FEBRUARY, J900 ■ Gettysbur Mercury CONTENTS. Puzzles and their Value in Men-tal Training, 261 How Obtain Equilibrium be-tween Production and Con-sumption, 265 Scene in the Forest, Orlando Soliloquizing, 271 Education more than a Means of Gaining a Livelihood, 272 A Comparative Study in Ruskin, 274 Editorials 278 Economic Results of Gambling, 279 Results of the Art of Healing,. 282 Public Control of Industries 285 The Power of Ignorance; 292 KAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. For Fine. Printing go to p o ,,0 CARLISLE ST. GETTYSBURG, PA. C. B. Kitzmiller Dealer in Hats, Caps, Boots and . Douglas Shoes GETTYSBURG, PA. J. H. Myers Fashionable Tailor, Clothier and Gents' Furnisher. The best place in town to taaveyourCloth-ing made to order. All workmanship and Trimmings guaranteed. No charge for re-pairs and pressing for one year. Dyeing and Repairing a specialty. Ready-made Clothing the largest stock in town. Up-to-date styles. 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HINDS & HOBLE, Publishers 4-5-13-14 Cooper Institute H. Y. City Schoolbnohs of all publishers atone store. R. A. WONDERS, Corner Cigar Parlors. A full line of Cigars, Tobacco, Pipes, Etc. Scott's Corner, Opp. Eagle Hotel. GETTYSBURG, PA. JOHN M. MINNIGH, Confectionery, Ice, andIee Cpeankjj-* Oysters Stewed and Fried. No. 17 BALTIMORE ST. I .THE. GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter. VOL. VIII. GETTYSBURG, PA., FEBRUARY, 1900. No. 8 Editor-in-Chief. J. FRANK HEILMAN, '00. Assistant Editors. LUTHER A. WEIGLE, '00. S. A. VAN ORMER, '01. Alumni Editor. REV. F. D. GARLAND. Business Manager. JOHN K. HAMACHER. '00. Assistant Business Manager. CLARENCE MOORE, '02. Advisory Board. PROF. J. A. HIMES, LIT. D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D. D. Published monthly by the students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price One Dollar a year in advance, single copies Fifteen Cents. 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. PUZZLES AND THEIR VALUE IN MENTAL TRAINING. [GIES PRIZE ESSAY, FIRST PRIZE.] OF all the powers of the human soul, the imagination is one of the most universal in its application and pleasing in its products, the earliest activity of the infant mind, and the last to cling to old age. Without the exercise of this faculty, the world would be a barren waste of material facts, in which would dwell the human race, passive recipients of objective im-pressions, without the power to revel in the beauties of imaged thought and conception of the Divine. Poetry, philosophy, art, science, invention, religion—all would be lost to mankind. L,ittle wonder, then, that the products of the imagination have ever been present and cultivated among men. The word "puzzle" has been variously defined, and the objects of thought and action to which it may be applied are widely different. But a common ground may be assumed—a puzzle is an invented contrivance, either intellectual or material, mtmllM - 262 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. whose solution requires time and ingenuity. It will be seen that the puzzle is pre-eminently the product ot the inventive imagina-tion and in turn its highest application is in the exercise of that power for its solution. Intellectual puzzles are in many senses the most important and also most ancient, being generally cast in the form of riddles. From the earliest times of history we can find evidence of the existence of puzzles, either as a form of intellectual amusement or didactic discipline. Among the Eastern nations obscure forms of expression were the inevitable associates of their symbolical modes of thought. It is certain that such methods of statement were in use among the Egyptians, while several books of riddles exist in old Arabic and Persian. One of the most well-known of puzzles is the riddle which Samson propounded to the Philistines, and many other examples are found in the Bible. The proverbs of Solomon are at times excellent types of the didactic form of the riddle. The parables of the Savior were skillful methods of teaching important truths veiled under an interesting narrative which drew the attention of the crowd, and would be very accept-able to an Eastern mind. In Greece the riddle was a favorite mode of intellectual enter-tainment at symposia. To the active mind of the Greek nothing was more pleasing than a well-directed turn of expression which would give room for play of the imagination. There is abundant evidence of this among their writers. Some of their poets even did not hesitate to write whole books of riddles, and Kleobulus, one of the seven wise men, was especially noted for his composi-tions along this line. The famous riddle of the Sphinx as told in the Oedipus Tyrannus, is probably the best known puzzle of Greek literature, though the most interesting form was a part of their very religious life and character—the oracles of the inspired priests, on which hung sometimes the fate of nations, even of the world. The raveling of such obscurities of expression was a source of the keenest pleasure to the Greek mind, and, while a product of the imagination, was an efficient agent in bringing it to that perfection shown in attic literature, thought and philosophy. The Roman mind, more earnest and grave, found small pleas-ure in these modes of intellectual activity, and very little is known of their use of puzzles until the later republic and empire, when they were introduced with the passion for everything Greek, and ■■■■HH THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 263 professional riddle-makers soon began to take a prominent part in their entertainments and banquets. During the middle ages puzzles were cultivated more as a pleasant means of entertainment than for any other purpose, and until recently the same idea has clung to them. Many manu-script and printed editions of collections of puzzles, riddles and conundrums are in existence. Much of their content consists of coarse jests, but there are some real gems of wit and valuable aids to a true estimate of mediaeval life. The Reformation put a stop to this merry jesting for a time, but it soon crept into favor again, and during the eighteenth century the most brilliant minds of Europe were engaged in the intellectual pastime. At the present day puzzles are still in great favor with both young and old, and their educational worth is becoming more and more realized. As a mental training the value of the puzzle lies chiefly in its power of cultivating quickness and strength of the constructive imagination. An obscurity of expression or mechanical con-struction may require time to solve its intricacies, but the mind is certainly the better for having mastered it. All the faculties of memory and imagination are brought into play, and side by side comes development of the reasoning power as we attempt to deduce from our problem its elements, or to arrive by induction at the result of certain assumed forces. These are the things which made the riddle so attractive to the Greek, with his quick imagination and active reasoning power. When we solve a dif-ficult puzzle, we in fact repeat the very processes by which as children we began to learn, for then everything was a puzzle; and in doing so we strengthen the faculties of the mind which are most essential, and besides strength impart to them a facility and quickness of action, which is in itself most valuable. The subject-matter of the puzzle may be another source of con-siderable benefit. The didactic riddles of the East have already been mentioned as examples of what may be taught in this way. A truth given an obscure expression which requires mental effort to unravel will be impressed upon the mind when it has been gained. A mechanical construction whose every portion has been carefully studied with a view to its possible part in the function of the whole, will not soon be forgotten. In this fact alone may be grounded a strong argument in favor of the puzzle's part in mental training. 264 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Puzzles are beginning to play a more and more important part in the education of the child. Almost the first book placed in its hands, "Mother Goose," is full of simple riddles. Froebel's kindergarten method, so generally acknowledged now-a-days, em-bodies the puzzle idea to a great extent, developing as it does the powers of observation, invention and reasoning. As the child passes into school, puzzles of graded difficulty are used for several years, and his toys always include a number of puzzles and games, many of which contain subject-matter of educational value. Many firms now publish educational games, whose benefit to the child will be revealed by even a superficial examination. The use of puzzles may be carried too far, however; for they may be made an end in themselves. Men may become so infatu-ated with the delicacy of reasoning and exhilaration of discovery as to lose sight entirely of the practical use of the mind. So did the School-men of the middle ages, who waged long controversies on trivial and absurd questions merely for sake of the argument. Neither should puzzles take the place of more legitimate means of education, for it must be kept in mind that they are for the more developed merely an intellectual pastime which will benefit instead of harm ; and for the child a means of starting its mind upon the path which it must shortly travel with the more able guides of language, art and science. Puzzles seem to be trivial things, and are so in a certain sense. But they present wonderful capabilities to the student of Psy-chology and the teacher of the child's mind. Used within proper bounds, as a means and not an end, they may become, in devel-opment of strength and facility of the imagination and the reas-oning power, and in didactic force, a powerful factor in mental training. —L. A. W., '00. Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. —U. S. Grant. A broken reputashun is like a broken vase—it may be mend-ed, but alwuss shows whare the brak waz.—Josh Billings. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 265 MOW OBTAIN EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. AS a matter of course, the first thing to consider in searching for a remedy for any evil, whether in economics or else-where, is to seek to find the causes of that evil, and to discover a means of removing these causes. Whether the means proposed be beneficial in other respects or advisable upon other grounds we do not need to inquire in this paper. All that is necessary is to find some measure which gives fair promise of bettering matters in this one department of economic life which we have under consideration, namely, of establishing a more stable and more nearly correct relation between the producer and consumer. Briefly and roughly stated, it seems to us that the whole difficulty arises from the fact that the producer is not able to foretell how much of a demand there will be for his goods and incidental to this, how many of those who create the demand will be able to pay within a reasonable time, provided he is willing to sell on credit. As to the second point, demand un-doubtedly is defined to be how much certain persons are ready to take at a certain price. But we must remember that an enormous part of economic operations are conducted on a credit basis and we cannot overlook this as it exercises such a potent influence in increasing or lowering the demand or supply at any time. For if a man believes the credit of his purchasers is good, he will be willing to sell a greater quantity of goods on credit and at a lower price than if he is doubtful as to their credit, and so we might illustrate further. This second point then is incidental to the first, but it is so important in the view we take of the matter that we mention it at once in connection with what we regard the leading difficulty, namely, the producer's ignorance of the con-sumer's future demand for his goods. For he must anticipate the future. It is possible in so few industries to carry on production by filling orders already filed, that we may almost neglect them. And where there are such, the difficulties which we find elsewhere between producer and consumer do not exist, since they work on a solid basis with regard to the future, and are not compelled to base their output upon a supposed state of the market. In other words, they know 266 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. what the market will be and this is the element which is ordinar-ily lacking and which is the cause, as we believe, of the mis-understandings. Now it becomes important to try to answer the question "Why are these producers in ignorance of the future demand for their goods ?" Necessarily an important factor, in all economic life, is the large mass of natural products which are so dependent on the forces of nature, and as it is impossible to control the workings of these to any appreciable extent, the period between the planting for the future and the realization of it, between "seedtime and harvest," must always be one of doubt. It is apparently impossible to control the amount of production in this sphere, and, so far as this operates as an agent in causing misunderstandings between the producer and consumer, we do not attempt to suggest a remedy. As long as it is impossible for a man to know that he can meet a certain demand, even though he is sure that demand will exist, and that impossibility depends on the fact that the agents which cause the uncertainty are beyond human control, the cure seems also to be without the bounds of human power. From this class of cases where there is an impossibility for the producer to tell what supply he can put upon the market, we pass, by almost imperceptible gradations, to cases where the producer needs only know the demand and he can meet it with an ample supply. No doubt there are natural products which lie on the line between these extremes, as, for example, the output of mines which can be regulated to a fair extent, and there are products, not strictly natural, which are very uncertain as to the possible supply, but as a rule the further removed the product is from the soil, the more completely is the extent of its production within the control of man. It is to this class of products that we wish to direct particular attention. Assuming then that the demand could be met if it could be known, we come again to the question "Why cannot the demand be known ?" The producer can find from his table ofstatistics how many producers there are in the same business with him, how large an amount of their products has been sold during the year previous to that one, and the year previous and soon back, and then, by dividing his capital into the total capital invested in the business, he can find how much of that output should belong --. Sira :-:.'; . THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 267 to him. A simple problem, no doubt, but with no correctness in its application, and why not ? Simply because no one of his fellow producers, nor himself either, will be satisfied with the amount as he would thus work it out, but partly through natural aggressive-ness, partly though a desire to protect himself against aggressive-ness on the part of his competitors, he will seek to produce and to sell a little more than his share. He will devise new means by which he can bring his goods a little more in favor with the pub-lic than his rivals. He will reduce his prices, allowing himself a narrower margin of profits, hoping to make himself even by larger sales. No doubt in this way he will sell more goods than his slower going neighbor and will get some of the trade which would otherwise have gone to him. His neighbor's trade falls off and he finds that he provided for more trade than he is getting and is burdened with an unsalable stock. This is so much idle capi-tal and makes him so much less able to carry on a successful business. This single illustration, on a small scale, though it is, shows the inherent tendency of competition to make uncertain what share of a given demand will fall to a producer's lot. The same amount of goods may be sold, as he had anticipated, but he has not sold his share, for some one has succeeded in selling it ahead of him. We believe, therefore, that competition is the main reason. why the producer cannot foretell what the demand for his goods will be, and as it is this inability to foretell which leads to the mis-understandings between producer and consumer, the natural conclusion is that we should remove competition. We wish to make mention again that we do not argue that this is necessarily a beneficial or advisable means generally. ■ All we are concerned with is the question whether it will tend to remove the misunderstandings we have been speaking of. Of course it is not far to seek a means of accomplishing this. The means have been thrust upon us rather generously during the past few years. The tendency toward industrial combination, seeming to be the logical outgrowth of competition, appears, like Zeus, to threaten the reign of its progenitor. No doubt, it ap-pears startling to those economists who have been accustomed to regard competition with a kind of solemn awe, as containing a remedy for "all the heartaches and the thousand natural shocks 268 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. that flesh is heir to ;" but perhaps its partial disappearance may be attended by some results not altogether detrimental. The trust can estimate the demand which it will be called upon to meet. The total demand for a given article during any given period, does not vary through so large a range as to render this estimate one of great uncertainty. No doubt seasons of unusual depression or excitement may render calculations imperfect, but, all in all, the total output which the consumer stands ready to dispose of, is a matter of far higher certainty than the numerous possibilities existing when the producers are multiplied. By the immense amount of capital invested, the trust is better able to adapt itself to an unusual season of excitement or depres-sion. For example, the American Sugar Refining Company a few years ago built a new refinery furnished with the newest techni-cal improvements, to serve only as a safeguard in the case of a suddenly increased demand, or of stoppage in other factories. President Hadley in an article on Trusts, says, " A consoli-dated company has advantages in its power of adapting the amount of production to the needs of consumption. Where several con-cerns with large plants are competing and no one knows exactly what the others are doing, we are apt to have an alternation between years of over-production and years of scarcity, an alter-nation no less unfortunate for the public than for the parties im-mediatety concerned. A wisely managed combination can do much to avoid this. By making its production more even, it can give a constant supply of goods to the consumers and a constant opportunity of work to the laborers; and the resulting steadiness of prices is so great an advantage to all concerned that the public can well afford to pay a very considerable profit to those whose organizing power has rendered such useful service. Morever, the consolidation of all competing concerns avoids many unnecessary expenses of distribution. Under the old sys-tem, these expenses are very great. The multiplication of selling agencies involves much waste. Competitive advertisement is often an unnecessary and unprofitable use of money. Delivery of goods from independent producers, whether by wagon or by rail-road, often costs more than the better organized shipmeuts of a single large concern. All of these evils can be avoided by con-solidation." The same writer compares the trusts with an army, and the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 269 comparison is apt for more purposes than one. The effectiveness with which a thoroughly organized and wealthy trust can meet an unexpected crisis, as compared with a large number of disorgan-ized and quarrelsome companies or individuals,is well paralleled by the difference between the manner in which a thoroughly equipped and organized army will overcome a sudden and severe attack, where a host of stragglers would have been cut to pieces. The very organization constitutes an element of tremendous strength. It must be concluded, we think, then, that trusts, would, or rather do furnish a means by which the future demand for the goods of the producer may be rendered more certain and hence they tend to remove the misunderstandings between the producer and the consumer. And now, how would such a remedy apply when we consider the matter of selling on credit. The man who sells, necessarily is not satisfied merely because he can tell how many goods his cus-tomer will buy. He wants to know how many he can and will pay for. Here in addition to the fact that their superior mastery of all the details of their business renders them more capable of judging of the credit of their purchasers, we seem to find another and very important fact. When competition exists, the producer is all the time seeking to hold out more inducement than his com-petitor. One of the common forms these inducements take is a sale on credit, and then competition arises as to extending the time of credit. Now, when the backbone of competition is broken, the trust no longer needs to use such means to secure purchasers. It stands in a position to dictate, to a great degree, its own terms, and can provide much more fully against dangerous credit than can be done where competition has full play. It is worth while, too, to mention the indirect effects flowing from those above mentioned. As the future is more closely anti-cipated, and as the sales made are more fully realized on than formerly, the financial embarrassments of various producers, under the old regime become a gradually disappearing quantity in the disturbing influences on trade. Of course the increased danger from the possibility of the trust must be omitted, but we believe it is overbalanced by the failures due to competition. When we entered upon the analysis of the causes which ren-dered demand uncertain, we supposed for the time being that the 'JO THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. demand, if known, could be met. We now return to that point to inquire briefly how the trust would effect that side of the ques-tion, though we have already incidentally touched upon it. Necessarily, one thing which renders uncertain the ability of the producer to meet a given demand is the possibility of dissatis-faction among his employees, leading to a strike. The same argument applies here as applies to selling on credit. The employee is, to a certain extent, able to make more at the kind of work he is engaged in than at any other, for the simple reason that he knows more about it. Now when there are a number of producers in the same business he knows, if he leaves one, he can probably find work with another, while, where there is but one employer, he loses this advantage. But writers on Trusts and Industrial Combinations in the United States agree that the information given by the working-men, themselves, seems to prove that generally a reduction of hours for labor, seldom a reduction of wages and occasionally, an increase, have taken place, especially where the workingmen were well organized themselves. "It is pretty clear that the laborers in centralized undertakings have not been worse off than in decentralized ones." So that it appears that there is less likeli-hood of a strike under such organization than under the decen-tralized form, so that less opposition to the free course of produc-tion would be met with here. And again the indirect results would be beneficial. For, as the demand becomes more certain, and there is less waste from imperfect attempts to meet it, more and more the production of the trust becomes near to a uniform standard and thus tends to give the workmen steady employment at regular wages, which is a strong barrier against a strike on their part. From the direct and indirect results, therefore, of the consoli-dated form of production, we are led to believe that it presents a means of establishing a far better understanding between the pro-ducer and consumer. That in some minor details the result might be otherwise we do not deny, but looking at it in its broad out-lines and confining our attention carefully to theparticularsubject we have under discussion, we conclude that trusts furnish a method for removing much of the friction between the producer and the consumer. 'oo. ItttfSM&B&iSaSB THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 271 SCENE IN THE FOREST, ORLANDO SOLILOQUIZING. IS it so that in this guise she sought me? My heart is sick within me. I'll take me back to a wilder region in the forest and there the remainder of my days I'll spend in mourn-ing for my lost love. Aye, virtue is modesty and modesty is a virtue and in that is she lacking. Seek her ? Speak with her ? But strike me dead if I may speak one word with her, I'll write it, fold it, give it to her and fly. 'Twill be a testimony of my love that was, that is no more. She merits now nothing but my scorn. If I had wit, I'd make her blush for very shame, if shame there be in her. But my last breath is drawn. Oh how I loved her to distraction ! I ought to go, but how to move? What is this feeling within me that holds me back ? Is it because the road is long and I am tired. No, 'tis an accursed lingering of that love that once so filled me that I knew naught else. Will it never be in my power to shake it off? 