares a number of organisations responsible for suicide attacks, Pape rejects the explanation of suicide terrorism based on religious fundamentalism. He argues for a correlation between the use of this tactic and specific kinds of groups engaged in separatist campaigns or in struggles for liberation from foreign occupiers. Ranstorp, Magnus (ed.) 2007. Mapping Terrorism Research: State of the Art, Gaps and Future Directions. London, UK: Routledge.In this book, distinguished scholars of terrorism studies discuss state‐of‐the‐art field research. In exploring new trends in this area – the most important questions about the explanation of recent terrorist organisations such as Al‐Qaeda, and about counterterrorism – these essays shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of our current knowledge of political violence. Reich, Walter (ed.) 1998. Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.This is another seminal work on terrorism, bringing together some of the most well known experts in political violence. The variety of approaches used in the explanations of terrorist organisations and in the analysis of counterterrorism paves the way for a real interdisciplinary setting, which is absolutely crucial once the multi‐faceted nature of terrorism is clear. Sageman, Marc 2004. Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Based on the analysis of biographical data for nearly 200 members of global Islamist extremism (of which Al‐Qaeda is a part), Sageman accounts for the origins and developments of this movement and specifies the crucial role played by social networks in the recruitment of individuals as Islamist militants. Wilkinson, Paul 2006. Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London, UK: Routledge.Wilkinson examines major trends in international terrorism and liberal democratic responses. On the one hand, the book introduces the specificity of terrorism and offers a classification and explanation of the most important types of armed groups. On the other, in approaching how states deal with terrorist threats, this work discusses forms of counterterrorism, by taking into account their impact on the rule of law and on the protection of civil liberties.3. Online materials Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (AISI) (Agency for Internal Information and Security)(http://www.aisi.gov.it)The Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (AISI) is the branch of Italian Intelligence tasked with collecting and analysing information about any criminal and terrorist threat to security. Among other activities, the AISI distributes its own periodical, Gnosis, online, where a chronology of international as well as domestic terrorist attacks since 2004 (currently updated through 2007) is available.
Counterterrorism Blog
(http://counterterrorismblog.org)The Counterterrorism Blog is a multi‐expert blog devoted to providing a one‐stop gateway to the counterterrorism community. It offers, among other things, overnight and breaking news, with real time commentary by experts; reports on terrorist organisations; discussions of long‐term trends in counterterrorism; and summaries of and discussions about US and international law.
Center for Constitutional Rights

(CCR) (http://ccrjustice.org)Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights organisations, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non‐profit legal and educational organisation dedicated to protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also offers information about important issues related to counterterrorism (e.g., the prolonged battle in defence of civil liberties associated with the special detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba).
Global Terrorism Database
(GTD)(http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd)The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open‐source database on terrorist incidents around the world since 1970 (currently updated through 2004). It includes systematic data on international as well as domestic terrorist attacks. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the attack, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and (when possible) the identity of the perpetrator. Another important database, the Terrorism Knowledge Base (TKB) at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) (http://www.mipt.org/TKB.asp), has recently ceased operations and elements of the system have been merged with the GTD. Information on terrorist groups is now available at the Terrorist Organization Profiles (http://www.start.umd.edu/data/tops).
Human Security Report Project

(HSRP) (http://www.hsrgroup.org)The HSRP conducts research on global and regional trends in political violence, exploring their causes and consequences, and then making this research accessible to the policy and research communities, the media, educators, and the interested public. The HSRP's publications include the Human Security Report, the Human Security Brief series, and the Human Security Gateway. The recent Human Security Brief 2007, online, makes a relevant contribution in discussing the methodological issues associated with collecting data on terrorism and offers a comprehensive overview of terrorist incidents in the last decade.
Middle East Media Research Institute

(MEMRI) (http://www.memri.org)The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media with respect to a variety of topics including terrorism. MEMRI provides translations of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish media, as well as analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious tendencies in the Middle East. A new section, the MEMRI's Islamist Websites Monitor Project, was launched in 2006 as part of the Jihad & Terrorism Studies project. Its aim is to keep Western audiences informed about the phenomenon of jihadist sites on the Internet, which are used by terrorist groups and their sympathisers to spread their extremist messages, to raise funds, and to recruit activists.
Uppsala Conflict Data Project

(UCDP) (http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/UCDP)The Uppsala Conflict Data Project (UCDP) collects data on armed conflicts around the world. A global conflict database is now available online. Data are useful for systematic studies of conflict origins, dynamics, and resolution.
Worldwide Incidents Tracking System
(WITS)(http://wits.nctc.gov)The Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) is the National Counterterrorism Center's (NCTC) database of terrorist incidents. NCTC serves as the primary organisation in the United States government for integrating and analysing all intelligence pertaining to terrorism and, at the same time, as the central and shared knowledge bank on terrorism information. Based on WITS, the NCTC provides an annual report and statistical information about terrorist incidents.
Additional Online Resources
Scores of additional organisations and centres (too many to list) conduct and disseminate research on issues related to armed conflicts, terrorism, terrorist groups, security, and counterterrorism. What follows is a list of some other key organisations and centres, with links to their websites:Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)(http://www.aspi.org.au)Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies (CATS)(http://www.fhs.se/en/Research/Centers‐and‐Research‐Programmes/CATS)Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)(http://www.csis.org)Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV)(http://www.st‐andrews.ac.uk/~wwwir/research/cstpv)IntelCenter(http://intelcenter.com)International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)(http://www.pvtr.org)International Crisis Group (ICG)(http://www.crisisgroup.org)International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)(http://www.iiss.org)International Policy Institute for Counter‐Terrorism (ICT)(http://www.ict.org.il)Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT)(http://www.mipt.org)Saban Center at the Brookings Institution(http://www.brookings.edu/saban.aspx)Senlis Council(http://www.senliscouncil.net)Southern Poverty Law Center(http://www.splcenter.org)Terrorism and Homeland Security at RAND Corporation(http://www.rand.org/research_areas/terrorism)Terrorism Research Center (TRC)(http://www.terrorism.org)Transnational Radical Islamism Project