'Twassent from Heaven and not from earth; 'twas given by God and not by man. And yet I'll rid me of it. Can one so unworthy hold my affections thus ? I have a dim vague unrest, can it be removed ? I hear a rustle in the autumn leaves. Ay, here she comes, do I love her yet ? I know not how strong my passion is. I faint from fear. I see her so plain, yet must seem to see her not. She speaks— Enter Ros. and Alia. Ros. (Dressed as a woman.) I am much distressed and faint for succor, must I fall with my true love standing near me and aiding me not ? Alia. Perhaps he sees us not. Shall I go touch him on the arm ? Ros. Yes, ask him if he loves me still. Tell him if when I need it his love fails me it is not love. ' Alia. (Goes up and touches him.) Rosalind has come to seek her lover. Do you not. see her ? She is in need of your aid ? What ails you ? Your eyes look wild and you seem to know me not. Orl. If any of pity exists in your heart for me leave me alone. Alas, I know not what I say; I want you to leave me and yet I fain would have you stay. Ros. (Coming up.) Pray pardon me for calling you my lover, you received it with such melancholy dignity, methinks 272 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. you do not half appreciate the honor placed upon you. Can I relieve you of the burden of the title? But why do you look at me thus ? Have I done aught against you ? Orl. I show no bravery by standing before you thus. I would that I could die before your very eyes to let you know what havoc you have wrought. But I leave you now this very minute to go far into the forest, perchance to take of my abode with a shepherd and thus spend my remaining days. I leave yet I stay. I cannot stir an inch, (aside.) Sweet Rosalind, has turned my head, Howl love her! Despite her faults, despite her lack of modesty.' Why came you to me thus? Tell me wished you again with your wiles to torment my morbid feelings. Ah, Rosalind, I still shall call you mine. Ros. Orlando, why did you think so ill of me ? Could you not see in my glowing eyes the story of my love. I would rather have had you woo me but bashful man makes maidens bold and love will find a way. We were parted but I could not abide far from thee. Wherever fate led I followed swayed by love alone. And as the days grow brighter and our hearts grow lighter we shall sing for joy, yes, joy without alloy. EDUCATION MORE THAN A MEANS OP GAINING A LIVELIHOOD. THAT education is a means of gaining a livelihood is a fact that needs no proof. Almost every day we are brought into contact with those who are gaining a comfortable liveli-hood by means of their education. In our day there are many others who are striving to get possession of the same means for no other purpose than that of making a living. It is to be regretted, however, that too many look at education as if it were a mere instrument for easily securing the things which satisfy their physical wants. Through this motive men have lost sight of the real and lasting value of education. I would not say that it is wrong to consider education as a means of gaining a livelihood, but I think that it is a very grievous error to consider education as having no other use or value. Indeed, education without any other purpose than that of a means of gaining a livelihood would be of little value to beings created as we are. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 273 Herbert Spencer in his work on Education says, "In education the question of questions is how to decide among the conflicting claims of subjects and determine the relative values of knowledge. Every one in contending for the worth of any particular order of information, does so by showing its bearing upon some part of life. All effort, either directly or by implication, must appeal to the ultimate test of what use is it?" In other words, the writer affirms that the essential question for us to ponder is "How to live." Not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense. The general problem which comprehends every special prob-lem is the right ruling of conduct in all directions, under all circumstances. In what way to treat the body; in what way to treat the mind; in what way to manage our affairs; in what way to bring up a family; in what way to behave as a citizen; in what way to utilize all those sources of happiness which nature supplies—how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others—how to live completely! And this being the great thing needful for us to learn, it is, by conse-quence the great aim of education. The leading kinds of activities which constitutes human life are: (1) Those activities which directly minister to self preserva-tion; (2) Those activities which, by securing the necessaries of life, indirectly administer to self preservation; (3) Those activities which are involved in the maintenance of proper social and political relations; (4) Those miscellaneous activities which make up the leisure part of life, devoted to the gratification of tastes and feelings. Is it not education which prepares the individual for direct and indirect self-preservation, for parent-hood, for citizenship, and for the miscellaneous refinements of life? Of course ideal education is complete preparation in all these divisions. Some one has said that education is to the soul what sculpture is to the marble. As the sculpture brings out of the marble the god-like form, the symmetrical proportion, the life-like attitude of the finished and polished statue, so education brings out of man as an animal man, a rational being, making him a complete creature after his kind. To his frame it gives vigor, activity and beauty; to his senses correctness and acuteness; to his intellect, power and truthfulness; to his heart, virtue. r
Issue 26.4 of the Review for Religious, 1967. ; Confessions of Religious Women by J. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R., and Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. 581 Chastity in Relig.i.ous Life by Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J. 604 Penance :~ Sacrament of Poverty by George B. Nintemann, O.P. 625 Poverty Today by Joseph J. Sikora, S.J. 638 ~ ReligiOus and the World by Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp. 662 The Retreat Director by Paul J. Bernadicou, S.J. 672 Indwelling Dynamism by Thomas Dubay, S.M. 685 High School Retreats by Paul Pilgrara, S.J., and Carl Starkloff, S.J. 703 Liturgy as Symbol by Andrew Weigert 708 Missionary Formation by Sister Barbara Ann, S.N.D. 714' Confession and Growth by Robert L Faricy, S.J. 720 Survey of Roman Documents 725 Views, News, Previews 739 Questions and Answers 749 Book Reviews 758 VOLUM~ 26 NUMBER 4 July 1967 NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS During the first part of September, 1967, the editorial office of REviEw' ~'oR RELIGtOUS will be moved from St. Marys, Kansas, to St. Louis, Missouri. Consequently, the editorial office of the REwEw will be closed from Septem-ber 1, 1967, to September 15, 1967. The St. Louis address of the editorial office of the R~wEw will be announced in the September, 1967, issue of the R~vi~w. This change will not affect the address of the business office of the R~.vl~w in Baltimore, nor will the business office there be closed during the time the editorial office is closed. j. A. CLARMONT, C.Ss.R. SISTER M. DENIS, S.O.S. Confessions of Women Religious INTRODUCTION* The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and finally to give worship to God. Because they are signs they also instruct. They not only pre-suppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen and express it; that is why they are called "sacra-ments of faith." They do indeed impart grace, but, in addition, the very act of celebrating them disposes the faithful most effectively to receive this grace in a fruitful manner, to wor-ship God duly, and to practice charity (Constitution on the Liturgy, n.59). In this age of Christian renewal, it is important indeed that the liturgy of the sacraments manifest in sign and significance their primary purpose. As Christians we must be sanctified; we must build up the Body of Christ; and we must worship God. All these functions should be as meaningful as possible. They should be made as personal as possible. When we think of the sacraments as en-counters with Christ, we are speaking of personal re-lationships. The sacraments in themselves, because they are actions of Christ, are effective signs of sanctification. However, the recipients and the ministers of the sacra-ments have definite personalistic approaches in the sacramental liturgy if the greatest fruit is to be obtained and growth in holiness be effective. More especially is exterior and interior renewal neces-sary in the sacrament of penance. Here the encounter of the prodigal son with the waiting and forgiving Father is reenacted in the Christian's life. Is not this sacrament one of the most vital and important for the pilgrim Christian * The research fo~ this paper was done as part of the pastoral theology program at the Divine Word International Centre of Reli-gious Education; 260 Colborne Street; London, Ontario; Canada. Since the writing of this paper, Father Clarmont has died--may he rest in peace. Rev. J. A. Clar-mont, C.Ss.R., and Sister M. Denis, S.O.S., are students in pastoral theolog~ at the Divine Word Centre of Religious Education; 960 Col-borne Street; Lon-don, Ontario; Can-ada. VOLUME 26, 1967 + 4. 4. ]. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R. Sister M. Denis, $.0;$. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS on his way to the God of all love and of all purity? Who has not stumbled on this journey to the fullness of eternal life? Who has not felt his daily faults as impeding growth in the Christ-life? Who has not felt the desire for the merciful Christ to touch and to make clean, to hear the consoling words: "Thy sins are forgiven." Am?rig the people of God who realize the importance of this sacrament are those women dedicated to God by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Because of their calling to be a sign of the fullness of the Christian vocation, these generous women seek a profound union with God through Christ in the Spirit. B~y laboring to build up the Body of Christ, they attempt to make of their lives a continu6us act of worship to the triune God. They, perhaps more than others, are conscious of their human failings, are desirous of offering a pure holocaust to God, are anxious to receive the sacrament of God's merciful pardon and~ encouraging aid with all possible meaning. They do wish to make the reception of the sacrament of penance a truly personal encounter with the glorified Christ in His saving acts. These convictions, coupled with sincere and frank self-criticism by many priest-confessors and sister-penitents, were the inspiration of this study on the confessions of women religious. Our purpose is not academic, but practi-cal. It is hoped that the present study will enable both the confessor and the sister to avoid stifling routine and to rediscover the unfathomable riches of this sacrament. In order to view the present situation on a factual basis a questionnaire (See Appendix A) was sent to a random sampling of priest-confessors and sister-penitents. No at-tempt was made to include both the confessor and the sisters of a given convent. The-returned questionnaires from sixty-s.ix p.riests and one hundred and thirty-three sisters inclu~ded a widely varied group as regards age, occupation,, and location. Many dioceses of Canada and the United States were represented. Detailed statistics will be found in Appendix B. The principal items on the questionnaire centered around the~ physical environment of the confessional; the number of sisters who would be going to confession at the same time and the corresponding number of con-fessors available; methods of examimltion of conscience and the confession itself; the place of spiritual direction; and value judgments with respect to the confessor's. attitude toward this priestly ministry, the sister's attitude toward the fionfessor, and the greatest benefits and diffi-culties experienced by both the priest-confessor and the sister-penitent. Finally, both confessors and sisters were asked to state .how the sacrament of penance could be made more meaningful for sisters. The primary purposes for the questionnaire and hence for this study were, first, to ascertain, as much as is possi-ble within the limits of this sampling, those factors which tend to hinder a meaningful reception of the sacrament; and second, to propose means by which the reception of the sacrament could be made more meaning-ful. In this study we shall confine our remarks to a sum-mary of those factors which tend to hinder a meaningful reception of the sacrament of penance. Positive sug-gestions, based on the questionnaires and other research, will occupy a later study. General Impressions Irom the Questionnaires The survey indicates that most of the priest-confessors have a deep admiration, sympathy, and wholesome con-cern for the sister-penitent. These confessors are conscious of the holiness attained and the holiness sought by these dedicated women. Many desire to help the sisters in their struggle for sanctity, both by the sacramental confession itself and by the opportunities for spiritual guidance provided by the sacrament. These attitudes were quite evident from responses td the question: "What do you find most satisfying regarding sisters' confessions?" By nature (womanly) they have the potentiality of being great women of God and for the Church. If they do not, per-haps it is because we have failed them. However, thirty-seven confessors were unfavorably im-pressed with sisters' confessions in general: The greatest difficulty in hearing sisters' confessions is over-coming the feeling that I 'am mired hip-deep in childish obstacles to the Christian life that I am incapable of changing. These priests expressed the realization and consequent frustration that, at the present time, many sisters' confes-sions are meaningless. When reading the sisters' questionnaires, the authors were impressed by the simplicity, candor, and utter honesty of the comments. Where the sisters are critical of others---be they confessors, superiors, and canon law itself--they are no less critical of themselves. The most evident conclusion to be drawn from these questionnaires is that the sisters, with the exception of five, are faced with many problems in their reception of the sacrament of penance. What is meant to be a sacra-ment of peace and joy is fraught with unpleasant diffi-culties and hardships, many of which are beyond their control: Confession is not a joyful encounter with Christ, but an obligation to be fulfilled. I hope advancements in the near future will help us to acquire the right attitude. 4" 4" 4" t:ontessions o! Women Religious VOLUME 26, 1967 583 Why Penance Is Less Meaningful Certain factors which tend to make the sacrament of penance less meaningful were identified in both sets of questionnaires. Table 1 lists the number of sisters and/or priests who cited these factors as problems. TABLE 1 Diffculties Encountered by Confessors and Sisters in the Sacrament oJ Penance Cited by 66 Confessors Cited by 133 Sisters Difficulty Routine . Time problems . Lack of freedom . Insufficient training . Examination of consci-ence . Impersonal relationship. Confessor not under-standing . . Environment . Rite . Numbe~ of Con-fessor 33 12 36 16 30 5 Difficulty Routine . Time problems . Lack of freedom . Insufficient training . Difficulty in confessing. Impersonal relationship. Confessor not under-standing . Parish priest for confes-sor . Lack of suitable direc-tion . Environment . Rite . Number of Sisters 53 .40 54 36 44 36 51 56 93 38 ÷ ÷ ÷ I. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R. Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 584 ~ Only 23 sisters have their parish priest as confessor. 1. Routine One of the major obstacles to a meaningful reception of the sacrament of penance is routine. The frank answers to the questionnaire reveal clearly the feeling among confessors that most sisters' reception of this sacrament is mere routine ~nd thus utterly meaningless. Most feel the routine is due to its weekly celebration on the same day, and at the same hour, year in and year out. Sisters also are acutely aware of the malaise that comes from "the backlog of years of receiving the sacrament in a most uninspiring way with no conception of the living reality that it is." Routine seems to take the life and vital-ity out of this sacrament and add the "-less" to "mean-ing." Many point to either the interpretation of canon law or their constitutions regarding obligatory weekly confession as one of the chief causes of this routine, not-ing that weekly confession fulfills a law, but not neces-sarily a personal need: I'd likb to go when I feel the need. Canon law needs to .be revised here. The problem of routine seems to have pervaded every aspect of the sacramental process. Some sisters lament routine in their examination of conscience; others in the rite itself. Especially susceptible to monotony is the confession of sins: I tell the same old thing week after week. It makes me feel like a "phony" and because of this feeling, I hate to go. Also I feel that I am boring the priest. The confessor who continually gives the same penance and exhortation also contributes to the rite of routine. Generally speaking, sisters are aware of the devastating effects which accompany the routin~ rut--"the lack of growth in love'--and that the responsibility of avoiding routine lies heavily upon them. They readily admit that ignorance regarding the real meaning of the sacrament of penance is a major factor in routine. There has been a great tendency to blame the indi-vidual for approaching the sacrament in a routine man-ner. It is, however, our contention that a routine recep-tion of penance is only a symptom of other deeply rooted causes, some of which are inherent in the structures surrounding the sacrament itself. These are the causes which we intend to examine. 2. Time Problems Pressure of work and limited time when they can receive the sacrament--when the confessor comes~makes it harder physi-cally and psychologically to receive the sacrament with devo-tion and meaningfu.lness. The allotted time---too little and too often--also in-creases the danger of routine. Often the confessor must rush the sisters through, assembly-line fashion. Little time can be given for any personal concern, guidance, or words of encouragement. Busy confessors are often frus-trated trying to fit in to the tightly organized convent schedule. On the other hand, some sisters have noted that the time arrangement for confessions seems to be best for the confessor rather than for the community. In many places confessions are scheduled at the end of a busy day when mental and physical exhaustion render one "too tired to think." Or what is worse: Confessions are heard by our chaplain a few minutes before Mass in our chapel. Often preparation for confession is unnecessarily hurried under these conditions. One sister makes her examination of conscience "while out of breath after knocking several people down racing to get to confession on return from school." ÷ ÷ ÷ ~onlesslons ol Women Religious VOLUME 26, 1967 585 I. A. Clarmont, C Sister M. Denis, S.O.$. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 586 However, it is within the confession itself that time pressures ,make their gr.eatest assault: It (confession) seemed to be simply pushing the slide as quickly as possible with a 'minimum of necessary words on either side. Direction??? Two priests for over two hundred sisters in about three hours!ll In large convents time pressures are compounded be-cause of the great number of sisters and the inevitable long lines. One sister typically noted that the greatest difficulty she experienced in receiving the sacrament of p.enance was "the speed with which one receives the absolution and knowing that there ~are fifty people waiting." ~' Both superiors and confessors, in conjunction with the sisters concerned, should examine the confession schedule and ensure enough time for a meaningful re-ception of this sacrament. Any act that must continually be performed in as short a time as possible is bound to be considered of little" importance--and a sacrament is of infinite value. 3. Lack of Freedom Under present conditions, pressures of time have caused much of the confession routine. Causally linked to both problems is the almost uniform lack of freedom for the sisters to confess when, where, to whom, and as often as they wish. One should seriously consider whether or not this problem is at the root of most of the difficulties ;experienced by confessors and penitents. Compulsory weekly confessions, when perhaps sisters are not prepared, have nothing to relate, or are not in the mood, must have a deleterious effect on a fruitful and meaningful recep-tion of this sacrament that demands genuine faith, true sorrow, and a real consciousness of sin. The core of the problem is indicated in the following comments of a priest-confessor: The sacrament should be left up to the free choice of the sister. How, in conscience, can a rule or a superior tell one when to receive the sacrament? Expressing the same sentiment, a sister wrote: Let the sisters be prompted to go to confession by their own inner needs. They are mature women who can surely be trusted to get to the sacraments often enough. Even though the weekly legislation is weakening, most sisters are expected to go to confession at the appointed time. Often unnecessary tension ~s set up between personal conscience and obedience, especially when such legislation is part of the rule to which the sister has vowed obedience. It was quite evident from the question-naires that the majority of sisters, are not free in this regard. As an older sister pointed out, there seems to be some discrepancy between the theology of the sacrament of penance and present legislation concerning the reception of "penance: Since confession is not necessary, except for mortal sins, it would be well for some pronouncement to be made about it to clear away wrong ideas. More and more, the sisters want to take their places with the People of God and to be accorded the same rights, duties, obligations, and privileges: It is well to go to confession in the parish church as part of the People of God and standing in line with them. Some peo-ple seem.to be of the opinion that sisters never go to confession because we never have sins. If they onl~ knewlll For reasons which will be readily seen later in this study, sisters desire the freedom to choose their own confessor, which, of course, implies freedom of place: Each sister should have her own confessor. She should go where he is, if desired, and receive the sacrament in the way she finds most beneficial and personal to her, in a manner agreed upon by herself and the confessor. This mature desire is seconded by many confessors. Cloistered sisters, in particular, are deprived of any opportunities of freedom in regard to confession. One older cloistered sister stated that her greatest difficulty in the reception of penance was the enclosure "because you can't go to different priests:" Another sister in a different cloistered convent suggested that "cloistered sisters who haven't the opportunities available to active sisters be permitted to go to the parish church---or wherever they choose for confession to a priest,of their choice, on a day of their choice." Lacking all of these suggestions she pleaded for bishops to try to make it a point to choose competent spiritual men as confessors for cloistered sisters. As was pointed out by several concerned sisters, the rights of all should be respected. To pass from a rule of weekly confession to another rule of biweekly or monthly confession would still not solve the problem of lack of freedom in the frequency of confession: The few who feel the need of weekly confession and realize the great source of graces received are becoming uneasy. The confessor only comes every second week now, since he knows several of the sisters want it this way. This is depriving those who wish weekly confession many graces. There is no freedom in this case. Since our confessional is the chapel, there is no opportunity to go before Mass. 4- 4- 4- Conlesslons o# Women Religious VOLUME 26, 19~7 ÷ J. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R. Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 588 4. Insufficient Training Without a theological knowledge of the religious life and its link to the ecclesial aspect of the sacrament of penance, how can the latter be a real benefit to growth in the Christian life? A thorough course on the sacraments in general, with a great emphasis on their relation to the sister's life of service and her spiritual life, is needed. Confessors have noted that many sisters are not properly trained concerning the purpose of the sacrament. Where is the blame to be attributed? Certainly, lack of proper training in novitiates, lack of personal meditation and study of the nature of this sacrament, and hurried preparation due to a lack of time are related causes. Many sisters have received little or no mature training to deepen their knowledge and appreciation of the sacra-ment of penance after the initial preparation for first confession preceding first Holy Communion: We lack training on the sacramental, biblical, and theologi-cal basis of penance. The fact that six sisters stated they found nothing bene-ficial in the reception of penance bespeaks a lack of in-struction: I must say I did more than smile when I saw this survey. It takes all the faith I have and even more to believe in the sacrament of penance. This has become more serious since I entered. Having been brought up with no explanation of it except the fact that it was a habit to go to confession once a month, it meant very little, in fact, nothing to me. Religious life has done nothing to give it more meaning. Instead, it is now a habit to go once a week instead of once a month. Such training should have been an integral part of every novitiate program. Beyond the novitiate there has been a dearth of instruction concerning the meaning of penance: No one has really explained the positive aspect of confession as an encounter with Christ. We need discussion with the confessor on the meaning and value of the sacrament. It seems to me that a whole education for both confessors and confessers is necessary. No doubt, steps are being taken in many areas to remedy the situation, particularly since the aggiornamento of Vatican II. 5. Examination of Conscience Some of the greatest criticism, from the confdssor, was the sisters' apparent lack of nnderstanding how to .ex-amine one's conscience as a religious, the inability to communicate any real openness of soul. Thirty priest- confessors felt that the sisters' examination of conscience was unrealistic. Their major criticisms center on the sisters' tendencies to majorize the minima: "They cut a hair in four." Often their confessions reflect petty violations of rule, a listing of imperfections and failings without consideration for the deeply rooted causes of faults: The sisters don't know what to look for and it is very difficult to get them to realize "sins" against one's neighbor, lying, cheating, pride, vanity, uncharitableness, selfishness are more injurious to their progress in sanctity than missing re-creation, failing to make meditation, impure thoughts and even action. To the confessor, the sister does not seem to develop her own personality in the sacramental context but reflects the thinking of her novice mistress and/or rule. The sacrament of penance designedly fulfills both a psychologi-cal and a spiritual need of the individual, but in the case of sisters, these needs are often served in a very super-ficial way: Their examination of conscience is real in the sense of following a taught and believed-in need, but hardly a real and basic human need. It is more the satisfaction of a conditioned (subconscious) need. Too often the examination of conscience is based on violations of the rule rather than violations of the gospel of Christ: Their desire seems to be to keep a clean slate rather than to live the spirit of the gospel. It would seem from the confessors' remarks that examina-tion of conscience, on the whole, is inadequate and fails to promote growth in sanctity. The sisters also admit that an inadequate examination ~f conscience is a deterrent to a meaningful confession. Some sisters state that their method of examination is too negative or too stereotyped; others feel that they are lacking in self-knowledge; still others find difficulty in deciding each week what is really sufficient important conscience matter. Several sisters expressed dissatisfaction with methods of examination that they were taught: I find examinations dwelling on faults, failings, and slighted points of rule are petty, extremely repulsive, and tantamount to nit-picking. Let's be more concrete: One sister who bases the ~examination of conscience on failings in charity states: This is not satisfactory to me, but I don't know how to remedy it and haven't reached the point.of discussing it openly with someoue yet. + ÷ ÷ Cont~ssions ol Women Religious VOLUME 26, 1967 589 ].4. ~larmon¢, ~ C.Ss.R. Sister M~ i DS.eOn.i&s, REV]EW FOR RELZGIOUS 590 All of~these difficulties point to a real need for reeduca-tion in this area. 6. Dil~iculty in Co~[essing Unique to their role as penitent, the sisters mention that often they are hampered by fear, reticence, human respect, and an inability to communicate in the confes-sional. Frustration is experienced by those who feel an inability "to manifest simply and clearly.one's weaknesses and spiritual state." On the other hand, there is the sister who apparently knows what to say but is hampered by "the fear of being too frank, thereby embarrassing the confessor and one's self." As one sister said: "I really do not think there is shortage of matter, but just that we cannot bring ourselves to be ourselves." In answer to the question: What do you find the greatest difficulty in your reception of the sacrament of penance?" a sister wrote: What and how to confess sins. There is plenty of matter for confession, but how can you verbalize the multitudinous fail-ures-- real failures? One sister said that she would like to express sins of omission l~ut felt that the confessor would not accept this as matter for a good confession. Another stated that she "would like to feel free to express myself in ordinary terms without the confessor becoming impatient." This difficu.lty persists in some, even with the best of condi-tions: I have difficulty in expressing my problems or difficulties in a clear and brief way even when I have the good fortune to have a confessor who is understanding. 