at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment(http://www.mil.no/felles/ffi/english/start/research/Analysis_Division/_TERRA)United States Institute of Peace(http://www.usip.org/index.html)4. Sample syllabus Course Title: A Sociological Analysis of Terrorism and Counterterrorism Course Description In this course, we will explore the most relevant issues around terrorism and counterterrorism policies. Although we will largely approach this topic from a sociological perspective, this study is quite interdisciplinary. Consequently, we will be reading works from other academic disciplines, including history, psychology, political science, and economics. There are four major areas that any analysis of terrorism, to be comprehensive, should take into account: the definition of terrorism; its history and classification; its explanations; and an assessment of consequences related to counterterrorism. After an introduction to terrorism research (part 1), we will discuss the controversies related to the definition of terrorism (part 2) and to data collection (part 3), both necessary for an understanding of tendencies concerning terrorist incidents. A historical overview (part 4) will give us some preliminary information about the variety of terrorist campaigns – information that prepares us for the next exercise (part 5): grouping terrorist organisations by different types. Looking in more depth at the evolution of terrorism in the last decade, we will examine the case of Al‐Qaeda (part 6), and how this and other organisations exploit old and new media, especially the Internet (part 7). The next chapter will be the explanation of terrorism, that is, the specification of the main psychological, political, cultural, and religious factors underlying the emergence of a terrorist organisation and the unfolding of a terrorist campaign. Suicide terrorism will be used as a case study. More specifically, we will approach terrorism by examining the motivations and rationality of terrorist organisations (part 8), of the communities that support them (part 9), and of those who join them (part 10). We end the course by focusing on both the legal (part 11) and strategic (part 12) implications of counterterrorism measures adopted since 2001. Course outline and reading assignments Part 1. Terrorism Research An overview of the most important approaches to the study of terrorism and of the strengths and weaknesses of available analyses. Bjørgo, Tore 2005. 'Introduction' (pp. 1–15) and 'Conclusions' (pp. 256–264) in Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Realities and Ways Forward, edited by Tore Bjørgo. London, UK: Routledge. Crenshaw, Martha 2000. 'The Psychology of Terrorism: An Agenda for the 21st Century.'Political Psychology 21 (2): 405–420 (Doi: 10.1111/0162-895X.00195). Ranstorp, Magnus 2007. 'Introduction: Mapping Terrorism Research – Challenges and Priorities.' Pp. 1–28 in Mapping Terrorism Research, edited by Magnus Ranstorp. London, UK: Routledge. Silke, Andrew 2004. 'An Introduction to Terrorism Research.' Pp. 1–29 in Research on Terrorism: Trends, Achievements and Failures, edited by Andrew Silke. London, UK: Frank Cass. Sinai, Joshua 2007. 'New Trends in Terrorism Studies: Strengths and Weaknesses.' Pp. 31–50 in Mapping Terrorism Research, edited by Magnus Ranstorp. London, UK: Routledge. Turk, Austin T. 2004. 'Sociology of Terrorism.'Annual Review of Sociology 30: 271–286 (Doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110510). Wilkinson, Paul 2007. 'Research into Terrorism Studies: Achievements and Failures.' Pp. 316–328 in Mapping Terrorism Research, edited by Magnus Ranstorp. London, UK: Routledge. Part 2. What is Terrorism? A discussion of one of the most controversial issues, the definition of terrorism, focusing on its political and methodological implications. Aly, Waleed 2008. 'The Axiom of Evil.'The Guardian, 8 July, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/08/nelsonmandela.terrorism (last accessed: 8 July 2008). Hoffman, Bruce 2006. Chapter 1 (pp. 1–42). Inside Terrorism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. della Porta, Donatella 2004. 'Terror Against the State.' Pp. 208–16 in The Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, edited by Kate Nash and Alan Scott. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. Schmid, Alexander P. 2004. 'Frameworks for Conceptualising Terrorism.'Terrorism and Political Violence 16 (2): 197–221 (Doi: 10.1080/09546550490483134). Tilly, Charles 2004. 'Terror, Terrorism, Terrorist.'Sociological Theory 22 (1): 5–16 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00200.x). Tosini, Domenico 2007. 'Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat', Sociology Compass 1 (2), 664–681 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00035.x). Wilkinson, Paul 2006. Chapter 1 (pp. 1–19). Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London, UK: Routledge. Part 3. Collecting Data on Terrorism Incidents An introduction to the challenges and solutions to the collection of terrorism data, a preliminary and crucial aspect of any scientific analysis. Buchalter, Alice R. and Glenn E. Curtis 2003. Inventory and Assessment of Databases Relevant for Social Science Research on Terrorism. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division Library of Congress, http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/frd (last accessed 10 June 2008). Enders, Walter and Todd Sandler 2006. Chapter 3 (pp. 52–83). The Political Economy of Terrorism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lafree, Gary 2007. 'Introducing the Global Terrorism Database.'Terrorism and Political Violence 19 (2): 181–204 (Doi: 10.1080/09546550701246817). HSP 2008. Human Security Brief 2007. Dying to Lose: Explaining the Decline in Global Terrorism. Simon Fraser University, Canada: Human Security Report Project, http://www.humansecuritybrief.info/HSRP_Brief_2007.pdf (last accessed 15 June 2008). Part 4. Waves of Terror: The Evolution of Terrorism A look at terrorism from a historical perspective in an attempt to identify continuities and discontinuities in the use of political violence. Abrahms, Max 2006. 'Why Terrorism Does Not Work.'International Security 31 (2): 42–78 (Doi: 10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.42). Duyvesteyn, Isabelle 2004. 'How New Is the New Terrorism?'Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 27 (5): 439–454 (Doi: 10.1080/10576100490483750). Hoffman, Bruce 2006. Chapters 2–4 (pp. 43–130). Inside Terrorism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Jenkins, Brian 1975. International Terrorism: A New Mode of Conflict. Research Paper n. 48, California Seminar on Arms Control and Foreign Policy. Kaplan, Jeffrey 2007. 'The Fifth Wave: The New Tribalism?'Terrorism and Political Violence 19 (4): 545–570 (Doi: 10.1080/09546550701606564). Laqueur, Walter 2002. Chapters 1–2 (pp. 3–78). A History of Terrorism. London, UK: Transaction Publishers. Münkler, Herfried 2005. Chapter 5 (pp. 99–116). The New Wars. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Rapoport, David C. 2004. 'Modern Terror: The Four Waves.' Pp. 46–73 in Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Great Strategy, edited by Audrey Cronin and J. Ludes. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Reed, Donald J. 2008. 'Beyond the War on Terror: Into the Fifth Generation of War and Conflict.'Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31 (8): 684–722 (Doi: 10.1080/10576100802206533). Part 5. Typologies of Terrorist Movements An overview of the complex task of classifying terrorist organisations on the basis of characteristics such as political objectives, ideological frames, and the cleavages between them and their enemies. Goodwin, Jeff 2006. 'A Theory of the Categorical Terrorism.'Social Forces 84 (4): 2027–2046. Gunaratna, Rohan and Graeme C. S. Steven 2004. Chapter 1 (pp. 1–98). Counterterrorism. Santa Barbara, CA: Abc Clio. Schmid, Alexander P. and Albert J. Jongman 1988. Chapter 2 (in collaboration with M. Stohl and P. A. Fleming, pp. 39–60). Political Terrorism. London, UK: Transaction Publishers. Tosini, Domenico 2007. 'Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat.'Sociology Compass 1 (2), 664–681 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00035.x). Wilkinson, Paul 2006. Chapter 2 (pp. 20–38). Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London, UK: Routledge. Part 6. Al‐Qaeda and its Affiliates: Ideologies, Strategies, Structures A sociological look at the ideological, strategic, and organisational aspects of Al‐Qaeda's terrorism from the 1980s to its most recent campaign in Iraq. Al‐Zayyat, Montasser 2004. The Road to Al‐Qaeda. London, UK: Pluto Press. Gunaratna, Rohan 2002. Chapters 1–2 (pp. 21–126). Inside Al‐Qaeda. New York, NY: Berkley Books. Pape, Robert A. 2005. Chapter 7 (pp. 102–125). Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York, NY: Random House. Sageman, Marc 2004. Chapters 1‐2 (pp. 1‐60). Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hafez, Mohammed M. 2007. Chapters 1–5 (pp. 35–162). Suicide Bombers in Iraq. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Part 7. Terrorism and the Media An exploration of the ways that terrorist organisations exploit old and new media, especially the Internet, as communicative channels (for staging their attacks, threats, demands, and propaganda) and as instrumental tools (for fund raising, coordination, and recruitment). Hoffman, Bruce 2006. Chapters 6–7 (pp. 173–228). Inside Terrorism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ICG 2006. In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency. International Crisis Group: Middle East Report No 50, 15 February, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3953&l=1 (last accessed 5 February 2008). Rogan, Hanna 2006. Jihadism Online: A Study of How Al‐Qaeda and Radical Islamist Groups Use Internet for Terrorist Purposes. Norwegian Defence Research Establishment: FFI/RAPPORT‐2006/00915, http://rapporter.ffi.no/rapporter/2006/00915.pdf (last accessed 5 June 2008). Sageman, Marc 2008. Chapter 6 (pp. 109–123). Leaderless Jihad. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Weimann, Gabriel 2006. Chapters 3–4 (pp. 49–145). Terror on the Internet. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Part 8. Terrorist Organisations and Their Logic An examination of the political objectives and ideologies of terrorist organisations and an overview of the rationality and strategies underlying their decision‐making in relation to the political opportunities and military events shaping their environment. Boyns, David and James David Ballard 2004. 'Developing a Sociological Theory for the Empirical Understanding of Terrorism.'American Sociologist 35 (2): 5–26 (Doi: 10.1007/BF02692394). Crenshaw, Martha 1998. 'The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behaviour as a Product of Strategic Choice.' Pp. 7–24 in Origins of Terrorism, edited by Walter Reich. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Gambetta, Diego 2006. 'Can We Make Sense of Suicide Missions?' Pp. 259–299 in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Hafez, Mohammed and Quintan Wiktorowicz 2004. 'Violence as Contention in the Egyptian Islamic Movement.' Pp. 61–88 in Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, edited Quintan Wiktorowicz. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Kalyvas, Stathis 2006. Chapters 6–7 (pp. 147–208). The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kramer, Martin 1998. 'The Moral Logic of Hezbollah.' Pp. 131–157 in Origins of Terrorism, edited by Walter Reich. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Pape, Robert A. 2005. Chapters 3–5 (pp. 27–60). Dying to Win. New York, NY: Random House. Tosini, Domenico 2009. 'A Sociological Understanding of Suicide Attacks.'Theory, Culture & Society (Forthcoming). Part 9. Mechanisms of Social Support A discussion of the economic, cultural, and political conditions which make possible the support for, and collaboration with, terrorist organisations by members of certain communities. Cook, David and Olivia Allison 2007. Chapters 1–5 (pp. 1–85). Understanding and Addressing Suicide Attacks: The Faith and Politics of Martyrdom Operations. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. Chernick, Marc 2007. 'FARC‐EP: From Liberal Guerrillas to Marxist Rebels to Post‐Cold War Insurgency.' Pp. 51–120 in Terror, Insurgency, and the State, edited by Marianne Heiberg et al. Philadelphia, PA: University Pennsylvania Press. Hashim, Ahmed S. 2006. Chapter 2 (pp. 59–124). Insurgency and Counter‐Insurgency in Iraq. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kalyvas, Stathis 2006. Chapter 4 (pp. 87–110). The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Merari, Ariel 2005. 'Social, Organizational and Psychological Factors in Suicide Terrorism.' Pp. 70–86 in Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Realities and Ways Forward, edited by Tore Bjørgo. London, UK: Routledge. Pape, Robert A. 2005. Chapters 6–8 (pp. 79–167). Dying to Win. New York, NY: Random House. Part 10. Social Networks and Recruitment An analysis of the motivations behind the process of joining terrorist organisations and of the role played by group dynamics and social networks. della Porta, Donatella 1995. Chapter 7 (pp. 165–186). Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sageman, Marc 2004. Chapters 4–5 (pp. 99–173). Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia, PA: University Pennsylvania Press. Horgan, John 2005. Chapter 3 (pp. 47–79). The Psychology of Terrorism. London, UK: Routledge. Khosrokhavar, Fahad 2005. Chapter 3 (pp. 149–224). Suicide Bombers. London, UK: Pluto Press. Pedahzur, Ami 2005. Chapters 6–7 (pp. 118–181). Suicide Terrorism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Stern, Jessica 2003. Chapter 9 (pp. 237–280). Terror in the Name of God. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publisher. Wintrobe, Ronald 2006. Chapters 5–6 (pp. 108–157). Rational Extremism: The Political Economy of Radicalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Part 11. Counterterrorism I: Legal Implications An overview of the emergency powers of antiterrorism legislations and 'special measures', and an analysis of their legal impact on the protection of human rights. Cole, David 2003. Chapters 1–5 (pp. 17–82). Enemy Aliens. New York, NY: The Free Press. Haubrich, Dirk 2003. 'September 11, Anti‐Terror Laws and Civil Liberties: Britain, France and Germany Compared.'Government and Opposition 38 (1): 3–29 (Doi: 10.1111/1477-7053.00002). Parker, Tom 2005. 'Counterterrorism Policies in the United Kingdom.' Pp. 119–148 in Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror, edited by Philip B. Heymann and Juliette N. Kayyem. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Tosini, Domenico 2007. 'Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat', Sociology Compass 1 (2): 664–681 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00035.x). Part 12. Counterterrorism II: Strategic Limitations An examination of the most important counterterrorism policies adopted since 2001, with special reference to the occupation of Iraq, and an assessment of their advantages and risks for combating and preventing terrorism. Nesser, Peter 2006. 'Jihadism in Western Europe After the Invasion of Iraq: Tracing Motivational Influences from the Iraq War on Jihadist Terrorism in Western Europe.'Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29 (4): 323–342 (Doi: 10.1080/10576100600641899). Pape, Robert A. 2005. Chapter 12 (pp. 237–250). Dying to Win. New York, NY: Random House. Silke, Andrew 2005. 'Fire of Iolaus: The Role of State Countermeasures in Causing Terrorism and What Needs to Be Done.' Pp. 241–255 in Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Realities and Ways Forward, edited by Tore Bjørgo. London, UK: Routledge. Smelser, Neil J. 2007. Chapter 6 (pp. 160–199). The Faces of Terrorism: Social and Psychological Dimensions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tosini, Domenico 2007. 'Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat', Sociology Compass 1 (2): 664–681 (Doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00035.x). Wilkinson, Paul 2006. Chapters 5–6 (pp. 61–102). Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London, UK: Routledge.5. Films and videos Al‐Qaeda Film on the First Anniversary of the London Bombings. 2006 (17 min)(http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/215/1186.htm)Excerpts from a message from 2005 London bomber Shehzad Tanweer and statements by Al‐Qaeda leaders Ayman Al‐Zawahiri and Adam Gadahn, posted on http://www.tajdeed.net.tc on 8 July 2006. A typical example of the communicative use of the Internet by Islamists in their attempt to frame terrorist attacks as legitimate acts of martyrdom, committed by courageous Muslims in defence of their brothers and sisters in occupied Muslim lands (e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine). Al‐Qaeda Leader in Iraq Abu Musab Al‐Zarqawi's First Televised Interview. 