7. Impersonal Relationship Today we hear much about personal relationships. Certainly it would appear that to make the sacrament of penance a means of spiritual growth there must be an interpersonal relationship between the sister-penitent and the priest-confessor, The obvious fact that two hu-man beings are united in the enactment of this sacra- - ment is too readily overlooked due to an "opere operato" mentality. Each person involved in this act of worship should relate to the other--as a communion of persons. But.,then, what about those who desire anonymity? Are the two contradictory? A relationship of concern, interest,. and desire to aid the penitent is sufficient, even though the sister is not known. However, for true spiritual guidancE, anonymity is a hindrance. Recognition of this lack of personal relationship is manifested in the remarks of the clergy: The dialogue is nil even though the confessor makes an attempt at the possibility of discussion on any matter that would ease any problems by the mere relating of them. There is also a desire for better relationship expressed by some confessors: ' Sisters of whatever type they are, with whatever problem they cope with, should be listened to closely, intently, pa-tiently. The confessor remains the key to the beneficial con-fessions of religious women. I am trying to make myself a better confessor by cultivating in myself greater love of God, a deeper insight into the nature of sin, and a better understanding of the person.s who are con-fessing. For most sisters, too, a lack, of true interperson.al re-lationship of the human level militates against a real understanding of the sacrament of penance as an en-counter with Christ. One sister even commented that because of the impersonal atmosphere, "confession can turn into an inhuman act." That the sisters object to being treated as "things" is evident in the following: Confession should be more of a person-to-person encounter, rather than a thing-to-thing. I don't feel that the priest is interested in me as an in-dividual, but in our community as a group. Whenever one speaks of interpersonal relationships, one must be aware of the important role played" by communication and dialogue: A greater sense of an interpersonal relationship is needed in confession, so that one does not feel that one is just another person with another uninteresting story. The biggest problem to my mind is the lack of commumcation between the confessor and myself. He doesn't seem interested in me as a person, so I cannot bring myself to talk to him. Attempts have proved fruitless. I feel that confession is basic to our spiritual life and think that it is high time dialogue with a capital "D" is possible with our confessor in particular, and priests in general. Great benefit can accrue from a genuinely human re-lationship: When I can open up to a confessor who is equipped to listen, I find that I at least can get close to experiencing a meeting with Christ. 8. Confessor Not Understanding When the confessor does not represent the under-standing and patient Christ,. the sisters' difficulties will be augmented. Does the priest himself feel capable? con-cerned? truly helpful? Earlier in. this study we mentioned the appreciation for the vocation of the sisters and for their zeal and holiness. There is a real desire on the part of un-derstanding priests, to help the sisters, to make confession an effective source of Christian growth: + + + ontesaons ot Women 1~eligious VOLUME 26, 1967 591 4. 4. 4. J. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R. Sister M. DSe.nOi.sS,. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 592 I am intensely interested in helping religious and proclaim !oudly and often the deplorable injustice which, I feel, priests in general have perpetrated in regard to these tremendous women, and that for centuries. It starts with the kind of "bon-papa" assigned to postulates and continues right on through to the type of retired, nasty, selfish, old bachelor whom no one will put up with except "the dear good sisters." Most priests want to get out of having to hear sisters' confessions and are only too happy to have anyone at all take over the chore, even if it happens to be someone who is good for nothing else. Many priests are sisters' confessors, not by inclination, training, or talent, but by appointment. What could make confession more meaningless to the sisters than the necessity to confess to some priest who merely tolerates his task of hearing their confessions? Or looks upon it as a waste of time? Or feels inadequate for the situation? Those priests who are interested and willing to give the necessary time and effort should "specialize" as confes-sors of women religious. As a priest stated, among the qualifications for a priest-confessor of sisters should be "some knowledge of the psychology of religious women and of counseling along with common sense and compas-sion." It is questionable whether seminary courses in pastoral theology treat of this specialized apostolate. In answering the question: "Are you satisfied with your confessor?" sixty-one sistei:s replied in the negative. Sis-ters are particularly sensitive to the priest's attitude toward hearing sisters' confessions in general: For our confessor, as for most confessors whom I have en-countered, the hearing of sisters' confessions seems to be an unpleasant duty to be got through as quickly as possible and with as little personal involvement as possible. Such an attitude is bound to inhibit the penitent. Others commented that their confessor is one in the strictest sense only, that is, he listens to confessions and gives absolution. Some confessors seem "uninterested, uncon-cerned, and unwilling to be of assistance." An older sister wrote: In my forty-six years of confessions, I can think of three priests that stand out because they were interested and gave all the time one wanted, plus counsel. Further irritation is caused by a condoning manner which implied "that you were a good girl who did not really need confession--'Keep up the good work.'" In addition, impatience, abruptness, moodiness, oversensi-tivity, unapproachableness were cited by the sisters as un-desirable qualities in a priest-confessor. Sisters are distressed by the male mistake of not under-standing the feminine mystique. Neither native intelli-gence nor acquired holiness is a substitute for under-standing feminine psychology. In the confessional the priest is dealing with the whole person--body, soul, mind, feelings. In addition to understanding the psychological and biological factors of women, the confessor should be able to "get behind the externals" in order to understand what "women get frustrated over": The confessor should consider most religious as shy persons; and deal with them as you would a shy person. Those who appoint confessors should see to it that the con-fessor is one who knows what women are, how they function and why; that be knows and understands the cycle of a wo-men- the menopause. We had a confessor who knew nothing of all this and said so, and what is worse, didn't want to know. It's all medical, he said. Furthermore, the feminine expression of the religious life is as different from the masculine expression of the religious life as woman is "from man: If we only had an understanding priest who knew what community living involved. This would solve many problems. From a total of. forty-two sisters with diocesan.priests for confessors, only eighteen expressed dissatisfaction with the confessor since he had no personal experience of community life as lived by religious. Most of the eighteen stated that they would prefer a religious priest. Frequently sisters experience difficulty when the pastor for whom they work, especially in a small town, is their con tess or: It is undesirable to have the pastor or some other priest, who is in frequent contact with the sisters in a professional way, as confessor. It is very apparent that the person of the confessor plays an important role in contributing to the meaning-fulness of the sacrament of penance, without, however, the penitent abdicating her own personal responsibility: Each person needs to find her own personal response to God. The priest can suggest, but the decision must be your own. I have great sympathy for the priegt who has to be a con-fessor to sisters (being stoned to death with popcorn, as one priest put it), but I believe lie must definitely have the in-clination for it, a solid knowledge of feminine psychology, , and the knack of helping his penitents to be more objective in their outlook. 9. Lack Of Suitable Direction ÷ When discussing the lack of spiritual direction as a + factor in rendering the sacrament of penance less mean-ingful, we are adopting, in line with the replies on the. questionnaires, the broad meaning of spiritual direction, onfesslons namely, a personal or general exhortation directed to the Women Religious penitent. Xqhile it is beyond the scope of this study to examine theologically the relationship of spiritual direo 593 tion to the sacrament of penance, such a relationship will be investigated in a later study. Nearly all the confessors gave some spiritual exhorta-tion, either general or personal, and the latter particu-larly when needed or requested: I simply invite them after each confession to bring up any problem they might have before dismissing them. Compara-tively few do so--maybe two per month. General direction is quite useless, a waste of breath. It de-pends on the penitent whether I give personal direction. Some gave a short homily to the assembled community as preparation for the reception of penance. There were a few, however, who merely gave absolution. Only in a few cases, judging from the confessors' re-sponses can we attribute lack of direction as a source of meaningless confessions. However, it is in this area of confessional exhortation that we find the greatest dis-parity between the priests' and the sisters' remarks. Table 2 indicates the number of sisters receiving dif-ferent types of spiritual exhortation or direction in the confessional. TABLE 2 Types of Direotion Received in'the Confessional Type of Direction Number of Sisters General . 58 Specific direction . 42 No direction at all . 33 Of those receiving general direction nineteen sisters stated that they wished to have this type of exhortation continued; four sthted that they did not want any direc-tion. It is noteworthy that thirty-four of the fifty-eight~ sisters receiving a general type of direction desired to have the exhortation related more to the spirit and tone of each penitent's confession, instead of vague, impersonal re-,. marks on some loosely connected topic, such as the Holy Souls: 0f course, I want and need direction. Perhaps I'm just looking for a spiritual pat on the back at times, but I don't want a confessor with stereotyped answers. I want him to + make me think things out. + If we add to these thirty-four sisters, the forty sisters + who receive a specific type of direction and wish to con- I. A. (?larmont, tinue doing so, then there is a total of seventy-four sis- , c~s~. ters indicating a preference for individual direction in sister M. Oe,,is, the confessional. A sister who received personal direction s.o.s. stated: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS At first I found it almost embarrassingly so, but it is of 594 great help, One sister receiving specific direction did not wish to have any at all; and another sister stated that she would rather ask for it when needed. Table 3, illustrating the helpfulness of the type of direction the sisters are presently receiving, is indicative of the sisters' preference for a more personalized exhorta-tion. TABLE 3 The Help.[ulness of Various Types of Spiritual Direction Degree of Helpfulness General Direction Specific Direction Total Possible 58 Total Possible 42 Helpful . 17 37 Not helpful . 21 1 Sometimes helpful . 20 4 Some of the nine sisters who stated that they did not wish to have direction of any type qualified their remarks as follows: No guidance wanted from this type of confessor. In some twenty years in religious life, I personally have met only one regular confessor who was genuinely interested in my prog-ress in holiness. From those receiving no direction whatsoever the fol-lowing remarks imply a sense of frustration or futility: Every week that I have gone to this confessor for the past five years he says, "Once again, Sister, leave it all to the mercy of God and for your penance say three Hail Mary's to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament." He gives no spiritual direction for anything less than sins of murder! Only four receiving no direction indicated that they did not wish to have any; twenty-nine stated a desire for di-rection of some kind. The whole area of spiritual direction is a delicate one since both the "feast or the famine" extremes pose evi-dent difficulties for the sisters. They would like the con-lessor to be interested and helpful, but without making them feel compelled to reveal themselves. For the con-lessor to ask a lead question such as: "Is there anything else you would like to say?" is welcome and leaves the individual free. As shown previously, many sisters are shy and reticent in the confessional. Such a question would provide them with an opening. From the sisters' viewpoint there seem to be few priests who really understand what they mean when asking for direction: There seems to be a lack of understanding for our way of life--for the desire to grow in love and union with God. Most just can't take the time to bother, or if they waht to help, Conlessions ot, Women Religiott~ VOLUME 26, 1967 595 they can't understand about our life. Some of the younger priests seem to have more of an understanding of spiritual direction in the confessional than many of the older ones. They have caught the spirit of the Council and of the "inner renewal," not just external changes, and have taken special interest in the direction of sisters. Tliere is overwhelming evidence from the survey that the sisters included in this sampling wish to receive di-rection in the confessional as indicated by 122 out of 133 sisters. As was seen, the strong preference is for a more personal exhortation. 10. Environment The problem area that appeared most frequently on the questionnaires is that of the physical environment of the confessional, with ninety-three sisters and thirty-two priests reporting dissatisfaction with the present situation. Table 4 gives a break-down of this figure. TABLE 4 Changes Desired by Confessors and Sisters in the Physical Environment of the Confessional Desired Changes Priests Sisters Wish improvements in the tradi-I tional .confessional . I 16 40 Wish face-to-face confessions in an open room . ] 16 53 4- I. A. Clarmonk, C.Ss.R. Sister M. Denis, S~O.S. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 596 There was barely an aspect of the traditional con-fessional that escaped criticism. One priest dryly com-mented: o My experience is d, at while the sisters have built hospitals, schools, and motherhouses equal to the Taj Mahal, they have yet to build a decent confessional. Acoustics in most are poor. Severe criticism was leveled at the double confessional in which one sister said she "had been hearing confessions for years." For the deaf sisters this problem is acute. Poor placement of the confessional ranged from the front of the chapel where the sister "had to face the entire community when com-ing out" to the sacristy "where the sacristan had to be informed and evacuated for extra confessions." Both priests and sisters wished to dispel the dark gloomy at-mosphere in the confessional by more normal lighting. In short, "light, air, more room, and the opportunity to hear and to be heard" are needed. When referring to the type of confessional used, one sister noted that attitudes towards this beautiful sacra-ment could change, ':if the sisters were free to go to con-fession in the place they choose--a sunny, bright room or a closed confessional." Another asserted that any physical change which would make confession more of a sacra-ment of encounter would be helpful. A confessor wrote: I've already abandoned the confessional in the chapel for a portable in a small parlor where privacy is assured even for the hard-of-hearing, where I can look out at the birds, flowers, trees, and squirrels which remind me of the bounty of God whose largesse I am dispensing. For some, the focus of annoyance was the screen or grill in the traditional confessional: I simply cannot relate to a blank screen. It's torture trying to mumble your problems at a white screen. There appears to be relative unanimity among priest-confessors and sister-penitents in their mutual detestation of the confessional "box": ~ The gloomy secretive atmosphere of the confessional does not seem conducive to inspiring anyone with any 'particular joy at being the receiver of such a tremendous blessing. Let's get out of the sweat boxl Is it so necessary that women go to confession in a closed confessional? Can't canon law be revamped in this regard? After all, we say we meet Christ in penance. Why should a grill and darkness set His representative aloof from us? Many priests have decried the ordinary environment, that is, the confessional, as destructive of a personal re-lationship and meaningful confession: Have a place where sisters could be less formal and able to talk in a normal voice, not whispering. Thus they could see their confessor as a spiritual director and not a mere automaton dispensing sins in a machine-like way. Several suggested that confessions be heard in a counsel-ing room where privacy is assured and where both con-fessor and penitent can be at ease. The sisters also question the traditional confessional environment. External surroundings have a great in-fluence on one's attitudes and may have accounted for much of the fear which has accompanied the sacrament of penance for many sisters: Completely revamp the confessional. An across-the-desk or from-one-comfortable-chair-to-the-next would be much more conducive to sincerity and perhaps more practically effective. Christ met Nicodemus out on a rooftop, the adulterous woman in a temple courtyard, Zaccheus in a tree, the cripple at a public swimming pool, Dismas at a public execution. Why in the name of God, our Father, must He meet us in a dark, little, musty box with his hand in front of his eyes, his face turned away, through a screen or grill or even a plastic sheet? What's wrong with being face to face with His representative? in a lighted room? in a comfortable chair? in a relaxed and open manner. We talk about faith. What kind of faith do we show by hiding from the light and warmth of person-to-person communication? You can't take the light of faith and hide it + 4. 4- Conlessions o~ Women Religious VOLUME 26, 1967 597 4, 4. C.SsJL Sisger M. Den~s, $.0~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~98 in a box, but put it out in the open. Penance should be a two-way dialogue with both priest and penitent brought closer to Christ by the encounter. Although these expressions are opposed to a sacred tra-dition of confessional anonymity, yet all of them seem to carry, that cry for a more meaningful interpersonal re-lationship with the priest-confessor. They honestly seek to have a setting that will be more natural, more tiuman, and more conducive to genuine help from this wonderful sacrament. A choice, however, should be left for' the penitent--either a face-to-face accusation or the privilege of anonymity. 11. Rite Our present rite of the sacrament of penance fails to convey the full import of this sacrament: Certainly penance has ceased to be "public" except in name only. Much must be done to restore penance to its place in the public worship of the Church. " We need a complete revision of the liturgy of the sacrament to fit the real needs and become a living sign in their daily lives. Many confessors indicated a desire for communal ex-amination of conscience, for a preparatory homily prior to the reception of the sacrament, and for general abso-lution. Thirty-eight sisters expressed dissatisfaction with the present rite of penance. Of the thirty-eight, twenty-five wished" to have some form of communal penance with optional private confession; seven wished to have some communal exhortation or rite followed by private con-fession; and six wished to have minor changes made in the present rite: It is hard to realize the ecclesial or community aspect of penance under its preseht form. General absolution would make the sacraxnent of penance much more meaningful for me, and I am not a coward or lack-ing in faith when I say this. The development of these suggestions will be con-sidered in a later study when we deal with those factors .that should lead to a more meaningful celebration of this sacrament. Progress is being made by liturgists to make all the sacraments more meaningful. Certainly their reception in the vernacular has helped, but many are still concerned about a truly ex.pressive rite that con-veys the true meaning of the sacrament of penance. Conclusion As stated in the beginning of this study, our purpose is' not academic but practical. As one confessor wrote to I think a great deal of talking, discussion, and beefs have taken place about weekly confessors for sisters. Now it is time for action. I would like to see something done about it. I hope your study leads to some practical results. I love the sisters and feel they deserve to find a greater degree of the ful-fillment in Christ's love which they sought when they embraced the evangelical counsels. It is sincerely hoped that those responsible for the con-fessions of women religious from the diocesan chancery office to the local convent will examine and attempt to rectify some of the problems surrounding the reception of this sacrament. We have tried to show how the various factors which militate against a meaningful reception of penance are interrelated and therefore cannot be considered in iso-lation. The most obvious problem for both confessors and penitents is routine, but the most basic problem is the lack of freedom regarding time, place, confessor, and frequency. If sisters were given the responsibility to see to their own needs regarding penance, then--given normal conditions--time problems, all the difficulties related to the confessor would be eased. The sacramental rite in its present form is neither in-structive nor indicative of the ecclesial purpose of pen-ance. In addition, a truly Christ-like interpersonal rela-tionship between confessor and penitent is impeded by the physical surroundings of the confessional itself. However, for the individual sister, despite all external obstacles, the most effective remedy for routine is a thorough updating and continued education in the theology of the sacrament and its practical application in her own life. Because of little or no formation, the sisters do not really understand how to examine their consciences realistically and hence have great difficulty in the actual confession. These shortcomings on the part of the sister-penitent, in addition to weekly confession when often there is no real need, are greatly responsible for the confessor!s negative attitudes towards sisters' confessions. Underly-ing most of these difficulties lies the inability of the priest-confessor and the sister-penitent to see and to accept one another in their individual roles in the Body of Christ. It was evident from the questionnaires that there is grave mutual misunderstanding between the priest-confessors as a whole and the sister-penitents as a whole. The priests do not seem to comprehend the seriousness of all the problems concerned to the same extent that the sisters do. Many priests admit they do not know how to use the sacrament of penance as an fective source of spiritual growth and development. Furthermore, the sisters often close themselves to re-ceiving the good intentions of the confessor. We feel in-÷ ÷ ÷ Contessions o] Women Religious VOLUME 26, 1967 599 capable of judging where the fault lies but would like to suggest that both the confessor and the sisters in a given location openly discuss the problems pertinent to their situation. We owe our sincere gratitude to the confessors and sisters who took the time to answer the questionnaires so thoroughly and honestly. It has been a difficult but instructive task reading the questionnaires, assessing various responses, and attempting to be as objective as possible. We hope that our later study will indeed com-plement this negative analysis with truly positive aids towards making confession more satisfying for both confessor and penitent, creating mutual respect, charity, and joy. APPENDIX A FACSIMILE OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO CONFESSORS Dear Father: As part of our work in Pastoral Theology at The Divine Word Centre, London, we are making a study of the confessions of women religious. For this purpose we are asking your cooperation in completing the following questionnaire. Your frank answers and any other comments you care to make would be greatly appreciated. Use the back of this paper if necessary. All replies . will be held in the strictest confidence. Please return the completed form UNSIGNED. Rev. J. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R. Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. 1. Age ____ Diocesan Priest ____ Religious Priest __ (Check one) 2. Number of convents to which you are the regular confessor: + ]. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R. , Sister M. Denis, S.O3. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 600 Approximate number of sisters in convent ___ Location of content: City ___ Town or village ____ (Check one) Type of sisters: C!oistered.___ Non-cloistered ___ (Check one) 3. Are you the pastor and/or chaplain to these sister's? Yes __ NO --- 4. If the convent is large, how many other regular confessors assist you? ____ 5. What is your impression of sisters' confessions, in general? Please be sharp and specific. 6. From your experience in hearing sisters' confessions, do you think that their examination of conscience is realistic and adequate? 7. What type of spiritual direction or counsel do you give? (i.e., personal or general) 8. What do you find most satisfying regarding sisters' confes-sions? 9. What is your greatest difficulty regarding sisters' coqfessions? I0. How could the Sacrament of Penance be made more meaning-ful for sisters? 11. Are there any changes you would like to make in the physical environment of the confessional (location, type, lighting, acoustics, etc.)? FACSIMILE OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO SISTERS Dear Sister: As part of our work in Pastoral Theology at The Divine Word Centre, London, we are making a study of the confessions of women religious. For this purpose we are asking your cooperation in com-pleting the following questionnaire. Your frank answers and any other comments you care to make would be greatly appreciated. Use the back of this paper if necessary. All replies will be held in the strictest confidence. Please return the completed form UN-SIGNED. Rev. J. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R. Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. 1 :' Age __ Occupation 2. Location of convent: City ____ Town or village ___ (Check one) 3. Number of sisters in Convent __ Number of weekly con-fessors ____ 4. Diocesan priest ___ Religious priest ___ (Check one) Is he your pastor and/or chaplain? Yes ___ No __ (Check one) 5. Are you satisfied with your confessor? Please give sharp and specific reasons. 6. How do you make your examination of conscience? 7. What type of spiritual direction or counsel (i.e., personal or general) does the confessor give? Do you want this? Do you find this helpful? 8. What do you find most beneficial in your reception of the Sacrament of Penance? 9. What do you think is the greatest difficulty in your reception of the Sacrament of Penance? 10. How could the Sacrament of Penance be made more meaning-ful for sisters? 1 I. Are there any changes you would like to make in the physical environment of the confessional (location, type, lighting, acoustics)? APPENDIX B STATISTICAL DESCRIPTION OF SAMPLING Priest-Confessors One hundred and ten questionnaires were ~nailed out to con-lessors o[ sisters. Among the returns were sixty-four completed questionnaires, oue partially completed, one letter stating the con-fessor's views and two letters stating that the confessors concerned were no longer occupied with hearing sisters' con[essions. The sam-pling included priests from seven Canadian provinces and two from the United States with representatives from forty-five towns or cities in twenty-one different dioceses. ÷ ÷ + Conlessions o] Women Religious VOLUME 26, 1967 Twenty-six priest-confessors were under forty-five years of age and thirty-five were over that age; six failed to state their age. Thirty-two of the sampling were diocesan priests and thirty-two 'were religious priests. Thirteen stated that they were the pastor and/or chaplain of the convent in which they heard confessioa~s, while forty-five were outsiders; two were retreat masters. Table 5 summarizes the size of the convents in which die priests heard confessions. TABLE 5 Size of Convent to which Priest-Con.lessors are Appointed 19 priests heard confessions in convents of 10 or fewer sisters. 12 priests heard confessions in convents of 10-25 sisters. 12 priests heard confessions in convents of 26-50 sisters. 4 priests heard confessions in convents of 51-100 sisters. 4 priests heard confessions in convents of over 100 sisters. ÷ ÷ ÷ I. A. Clarmont, C.Ss.R. $iste~ M. D$e.0n,i$s., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 602 Fifty-four priests were involved in hearing the confessions of non-cloistered sisters and five priests were involved in hearing the con-fessions of cloistered sisters. Thirty-three convents to which they were assigned as confessors are in the cities and twenty-two con-vents are located in small towns or villages. Certain discrepancies in the number of responses and the above totals are due to the fact that some priest-confessors failed to answer each requested item on the questionn.aire. Sister-Penitents ' ~ Out of a total of approxim.htely one hundred and sixty question-nalres sent to the sister~, one hundred and thirty-three were ~:e-turned, including thirty-three sister students at the Divine Word Centre. The sampling of one hundred and thlrty-three, although ~redominffntly Canadian, cuts across seven provinces, eight states, and represents sisters in twenty-six dioceses and eighty-one con-vents. The sampling was fairly equally divided according to age groups: sixty-six sisters were over thlrty-five years of age; sixty-six sisters were thirty-five or younger; and the age of one sister was un-known. Tables 6 and 7 indicate the occupations of the sisters and the size of the convents respectively. TABLE 6 Occupations o] Sisters Involved in the Sampling Occupation Cloistered . Teacher . Nurse . Social Worker . Administration . Catechist . Domestic . Missionary . Retired . Student . Novice . Unknown . Number 45 46 71 6 612811 TABLE 7 Size o.f Convents 18 sisters reside in convents of 5 or fewer sisters. 41 sisters reside in convents of 6-12 sisters. 15 sisters reside in convents of 13-25 sisters. 27 sisters reside in convents of 26-50 sisters. 32 sisters reside in convents of over 51 sisters. Eighty-one convents were located in the city; fifty-two in small towns, villages, or in the country. Ninety-one sisters indicated that their confessor was a diocesan priest. In twenty-three cases the priest was the pastor and/or chaplain; in one hundred and ten cases the priest was an outside confessor. " Conlessions o! Women Religious VOLUME 26, 1967 LADISLAS M. ~RSY, S.J. Chastity in Religious Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J., is professor of canon law at the School ol: Theology; Fordham Univer-sity; ~ Bronx, New York 10458. : REVIEW=FOR RELIGIOUS Whenever the documents of the Council refer to conse-crated life and mention the three evangelical counsels, chastity takes priority over poverty and obedience. In establishing this new, .or apparently new order, the fathers of the Council followed an ancient tradition and also ex-pressed better the internal cohesion between the three counsels. They followed an ancient tradition because from the beginning of the life of the Church, consecrated virginity was considered the sign and the fruit of a spe-cial friendship with God. They expressed better the internal cohesion of the three aspects of our consecration, because it is through virginity that a special union is established between God and a human person. Detachment from material wealth in the form of poverty usually follows the charism of virginity. Both charisms can bring greater fruit if they are inserted into the life of the visible Church. This insertion is made through dedication to works of charity in a community, which is in effect consecration in obedience: Among the three, chastity is nearest to charity; it is the most personal expression of our dedication to God. Before any further explanation, it is necessary that I should clarify my own terminology. There are two key concepts which have to be defined. One is chastity, the other is virginity. Chastity is a virtue which disposes us to the observance of God's laws in all matters concerning sexual life. It has to be present in those who are married and in those who are not. When a person abstains from marriage it is fre-quently said that he is practicing perfect chastity, mean-ing that he is abstaining completely from any use of his sexual faculties. The expression can be used provided no one concludes that the virtue of chastity cannot be perfect in married people. The virtue can be perfect in them al-though their abstinence from sexual life is not omplete.1 The term virginity usually means perfect chastity in those who preserve the integrity of their body. One could object to this definition that virginity is conceived too much in a material sense. It would be better to speak about the spiritual.sense of virginity which means dedica-tion to God in perfect chastity with the intention of pre-serving the integrity of mind and body. Christian virgin-ity in the full sense means a permanent state, the permanent integrity of mind, heart, and body for the sake of the kingdom of God. It is a spiritual virtue. It disposes for a deep union with God and it is the fruit of such a union. Its most important aspect is not in the ma-terial integrity of the body--in itself it could not be a sign of Christian virginity--but in the integrity and in the permanent dedication of the person to God in perfect chastity. .In other words, there is not much difference between perfect chastity and virginity, provided "integrity" means the integral dedication of a person in mind, heart, and body to God. They both mean the same. If we want to remain faithful to the tradition of Christian terminology it would probably be better to speak about virginity than chastity. I shall use the expression virginity when I mean perfect chastity. By both I mean the consecration of a human person to God in integrity of mind and body which excludes any use of the sexual faculties. When I speak about virginity, I refer equally to men and women. When the term celibate is used, it is equivalent to virgin. As I shall explain, virginity is a framework, a container, for a union with God. THE BIBLICAL BACKGROUND The inspiration from Holy Scripture for an under-standing of the virtue of virginity comes in two ways: through the express pronouncements of the inspired texts about virginity and through the example of Christ, His Mother, and His disciples. The' biblical doctrine of a deep and experiential union with God is certainly a help to understand virginity better. XThe term perlect chastity is a misnomer; it misleads the un-initiated and does not express well the thought of the specialist in moral theology. It misleads the uninitiated because it seems to imply that perfect chastity cannot exist in marriage. It does not express the thought of the specialist in moral theology, because if perfect chastity can be achieved by the use of the sexual faculties in mar-riage, the complete abstention from the use of those faculties should not be described by the same term. Even if we agreed, however, that the term perIect chastity should-be abandoned for the descrip-tion of the state of celibacy or virginity, time would be still needed for an agreement on the new terminology. + + + Chastity VOLUME 26, 1967 605 4. £,adislas M. Or&y, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 606 Some express pronouncements about virginity in the Old Testament can be found in the life of Jeremiah who remained celibate in order to underline his prophecy. In the New Testament the main texts about virginity are in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, in the Epis-tles of St. Paul, and in the Apocalypse of St. John. All through the Scriptures there is an ever deepening empha-sis of this virtue. The life of Christ, the,life of the Mother of God, and the lives of many of the Apostles are in them-selves demonstrations of the Christian value of virginity; The biblical doctrine of a deep experiential union with God is of capital importance for the understanding of the virtue of virginity. This union can be so captivating for a human heart that the person does not want to conclude any close union with a human person. The presence of God in him brings about a special fruit: he wants to re-main virgin. I shall speak mainly about the express references of the Bible to virginity, but I shall refer frequently to the union from which virginity originates,u Jeremiah the Prophet The concept of virginity developed gradually. Its earli-est roots are in the Old Testament. Christian virginity is somewhat foreshadowed in the life of Jeremiah. The prophet embraced celibacy and he himself explained the reason for it: The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows: "You must not take a wife or have son or daughter in this place. For the Lord says. this regarding the sons and daughters to be born in this place, about the mothers who give birth to them, and about the fathers who beget them in tl~is land: They will die of deadly diseases" Uer 16:1-4). Celibacy in the life of Jeremiah was a prophecy by ~ The purpose of this biblical background is not to prove that the state of celibacy or virginity is an excellent way of following Christ, but to recall the biblical teaching for those who believe in the excellency of the gift. The relevant texts are fragmentary and their full meaning may not be immediately evident. The facts reported in the New Testament, such as the virginal life of Christ, the virginity of His Mother, do not lend themselves to lengthy explanations. They all have a pregnant meaning, though, which was clearly understood by the Church from the apostolic times and ex-ternally manifested by the praise of virginity. Within the scope of a short article the explanations of the texts had to be restrained to the most essential points. A detailed and fine analysis of The Biblical Doctrine o! Virginity by Lucien Legrand, M.E.P., is availa-ble in English, published by Sheed and Ward, New York, 1963. I am indebted to the author and grateful for his work. His analyses of the texts of St. Luke are particularly thought-provoking. Father Legrand stresses also the theological idea of virginal ]ecundity, but 15erhaps not enough the immediate apostolic meaning of the scriptural texts on virginity. The strongly apostolic character of virginity appears everywhere included in the meaning of the terms. deed. He was announcing to the people of Jerusalem that the day of judgn3.ent was coming. In order to demonstrate the proximity of the disaster Jeremiah did not take a wife. Through his celibacy he was crying out that the judg-ment of the Lord was coming and that all should be pre-pared for it. His celibacy had a prophetic value. Paul the Prophet The same thefiae is taken up in the New Testament by St. Paul/He is not concerned with the destruction of Jerusalem. He is concerned with the second coming of the Lord, with the universal manifestation of His glory. Paul is so full of hope that he wants to bypass the realities of this present world of shadows in order to center his at-tention on tl~e expectation of the Lord. He writes to the Corinthians: About remaining celibate, I have no directions from the Lord but give my own opinion as one who, by the Lord's mercy, has stayed faithful. Well then, I believe that in these present times of stress this is right: that it is good for a man to stay as he is (1 Cor 7:25-6). The "present times of stress" here is due to the fact that they were in expectation of the Pa~ousia, the day of judg-ment, the day of the manifestation of the power of the Lord. The underlying idea in the statement of Paul is that the very fact that he remains a celibate dec'lares not in words but in a deed that the real permanent values are in a different wgrld. The prophetic, aspect of celibacy is present in Paul's thought. But while Jeremiah was con-cerned in a somewhat negative way with the tem~poral ruin of Jerusalem, Paul is centered on the coming of the eternal kingdom of Christ. Thr6ugh celibacy he declares that this world is to be transformed into a new spiritual universe. Matthew and the Kingdom In the Gospel of St. Matthew the internal relationship between the state of virginity and the kingdom of God is described. The most important passage on celibacy follows the promulgation by Christ of the new law: a man shouId not divorce his wife. Then: The disciples said to him, "If that: is how things are between husband andwife, it is not advisable to marry." But he replied, "It is not everyone who can accept what I have said, but only those to whom it is granted. There are eunuchs born that way from their mother's womb, there :are eunuchs made so by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can" (Mt 19:10-2). The key concept of the text is that to abstain from marriage receives its full mea.ning when it is done on .I. + + VOLUME 26, 1967 607 ÷ Ladislas M. Orsy, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS behalf.o{ the heavenly kingdom. There is a close relation-ship between the kingdom of Christ and .that state of celibacy or virginity. It is stated also that no one can grasp this gift for himself but it is given to those who are ¯ able to accept what God offers to them. In other words, celibacy is a gift of God. Matthew means by the kingdom of heaven the fulfill-ment of God's promises, the presence of the kingdom foretold by the prophets, announced by John the Baptist, preached by Christ, and to be preached by the Apostles. Celibacy in itself would be empty and without purpose; it receives its meaning through the kingdom. The kingdom means the internal kingdom in the hearts of man and the kingdom to be spread through the preach-ing of the gospel. When a gift is given on behalf of the kingdom, all aspects of the kingdom have to be included. The gift is given to dispose the heart to receive the word of God and to strengthen the person to preach it. Both the sanctifying and the strongly apostolic aspects of virginity are there in Christ's words as reported by Matthew. This kingdom is partially present because Christ is present, and He opened His kingdom to all who repent and are ready to follow Him. It is also to come because the Spirit has not descended, yet on the Apostles and dis-ciples. The concept of virginity in Matthew's Gospel is a complex one: virginity is witnessing present reality and points to a future event. It is the sign of the kingdom present, and of the kingdom to come. The kingdom is present; for its sake one can be celibate. There is no need to wait. At the same time the prophetic value remains, since the fullness of God's promises is still to come. Celibacy points towards the eschatological fullness or per-fection. One could say that in the life of a celibate person reality and prophecy coincide. Virginity is a sign of the kingdom present here and now and of the kingdom to come when Christ appears in His glory. Let us note that virginity is not a condition to enter the kingdom but it is a special gift within the kingdom for., those who can accept it. Matthew makes it clear that he conceives celibacy as a particular gift given by God to some who are following Christ and are disciples of Christ. Not all followers and all disciples will have the same gift. .,In another passage, Matthew reports the saying of Christ that in the resurrection there is no such thing, as marryi~ng or°being given in marriage: For at the resurrection men and women do not marry;~ no, they are like the angels.in heaven (Mr 22:30). o In other words, the state of' virginity is~ the beginning of the same state of life in some whidh will be the ~hare of all who will enter the heavenly kingdom. In heaven there will be no need for procreation because the number 6f the chosen ones will have be~n completed. The king-dom of God will be there in its fullness. Marriage would be purposeless. It follows that the state of virginity is the beginning of the state of imniortality. Through it a person takes up his final status in the kingdom of God. Luke and the Following of Christ Luke leads us even further into the mystery of virginity. For Luke, as for Matthew, the kingdom of God has come with Christ. But Luke gives more thought to the relation-ship of a disciple to Christ; to the union that exists be-tween Christ and His follower." For him virginity is the sharing in a special way of the death and also of the glorification of Christ. Special way here means an indi-vidual vocation, not given to all believers. The most im-portant text is: He said to them, "I tell you solemnly, there is no one wh~ has left house, wife, brothers, parents, or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will noLbe given repayment many times over in this present time and,~in the world to come, eter-nal life" (Lk 18:29-30). He who follows Christ by 1.eaving behind his wife, that is by taking up the state of celibacy, leaves this world and enters another one. He shares the condition of Christ who is leaving this world to enter into the house of His Father. The person who leaves behind hig wife and all that he has in this world shares the death of Christ. Another text from St. Luke proves that this is not an exaggeration: If any man conies to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple (Lk 14:26-7). That is, there is an analogy between leaving behind one's wife and family and taking UP the cross. There is an analogy between celibacf and leaving one's own life and dying with Christ. To follow Christ means to leave this visible and tangible world and the persons or objects most precious to us and to go into an unknown world. To leave behind one's own wife is the sharing in the life of Christ; it is sharing His cross and His death. In Luke's Gospel the theology of: the life of a Christian as life in Christ is emerging. It is necessary to be :unite.d to Christ's cross in order to participate in His eternal life. Finally, as in Matthew's Gospel, in Luke's too, the king-dom has a dynamic character: it has to grow and expand. To become celibate for the kingdom'ssake means to tal~e a share in the building of the kingdg~n, in the saving acts of Christ--celibacy has an apostolic character and finality. + + + Chastity VOLUME 2~, 1.967 609 4- 4- Lad/s/as M. Orsy, S.I. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 610 Paul and the Glory o/ Godn The new theme of sharing the glory of Christ through virginity is best expressed by St. Paul in 1 Cot 7:25-39. He does not say that matrimony is wrong. On the con-trary, marriage is good. But he says: I would like to see you free from all worry. An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord's affairs,, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord; but a married man has to bother about the world's affairs and devote himself to pleasing his wife: he is torn two ways. In the same way an unmarried . woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord's affairs;' all she need worry about is being holy in body and spiyit. The married woman, on the other hand, has to worry about the world's affairs and devote herself to pleasing her husband. I say this only~ to help you, not to put a halter round your necks, but simply to make sure that everything is as it should be, and that you give your undivided attention to the Lord (1 Gor 7:32-5). Being holy in body and spit.it: the word holy is the key to the understanding of the text. When Paul uses the expression holy he uses it according tolthe Old Testament tradition. Anything is holy which has been sanctified by God through the presence of His glory and power, For the Israelites Mount Sinai was holy because the glory of God descended on it. The temple of Jerusalem was holy for them because the presence of God overshadowed its internal sanctuary which was called the Holy of Holies. A person who receives the gift of virginity is holy because the power and g~ory of God descended on him, over-shadowed him, and consecrated him. We should try to put ourselves into the mind of Paul. For him the Temple of Jerusalem had no more meaning. The sacrifices of the Old Testament came to an end and the holiness of God left the Temple. Now the holiness of God resides in every Christian and in a particular way in those who received the gift of virginity. Those who re-ceived this special gift are consecrated temples of God. Their lives belong to the. new cult of a new age, the age of the Spirit. They are overshadowed by the divine presence, therefore they are holy. In their lives a new cult, a new liturgy emerges, similar to that which will be the cult and liturgy of the eternal and immortal kingdom of God. In this sense the soul and the body of a celibate person has been assumed into the spiritual kingdom of God. Another approach to the theology of St. Paul on mar-riage and virginity can be made through the ~Epistle to a Xavier L~on-Dufour, S.J.0 published an excellent article on St. Paul's doctrine on marriage and virginity. He shows how in ~the mind of St. Paul marriage belonged to the earthly realities of the kingdom of God, and virginity to the kingdom to come. See "Mar-iage et virginit~ selon saint Paul," in Christus, v. 11 (1964), pp. 179-94. the Ephesians. Since for St. Paul marriage belongs to this transient world and is a temporal institution, it can stand as a symbol or sign of Christ's union with His Church. Paul is taking an earthly reality, marriage, to demonstrate and illustrate a heavenly mystery. Virginity is not an earthly reality, therefore it cannot be taken to illustrate something final. Virginity is a final reality in itself. It is the final state of God's chosen ones. It cann6t serve as a symbol for anything else. There is nothing be-hind a reality which is final. In the virgin the mystery of the resurrection is already present and alive because his soul and body have been consecrated by the Holy. Spirit. Paul states many times that it was the Spirit of the Father who raised Christ from the dead. It is the same Spirit who gives new life to a human person, vivifies him through the gift of virgin.ity, raises him from this world, and gives him the power and glory of the ~vorld to come: The life of virgins has an analogy with the life of God's blessed ones in heaven. , In St. Paul's theology to receive the, gift of virginity means to receive the strength and glory of the Spirit of the Father and of Christ ::in a special way. And the virgin belongs to God precisely because he has received this special gift. The Facts of Our Redemption To the analysis of these many texts a substantialremark should be added: the four Gospels, the Epistles, and the other documents of the New~ Testament.literally~ breathe the atmosphere of virginity. In the center of them is Christ who was virgin. He was born from a woman who remained virgin. Among the Apostles John was whom Jesus loved. John, too, was a virgin. St. Paul, perhaps the most dynamic among the Apostles, declares his intention to remain celibate. In the description of heaven in the Book of the Apocalypse those who are saved are described as virgins. The text witnesses the author's esteemffor the state of virginity:4 Next in my vision I saw Mount Sion, ~nd standing on it~a Lamb who had with him a hundred and forty-four thousan'd people, all with his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. I heard,a so, und coming o.ut of the sky like the souhd of the ocean or tlie roar of thunder: it seemed to be the sound of harpists playing their harps. There in front of the throne they were singing a new hymn in the presence of the four animals andthe elders, a hymn that could only be learnt by the hundred and forty-four thousand ~ who had been re-deemed from the world. These are ~he ones who have kept their virginity and not been defiled with ~b6men; they follow the Lamb wherever he goes; they have b~n redeemed from amongst men to be the first-fruits for God and fdr the Lamb~ t Cf. Kittel-Friedrich, Th~ologisches Wb'rterbuch zum Neuen Testament, Band V, parthenos, p. 835. ° Chastity VOLUME 26, 1967 gll ÷ ÷ Ladislas M. Orsy, Sd. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS They never allowed a lie to pass their lips and no fault can be found in them (Ap 14:1-5). THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION Christian virginity is so closely connected with the in-carnation, with the distribution of graces in the Church, and with the presence of eternal life here on the earth that it has something of the nature of a. mystery. There-fore it cannot be fully explained by concepts and defini-tions, although they can be of help. However, images and symbols from our Christian tradition can take over where the notional knowledge ends; and they can convey a deeper understanding of God's gift. Some clear theological principles will help to .prepare the. ground for this understanding: (a) Christian virginity is not identical with divine char-ity. If it were, the kingdom of God would b.e reserved to virgins, and to virgins alone. But the kingdom is open to all men of good will whether they be married or virgins. Since charity is infused into our hearts by the Spirit, every man who is called to live by charity is called to live in the Spirit. Therefore,, the union with the Spirit of God is not the privilege of the virgins. All are called to a divine union. (b) Virginity removes "'some obstacles which might draw a person away [rom the fervor of charity and the perfection of divine worship, (Lumen gentium, 44). Frankly, this is a negative principle. Yet it has a real meaning. It expresses that virginity is dying to this world in order to be raised to a.nother one. The dying is neces-sary because the internal dynamism of a human person is far from being fully balanced. In many cases it centers on human persons and on temporal care with such an intensity that it is not able to rise to a generous love of God. The mystery of the cross is shining through here. (c) Virginity helps a person to derive more fruit from his baptismal grace. It is not the baptismal grace. Chris-tians are baptized for a life of charity, and not that of virginity. But virginity can help in developing thee bap-tismal grace by creating an internal dynamism which turns a human person fully and continuously toward Christ and eternal life. A human heart can be great enough to love God alone. Virginity introduces a certain alertness and sensitivity to the. inspirations of the Holy Spirit, a certain readiness to follow them. (d) Virginity is the fruit of baptismal grace. There is no spiritual gift which is not rooted in some way in the baptismal grace; in the personal presence of the Spirit in a Christian. Virginity is a special fruit, it is given to some and not to all. The reason for giving it to a de-termined person is hidden at the depth of God's thoughts; we could never find it. Since the gift of virginity is rooted in the baptismal grace, it carries the mark of Christ's death and resurrection. These few theological principles do no more than to clear the ground for further thought. They will also bring some clarity into the coming explanation--or should I say--contemplation of Christian virginity. Man Was Created to Have a Companion To balance the abstract principles it is good to turn to a basic fact of human life. God made man to have a companion. This need is built into a human person's body and soul. It comes from God Himself, and no man can change it: The Lord God said: "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate" (Gn 2:18). This need is fulfilled in marriage, which is a deep personal union between man and woman. They become one flesh, as St. Paul says; and what is even more impor-tant, they should become one spirit. The physical union of their bodies should be an expression of their spiritual union. Marriage is not perfect unless the union ex-tends to the two persons' mind, heart, and body. When this union exists between a man and a woman, it be-comes so absorbing, so absolute that it excludes any simi-lar union with a different person. There follows the duty of mutual fidelity. Human nature can be enriched by one union, but it is too limited to have a marital union with more than one person. The union in marriage is holy. Christ Himself made it a sacrament. St. Paul has chosen it to be the symbol of Christ's union with the Church. Marriage is in fact so good and so fulfilling for a man or for a woman that it would be unwise to refuse it in ordinary circumstances. It can be wise however to accept a call from a divine Person who promises love and companionship in a way that no human being can give. When God Offers Himself to Be a Companion to a Human Person From the fact that man was created to have a com-panion, now we turn to an existential event. It is the irruption of a new experience into a human life: God offers Himself to be the one and exclusive companion of a man. It happens in a new encounter between God and man; it is the offer of a covenant. It comes from the jealous God of Israel. Let us see its terms.5 ~This experience happens substantially to anyone who decides to take up the state of celibacy or virginity, since no one can do so without first realizing the overwhelming value of a friendship 4- 4- 4- Chastity VOLUME 26, 613 + + + Ladislas M. Orsy, S.l. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 614 Companionship has a special sense here. God is the friend of every Christian, of every human being. Son'/e-times, however, He wants to keep up a special friendship, a refreshing and exhilarating friendship with a human person through a personal conversation or dialogue, through the communication of His kno~wledge and of His love, through union which excludes distractions and too deep roots in this world of shadows. The human person will not be immediately holier for this offer, but he will have a source of holiness if he accepts God's gift in faith and fidelity. The companionship offered carries the seal of God's immensity; He reveals something of His wealth and riches. He does not mislead the person; from the begin-ning it is clear that He is a spiritual being and that His friendship moves on a transcendent plane. What He offers is a communion in His Spirit, the sharing of divine things in a divine way. The offer attracts the whole hu-man person, it appears as satisfying the deepest of human aspirations, It is an experience of God's presence. It is overwhelming. It takes possession of a human person. Jeremiah's words in his confessions could be applied to it: You have seduced me, Lord God, and I have let myself be seduced: you have overpowered me: you were the stronger (Jer 20:7). It is the irruption of divine strength into the life of man. When God concludes this special companionship with a man, any other deep union with a human being, as happens in marrizige, is excluded. The result of God's invitation, or, to use the biblical term, of God's seduction, is that a new type of spiritual union is concluded between God and man. A personal conversation begins and a dia-logue. Knowledge and love are being communicated and man is enriched by it. But, since a human being is lim-ited, he cannot contract a human union, that is marriage, which would in its own way be deep and absorbing, too. Therefore, the right conclusion of this special visitation of God is consecration in virginity. Virginity becomes the fruit of God's call, fi'amework of God's presence, and the best disposition to hear God's words in silence. Through virginity the heart and the mind, the soul and the body are established in a silence, with God. However, this realizatiou may be implicit and inarticu-late, and the person may not be fully aware of it. In a reflexive way he may know only that he wants to be a priest or a nun. But if his vocation is a genuine one, theologically there cannot be any doubt that an inspiration .of the Holy Spirit preceded his desire and that the inspiration was perceived. This obscure and initial encounter with God will have to develop later into a clearer and more penetrating experience of God's presence in a Christian per- SOIl, in a sensitivity, in which communication with God is made easier. No wonder if a man does not want to con-clude a marriage in these circumstances. Of course, God's companionship is spiritual. But the spiritual grace is infused into the whole person, into the soul and the body as one, and it begins to give a new balance to the whole man, including his body. That is why a man who has no companion ac.cording to the law of his nature can appear happy, balanced, and relaxed. The spiritual is holding the material in equilibridm. Return to the Bible: Mary and Paul The specific gift of virginity consists in a particular strength which balances the natural instincts of the body in a spiritual way. There is an experience and there is a new strength infused into a human being. A description of this call and of this communication of strength is given by St. Luke through the words of Mary in the Magnificat. Mary declares in it that she experienced the communica-tion of a particular strength from God which kept her virgin and made her mother. Therefore she is full of joy ¯ and is praising God: And Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit exults in God my savior; because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid. Yes, from this day forward all generations will call me blessed, [or the Almighty has done great things for me. "Holy is his name, and his mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear him. He has shown the po.wer of~ his arm, he has routed the proud of heart. He has. pulled down princes from their thrones and ex-alted the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away. He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his mercy according to the promise he made to our ancestors of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever (Lk 1:46-55). All through the prayer there is a declaration that Mary had an experience, and it was the communication of a particnlar strength from the Spirit of' God. It kept her virgin and made her mother: There is a sense of fulfillment, of elation, of deep gratitude in this prayer. The Creator and His creature found each other in a new relationship. The gift of virginity includes the experience of a new type of union with God which is a communication of strength. Without this experience no one could ever Chastity VOI;UME 26, 1967 Ladlslas M. Orsy, .~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 616 d~clare that he wished to be a virgin because he simply would not know that God offers this gift to him. Paul also describes the effect of this call and of this communication of strength:; I would lik~ to see you free from all wdi'ry. An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord's affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord; but a married man has to bother about the-world's affairs and devote himself to pleasin~ his wife: be is torn two ways. In the same way an unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord's affairs; all she need WOrry about is being holy in body and spirit. The married woman, on the other hand, has to worry about the world's affairs and devote herself to pleasing her husband (1 Cor 7:32-4). , What Paul is saying is that the unmarried men and women receive a new freedom to enjoy God's presence-- His glory and His power in them'. Also they: are free to, plan how to bring the good message of the Gospel to others. A new strength frees them from human bonds and gives them divine energy. Living in union with Christ is the ~ift of all the elect. Virginity is the gift of some; it is a framework for this union. About the Union That Gives Life to Virginity The union which is enframed by virginity is the'corn-mon union of all Christians with the thre~ divine Persons. The specific gift of virginity is a certain transparence of this union in our consciousness, an obscure experience of God's personal presence, which is so strong in its weak-ness that it calls a man away from human companionship and installs him in "God's re-creating friendship.No per-son could desire virginity, unless he found another per-son who is more lovable than any man. The union with God takes place on a spiritual level; it is not a material communication. It strengthens the spirit of the human person who receives it, but in no way fulfills his natural desire to be one with a human com-panion. Yet, it makes the man whole, and the spiritual abundance that he receives reverberates in the body so much that there is a decreasing sense of frustration 'and an increasing experience of fulfillment for the whole person. Natural instincts do not die, but they begin to learn to give way to new impulses which come from the Holy Spirit. In other terms, God gives a spiritual gift, but this gift is never transformed into a material medi-' cine, The physical and psychological laws of human nature remain in operation; ther~ is no miracle. An example will illustrate my thought. When the. Holy Spirit inspires a person to take up fasting for the sake of the kingd6m, for some spiritual g6od, the Spirit is not promising that the person ~oncerned will not be hungry. He will be. The Spirit is effectively pledging Himself only to give a new spiritual strength that helps to bear the hunger for some greater good. However, the spiritual strength will balance the whole person and may make him happy and relaxed even if hungry--provided the fasting remains within the limits of prudence. Similarly, the spiritual union with God from which virginity originates does not fulfill the desires of the body. They remain unfulfilled. But the Holy Spirit lifts the whole man into another, spiritual world where the grace of God enriches even the body. Virginity ls an Anticipation of the Grace of Our Resurrection With the Resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit, God's glorious kingdom entered into our human history. With the dawn of the first Christian Easter and with the day of the first Christian Pentecost, a new glorious age began, an age that God the Father had prepared from all eternity, revealed through His Son, and perfected by the sending of His Spirit. In this new age, to which we belong, immortal glory and power is being distributed among the children of men through the Holy Spirit. Heaven meets earth, eter-nity joins time. The grace of virginity, as it springs from charity, belongs to this age. Those who are baptized in Christ died in their baptism with Him and were raised from the dead in Him. The glory and power of His Resurrection is on them; it heals them, strengthens them, and makes them long for the manifestation of the glory of the children of God that is hidden now. The gift of virginity is a small share in the glory of the risen Christ. St. Paul says that the body of Christ was vivified by the Spirit; the Resurrection was the infusion of the strength of the Spirit into the inert body of Christ. The grace of virginity is the infusion of the strength of the Spirit into a mortal man, the infusion of a spiritual strength that makes the body more alive than it ever was; alive with a new spiritual strength in a new spiritual kingdom. Virginity is the sharing of the grace of the risen Christ, a small anticipation of our own resurrection, a spiritual grace that vivifies the body, the manifestation of the hidden glory of God's children. Hence the transformation. Those who are virgins are anxious about the affairs of the Lord. The point of gravi-tation of their life is in a new world. Hence the spiritual alertness of the whole person to the inspirations of the Spirit, the sensitivity of new light and fuller love. The eternal kingdom of God is present in this temporal ÷ ÷ ÷ Chastity VOLUME 26, 1967 ÷ ÷ + Ladislas M. Orsy, ~ S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 618 world; the divine gift is carried in a container made from clay; This circumstance does not change the nature of the gift, but it :should make the person who ,received it cautious. Virginity Is a Dynamic Virtue The gift 0f virginity could be easily conceived as a static, perfectly finished gift, which once given stays with the person forever, provided he does not willingly lose it or destroy it. Nothing is further from the truth. The parable of the mustard seed applies to virginity, as to any other Christian virtue. In the beginning it is a small seed: it needs the. evangelical good soil to grow and to develop. As a young plant it is tender ~ind sensitive: it needs help and protection. But when it grows into a large tree it can stand alone, it can weather the storm, and it can give shelter to many. The dynamic character of the virtue of virginity is rooted in our union with the Trinity. The union is not a' static gift. Once given, it is there to develop steadily. The impact of God's presence on the life of a Christian should continuously increase; the love of God that was infused into his heart should help him to grow into the full stature of Christ. Since virginity originates in this union, it has the same dynamic character as the union. The union of the Virgin Mary ,~ith the Holy Spirit was perfect; therefore the strength of her virginity was perfect too. A similar law applies to other human beings: the strength of their union with God is reflected in the strength of their virginity--if they received this gift. No exception is 'possible: virginity cannot be stronger than the union. It will be plain human and Christian wisdom to draw th& practical consequences. There are no two persons who are equally gifted, there are no two persons who are equally strong. Each one should honestly assess his gift and live accordingly. When the good seed of virginity. is sown into a human nature which is full of emotional turmoil and imbalances, the seed can be killed easily-- Christ our Lord says so. The growing plant will need care and attention. If it is not given, the plant may perish. But what wise man would build a wall to protect a strong, fully grown tree? The tree should stand free so that the weary pilgrims on their way to the new Jerusalem can see it from afar and can find shelter and protection. under its strong branches. ¯ The wisdom in preserving virginity is in sensing and following the progress indicated by the Spirit. To seek too much human fulfillment while the gift of virginity is taking.root may cut short a developing special friendship with God. The, friends of God were always trained and tested in some sort of desert, It may have been symbolic, it may have been spiritual, but desert it was. It can be bypassed only in the imagination of some, neverin real-ity. Not even Christ bypassed it. But when the gift of virginity develops, it is a light that has to shine, it is leaven that has to be put into the mass, it has to sanctify our world. Therefore, apart from par-ticular and specialized vocations, the virgins should meet the people of God and talk to them about the kingdom: that it is here. They should announce the good news in a loud voice (the Gospel uses the expression, "on the rooftop"), and they should ~ommunicate the love and charity that is in them to every human being. Such bibli-cal ideas should help wit.h the problem of the revision, of the law of enclosure or the involvement of consecrated persons in this world. To enclose a light can be a sin against the Spirit, Some will ask, no doubt, is there not a danger that the light might be extinguished sometimes? There is such danger and it can be taken for granted that there will be lights which will fall victim of the darkness: But.the answer is not in enclosing all the lights behind strong walls, but in letting even more lights to shine so that the world can see the sign of God's presence on the earth. The aim and purpose of consecrated virginity is to make the communication of God's love easier. Virginity has a meaning only "for the sake of the kingdom"-Zthe kingdom to be spread. To make the preaching and the teaching of the kingdom more difficult for those who are consecrated persons is to reverse the hierarchy of Chris-tian values. It would mean to imprison the love of God for the sake of precautions. Virginity in ordinary circum-stances is given for the sake of better dedication to an apostolic task, for a better communication of graces. The Aposiolic Finality o[ Virginity The value of virginity is not in itself. It is in its rela-tionship to our union with Christ and to His kingdom. Virginity is like good soil [or the union: those who are not married are anxious to be holy in body and spirit, and they are anxious about the affairs of the Lord (see 1 Cor 7:34). Every Christian is a disciple and an apostle of His Master. It follows that the union that he has with Christ has to be deepened and has to :be communicated to others. .It is in this~ communication that the apostolic finality of virginity comes to the fore. Not in the simple and somewhat crude, sense alone that because a virgin has no family, he is therefore free in time and space to meet others. Nor only in the sense that he can be better dedi- + + + VOLUME 26, 1967 619 cated. True, when it is a question of going to foreign lands or to persons afflicted with contagious diseases the celibate priest is in a better position than the married one. Yet, the substance of the question is not there. It is in the intensity of God's love that can develop in a virgin and can be communicated with a freedom that only virginity can give. This freedom is primarily in-ternal: God's message flows through a humanmind and heart and is not interfered with by our human ways of thinking and doing. The union given to a Christian is a dynamic gift: it has to be communicated--the kingdom has to expand. Virginity is the best vehicle given for this expansion. It is thus that the saying of Christ about celibacy "on behalf of the kingdom" receives its full meaning: it includes the spreading 9f the kingdom. Therefore, seclusion within a cloister or an enclosure remains a specific vocation: holy and legitimate, blessed and praised by the Churcl~, but not ordinary. The com-mon evangelical rule is that the virgin and the celibate has the vocation to facilitate the propagation of the king-dom. Any other interpretation would suffer from an in-ternal contradiction. The cult of virginity is valid in the context of apostolic life: it is given to facilitate the com-munication of God's message. I say this with profound respect for those who have a different vocation and have to serve God within the cloister. Their virginity exists to carry an intense prayer life and to serve the kingdom's cause through prayer. It is through prayer that the apostolic finality of virginity is fully present there. + + + Ladislas M. Orsy, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Community Life and Consecrated Virginity It is natural that those human persons who receive the special gift of virginity like to come together and like to form a community. Such a community itself should be marked by the virtue of virginity in its internal relations among the members and also in its external relations with others. Internally, within the community, the gift of virginity should free each of the members from human anxieties and make him more able to spread the love of God. Therefore personal communications should be easier and more relaxed than in any other type of community. The purpose of the members should be the introduction of each other into the mystery of the union with God. We come back to the same principle: the meaning of virgin-ity is to increase the love of God and the expansion of it. Practical consequences abound. Overstressed silence can paralyze this communication, and so can restrictive prac-tices in matters of meetings and correspondence among the members of the same religious institute. Such prac- ticds have an