2006 (17 min)(http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/344/1118.htm)A video posted by the Islamist web forum http://www.alsaha.com on 25 April 2006, in which the Al‐Qaeda commander in Iraq Abu Musab Al‐Zarqawi (killed by an airstrike on 7 June 2006) outlines all the typical condemnations (by Islamist extremists) of the Iraq occupation by the US‐led coalition, and calls for a jihad against its forces and allies. Propagandising the military capabilities of Al‐Qaeda, the video culminates in footage of Al‐Zarqawi with masked fighters, firing an automatic weapon, and 'new missiles' developed by 'the brothers'. Al‐Arabiya TV Special on the Culture of Martyrdom and Suicide Bombers. 2005 (7 min)(http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/215/807.htm)Excerpts from a show about the culture of martyrdom, aired on Al‐Arabiya TV on 22 July 2005. The documentary investigates some of the most relevant religious and political justifications and symbolic representations among Islamist extremists in favour of suicide attacks. In particular, it looks at the Palestinian organisations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and at the Lebanese Hezbollah. The film includes an interview with Maha Ghandour, the wife of Salah Ghandour, who was responsible for a suicide attack carried out in 1995 on behalf of Hezbollah against an Israeli military convoy. Battle For Haditha. 2007 (93 min)(http://www.nickbroomfield.com/haditha.html)In this film, the director Nick Broomfield looks at the dramatic events surrounding an incident that occurred in Haditha, Iraq, when 24 Iraqis were allegedly massacred by US Marines, following the death of a Marine in a bombing perpetrated by Iraqi insurgents. The harsh reality of the war is viewed from three perspectives: that of the US troops, the insurgents who committed the attacks, and a civilian Iraqi family. Iranian Animated Film for Children Promotes Suicide Bombings. 2005 (10 min)(http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/215/906.htm)Including excerpts from an Iranian animated movie for children, aired on IRIB 3 TV on 28 October 2005, this film is an example of the mechanisms of de‐humanization of the enemy (the Israelis), based on a tale of the ferocious murder of innocent people by Israeli soldiers. This incident is followed by a bomb attack framed as an act of martyrdom by young militants in revenge of the previous assassination. Paradise Now. 2005 (91 min)In his film, the director Hany Abu‐Assad focuses on the final days of two Palestinian militants as they prepare to carry out a suicide attack in Tel Aviv. Once childhood friends Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) are offered such an attack, they feel a sense of purpose in serving their people's cause, whereas a young Palestinian woman, after learning of their plan, tries to dissuade them from carrying out their missions. Paradise Now has been viewed as a controversial attempt to examine the motivations of suicide bombers. The Reach of War: Sectarian War in Iraq. 2006 (7 min)(http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/12/28/world/20061228_SECTARIAN_FEATURE.html)The New York Times journalist Marc Santora reports on some of the most violent and bloody effects of the sectarian violence perpetrated in Iraq during the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, which has followed the occupation by the US‐led coalition. The Road to Guantanamo. 2006 (92 min)(http://www.roadtoguantanamomovie.com)Directed by Michael Winterbottom, the film tells the story of four friends beginning a holiday in Pakistan. Through a series of interviews and news footage, the film shows how they end up in Afghanistan, where are then captured by American forces and kept in harsh conditions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for over 2 years. The Role of Foreign Fighters in the Iraqi Jihad. 2006 (9 min)(http://www1.nefafoundation.org/multimedia‐original.html)In this video, NEFA Foundation expert Evan Kohlmann documents the phenomenon of foreign fighters in Iraq and their role within the Sunni insurgency. The video includes footage of senior figures from Abu Musab al‐Zarqawi's terrorist group (including Lebanese, Saudi, and Kuwaiti nationals) and scenes from Al‐Qaida training camps in Iraq. The Suicide Bomber. 2005 (12 min)(http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july‐dec05/bombers_11‐14.html)In this debate aired on PBS on 14 November 2005, three experts (Mia Bloom, Mohammed M. Hafez, and Robert A. Pape) discuss what motivates suicide bombers and their terrorist organisations, with special reference to the 2005 hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, where a female militant joining these attacks was found alive after her bomb failed to detonate. The Terrorist Propaganda (three videos):
Indexing Al‐Qaeda Online.
2005 (6 min)(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1)
Without the Video, It's Just an Attack.
2007 (5 min)(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/video/2007/09/28/VI2007092800608.html)
Al‐Qaeda's Growing Online Offensive.
2008 (14 min)(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/article/2008/06/23/AR2008062302135.html)Over the last decade, terrorist propaganda on the Internet has increased dramatically. In these videos, experts discuss how insurgent groups, in particular Islamist extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan, are using new media to spread their messages worldwide, to chronicle their operations (including the assembly and emplacement of roadside bombs targeting US forces), to recruit, and to raise money.6. Focus questions

What challenges do researchers interested in terrorism studies face and why? What are the most important theoretical and methodological weaknesses in current terrorism research?
How can we define terrorism? What political controversies affect the definition of terrorism? When comparing different terrorism data sets, what kinds of diagnoses can we make on the tendencies of terrorist incidents in the last decade?
How has terrorism changed in history? Based on the literature concerning Al‐Qaeda's ideology, strategies, and structures, what continuities and discontinuities can we identify with respect to previous forms of terrorism?
When dealing with the explanation of terrorism, what are the most significant factors to be taken into account? How can we learn from the current literature on suicide terrorism in order to build a comprehensive model for its explanation?
Given the legislative and military responses to September 11 and subsequent attacks (e.g. the 2005 London bombings), what have been the legal consequences affecting our societies and the strategic implications for combating and preventing terrorist violence?

7. SeminarsParticipants will be divided into small groups of about three persons. Each group will be asked to make a contribution to a sociological analysis (either written or presented) of a specific armed organisation, such as:Al‐Gama'a Al‐IslamiyyaAl‐QaedaAl‐Qaeda in IraqAl‐Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (formerly Salafist Group for Call and Combat)Ansar Al‐SunnahAnsar Al‐IslamArmed Islamic Groups (GIA)Army of GodAum ShinrikyoChechen separatistsEgyptian Islamic JihadEuskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA)HamasHezbollahIrgun Zvai LeumiIrish Republican Army (IRA)Islamic Movement of UzbekistanJemaah IslamiyahKashmiri separatistsKu Klux Klan (KKK)Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)Lashkar‐e‐JhangviLibyan Islamic Fighting GroupPalestinian Islamic JihadPalestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)Red Army Faction (RAF)Red Brigades (BR)Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)Taliban.For each armed organisation, each group will examine the following aspects:

data on its attacks – including information that justifies the label of 'terrorist organisation';
a historical account of its origins and developments;
an analysis of the strategy underlying its terrorist campaigns;
a clarification of its social support and collaboration (if any);
a profile of its militants and patterns of recruitment;
a discussion of the counterterrorism policies adopted by states and their impact on the terrorist organisation.

Note
* Correspondence address: Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Research, Piazza Venezia 41 – 38100 Trento, Italy, +39 0461 881324; +39 0461 881348 (fax); +39 347 2329219 (mobile); Email: domenico.tosini@soc.unitn.it http://portale.unitn.it/dpt/dsrs/docenti/tosini.htm

Abstract: Transcription of Utah International shareholder's meeting to finalize the merger with General Electric. The meeting took place December 15, 1976. Speakers are Edmund Littlefield (EL), Bruce Mitchell (BM), Charles Travers (CT), and seven unknown speakers labeled by number as they appear. Also, when the audience speaks as a group, it is labeled All. This document is transcribed verbatim, with a few changes included to provide clarity. December 15, 1976 Transcript: EL: I see we are playing to a packed house and I would like to suggest that there is a whole row of seats down here in the front that we would be glad to have you come use. Well good morning ladies and gentlemen, would the meeting please come to order. Welcome to this special meeting of the shareholders of Utah International, called for the purpose of considering the proposed merger with the General Electric Company. I am Edmund W. Littlefield, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. On my left are Alexander M. Wilson, President and Chief Operating Officer and Director, and Bruce T. Mitchell, Secretary of the company. It is my privilege to introduce to you the other members of our board of directors who are here today, Alf E. Brandon, Senior Vice President of the company; Val A. Browning, Chairman of the Board, Browning; Thomas D. Dee, Vice President of First Security Bank, Ogden, Utah; William R. Hewlett, President of Hewlett-Packard Company; J. B. Ladd, President of Ladd Petroleum Corporation, a subsidiary of the company; Arjay Miller, Dean, Graduate School of 2 Business, Stanford University; Paul L. Wattis Jr., President of Wattis Construction Company; and last and certainly by no means least, a gentleman who's served on this board for fifty-six years, Marriner S. Eccles, former President and Chairman of the Board of the company and now Honorary Chairman of the Board. [Applause] Thank you. These gentlemen, together with the two of us on the platform, who you met earlier, constitute the Board of Directors. Unfortunately, Ernest C. Arbuckle, Chairman of the Board of Wells Fargo Bank and our host for this meeting is unable to be with us today. Fred J. Borch, George Eccles and Bill Kimball are also unable to be with us. Ernie, unfortunately, is undergoing some surgery at this time. We also have with us today representatives of Arthur Anderson, our auditors, Pillsbury Madison and Suite our counsel, and Lehman Brothers and Dean Company, and our investment brokers are also present here today. I now ask the secretary to report on the notice of the meeting, the presence of a quorum, and other matters relating to this meeting. BM: Mr. Chairman, there are available the following documents: 1) A list of the stockholders of Utah International Inc. as of the close of business on October 29, 1976 being the stockholders, entitled to notice of and to vote at this special meeting. 2) An affidavit of the company's transfer agent to the effect of written notice of the special meeting was mailed to each stockholder entitled to vote more than twenty days before the date of the meeting as required by Delaware general corporation law. 3) A signed registration of all stockholders and proxy holders 3 present at the meeting. Management proxies received and other proxies who are personally present represent more than the majority of 31,540,032 shares of stock entitled to vote at the meeting, and constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. This meeting is accordingly properly called and constituted, and is empowered to proceed as a special meeting of the stockholders of Utah International Inc. EL: Thank you, the Board appoints Mr. J. B. Nelson and Mr. Swineheart of Utah International Inc. and Mr. Dennis Conco of the Crocker National Bank, inspectors of election to inspect assigned proxies and credentials presented to the meeting and to conduct a voting to receive and count the votes and to determine the results of the meeting. In the notice of the Special Meeting in the attaché proxy statement, the only item of business to be considered by the stockholders is a proposal for the adoption and approval of the agreement in plan, the reorganization and agreement of merger as amended by which Utah International Incorporated will become a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric Company. The secretary is requested to submit the resolution which has been prepared for this purpose. BM: Mr. Chairman, the resolution is as follows: resolved that the merger of G. sub of Delaware Inc. with an end to this corporation as set forth in the agreement and plan of reorganization dated as of April 1, 1976; as amended by an amendment dated as of August 13, 1976, attached are annex one and annex two respectively, and the agreement mergers set forth as exhibit A to said annex one to the proxy statement dated October 29, 1976, and mailed to stockholders of record at the 4 close of business on October 29, 1976. Also included are the terms and conditions of the purposed agreement and plan of reorganization as amended, along with the agreement of the merger, providing among other things, for this corporation to become a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric Company, and the mode of carrying such terms and conditions into effect; as well, the manner and basis of converting the shares of common stock of this corporation into shares of common stock of General Electric Company, as therein provided be and hereby are, approved. 1: Mr. Chairman, I'm a stockholder and I would like to move the adoption to resolution. EL: Thank you. Is there a second? 2: Second. I hereby second the motion. EL: Thank you. It has been moved and seconded that the resolution which the secretary has read be adopted. The affirmative vote of a majority of the outstanding shares of the corporation will be required to carry the motion and adopt the resolution. Before opening the matter for general discussion, I would like to make some comments. This is a special meeting of the shareholders of Utah International Incorporated. It is special in two ways, first in the statutory sense in that it is not a regular annual meeting, but calls specifically to consider and act upon the merger of Utah and General Electric. It is also special in the sentimental sense in that it is destined to be the last public held meeting of this fine company whose antecedents go back to January 1900, when its 5 predecessor was incorporated with six shareholders. When the business of the day is done, Utah International will be merged with a single shareholder. General Electric has of record some 529,000 shareholders, Utah 23,000. These are located in fifty states and in many foreign countries. The actual number of shareholders is far greater. For often the shareholder of record is a broker or trust department of a bank acting as a nominee for many, many shareholders. You received a rather weight proxy statement. If the proxy material required and printed for the Utah and General Electric shareholders meetings today were stacked one on top of the other the pile would be over three and a half miles high. If the individual pages were laid end to end these would cross the continental United States three and three-quarter times. The proxy statement contains, and it's a hundred and seventy-six pages, considerable detail of the terms of the merger, historical financial and operating information of both companies, formal statements of the merge company and other information which the Board of Directors of the respective companies and or the Securities and Exchange Commission deem pertinent and appropriate to put before the shareholders so they may arrive at an informed decision. The merger has been recommended by each Board of Directors. It has been examined on Utah's behalf by the investment banking firms of Lehman Brothers Incorporated and Dean Whitter and Company Incorporated. Each of whom has expressed the opinion that the exchange ratio is fair and equitable to the shareholders of Utah. The same information has been put before the shareholders of General Electric, who met today, this morning, in Stratford, 6 Connecticut at 9:30 AM eastern standard time and they have approved the merger. The Utah shareholders have also considered the merger, and the company is in receipt of proxies representing over 86% of the shares issued and outstanding. The proxies have been instructed how the shares are to be voted and as a consequence, the outcome of the voting on the proposals before us has already been determined and from a practical standpoint, nothing we can say or do here will in fact change that. Even though the outcome is ordained I have no intention of conducting these proceedings in a perfunctory manner. Many of us in this room have devoted most of our working lives to the furtherance of the fortunes of Utah International and we come to today's proceedings with mixed emotions. We recognize and stipulate that it is in the best interest of the Utah shareholders