opposite purpose to the one that God has given to virginity. Virginity is given to free the person, even externally in human relations, and not tobuild a wall round him. Also the way of life of the community should reflect the impact ¯ of the grace of virginity on them as a .community. It should favor a delicate sensitivity to grace which is so characteristic for virginity. The community should have an integrity of mind and spirit in all common actions, an integrity that is a dedication to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Briefly, the atmosphere in the community should favor an all pervading union with God. Happiness and relaxa-tion are of primary importance in creating a common disposition for God's grace. Strains and tensions are probably the most common impediments to God's work-- even if strains and tensions are the result of common ob-servance. The human faculties become paralyzed and are not able to perceive God's graces, still less able to sustain a loving attention to Him. Man is a social being, and can-not be anything else. By renouncing the close companion-ship of marriage, he is not renouncing his social being. Therefore, he needs a happy and relaxed community life with all the freedom that virginity can add to it. If any-thing, the ~gift of {,irginity makes a person more social than he ever was: it opens him up to all. The spirit of friendship is favored in a good commu-nity. And in saying this, I am moving on biblical grounds, and I am faithful to Catholic traditions. Nowhere in the Bible is friendship condemned; it is praised in many places, and it is present in the lives of many good persons. The history of the Church is full of the history of great friendships; There cannot be a healthy relationship with God without a health); relationship with human friends. However, in 'individual cases the natural and super-natural resources that a person has should be taken into account. If someone is strongly rooted in God's grace, friendship becomes a source of grace too. If someone is not sutfi-ciently rooted in God's love, the balance of natural in-stincts and supernatural gifts is precarious in him, and he may approach the best opportunity for friendship with a confused mind and unruly emotions. Each co.mm.unity, as each person, needs wisdom to know the limitations of its strength. They need determination to protect them-selves when it is necessary, .and supernatural courage to discard unnecessary restrictions. The friendship of those who are consecrated persons can be best described as the friendship of travelers. They all go and look in the same direction. The friendship + + + ~lmstity VOLUME 26, 1967 6~1 Ladislas M. Orsy, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 622 between a man and a woman which develops into mar-riage can be described as the friendship of dwellers. They look at each other. A sign of a good friendship is also that it does not have a sl~irit of exclusiveness. On the contrary, it wants to expand. The friends are eager to share what they have with many others. The better friends they are, the less they are involved with each other. They are in-volved together in others. Perhaps this is the place to mention that virginity can be destroyed by overprotection. A virgin renounces mar-riage, but he does not renounce social and commun, ity life. If, in order to protect virginity, genuine and happy social relations are destroyed, a person is deprived of one of his most basic human needs and native rights. There-fore, a fundamental sense of frustration is bound to arise in him causing tension and unhappiness. This may lead to the conviction that he had no vocation to virginity, which in these circumstances would be a false conclusion. However, since the frustration persists, a young man may leave the seminary, or a young woman may give up re-ligious vocation. The gift of virginity was destroyed by misguided good will. It does not follow in any way that sentimental and futile social relationships should be fostered: it is toward health that we aim and not to a new type of illness. A community of consecrated persons will have to consider also what the right balance should be in its relationship with those who do not belong to the community. The greater the impact of grace on the community and the closer its union with God, the less enclosure they will need; the less the community is rooted in union with God, the stricter the enclosure ought to be. It could also be said: the happier the community, the less restrictions are needed, because the internal happiness will anchor every person to the community and will ca.ll him back when he is away from it. But it will take a barrage of rules to keep an unhappy community together, since all natural (and even supernatural) forces will pull the per-sons away from it. The Gift of Virginity: Sanctification of the Person, Sanctification of the Church Virginity could be looked at as a purely personal gift, given for the sanctification of an individual. True, vir-ginity could exist without being inserted into the ex-ternal, visible life of the Chur.ch, in fact, without the Church knowing about the gift at all. A person is fully entitled to accept the gift of God and remain silent about it. Virginity could be looked at also as a gift for the sake of the others only. A sign that leads others to eternity, but which is not for the sanctification of the one who received it. Both approaches are one-sided. All gifts in the Church are for both, the sanctification of the person who receives it and for the good of the whole Church. Abraham be-came the friend of God and the forefather of all believers. David was chosen to be a king according to Yahweh's heart and to fulfill an historic mission through consolidat-ing the union of the twelve tribes of Israel. The gift of the Spirit in Mary made her the immaculate and holy Mother of God. The Apostles were chosen for a mission, and they became the close friends of Christ, sanctified by His Spirit. The two aspects cannot be separated, or only on a notional level. Speculating about essences one can cer-tainly say that a grace is given for the sanctification of the person only, or for the good of the community only. But in God's existential approach such separation can hardly exist. A grace given to an individual immediately flows out to sanctify the Church, and the grace given for the welfare of the community touches first the heart of the person who receives it. Lamp without Light The essence of virginity is that it carries our fragile union with God. It protects, it defends, it shelters this union. The tragedy whicli may happen to some who are consecrated virgins is that the virginity is there but the union remains lifeless: there is no dynamic growth and development in it. The framework exists, the content is too weak. Such a person is like a lamp with no light. Consequently he does not radiate light; he leaves his surroundings in darkness. This is a tragedy that could happen to a consecrated person. He may keep the integrity of heart and body but at the same time his internal life will not know the light and love of the Holy Spirit. Frequently, he will take ref-uge in an extreme legalism. In such a case virginity is nearly meaningless. It could not be called a true sign. The essence of a sign is that it connects two persons or connects persons with different places and objects. An empty virginity does not connect anyone with eternal life. The lamp has to be filled with oil to give light. Conclusion It is easier to see now why virginity has the primacy in our religious consecration. Through virginity a special bond is established between God and man: they become companions. The grace of virginity is a spiritual grace; yet it vivifies the body and gives a new balance to it. + + + Chastity VOLUME 26, 1967 Therefore it is the anticipation of the grace of resurrec-tion, the manifestation of the otherwise hidden glory of the children of God. The other aspects of our consecra-tion follow virginity. A human person who entered a, new; glorious, and spiritual world through virginity will not want to be the slave of material and temporal things. He will vow freedom by professing poverty. Also he will recognize the living Christ in the Church; and, as a rule, he will ask for a deeper association with the visible Church by dedicating himself to works of charit~ in a religious community. In this way he will share the glory of the risen Christ, and he will do the saving work of the mortal Christ. .' ' + 4- Ladislas M. Orsy, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS GEORGE B. NINTEMANN, O.P. Penance: Sacrament of Poverty Here is the message of the Amen, the faithful, the true witness, the ultimate source of God's creation: I know all ab6ut you: how you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other, but since you are neither, but only lukewhrm, I will spit you out of my mouth. You say to yourself, "I am rich, I have made a fortune, and have everything I want," never realizing that you are wretchedly and pitiably poor, and blind and naked too. I warn you, buy from me the gold that has been tested in the fire to make you really rich, and white robes to clothe you and cover your shameful nakedness, and eye ointment to put on your eyes so that you are able to see. I am the one who reproves and.disciplines all those he loves: so repent in real earnest. Look~ I am.~standing at the dqor, knocking. If one of you hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in to share his meal, side by side with him. Those who prove victorious I will allow to share my throne, just as I was victorious myself and took my place with my Father on his throne. If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches? What was the Spirit saying to the churches (vhen He inspired the author of Revelation to "write to the angel of the church in Laodicea"? In essence it was the spirit of the 'anawim, the spirit of poverty. "You say to yourself, 'I am rich, I have made a fortune, and have everything I want,' never realizing that you are wretchedly and pitia-bly poor, blind and naked too." Laodicea, the last of the seven Apocalyptic cities, was renowned for its wealth which made it doubly hard to practice the spirit of-pov-erty. Here is how it is described: With banks so illustrious that Cicero selected Laodicea to cash his letters of credit, with a medical school so famous as to have the names of its doctors on coins and its eye oint-ments exported throughout the Mediterranean world, with demands for its soft violet-black glossy wool giving it a steadily aAp 3:14--22 (All scriptural quotations appearing in this article are from the Jerusalem Bible unless otherwise noted). George B. Ninte-mann, O.P., writes from St. Albert's Priory; 2833 32nd Avenue South; Min-neapolis, Minnesota 55406. VOLUME 26, 1967 625 4. 4. 4. George B. Nintemann, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 626 growing market for tunics, a perspective for spiritual goods would easily go out of focus.~ To understand and apprecia.te tl,)e spirit of the "anawim we have but to consult the magnificent work of Father Albert Gelin, P.S.S., The Poor of Yahweh. In his [ore-word to the English translation Father Barnabas M. Ahem, C.P.,~ another authority on the 'anawim theme, has these laudable words to say: Of all that Father Gelin wrote, The Poor O] Yahweh will probably live longest in the minds of men. He here develops a theme which looms large in modern study of the spirit of the Bible. He treats of the "anawim, "the poor and needy," who rise out of the pages of the Old Testament as the true people of God. The pattern of their holiness forms the blue-print for the Scriptural portrayal of the great saints of Israel: MoseS, Samuel, Jeremiah, Anna and Judith. The voice of the 'anawim is resonant in the prayerful pleading of the songs of the Psalter. Their spirit fills the souls of the ho!y ones in the New Testament: Joseph and Mary, Zachary and Elizabeth. In the Matthean form of the Beatitudes, the "anawim model of holiness is described and codified as the ideal Ch'ris~ian character.' Father Gelin sur~marizes his study with these sigi~i~icant words: We b~ve tried to give a concrete description of this mystical lineage o{.:Israel, so anonymously eloquent in the psalter, but which also inciudes famous names like Jeremiah the author of the book of Job, and above all Mary, the lowly maid who at the threshold of the New Covenant recapitulates all the spiritual depths of the'. Old. Poverty thus understood is a modality of faith. It is abandoned, trusting and joyous, closely akin to humility~ It shows itself in an attitude of religious waiting'. Th~ beatitude of the poor in Matthew's Gospel is fo- Cused on this fundamental disposition, and its various aspects are continued in the critique of pharisaism so central in the . Gospel, as well as in the parable of the children, which is, as it were, the antithesis of this critique. These two poverties, effective poverty and spiritual poverty, are concretely connected. Historically the second is rooted in the first. As a matter of fact, to enable spiritual poverty to flourish, the Essenians bound themselves by a vow of poverty.~ And Christ confirmed what tradition had discovered. None of these biblical lessons were nor should be lost. Without pre-tending to extract from the Bible an economic treatise, we have no right to forget the social results of its religious principles. Jesus did not claim to organize the world, but he was actually speaking tomen of flesh and blood and we knox4"where His preferences led. Evangelical poverty, as He practiced it, continues in the ~William G. Heidt, O.S.B., The Book oI the Apocalypse (Col-le~ eville: Liturgical Press, 1962), p. 46. ~See Cross and Crown;~ 1959, pp. 278-91 (reprinted in Barnabas M; Ahem, C.P., New Horizons [Notre Dame: Fides, 1965], pp, 46- 61). ~ Albert Gelin, P.S.S., The Poor ol Yahweh (Collegeville: Liturgi-cal Press, 1964), p. 6. ,~ Church as an unmistakably clear sign of an understanding of His spirit.~ The sinner is truly a poor man, one who is in need of God's loving help. This loving help has merited the special word mercy. "God, be merciful to me a sinner," is the cry of this poor man. The tremendous need .which the sinner has of God:s help can be gathered from the traditional Christian pedagogy of speaking of sin in terms of death. This utter helplessness strikes us whene~er we kneel before the re-mains of a loved one. Only God could restore life to the stilled bodyI And the same is true of the one who is dead in sin; of himself he is powerless. For his revival he must become another son of Naim touched by' the love of mercy incarnate. No one seems to question the mortal sinner's need for God's mercy. But not a few seem to close their eyes to the need which all sinners have; that is, there seems to be a relu~c'tance to approach the sacrament of mercy unless one is guilty of something serious.It is hoped that a considera-tion of the sacrament of penance in .the spirit of the "anawim will brin. g about a certain reevaluation, or at least ~ome Second thoughts. Perhaps some of the i.nsensitivity to the' sacrament of penance can be traced back to a distorted notion of what a sinner really is. For some it seems that,, a sinner is synonymous with one who is guilty of sin. Th~ sense of guilt has clonded the sense of sinfulness. Could it be more than only slightly significant that the publican prayed, "God, be merciful to me a sinner," rather than, "God, be merciful to me because I have sinned?.~' The point that is trying to be made is t~ha, t although one may not be guilty of sin here and now h~ is still a sin'ner. Being a sinner is the very essence of our. human condv tion: "You know I .was born guilty, ~ Sinner from~the moment of conception" (Ps. 50). And St. John writes in his first letter: If we say we have no sin in u~, ,we are deceiving ourselves and refusing to admit the truth; but if we acknowledge our sins, then God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and purify us from everything that is wrong. To say that we have never sinned is to call God a liar and to show that his word'is not in us." Father Louis Monden, S.J., in Sin> Liberty, and Law, has this to say regarding the sinful condition: Generally it is only when every support of" his own being falls away that man consents to abandon his reliance on self and to appeal to God in a liberating "Thou." Frequently the VOLUME 26, 1967 Ibid., pp; 111-3. 1 Jn 1:8-10. + George B. N intemann; ~ O .P . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS brutal, humiliating shock of sin is for man the only way out of' the illusion of his complacency and the myth carefully nurtured by social conventions of his respectability and decency. But it is not the 'mere fact of sin which produces the shock, but the shattering impact of th~it fact on the illusion of virtue and irreproachability in which he was living and the ensuing awareness of sin. An awareness of sin which is at the same time the awareness of his own dereliction, the experience of his own inability to stand before God by his own power, the sense of his sinful involvement with the evil of the whole of humanity in which he is trapped, and the realization of his utter unworthiness to be loved by God. At the exact moment when he sins that awareness cannot be present. It would make sin impossible. Only detested sin, sin redressed by contrition, can feed that awareness and transform it into a conscious need for salvation and the welcoming of grace . That a man begins to feel himself more and more a sinner as be commits fewer sins is not based upon a pious exaggera-tion or illusion. It only demonstrates that sin is the lowest stage in a process of experiencing his distance from God and his unholiness in the presence of God's love which in the saint turns in a more undivided way. But this is an accepted despair which involved a total expropriation of self and a complete submersion, in the midst of one's helplessness, in the saving and sanctifying mercy of Gbd. Thus no one has been more deeply aware of the need for redemption, no one further removed from every kind of pharisaical pride, than lvlary, who was wbolly without sin. Precisely because of her spotless purity she was the most completely surrendered to God and became likewise the most fully understanding of all human dereliction, the "refuge of sinners." ~ It is worth repeating that being a sinner and being guilty of sin are not the same. One who is guilty of sin is obviously a sinner but the reverse is not necessarily true. The sinner-condition, in the wide sense in which we are thinking of it, is simply the creature-condition. What follows then is that one is in need of God's mercy not ?nly until he is washed of his sins in the sacrament of penance but until he is completely raised with Christ in glory. We ~a~re.in 'need of God's mercy until the day of final resurrecuon. The whole man, body and ;Soul, must enter into the Passover mystery. A confusion on this point seems to be evident in the way in which many penitents approach the sacrament of penance and make their accusation. Most often it is a matter of what one has done rather than what he is be-cause of what he has done. The idea seems to be prev-alent that sins are forgiven rather than the sinner. Sins seem to be looked upon as some sort of undesirable baggage which 0n~ leaves in the confessional rather than a change in one's personal relationship with his heavenly Father. And the resultant forgiveness is looked upon as the taking away of sins in the sense that one's garbage is taken away rather than the gesture of our heavenly ~ Louis Monden, S.J., Sin, Liberty, and Law (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), pp. 149-50. Father loving us even though we are sinful. The figure of the father in the parable of the prodigal , son imme-diately comes to mind; he,loved his son in spite of his wretchedness and with his unfaithfulness, he loved him simply because he was Iris son; he forgave and overlooked his past but he did not change it! This is God's attitude toward us in the sacrament of penance: He accepts us with our sins and sinfulness~ the very mystery of divine forgiveness. Our heavenly Father loves us simply because we~ are, His sons. The notion which we are "trying to express is closely associated with the scriptural ~notion of hamartia. Father Bernard Hiiring, C.Ss.R., explains it well: The biblical, hamartia is no~ merely the single sinful act, but also the evil condition resulting from it, the state or condition of perdition, the, evil disposition and attitude which is estrangement from God. What is dreadful is not merely the sin as an act, but the personal root, the evil disposition from which further individual sins (of course, through free consent of the will) grow. Conversion means conquest of the old man of sin, held captive by sin (this is the carnal existence, the existence through the flesh, the sarx), in order to attain a new ahd spiritual (pneumatic) form of life created and guided by the spirit of God. The convert must renounce every sin, not merely any and every sinful act, and every habitual sinful action, but first and foremost the whole mpde of his existence. His heart must be changed. He must be entirely transformed in disposition and inner attitude. Obviously man is not equal to this task if he relies on. his own resources: one who is estranged from God, far off from Him, dan be brought ,back to God only if God Himself comes to him with His grace. Hence, to turn from perdition, from the loss of God and the loss of salvation, which are inherent in the state of sin, one must unreservedly accept the dominion of God which comes to man in Christ through the spirit of God. ~ The first thing that man can contribute toward his con-version is the acknowledgement.that he has not merely done evil deeds, committed sins, but that he hirhself is evil; that he stands in need of redemption and complete spiritual trans-formation? It is no understatement to say that many Christians lack a proper understanding of sin and sinfulness. For too many of them Christ is not really seen as a Savior, at least a Savior here and now; it is more an attitude of He will sav
Transcript of an oral history interview with Maurice Homer Smith, conducted by Jennifer Payne at Colonel Smith's home in Northfield, Vermont, on July 30, 2013, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Maurice "Moe" Smith was a member of the Norwich University Class of 1934 from Morrisville and Hyde Park, Vermont. After graduating from Norwich University, he taught school in Barton, Vermont, for a couple of years before joining the Army and serving in the military from 1940 to 1956. He later returned to Norwich University as an employee, working many different jobs over eighteen years. At the time of this interview, he was Norwich University's oldest living alumnus at age 102. ; Page 1 Colonel Maurice Smith, NU 1934, Oral History Interview July 30, 2013 112 Winter Street, Northfield VT 05663 Interviewed by Jennifer K. Payne Transcribed by Lindsay J. Gosack, February 4, 2014 Edited by C.T. Haywood, '12, January 13, 2015 Jennifer Payne (JP): This is Jennifer Payne with Maurice Homer Smith. The date is Tuesday, July 30, 2013, and we're at his home at 112 Winter Street in Northfield, VT. So let me start with some of the basic questions. I know we've gone over some of this, but this is just for the people who will hear it for the first time. Um, which class, what are you, what is your Norwich class? Maurice Homer Smith (MHS): 1934. JP: And, ah, your date of birth? MHS: 26 July, 1911. [sound of a door opening and closing in background] JP: Which makes you? MHS: 102 JP: 102 MHS: [Chuckles] I'm being interviewed here, FRIEND OF MHS: Go ahead! MHS: Can you stand by? MHS: Sit down. [Introducing someone] This is my buddy. We play cribbage together. [Friend chuckles] FRIEND OF MHS: We met. MHS: Huh? FRIEND OF MHS: I said we've met. JP: We have met. [Moe chuckles] MHS: Oh you have? Oh I did not know that. JP: Um so, um, do you have any other names you are known by? Page 2 MHS: Uh [slightly clears throat] well Moe is most of the names. I, in the, in the three years I was in Japan I was called Hank 'cause when they asked me what my middle name was, which is Homer, it's ugly. That was my father's first name. So I said Henry, so they called me Hank. And so even the official Commanding General Yokohama command wrote me a letter and they knew they called me Hank so he addressed it (this was official mail): Major Henry Smith [laughs and coughs]. JP: So where were you born, Moe? MHS: I was born in Hyde Park, Vermont. JP: Were you born at home? MHS: Yes, yes, I was born at home, in the home. I guess most people were in those days, yup. JP: Yeah. MHS: Morrisville now has a hospital, has Copley Hospital, and if it had it then I'd have been born there in the Copley, but they didn't have it then. JP: When you were at school, what was your major? MHS: In college, [sighs] it was language was one. I had [clears throat] really three majors. You normally don't have three majors, but my academic advisor, K.R.B. Flint, told me, said, "You've got the equivalent of three majors." So there's language, which was Spanish, language, I think social, uh, history, and political science. So I had three majors. He said, "you have enough credit in each one of those to declare a major." So I had three majors. JP: Wow MHS: Normally you have a major and two minors or some combination. But, he said, "You got three majors." [laughs] JP: What was your… I know you've had a number of different jobs, but what do you consider your occupation? MHS: Well, I would say most of my life was the Army. I went in the Army full time. I was on, day one, I was in Fort Knox, was activated on June 15, 1940. And that's when the Armored Force came into being. I was there four days before that and the—I was assigned to the 37th Calvary Regiment, cavalry regiment. So when I got down there my advisor said, "Calvary is out, Armor is in." So he said, "get yourself a place to live, you can't live on the post, we don't have room for you." So I went to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, which is about seventeen miles from the post. And, uh, [laughs] what was I about to say though? JP: Your occupation was in the military.Page 3 MHS: Yeah, was in the military. So I've been in the military, well, sixteen years. I went in in 1940 and came out in '56. JP: Wow. MHS: So it was sixteen years. So I was going, at twenty years, you can retire in twenty years on fifty percent, so that's what I was shooting for. And I was in Chicago at the time and I wanted to stay in. And I liked it, I liked my job, liked my work, liked the people. And my mother called up and said, "If