and its employees, that over the years we have given much of our substance into making this company what it is today. We are proud of our handy work and I believe properly so. We do not intend to let this moment pass into history, without noting these accomplishments and recording the concerns that caused us to believe that a merger between these two great companies would serve the best interests of the shareholders of each. Let's pick up the story twenty years ago when the company had 257 shareholders, some 2,400 employees and gross revenues less than 43 million dollars of which 76% was derived from performing contract construction. The stock was traded over the counter at a book value of $1.12 a share and trade from a low of $1.18 to a high of $1.51. That year the company earned 4.2 million dollars or 16 ¢ a share, and paid a dividend of 4.9 ¢ a share. With that as a 7 starting point let us examine the progress that has been recorded. Gross revenues grew, not always steadily, but over the years have climbed to over 944 million in the last fiscal year. The composition of these gross revenues has changed as the nature of the company has changed. Until we sold our heavy construction assets in 1969, construction was the major source of gross revenues. With the sale of construction assets to 1969, and the dredges in 1971, mining became and remains overwhelmingly the dominant business of the company. Gross revenues from land development have been on the decline. More recently through the acquisition of Ladd Petroleum and other companies, gross revenues from oil and gas have become a significant item. As our business grew, so have our earnings, from the 4.2 million earned in 1956, earnings have risen to 178.8 million dollars the past year and have set record highs in each of the last 12 years. In only three out of the last twenty years have earnings been lower than the preceding year. Earnings have increased from 16 ¢ in '56 to $5.67 this year and the dividend has gone from 4.9¢ to $1.15 this year. As the company grew and prospered the stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. As you can see the number of shareholders has increased very substantially. Inevitably, death and taxes forced the estates of some of the long time shareholders to bring shares to the market. The company sold convertible debentures to obtain funds for expansion and conversion of these debentures, and our merger with Lucky Mc, Ladd Petroleum and LVO have also contributed to the increase in the number of shareholders. There has been some modest decline in the number of shareholders since the acquisition of LVO in 1974, but 8 today we still have almost 100 times as many shareholders as we did twenty years ago. The increase in the number of employees required the conduct growing business of the company has not tracked the change in either gross revenues or net income. Construction is a labor intensive activity, while mining is capital intense. Our employment peaked in 1958 at 12,000, dropped sharply when we sold our heavy division assets, but has gradually expanded as the company's mining activities have grown rapidly. Our mineral sales backlog was insignificant twenty years ago, and even ten years ago was only about a sixth of its' size today. Nevertheless, the creation of the mineral sales backlog was and is an important aspect of Utah International's character and one that distinguishes it from most other mining companies. Very frankly, when we were embarking upon the rapid expansion of our mining business, we had neither the capital, nor the credit to finance the growth at the pace we wished to pursue without resorting to forward sales of new production to strengthen our credit. We made a virtue out of a necessity and today Utah's mineral sales backlog has grown from a modest 1.1 billion dollars in '66 to 6.1 billion dollars today. 96% of this backlog is represented by long term contracts with escalation clauses protecting against future cost changes. It was the existence of this backlog which in considerable measure excited investor interest in the shares of Utah International and caused the price of the stock to increase dramatically over the years. From a low of a $1.18 in 1956, the stock has closed at a higher price than the preceding year in sixteen out of the last twenty years, including the $65 price of the stock on October 31 the close of this 9 last fiscal year. In the early years, the stock sold close to its' book value. Again, in the early years, price earnings ratios on the stock were also modest, generally below twelve times the earnings. As the investing public came to realize the growth, earnings and the qualities of those price earnings ratios rose and remained for several years in excess of twenty times earnings, until the last few years, when investors have not been willing to accord so high a multiple for Utah shares, nor in fact for virtually shares of all other growth companies. Those who have invested in Utah shares and maintained faith in its management and its future have fared well. Earnings have grown at the compound rate of 19% for the last twenty years, 23% for the last fifteen years, 28% for the last ten years, and a startling 37% for the last five years. If you had invested a thousand dollars in the stock in 1956, you would have received in the interim dividends of $4,291, and the stock would have appreciated to $42,900. If you had made the same investments, but reinvested your dividends in Utah shares at the last price for each of the ensuing years, your $1,000 investment would have been worth $69,800 at the close of fiscal 1976. While I have not attempted to research the matter thoroughly, certainly there are few, if any, companies who have served their shareholders so well and so consistently in a period measured in five year, ten year, fifteen year or twenty year spans. Why then would a company who has so outstanding a record consider a merger even with the best of companies? The reason lies in the changing nature of the company's business and the source of its profits, present and prospective. Twenty years ago the company derived 87% of its' gross revenues from North 10 America, Later, even though we were heavily involved in contract construction outside North America, our gross revenues were well balanced for most of the time during the last twenty years. Ten years ago, only 8% of our mining revenues came from outside of North America, but this has been changing drastically in the last six years. As the next slide shows, 1976 witnessed 74.3% of the gross revenues earned outside North America and only 25.7% within North America. All of our land development and oil and gas gross revenues are earned within North America, but today only 22% our mining gross revenues are earned within North America and only 13.6% in the United States itself, far more significance, in my view, than the source of gross revenues or the sources of gross profit and other income. In the remarks that follow, I shall refer to this income account category simply as gross profits, but please consider it includes income from affiliates, joint ventures and partnerships as well as the gross profit earned by the parent company and its subsidiaries. This figure has grown from 8.7 million dollars in '56 to over 353 million dollars this past year. In the earlier years, the share provided by affiliate companies like Marcona and Cypress Pima, joint ventures and partnerships was a significant factor in the total. Reaching a high of 51% in 1967, but earnings from these sources have not been significant the last two years, dropping to a half of 1% in 1975 and actually producing the loss of 9 million dollars in 1976, the decline being primarily the result of the ill fortunes that have befallen Marcona. Mining has become increasingly the source of the company's gross profit. As you can see, ten years ago in 1966, mining contributed 31% of 11 the total of 22.7 million dollars gross profit, while in 1976 it contributed 344.7 million dollars or 97% of the gross profit and other income of 353.7 million dollars. However, it is not the concentration of gross profit and mining that so concerns us as it is the concentration of mining gross profit in a single commodity in a single country. Let's compare gross profits in '66 with those of '71 and those of '76. The well diversified business we enjoyed in '66 and indeed even in '71 has given way to a growing concentration of earnings from coal. Not only was our business increasingly concentrated in coal, but the earnings potential was increasingly concentrated outside North America. Earnings from North American sources provided 56.4% of gross profits in 1966. This has followed the 7.7% in 1975 and 14.2% in 1976 when the sharp increase in uranium increases did boost North American income. However, this trend toward increasing concentration of earnings from metallurgical coal produced in Australia is likely to continue for two probable reasons. The first indication is found in the mineral sales backlog which total 6.1 billion at the close of '76 with 71.3% of this related to future production outside of North America and 69.3% represented by metallurgical coal. The second reason this trend is likely to continue comes because of the