you want to come home," which I didn't want to do, and said, "Your father will sell his shares of the drive in theaters to you." So she wanted me to come home, and so I came home after sixteen years in the Army. And but I didn't really want to. And so I bought out my father's share of the Green Mountain Drive-in Theaters Incorporated and drive-in theaters. The largest one in the state was in Newport and then one in Morrisville. And so that's what I did. And then, then I came down to Norwich, and so but I still owned the theaters, but I took the dividends. I didn't work, never did work at the theaters, didn't have to, so I just took my dividends. At that time I think we got $10,000 a year, which is pretty good money, separate. So I had five incomes: Social Security, Norwich, and I'm full time at Norwich, what was the job I said I had? And I had five jobs either way. And so I had a pretty, pretty nice income, so I was living high on the hog. Sent Bill to Northeastern, my son. He didn't do anything, and he is smart enough to do it, but he didn't. He didn't like it. He came back. He said one semester and said, "College isn't for me." So he went off in carpentry and did his own thing. And that's what he wanted to do, so. JP: Wow. So why didn't you want to leave the military? MHS: I didn't want to leave the military, because like I said I had sixteen years and at twenty years you get two and a half percent a year. So if I stayed in for twenty years, I would have gotten, I was a colonel, I would have gotten fifty percent of a colonel's full pay. The maximum is 75%. You could stay in long enough to get 100%, but it stops at 75%. And I would have gotten four more years. I wanted to stay in, I did not want to get out, but mother wanted me to get out and so I did. But I, I…Chicago was my last duty station and so I think I made a mistake, but it doesn't make any difference. I probably made more money by getting out than I did by staying in, so [chuckles]. JP: So it was the money, it was the income, the plan, yeah. So you were born in Hyde Park and you moved to Morrisville as a youngster? MHS: One year, I asked my mother when we moved, she said, "you were about a year old when you [moved]." Hyde Park is only about three miles from Morrisville. I was born at Hyde Park and a year later, so I grew up in Morrisville. And graduated from Peoples. JP: Academy? MHS: Academy. JP: Yeah, how did you know, in high school, that you wanted to go to Norwich? Page 4 MHS: Well, I did not have any college picked out and my brother was at Norwich, and my folks were paying the way and they said, "You're going to go to Norwich." So I never questioned it because my brother was here already ahead of me. He was two years older than I was and he was already here at Norwich. And they said, "You are going to go to college, you're going to go to Norwich." My brother had two colleges he wanted to go to. One was Georgia Tech and the other one was University of Alabama, and the folks said, "You aren't going to either one of them. You're going to go to Norwich." So my brother was here and my—the three of us, only five of my graduating class at Peoples, and three of us came to Norwich. And so I guess I was destined [laughs] to be a, a graduate of Norwich. JP: So your brother's, your brother's name was…? MHS: Phillip. JP: Phillip. And he was class of…? MHS: He was, well he would have been, he took a, he was four years ahead of me but he took a PG course in high school so he lost a year there. He was really two years ahead of me. He was two years older than me so two years ahead of me. And we both went to, he went to Norwich too, my brother did. But he didn't graduate. We'd have the quiet hours from 7:30 [P.M.] to 9:30 [P.M.], and at 9:30 we could, all hell would break loose in the barracks. The whistles would blow and we would get dragged into our holes, and dragged into your hole, we would get in our rooms and it was quieted down and during study hours it was very quiet and, uh, I don't know what brought that on. What were we talking about? JP: Your brother, your brother being ahead of you at Norwich. MHS: Yeah, he was two years ahead of me. And but he didn't graduate. But during study hours, what he was doing was playing cards. What I did was studying. I said—I was really driven to study. I said, "If I don't study, if I don't succeed, I'm going to be carrying a lunch basket to work. And if there is anything I don't want to do, it is carrying a Goddamn lunch basket, a lunch box." And you will if you don't succeed so I was driven to, for success, and I was, and I graduated number three in my class. [Laughs] I was driven I had a desire to do it I said, "I can't fail, I just got to do it." I dug in. So my brother was playing cards and I was studying, so he didn't graduate he, well I won't say he failed out but I used to do his Spanish. We took a Spanish class together and he would be playing cards and I was studying during all that time. I said, "Phil, I got maybe ten sentences all translated so you can copy them off if you want to learn this." Same Spanish class together. [laughs] JP: Was he playing poker or what? MHS: Oh yeah he was playing any kinds of cards. Probably poker or anything like that. In the barracks, quiet. It was very quiet you couldn't talk above a whisper and if you did like whoever was on guard could hear you out in the hallway, you were placed on report and given demerits. You had, allowed 9, were given 9 merits and for every demerit, like I guess walking on the grass I guess was 2 demerits. And so you could, so of all the years my brother was working towards, Page 5 all the time he was there shoveling horse manure on the Sabine Field and things like that, walking tours or either working tours off, punishment tours. And I only, I was a corporal. I only—one month I went over, I had 10. So I slept in, I mean I couldn't sign out for home, I normally sign out for noon so I just stayed in my room till 2:00, from one till two to get rid of that 1 tour and then I went home that weekend. And that was the difference between my brother and me. He was, my brother was in CMC, Close Military Confinement. And that's 10 demerits, 20 tours and 30 days Close Military Confinement. And that's pretty rough on a cadet. And a lot of them quit when they get that. You have to do something really bad. My brother was, he was a, he broke his collarbone. Harmon was leading a charge in the stable; my brother was riding a horse named Ham, H-A-M. And they were racing, and the horse stumbled and my brother went over, pitched over his head there and it was a mad rash. They made Pathè News, Norwich did, Pathè News. So my brother went over the, stumbled Ham, and landed and broke his collarbone. So he was in the hospital and on the post, the post hospital there. And he went to the sign out, he didn't sign out, he went to the movies and he got a good, that's a no-no. So he got caught, got 10-20-30, 10 demerits, 20 tours, and 30 days Close Military Confinement. It's pretty pretty rugged. So he was in a jam most of the time and I wasn't. I said I was a corporal and all sophomores are corporals, juniors are sergeants if you are made, you are sergeants, and the seniors are officers. That is the way it works up there now, I think, even now. Was in my day. Everybody was a corporal that was made, you were either a private or a corporal. I do not know what percentage probably 20% maybe, or 15%, were non-commissioned officers. So all sophomores, you cannot be over a corporal. A junior, you can be different classifications of different sergeants. And as a senior, then you are a non-commissioned officer in the militia, not the army, in the militia. So that's how it works. JP: What does Close Military Confinement consist of? What did that mean? MHS: Well you're like a prisoner, it's like being in prison. And when you go to meals you have to, there is a pass book on the floor, there would be a desk there and you would have to sign out for your meals and sign in for your meals, just like a prisoner. And you were a prisoner. And you have to copy where you are at all times and have to check in and it's pretty rough, it's pretty rough. And you can't speak to anybody, and the cadets can't speak to you. You are ignored, completely ignored. And I had one when I was up on the staff and his father was a superintendent of schools in southern Vermont. Quite a big shot. And he got on CMC, Close Military Confinement, and I'll tell you, he said, "It's no fun being ignored by the people you can't speak that way and they can't speak to you, like a prisoner." And it is, I guess, pretty rugged. He said, "I just kinda laugh smiling about it." He said, "It's nothing to laugh about it," I said, "that's pretty rough stuff." [laughs] JP: Do you have other siblings? Brothers or sisters? MHS: No, just the, well I had a sister, three years old, and we were close 'cause I was seven, my brother was nine. And so I was there enough to my sister. So I paid attention to my sister, my brother didn't, he was nine when she was three and she got appendicitis and died. She had appendicitis for a week, her face was flushed and everything and the doctors didn't know what was wrong with her! So they had a consultation of doctors, of 3 doctors. So at the consultation one of the doctors said, "I think she has got appendicitis," and that's what she had. So they put Page 6 her in the car, my father took her to Burlington, over the rough roads. The roads weren't like they are now, they were gravel roads, and he complained, my father, about hitting all the bumps and everything. And well they were too late, the peritonitis set in, she took her. JP: So what did your parents do, you said that he had a theater, did they have a theater when you were growing up? MHS: No no, that came later in life. That was when I was in the Army. And I get out in 1956, yeah 1956, well that's right I came down here. No. JP: So when you grew up what did they do? MHS: Well, I taught high school in the Northeast Kingdom as the, who was it they called it that, one of the, they called it Northeast Kingdom it stuck. And so, what were you about to say?1 JP: Oh, just asking what it was like when you were growing up. MHS: Well, I, ask me that again. JP: What did your parents do when you were growing up? MHS: Well, of course my mother was housewife, my father was real estate, real estate. And he'd sell it either on a commission, like someone would have a farm and turn it over to my father and father would find a buyer for it, he would get commission like 5% or 8% of the sale. And so that's what my father did. Real estate. JP: So, your parents helped you to decide to go to Norwich and you liked it? MHS: They didn't, they told me where I was gonna go. I told you my brother wanted to go to Georgia Tech and Alabama, one of those two. And they said, "No, you're gonna go to Norwich." I guess they figured he needed the discipline, the military, the discipline. And when I went, I was only, in Peoples, there was only 30 in my class, 25 girls and 5 boys. So 3 of us, 3 of the 5 boys all went to Norwich. JP: Wow, that's a pretty high percentage. MHS: Yes it is! [laughs] JP: So who was your roommate at Norwich? MHS: My roommate was, well that time, four in a room. So the—it's a big right room and I lived in Jackman Hall, was the dormitory. And the people I graduated—White, June White, Ross Grey, and I graduated from Peoples. So we were there and the fourth one was Bob Washburn, and he was from Massachusetts.2 1 Attributed to George D. Aiken (1892-1984) Vermont governor and senator. 2 MHS might be referring to Leon Morris White and Charles Russell Graves of Morrisville, VT. Page 7 JP: So the people you went to high school with your roommates. MHS: Yeah, yeah. They were. Yeah. JP: Oh that's great. And how did you decide which fraternity to join? MHS: Well I didn't have to make it, my brother was ahead of me, and he was a Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and so I was just automatically. I guess I did get a bed at one of the fraternities and but I could go—I wanted to go S.A.E. anyway. So I was just automatic, I mean, you have to accept the brother if he wants to go. And so I was S.A.E. And S.A.E. is the largest fraternity, in my day, in the country. And they had I think, I think the number was twenty-eight, I think throughout all the whole United States there were twenty-eight universities that had S.A.E. and the next one was Kappa Sigma they had twenty-five chapters. S.A.E. had the most in the nation, had twenty-eight chapters. JP: Wow, and do you remember the song that you sang for Sigma Alpha Epsilon? MHS: Oh yeah. JP: Would you mind singing it? MHS: [Singing] Oh sing for Sigma Alpha Epsilon, (lets see) Oh sing for Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and to Minerva (that's not a good key). Oh sing, Oh sing for Sigma Alpha Epsilon and to Minerva who will lead us on! And to Phi Alpha with her guiding light. To royal sons who fight, fight, fight, fight, fight! And when some day we will tell our sons, about the very best fraternity, oh sing for Sigma Alpha Epsilon, our dear old S.A.E. [laughs] JP: [laughs] That is wonderful; would you like a drink of water? Are you okay? MHS: Yeah I am okay, sometimes your voice is clear but now it's not. JP: That was great. MHS: So sometimes in bed I'll sing, and I'll just sing myself to sleep. I'll hum, and it's pretty good. And this is one of my off days [laughs]. My voice isn't in the singing mode. JP: [laughs] It was wonderful! That was terrific. Do you remember your uniform at Norwich? MHS: Yes, yes. JP: What was it like? MHS: I had my picture in the yearbook when I was a corporal and yes, we had the War Whoop was the yearbook, and I was in there because I was a corporal. And all the non-commissioned officers get special caption, a picture of you and well that's, well I was a corporal. All, well most Page 8 the people, most of them were privates, but the few, I don't know what, 20, 25 or 30% of them are non-commissioned officers and all. Corporal is the highest you can go as a sophomore. If you are appointed, sophomores are corporals, that is all. Sergeants are juniors, and commissioned officers are seniors. So I was a corporal, and a sergeant, and a second lieutenant in A Troop. We were troops then, A Troop, cavalry, horse cavalry. JP: Tell me about the horse cavalry. MHS: Well we had, I don't know how many horses we had. The stables are still up there, the original stables. We would have to, once a week, just like your classroom schedule would meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, it was on there. So once a week we had to go out to riding hall, the riding house, they're still down there, think the riding— no the stables, the riding hall is gone. You would go to this riding hall and do all these different formations inside. By the right hand, Hooo! By the left hand, Hooo! [laughs] and that sort of thing. JP: Did you learn how to ride a horse at Norwich or did you know before? MHS: No, I had a pony of my own at home. So I was, I know the head of the horse to the tail of the horse. People came up from Massachusetts and didn't know what a horse was, but I did. I had a saddle horse for two years before I went to Norwich so I was a veteran [laughs]. Most of the people were, didn't know one end of the horse from the other! JP: Do you know what breed the horses were that you had? MHS: Well no, but they were well trained. When you first went for drill, for close order drill, number one, one, two, three, four in a column. For example, so we would be in a line, and they would say, "Fours left, Hooo!" And you, first they would say to you, "Column fours, be one, be in a line. Column one, two, three, four. Column fours turn your head to the right in your line, and now one, two, three," and I would say, "Four, one, two, three, four." The next row, one, goes "One, two, three, four." And the next one, "two, three, four." So when you were in the line, they'll say, like we are marching for chapel they'll say, "Fours left, Hooo!" And we, everybody, the number one would pivot and the other went around and we went around in a column. There was nothing to it, a piece of cake. JP: It must have looked wonderful. MHS: Yes, it was good, it was a, it got the job done. JP: Did you drive a car on campus? MHS: I had a car my senior year. Yes I had a Buick Coupe. You had to be a senior. Underclassmen could not have a car, but that was a senior privilege. You could have a car, so my dad [telephone rings in background for a few minutes] had a Buick Coupe that he gave me. So I had a car which was nice. Because we could go from the barracks to downtown which was, Norwich was about a mile. We would pile in, go down to the movies, then come back. It came in Page 9 kinda handy. And when we got home weekends, we didn't think of hitchhiking, I had a car right there. So with four from Morrisville we would pile in the car and go to Morrisville [laughs]. JP: That must have been grand. MHS: It was good. You had to be a senior to have a car. JP: Now I noticed in the War Whoop that you were an expert swordsman, an expert pistol, and an expert rifle shot. MHS: I was. I think I was a marksman as a rifle, sharp-shooter as a pistol, and an expert in the saber. And the saber course was be these dummies, would be men, you would come galloping down, like a column, and you'd just, you would lunge forward. I said "Geesh, I'll probably break my arm, but well I'll do it because it was what we were supposed to do." Worked like a piece of cake. So it was on a pivot, like a row, and so we go galloping down, we gallop past, take the saber, and jam the dummy and follow it right around. And when we went past it, we would pull it back. And it worked like. JP: Was it a real sword? MHS: Huh? JP: Was it a real sword? MHS: A real? JP: Was it a real sword or like a wooden sword? MHS: Oh oh, it was real, I mean it was-- JP: It was sharp. MHS: Yeah, it was, you got a medal for it. I said I was a marksman with a rifle, a sharp-shooter, a higher class, as a pistol, and an expert in the saber, in the saber course. JP: And you all learned those things at Norwich? Or did you practice as a kid? MHS: At Norwich, yeah. JP: So they taught you all that, they taught you how to be all that. MHS: Yep, learned it at Norwich. You got it at Norwich. So I had on my tunic, I had those medals, three different kinds of medals on my tunic. JP: Very good. So what was it like to be a Rook, I know you've talked about being a senior, but what was it like to be a Rook?Page 10 MHS: Ooh boy was that bad. It really was. You were not supposed to haze, but it was, it was mild hazing, mild hazing. For example, they would say, "alright get the rooks on the floor like a row boat, you are rowing a boat." It was hazing, you were not supposed to haze, but they did. About two weeks, the first game of the season was Dartmouth we always played at Hanover. They never came here, but we went, the whole Corps marched at Dartmouth. We would march, line up on the street there, and then march onto the field. The whole Corps for the game. We were there for two games. We did that with Dartmouth for the first game of the season, and we did it in the state series. Middlebury, Vermont, Saint Michaels, and Norwich. And we'd marched. If we played Middlebury, we would march at Middlebury. Middlebury, I think there, most everybody came here. I know we went there. The whole Corps went to Coast Guard. Had a special train for the whole Corps. The whole Corps went down to New London, Connecticut to play the Coast Guard Academy in football. JP: On a special train? MHS: Yep, a special train yep. JP: That's always been a big rivalry for the Coast Guard. MHS: Yes, it has always been a good rivalry we have had with the Coast Guard. We always had, we have a nice, nice relationship with the Coast Guard. JP: Now you were quite a jumper. MHS: Yes I was. In the pole vault particularly. Well when I went there, in high school we had track and the coach, Coach Baker was my chemistry professor but he was also the track coach.3 And I went out for track, and I had the no form. It was just jump over, jump over any way you can get there, it was no form. He called it no form. He said, "I'll teach you the eastern roll or the western roll." He told me exactly how they went. So [he asked], "Which one do you think you will like to go on." And I said, "Let's try the eastern roll." That is: you don't come charging really fast, you've got to take a little hop, then take six or eight steps so it comes out just right. You know exactly where, and you go to the bar, you kick up like this, over the bar. With this foot, you twist it around so that the bar hits your body instead of your butt. You aren't dragging your butt, and knocking it off with your butt. So you kick up, with the eastern roll, and then do that, and twist your body right around and the bar passes your body. You want to get your butt out of the way. So I was a high jumper and in the pole vault, I did the 12 feet. The standards only went up to 12 feet and I guess they didn't think that anybody could do it, but I did. So I was the, and the broad jump. So every year, from freshman to senior, I got a little more as a sophomore, more as a junior, and more as a senior. I kept going up. So I was quite the track star. JP: You were, you were. MHS: And P.D. Baker was my chemistry professor and he was like a father to me. A wonderful, wonderful man. So he taught me all those things. He knew how they went. I stopped to think 3Perley Dustin Baker, NU 1920 (1897-1995), was dean from 1950-1957, worked from 1920-1962. Page 11 about it, I said, I think if I had chosen, he said, "you can have your choice." He explained how it was and I think if I had taken the western roll, I think I could have probably gotten, I just got a feeling, I could have probably gotten one or two more inches higher with the western roll. But he taught me the roll anyway. I liked P. D. Baker. He was dean there, and it might have been later, anyway, he was like a father figure to me. I guess that about covers it doesn't it? JP: That's great, what did you do for entertainment? MHS: Well we had, I was an S.A.E., as I told you it was the largest fraternity in the country. It had more chapters than any other college [fraternity], of all the colleges. We would have Freshmen Week, which would be around January. Classes were suspended and we would have 3 days, 3 days, on the weekend for just parties, dancing, and doing anything you wanted to do. It was dancing mostly and you would get your date there. And you would look around downtown get a rate or rent if they couldn't travel, if they were out in like Massachusetts. Then the cadet would get a room for their date, for like Freshmen Week or Junior Week were the two big weeks. Freshmen Week and Junior Week. Freshmen Week was around January, Junior Week would be around May I think. So I had, I had a girl, Cotting her name was, Emma Cotting, and I had her down for the weekend. And of course a lot of them, I would say probably about a fourth of the cadets had dates on those big weekends. The others didn't have them. Either they couldn't afford it or didn't do it for one reason or the other. But I did, I had a date down. And she lived right there during those three days, probably like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday or something like that for Junior Week, for Freshmen Week and for Junior Week in May and Freshmen Week was in January I think. And all the classes were off, and the parties were in. I remember I had some money, and I get through the fraternity and they made us, something, your boaters, not the boaters in something. We didn't want them in. So I went down there, this was during Prohibition, picked up a pint of whiskey and I paid $4.00 for it. I got to thinking, I said, "My God, I can't really afford four dollars." That would be quite a few trips to the theater, pay for a lot of the theaters. So I bought it for four dollars, I didn't have a date and so one of the cadets who did have a date said, "I'll give you $3.75 for it, and I said "Sold." So I lost twenty-five cents but I could go to more movies [laughs]. JP: So movies were a big thing? MHS: They were downtown, you had to get downtown. JP: So where did one procure liquor during Prohibition? MHS: Well I didn't ask, we just, we got it through the fraternities. The fraternities would, you would sign up for it and they, somebody would get a bootlegger or something and they got good liquor. Probably went up to Canada I presume, probably and got it. So I said, $4.00 for a pint, or half a pint, or a pint and I, like I said, I said "I can't afford that. I would rather spend the money on movies." So I sold it for $3.75, sold my pint for somebody that had a date. It was worth it. I remember we used to go to Lake Eden, during the summer time. Lake Eden was 2 hours, 17 miles I guess, 15 miles. And Eight Guide Dunbar, a wonderful band, 8 piece orches—geez, they were everywhere, they were from St. Johnsbury, Eight Guide Dunbar. We would go there every week, Lake Eden, to dance. The men would go up separately; the girls would go up separately. Page 12 Almost everybody took a date. The girls would get up there by bus or any way they could get there. And they would sit on one side of the room, and the men would stand up in the back. When they would wind up the music then we would go over and we'd pick out somebody or for dancing on the floor. I remember I was dancing with this girl, probably could have been my date, I don't know, I was dancing with this girl. Anyway, and a lot of stags went up there. So I would see this girl, and she would shake her head no, too. I said the next dance? No. The second dance? [laughs] While we were dancing, you have these singles. So like I said, the girls got there by bus or I don't know. They got there, they got there anyway. [laughs] JP: What kind of dances did you do? Do you remember? MHS: Most of them were, in those days we used to Jump the Hop. We did a lot of turning around. We would dance around or we would dance, dance, and we would dip. Or at Lake Eden we actually jumped. We would have your partner jump right in the air, jump, jump. It looked good from the outside. I said, gee that looks like great fun, so I learned how to do it and we would jump. Just jump with the steps rather than glide. Supposedly we would jump and twist in the air. It was good. JP: And you were a good jumper. MHS: We thought we were hot stuff! [laughs] JP: Do you remember any slang? MHS: Any what? JP: Any slang? Did you guys use slang? MHS: Slang? JP: Slang. MHS: S-L-A-N-G? Slang. JP: Correct. MHS: Oh, yeah I guess we did. The people from Massachusetts used to rip on the Vermonters for the way we, for the slang, for the way we talked. And the New Yorkers talked