undeveloped reserves that we have in hand. Certainly, one of the companies most promising investment prospects is the new metallurgical coal mine called Norwich Park in Australia, and we have abundant other coal reserves in the Queensland area that can and should be developed in the future using both surface and underground mining methods. Pursuit of our most promising prospect will make Utah less 12 diversified rather than more diversified and more dependent on Australia for the major share of its' gross profits and its' futures growth. I repeat that this concentration of mining was not in our view in and of itself alarming, but the composition of the mining gross profit and the concentration coking coal produced in a single country, and so primarily is a raw material for the steel industry in Japan and Europe, was too much concentration of risk for our company standing alone to bare. We cannot, and we should not, be so dependent on either a single commodity or single country no matter how solid either or both now appear. The attitude of the Australian government when the Labor Party was in power was a matter of extreme concern to us and this concern was no doubt deepened by having Marcona's assets in Peru expropriated by the government. We have great confidence in the people and political institutions of Australia and in the present government, and we are proceeding to increase our investment there because we have the coal reserves to do so and an attractive investment opportunity. However, with this abiding faith in Australia, in our view, this concentration of earning power in a single country and in a single mineral is too great a risk to be born alone, either by the shareholders of Utah or the employees of Utah whose livelihood while employed or in retirement are necessarily deeply affected by the fortunes of Utah International. This concern about the concentration of Utah's earning power was evidently shared by the investment community, which no longer was willing to assign a price earnings ratio of twenty-six to twenty-seven times earnings that prevailed in 1971, 1972 and 1973, but dropped the ration to 13.9% in 1974 and 13 to 13.3% in 1975. Thus we found ourselves faced with a paradox of having both our earnings and our dividends sharply increasing and the price of our shares flat and failing to respond. Certainly in these circumstances it seems only prudent to seek diversification of this risk. There were two broad courses that could be pursued. The first was to go on an aggressive acquisition program and seek to acquire other companies. This course of action posed considerable peril. First, the magnitude of the assignment was mind boggling, even if we were to attempt to reduce the risk to say roughly 50% and on the assumption that we could acquire other companies at ten times the earnings, we were faced with the necessity of attempting to acquire in short order, assets of around 1.5 billion dollars. Obviously, any effort to do this in the mining field would very quickly bring us under attack from the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice. This in turn meant that we had to seek these investments outside the field of our expertise and in areas of business we knew little or nothing about. We were almost certain to make mistakes along the way. All in all the prospects of trying to diversify by a series of acquisitions seemed an unpromising and even perilous course to follow. The other broad path to diversification was to seek merger with a company already diversified, but the company had to be large enough to digest a 2 billion dollar bite. This narrowed the field. There are indeed companies larger than General Electric, but none so well diversified nor in my view so ably managed. 14 The risks that were of concern to Utah International standing alone were not the least unreasonable to take when the assets of General Electric and Utah were combined. General Electric is one of the largest and most diversified industrial corporations in the world. It is engaged in well over a hundred different businesses and in most of these it occupies a leading position in the market it serves. These businesses range from consumer items to capital goods, from fairly simple and well known technologies to the most advanced technologies required for aerospace and the jet age. While General Electric operates in more foreign countries than does Utah, its' business is far more oriented to the domestic market, and the merged company will be nicely balanced between domestic and foreign operations. There will be no undue concentration of merged company. Out of the merger, the Utah shareholders will in my view be exchanging the prospect of a faster rate of growth with its attendant risks in exchange for greater diversification, higher yield, and a premium on their shares as the other parties to the bargain. The General Electric shareholders will acquire assets with earning power and potential for growth that would indicate an increase in General Electric's earnings per share, entering into the natural resource business giving GE still further diversification and what I believe to be, although my views are obviously biased, the best mining organization and the best mining company in the world, each of the parties to the bargain is benefited. It is the biggest merger ever undertaken and I am confident that history will prove it to have been the best. 15 Before entertaining discussion of the motion that is before us, I would like now to introduce to you the principle officers of the company who are with us today and whose labors are responsible for the record of accomplishments that I have presented to you. First, Edwin C. Demoss, Senior Vice President Manager of Mining Division and newly named President of Lucky Mc Uranium Corporation, Ed Demoss; Keith G. Wallace, Senior Vice President Manager of Australia Division; John S. Anderson, Vice President Manager of Domestic Coal Operations: James T. Curry, Financial Vice President and Treasurer; W. Drew Leonard, Vice President of Corporate Purports and Internal Audit; Ralph J. Long Vice President Manager of Australian Operations; Charles K. McArthur, Vice President Manager of Metal Mining and newly named Manager of Mining Division; Boyd C. Paulson, Vice President Manager of Construction Services; M. Ian Ritchie, Vice President of Technical Services and newly Manager Operations Lucky Mc Uranium Corporation; Robert O. Wheaton, Vice President Manager of Exploration. Thank you. Nor would the list be complete without acknowledging that there are others in the audience that have made great contributions, but who are now retired. Let me ask those that I have spotted here to stand and be recognized: Albert L. Reeves, formerly Senior Vice President Secretary of the Director of the company, Albert; Orville Dykstra, Financial Vice President; Joseph K. Allen, Vice President; Weston Bourret, Vice President; and Charles Travers, Vice President. Thank you very much, and now the chair will entertain the discussion of the motion and will be pleased to answer such questions as we can regarding the purposed merger. Are there questions or discussions? If there is no 16 discussion of the resolution, if not the matter will… the meeting will proceed to vote upon the motion to approve the purposed merger with General Electric. 3: Mr. Chairman? EL: Yes? 3: Would you describe the status of the attitude of the federal government towards this motion? EL: What we did was to put the matter before the Department of Justice and asked in advance for their approval under the business advisory clearance procedure. While it was sometime in coming, it was forthcoming. To meet the concerns they expressed about it, Utah has agreed and has put its uranium assets in a separate subsidiary company that is now called Lucky Mc Uranium Corporation. When the merger becomes effective, the voting stock of that the company will be put in the hands of five independent voting trustees who will see to it that the company will elect the board of that company, and see to it that that company's affairs are conducted in a way that does not help GE in such things as the sale of its nuclear aspects. That company is not allowed to sell uranium to GE, but from the standpoint of the government we think we are completely in the clear. Any other questions? If not, any stockholder who is present who has not executed a proxy should raise his hand in order that the inspectors of election may give him a ballot, which he may now cast. If you have sent in your proxy you need not cast a ballot unless you wish to do so. Are there those that would like to vote in person? One here, one there, Boyd, one up here too. Boyd, 17 there's two in the back of the room, three. Will the inspectors of election proceed to collect the ballots? Those who have ballots would you raise them when they are completed so they can be picked up? Thank you. Over here Boyd. If the ballots are all collected would you please advise us of the inspectors report? Are you ready to speak to that? John, there's another one up here. You will bring them to me and I'll read the numbers, right. BM: Mr. Chairman? EL: Mr. Secretary? BM: The inspectors report that more than 27,147,464 shares of common stock of the company were voted in favor of the resolution and that not more than 200,456 shares of common stock were voted against such resolution. Accordingly, the purpose merger has been approved. When the exact number voted for and against the resolution has been ascertained, the inspectors will execute a certificate setting forth such number. EL: Thank you Mr. Secretary. We have acted on the business that was to come before the meeting. Is there any other business to come before the meeting? CT: Mr. Chairman, I would like to present a resolution at this meeting of these shareholders. My name is Charles Travers, I am a stockholder and I retired from the company. You've heard the view from the top. I think now maybe you ought to get the view from the ranks. The view from the top had to necessarily be 18 austere, maybe Mr. Chairman I can be a little more lighthearted. I started at Utah about twenty-four years ago. Mr. Littlefield hired me. I remembered the office in San Francisco as a very small office, very small and compact and you had to go in the front door, which was the only entryway, and there was a row of offices on your left as you walked in. Those were the executive offices. Mr. Littlefield's office was the first office as you came in the door and he assigned me an office down at a sharp right angle off the main corridor. I also remember as a young fellow reading Horatio Alger's book, Ragged Dick, and in that book the way it said to get ahead in business, one of the ways at least, was to get to the office early and beat the boss in if you could. Well I found that was a very difficult task at Utah. You had to go through the front door and Mr. Littlefield always kept his door open, his light on. The first morning was a Monday morning and I got in about ten minutes ahead of time. I think our starting time was 8:15, but Mr. Littlefield said hello to me as I came in the door. We went on through that week. I got my time narrowed down a little more each day. By Wednesday, I was down to five minutes to 8:00 and on Friday I got there at twenty minutes to 8:00 and Mr. Littlefield said good morning to me every time I came in the door. So that weekend I figured out that there was a better way to do this and I'd get in real early and I'd beat him to the punch. So on Monday morning, I got there twenty-five minutes past 7:00, I walked in the door and the office was dark there was no light on, the door was open and Mr. Littlefield was not there. So I went to my office and at 8:15 I came sauntering down figuring now this is where I get my punch line. He's going to see me going out the door, he's 19 there and I say hello to him this time first. I looked in, the light was on, but Mr. Littlefield wasn't there. So I walked over to his secretary and said, "Where is Mr. Littlefield?" and he said, "Oh, he went to Chicago." [laughter] He left on the seven o'clock train. With all that due diligence I figured we ought to get ahead pretty fast some way or the other. And so I waited for my first year. You had to be in the Utah profit sharing plan one year in order to get your first statement. I waited my first year and I got my first statement. I have it here with me and I'd like to tell you that the date of it is December the 15th 1954. That's exactly twenty-two years ago to this day and here is what it says, extract: "Seasons greetings. Utah Construction Company retirement plan based on profit sharing, December 15, 1954. Dear fellow employee, your account in the retirement plan based on profit sharing on October 31, 1954 stood as follows: balance on October 31, 1953, zero. Added during the year by income, zero. So October 31, 1954, zero. And then it says during 1954, the net profit earned did not reach the levels your profit sharing permits. Your company would be required to make a contribution to the plan." And then it says, "Despite the fact that it is not required to do so, your company through its management is desirous of sharing with you a portion of the profits earned during 1954. To accomplish this, the board has approved a contribution of $50,000." Then it says, "we're going to try to get the IRS approval for that, and if so we will contribute the $50,000 to your fund, but if not we'll have to pay your share in cash. If the amount is received by you in cash, you will have to pay income taxes on it. Your share of the $50,000 contribution would be $201.75." I was beginning 20 to think that Horatio Alger wasn't right after all, $201.75 for getting in all those first eighteen months at 7:30 in the morning didn't seem fair to me, but nobody quit. I didn't, management didn't. About three weeks ago, I received this news release from the company in the mail, it's dated as of December 3, 1976 and here's what it says in the first few lines: "Utah International Inc. reports record earnings for fiscal 1976, San Francisco. E. W. Littlefield, Chairman of the Board, reported today that Utah International earned $178,821,000 or $5.67 per share. This fiscal year ended October 31, 1976." We have come a long way since those days in 1954. But Utah had more than profits. It had the forward look. My view from the ranks runs something like this: Utah's profit sharing and incentive plans were way ahead of their time back in those days. Mr. Littlefield, to my knowledge, had a rare understanding of the corporations standing in the social structure, what the corporation's obligations were to society. Utah's mine lands were restored to better than what nature had them long before that became a primary concern of many people in the United States. Utah's mining operations were conducted on a basis of we'll go sell the merchandise and then we'll get the production and that reduced the risk very greatly. Even today, Utah's section on environment stands out as a very aggressive and important function that helps to finish the project properly in the eyes of the people of this country. Well, I could go on and spend many more minutes saying that, but I think it's time now for me to present my resolution and I would like to do that. Mr. 21 Chairman, I will give you a copy of the resolution so you will have it for the record and I would like to read the resolution. EL: Thank you, Charlie. CT: The resolution says resolve about the stockholders of Utah International Inc., meeting for the last time as public shareholders in San Francisco, California on this 15th day of December 1976, do hereby express their gratitude and sincere appreciation to Edmund W. Littlefield, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; Alexander M. Wilson, President and Chief Operating Officer and the Director; Marriner S. Eccles, Honorary Chairman; and to all the officers, directors and employees of Utah International Inc. for their devoted services in behalf of the shareholders. 4: Mr. Chairman, I move the resolution. EL: Thank you, Mr. Travers. I must say Charlie, you always speak well, but you don't speak briefly. [laughter] I think that comes from attending too many meetings of Town Council in Alameda. The motion has been presented to the shareholders, is there a second? Thank you, I must say that those of us at this end of the room, I'm sure have an abiding faith and agreed with its sentiments, but since we do not control the vote. I will put it to vote. All those in favor please say aye. All: Aye 22 EL: Opposed? Thank you. Thank you very, very much. And thank you Charlie. [applause]. There's no other business, the proposed merger has been approved. I thank you. Excuse me. 5: On behalf of all of the stockholders, I wish to thank all of the officers and directors of Utah International for having worked so well for us. I also think at this time, it would be appropriate to bow our heads in silence for one minute in memory of E. O. Wattis who was founder of Utah International and also for all of those who worked and lost their lives to make the company what it is today. Amen. EL: If you would amend that to include all of the founders the chair will entertain it. On the assumption that it is so included, we will so do. Thank you. With the merger approved and not further business, I'll entertain that motion to have the meeting adjourned. 6: I'll back the motion. EL: Thank you, is there a second? 7: Second. EL: All those in favor, please say aye. All: Aye. EL: Opposed? Thank you, the meeting is adjourned. ; This is a myriad of items throughout the UC/UI collection. It includes the minutes of the stockholder's meetings with both Utah International and General Electric, correspondence, a reel-to-reel tape of the merger meeting and the official merger documents. ; 4.25 x 6.5 - 8.5 x 11 in. handwritten or typed on paper ; Reynolds Securities Inc. Transamerica Pyramid 600 Montgomery Street San Francisco, Calif. 94111 Telephone 983-8000 Members New York Stock Exchange, Inc. and other leading exchanges Main Office 120 Broadway New York, N. Y. 10005 December 13, 1976 Mr. Edmund W. Littlefield Utah International 550 California Street San Francisco, Ca. 94104 Dear Ed: I regret that I will be unable to attend the meeting Wednesday because I will be in the East for a Directors meeting. This is an occasion that I hate to miss, but I am sure that many of your other happy stockholders will be there. Sincerely, Gerry Gerald F. Brush GFB: 1c