different, the Massachusetts talked broader. Vermont talks a lot flat, flat and hickish really, and Massachusetts were a little different and New York was different than them, just a little bit as a group you know. The rest of the states, you could tell, you could almost tell a state a man was from, whether he was from New York, Massachusetts or Vermont by just talking to them. And of course we were hicks. Of course, the Vermonters, we would usually take a ripping from the cadets from Massachusetts for the hickish way we talked. We probably did talk like hicks. [laughs]Page 13 JP: Did they call you hicks or anything else? MHS: No, not that I know of. But we, well they might have, might have called us hicks. If they did, they were right. We were hicks. [laughs] We wouldn't deny it. JP: Now was Mike Popowski one of your roommates? MHS: Yes, Mike was a—when you're—all sophomores, if you are promoted in the Corps. I think about probably 25% maybe are promoted, maybe not quite that maybe 20% are promoted. So you are supposed to live, not officers live with officers, if you are officers. Privates, senior privates, lived together. Juniors were sophomores were sergeants, and sophomores were corporals, juniors were sergeants, and seniors were officers. Now what did you ask? JP: About Michael Popowski. MHS: Oh, oh, well so well my room— I was an exception. I came to Norwich as a private. I had been there only one week. The very first week I was called into the commandant's office. You're promoted at the commissioning ceremony in the spring when, before you break up. You have a promotion parade and I wasn't on the list. Well when I got back, the first week of school I was called into the commandant's office and was promoted right there. And of course a corporal had to get his stripes sewn on. All sophomores are corporals, privates, and privates. You are a corporal, you are a non-commissioned officers, juniors are sergeants, and seniors are officers. First lieutenants through, well my day the highest rank was a major, was the highest rank. Later on they became a colonel was the highest in the Corps. But in my day it was a major, one major. Then there would be about four or five captains. It would be A Company, B Company, C Company, and Headquarters Company. They were commanded by a senior, by a captain, a senior cadet captain. They would have a captain of the company, command the company. A first lieutenant would be the second in command. Then you have your, like I was in A Troop, and we would have two, two second lieutenants. I was one of the second lieutenants as an A Troop when I was a cadet there. JP: Was Harmon the commandant when you were there? MHS: Harmon was a commandant my first year and then it was his last year there. My sophomore, junior, senior year was a, Harmon was the, my sophomore year. And, who was it? I can't remember his name now, I'll have to remember it, but my sophomore, junior, senior year, it was a new man that came in. They are Regular Army people. That was a duty. They are Regular Army, and it was a duty assignment. And, let's see, Harmon was a, well he was a captain when I came in there and he yeah, he was, he controlled the—the Army furnishes officers for each, each company, for the whole Corps I think there was 17 officers. We could appoint 17 officers, cadet officers. And they're appointed by a, well, a commission. I don't know as a group, I don't know who picks them out. I never did understand who picked them out. Well I was a corporal as a sophomore, and that's all. You are either a private or a corporal. Sergeants, you are either a private or a sergeant if you are made. And a senior, you are either a private or an officer. In other words, a company would have one captain, one first lieutenant, and two second lieutenants. Now I was in A Troop, so A Troop was in Jackman Hall. We had a captain, a first lieutenant, and two Page 14 second lieutenants in the company. Or then there was a, they didn't call them companies. They called them companies later on— we called them troops. We were a troop, troopers, cavalry. Cavalry called them troops. Infantry called them companies. So my freshman year we were troopers. Now they changed it to companies in the Corps. JP: So did you go on the ROTC Hike of 1932? MHS: Did I do what? JP: Did you did the ROTC Hike of 1932? MHS: The, um, no. The uh, that was the one year they did not have it. But the year before they had the summer hike, and I think the year after. But my year they had to cancel it so we went to Fort Ethan Allen. Before you would arrive in the post, [then] ride horses from the post to Fort Ethan Allen. Well this year, they could they were tight on money or something so they, we did not have that summer ride. I think ours was the only class that didn't. I think the class after us did. So we drove to the fort on automobiles and our parents dropped us off. But all the classes before and after us, they rode. They took this secured route from Norwich to Fort Ethan Allen. But my year we didn't take it, we drove in cars and rode our horses when we got there [laughs]. Or whatever it was we did, I don't know what we did. JP: So when you left Norwich, and you graduated, and you went in to the military? You went straight in? MHS: No, not immediately. I think it was only, it was hard to get in. As I remember only two people in my class got a Regular Army commission. You went into the Regular Army when the rest of us went into the Reserves. So for 95% went into the Reserves, we were reserve officers. We went down every two weeks out of, we didn't get a chance to go on active duty. So we didn't actually get our commissions. We didn't see much active duty. JP: What did you do after you graduated? MHS: Well I taught high school up in Northeast Kingdom in Barton. I taught there for four or five years. Well from '34 through '39, and then in '40 I went into the Army. JP: What caused you to go into the Army in 1940? MHS: Well, I, thank you [someone passes Col. Smith a drink]. Well I wanted to get in, you couldn't get in. It was good pay. So in 1940 apparentlyWashington got some money together and so those who wanted to could volunteer for active duty. That was 1940. So I jumped, and it was good pay. It was a lot better than teaching high school. I started at $900 at Barton, Northeast Kingdom, $900, then $1,000, $1,100, and then $1,200. I got a hundred dollar bump each year so my fourth year of teaching I got $1,200. When I went into the Army, I got a hell of lot more than that. When I was getting $1,200 I was getting $4,500 to $5,000, I got about four times as much in the Army. So I went in the Army, and the activation of the Armored Force. My order said the Page 15 37 th Calvary Regiment. When I put in for active duty they came through. When I got there and reported to the officer in charge, the Regular Army officer in charge, who was a lieutenant colonel I think he was, he said well. I said, "Mine said that I was assigned to a cavalry unit." He said, "Cavalry is out. Armor is in." So on the activation the Armored Force came into being on the 15 of June, 1940. The 1st Armored was at Knox, the 2nd Armored was at Benning. I was the 1st Armored Division on the first day of the activation of the Armored Force. On the ground level. JP: Ground floor. MHS: I was assigned to a, well, reconnaissance company. The recon company, the recon battalion, A Troop. A Company was armored cars. B Company was scout cars, C Company was tanks, which I was assigned to C Company. And D Company was half-tracks. Everyone had their own division type of vehicles and we all had cycles, motorcycles. That's what I was in. I remember we had old horse sheds that had no horses, and that's where we kept the tanks. So when we went to pick up our tanks they said, "Alright, anybody that has ever driven a tank, step forward or turn your name in." You were here to pick up some tanks. There was just a few handful had driven a tank, and so I was not one, but some of the old Army people had driven a tank. So they got enough tanks. They came out of a depot somewhere and so the people who had driven tanks stepped forward and drove the tanks into the motor park which were really converted horse stables. They were, now [instead of] horses there were tanks in there. Same place but different vehicle [chuckles]. JP: What kind of motorcycles did you ride? MHS: What kind of what? JP: Motorcycles. MHS: Oh, I think we had the Indian motorcycle, I think. It was Indian. And well they had the, the first ones we had, oh God it was a pleasure to ride. They were down, you sit right down, you had controls, sit right down. Well I'll be goddamned if they didn't give those up. They got the new ones and they are up in the air. Well Jesus, it's like learning to ride all over again. On those low ones you just sit right down, sheesh, you could just feel it, you melted right into the cycle on the road. You melted. Now you sitting up here and by god, I never did like them. They were hard, and if you got off balance, you would go down, you would fall down on the ground. Then you would have to get up shame-facedly and pick up your cycle and mount it again [laughs]. I remember one exercise we had, we were out in the field and we come riding into this spot and dismount. And somebody on the team would throw you a Tommy gun, through the air. I don't know where it would come from, but they would throw it to you, and you would have to catch it in the air, the Tommy gun. You would blast a couple [gun noises], it would rise up [gun noises], bring it down, you would take 3 or 4 shots and it rises on you. You do not try to hold it down. You know it is going to, so you do it, you let up on the trigger, then get out 3 or 4 more rounds. Page 16 Then it gets to ride up. Just the force of it forces the Tommy gun up. Then we, when we would finish that I would take the rifle and the submachine gun and toss it to the instructor, jump on the motorcycle, and you are gone [chuckles]. That was a test, I mean, I guess all the officers went through it. It was fun, it was fun. I liked it. It was good. JP: What other weapons did you carry? MHS: We didn't carry anything. We, uh, I'll tell you, in Germany General Harmon had the Constabulary. So when I went outside in Heidelberg and yellow, we had yellow shoelaces. We were special. Constabulary was a special group of soldiers. And we were hot stuff, I guess, under Harmon. And was everybody assigned, a quite few. Well I made the cavalry in Germany and uh, is that it? Does that answer? JP: So you were part of Ironsides? And did you take part in any combat action? MHS: Um, you mean real combat? Or, or, we had maneuvers and it was just like combat. I mean it was, it was. Well you are in a war! I remember I was in the recon battalion, reconnaissance battalion. We were deployed down on the line in a big field. We were there, nothing was happening. We were up front cause— we reconnaissance battalion is the forward most unit of a division, of an armored division, is the reconnaissance battalion. And I was a recon battalion. They lead the entire division. The reconnaissance battalion, and I was in recon bat. So we got here on this field here, nothing was happening and we were just holding there, waiting for something to happen. All of a sudden all hell broke loose and tanks just covered that field. I stood there and said, "My god, it was a maneuver." And that field was covered with tanks! I guess, I never saw so much tanks in my life! And I, uh, "Holy Jesus what am I seeing?" I was really captivated by it, I was a, it was a maneuver, it was maneuvers. JP: And where was this? MHS: Jesus. Well I can't remember. I was the 1st Armored and the 1st Armored was at [Fort] Knox. The 4th Armored, I think, was Drum, Fort Drum. 10th Armored was, I was the 1st, 4th, and 10th Armored as they were building up the divisions. They would send the cadre, a pit crew, to form a new division. They were forming new divisions. So I started out in the Armored, the 1st Armored, the very first beginning, the 1st Armored was in Fort Knox where I was. The 2nd Armored was activated on the same day. The first day of the activation of the Armored Force was the 15 of June, 1940. The 2nd Armored was at [Fort] Benning. Then they grew, so they had 18 armored divisions. They have cadre as a shell for the making of all the key positions of a unit. Then they send in recruit fillers, to fill it up to full strength. That's how they would increase. They had an outline, just an outline of key people who would be assigned as the cadre staff. I was the 1st Armored but I was picked as a cadre for 4th Armored Division. So it's a shell of the officers and non-commissioned officers and then the fillers come in and fill it up. And they go on and do it that way with the 18 armored divisions I think. So I was the 1st, 4th, and 10th Armored Divisions. Page 17 JP: So you were stateside. Were you overseas? MHS: Oh yeah, yes I was. That's, that's something. I went, I was overseas. Where the hell was I? Jesus. Goddamn [whispered with frustration]. I was overseas. Europe? FRIEND OF MHS: Moe, What did you train on tanks in Hawaii? You were a trainer, what did you train people [on]? MHS: My job there was to train Marines on the tank mounted flame-thrower. Hell, that was it. That was a school. Each Marine Division had one tank company or battalion, I can't remember which. They would send a whole unit of Marines over to—I was the head of the school at Kolekole Pass, that's where the Japanese flew in, over that cut in the mountains when they bombed Pearl Harbor. And uh, where was I now? FRIEND OF MHS: You were training Marines. MHS: Yeah, I was training Marines and we would set up trebles on the guns, on the flamethrowers. The flamethrowers were co-actually mounted. You would have a 76 sticking on the tank a big rifle, a big, long tube, a 76. And co-actually mounted to that was a flamethrower right beside it, or below it. So you could have your fire power. You're in the tank, you would have the ammunition in the tank. It was underneath the turret floor for your stored ammunition. So they were independent. They could fire, I can't remember how many, rounds of 76 you could fire or you could use the flamethrower. Either one. And we would make our own napalm. It is like a sawdust, soap, chips, I guess like soap. It's like sawdust, looks like sawdust. You can't get it, even a drop of water, or it breaks it down. So you have to be careful that the drums are dry and you had this napalm, that's the sawdust-like stuff, and mix it up, and it's rubbery. And you reach in there and pull it out like that and hold it and let it go a little snap back to base. It was heavy, it was elastic, like elastic. Now that's your flamethrower stuff. And it has to be that way so you can back off your tank, and that thing we couldn't throw a flame and it works out. They would, I wouldn't happen to be with the unit at that time. But the Japanese would hole up in these caves, so we'd get these flamethrowers and since it was almost impossible to dig out, 'cause the side was like a mountain, all rocks. They were inside with peepholes and everything. Hard to dig those people out. So we get these flamethrowers in there and course they had the aperture, they had it open so they could fire. And we would put the flamethrower and probably shoot it, probably, a couple hundred yards. If it was mixed just right, just right, it was like rubber, like rubber, and you could back your tank off and we would, they would, it had to be that particular action. But then they would fire these flamethrowers in these apertures, or whatever you call them, the rock where they fired. And they would put the flamethrowers in there and burn up the oxygen and those Japanese would be dead. D.E.D. Dead [laugh]. And not a mark on them, they wouldn't have a mark on them, but they'd be dead. It would burn up the oxygen in the air in these caves and kill them all. Just, just, just asphyxiated. JP: Where were you during, where were you when Pearl Harbor occurred? Page 18 MHS: I was in Hawaii. I was in Hawaii and I had a school there. I was the head of the school. Head of school on the tank mounted flamethrower and as I said, we work with; we made mostly Marines, training Marines. Those Marines, I couldn't sing their praises enough, the, the [fades out] FRIEND OF MHS: Moe, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, where were you located? Were you still in the States or were you elsewhere? MHS: No, no, no, when Pearl Harbor was, no, no. When Pearl Harbor was bombed I was in Hawaii with the, with the tank mounted flamethrower - FRIEND OF MHS: So you were training Marines. MHS: training Marines. When the peace came they dropped the bomb and so they gave us 48 hours. We had these big, these 55 gallon drums. We had like a mountain of them, just a heap of them. Gasoline rations for the states they sent it to us to burn up in the flamethrowers or whatever it was. It was hard to get gas for use here for the civilians during the war. So we, when the armistice, when they dropped that bomb they sued immediately for peace, so they gave us 48 hours to clear the range. So we had a veritable mountain of 55 gallon drums, long and high, filled with this napalm. And we opened those drums just as fast as we could open them. And we had a veritable pond of that napalm, that rubberized stuff there, and we would back a tank off, put a flamethrower on it and you would have thought the whole island was going up in flames. I mean it was some fire, I'll tell ya. That was the Kolekole Pass. It was a plateau. It was a low cut in the mountains, I said when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor they came through that pass and I had been there at that time. They flew right over where I had my school. FRIEND OF MHS: So what did you do in Japan? When you went to Japan after the war? MHS: Let's see, I was, Oh! Here is a funny thing. I was, I was an obs-, obscure, obscure major. I'd been there 3 days. Nobody knew me. Hell, there probably a thousand, probably hundreds and hundreds of majors there. It was all in the Far East Command under General MacArthur's Far East, Far East Command. And I'd been there just 3 days and my name came up to be on the General Staff. And I said, "How in hell can I be made? They don't know me!" I said, "I'm the new man here! I am one of hundreds and hundreds of majors and they picked me out. There was a feather in my bonnet and God was with me. God appointed me. God had something to do with that." Three days I was on the General Staff. Seemed pretty good. It was about 18 or 17, we'd have a staff meeting every day. I would be there and it was under, we had reports that came into me and I had a guy in my division that wrote them up and all I had to do was sign them. So I signed them as if they were my reports because I was the head of the division. So, so I signed it, I signed it. I didn't change a word. Call McCarthy, I signed it, sent it up to G3 with my signature. G3 took my name off, put their name on it and sent it up to GHQ Far East Command, General MacArthur's headquarters. It went through all those chains, everybody put their name on it, and I didn't do a thing. I just, tt was all prepared, I never, in all the time I was there, only Page 19 one time there was a paragraph in there that was way off, and I took that out. I said, "By god that's not going to go into the report, that's for goddamned sure." So I took that out. When I said that was my report, when they get it, it was their report to GHQ they passed the line. It was a, I didn't do anything, no really, all I did was look at the reports and send them on up. I did not do anything. But I, it was important because it went to GHQ and the GHQ, when they got through with them, sent the reports to Washington. JP: And after the war what did you do? MHS: After the war I, well I was in Chicago Headquarters, Fifth Army. My mother called up and said, "If you want to come home, your father will sell his shares of the drive-in theaters to you." And I really didn't want to come out, I liked Chicago and I liked my job. I just, I had a good job, and I did not want to leave. I had it made. I had 16 years. All I needed was 4 more years to retire at 50%. Well, mother said, "Your father will sell," So I said, "Well I guess she wants me to get out," so I get out. I really did not want to go, but I got out after 16 years and went home, and bought out my father's shares of the Green Mountain Drive-in Theaters. There was a theater in Morrisville and the largest in the state was in Newport. And we got half. The trade was Canadian trade. They would come down because they did not have any, any, Canada could not have 'em. It was state law, they could not for quite a while, they couldn't have drive-in theaters. So we had a sell out every night and that was a, that was a good payment, but of course we didn't make as much money in those days as they do today. I got $10,000 a year sitting on my butt and doing nothing. [laughs] JP: When did you meet Isabel? When and where did you meet your wife? MHS: I met her before I went into the Army. For 4, 4 or 5 years from '35 to '40, I taught high school in Barton in the Northeast Kingdom. And I taught, coached, I coached and taught for four or five years, I can't remember. 1935 to 1940, and then in '40 I went into the 1st Armored Division at [Fort] Knox. JP: But how did you meet her? Where did you meet her? MHS: Oh my wife? Well we were teaching, teaching school. JP: She was a teacher. MHS: Right. And Issy [Isabel] was home economics, home economics. She graduated from uh, I can't remember the name of the school now. I did know that it was in Massachusetts. She had her degree from a school in Massachusetts. I know where it is but it doesn't come to mind right now what it was. So that's where I met Issy. So Issy was a, we were both teaching school there and we both, we got married. We skipped out one New Year's Eve and got married, came back, didn't tell anybody about it because we weren't supposed to be married, I guess. And we weren't supposed to be I guess. I don't know how they could keep a teacher from, from they could take a Page 20 married teacher or a single teacher. But either way, we got married and didn't tell anybody. Then, then we got out in 1940 and went into the Army. JP: So she couldn't tell she was married because they didn't want women who were married to be teaching. That's why you didn't? Was that it? MHS: I don't know. I don't know. I could never could figure out why didn't want, why they didn't want it. Never could figure that out. But they didn't, anyway, for some reason or another. So then we went to, that's when we were stateside, I was, we were teaching in Barton. So we got married, dropped out of teaching, and I went into the 1st Armored Division at Fort Knox in 1940. JP: Yeah? FRIEND OF MHS: Did you talk about how we ended up at Norwich? JP: No. I'm curious as to how you got from post-World War I [interviewer said one meant two], to Korea and then to Norwich. How did you get to Norwich? And what did you do in Korea? I know those are big questions. MHS: I was in the, ah, I, I, I got out of the Army. Oh! I got out of the Army to buy the theaters, that's why I got out of the Army. Mother said, "If you want to come home, your father will sell you [the theaters]." I didn't want to do it but I did. I got out of the Army and went home and bought out my father's share of the drive in theaters. So I was sitting one day when I got the Norwich Bulletin. I don't know what it's called now. It's a bulletin. It said they are looking for somebody for the commandant's office. It said, "apply to Colonel Black." I said, "Bull, bull, bullshit," I said "I'll jump in my Cadillac and go down and let them see me. I can see them and they can see me." And I did, and I was told by Black that I was one of the, there was only one other, a year later, putting in for my same job and I got it. So I report in as, to Black. Black went up to Harmon and said, "We got a man here on our plea for an assistant commandant." And he said, "He's a Norwich man." And Harmon goes. "Well sign him up and give him three days to get in and get down here." So I was home, I had to clean up and move and everything. So I did and I came down here and reported in in 1940, 1940 1st Armored Division. FRIEND OF MHS: No you started at Norwich in 1950, didn't you? MHS: I started at Norwich… [trails off] FRIEND OF MHS: '56? '54? MHS: In 1940… FRIEND OF MHS: You were in for sixteen years. It would be '56. MHS: Oh yeah. Uh huh. Page 21 JP: You worked seventeen jobs at Norwich for eighteen years, right? MHS: Yeah, yes, yeah. I was— oh here is a funny thing, but it's not really very funny either. One day we had the—I was registrar. I was the first registrar in Norwich history. And Bob Guinn, I knew him, he was a professor when I was cadet. And he wrote the history of Norwich and he said that, "Smith was the first registrar in Norwich history." See before they had the registrar duties, but they partialed all them out amongst different faculty. So they get them all together for the first time and I was the first. And this is in the history. I was first full time registrar in Norwich history. And that was in 1940, yeah 1940, wasn't it? FRIEND OF MHS: It couldn't have been '40, that's when you went into the Army. Sixteen years after that would have been '56 MHS: This was 19… [trails off]… this was, uh, '56 yeah. '56. Yeah '55. '56 was the first year I came to Norwich. Yeah '55-'56 was my first year at Norwich. JP: So, you, you were working on a master's at Columbia before you— MHS: I was uh, yes. I started in and that was, that was a funny thing. I went to one section at Columbia and Columbia had a new deal. It used to be you go to 5 years or 4 years and a thesis. You go to 4 summer sessions and then write a thesis and that was it. Or 5 years without a thesis. Then they finally said, they cut it out and said, all right, you can go 4 years, you can get it in 4 years without a thesis. So I was working towards a Master's Degree at Columbia when I, when I ah. So I got to the next summer, I was waiting to see if I was going to get called into the Army, that was in '39. See if we were called into the Army, I said, I have to make up a decision because after the 4th of July if you go to Columbia, you don't get any credits. You have to be on or before the 4th of July for a full, for the full term. You can miss 2 or 3 days but that was all. And after the 4th of July you could go if you wanted to, but you wouldn't get credit for the Master's Degree. So, where was I now? JP: What was your major? What were you getting a master's degree in at Columbia? What were you studying? MHS: Probably education, I'd imagine. Education. I remember, I remember two of my professors—one was a woman, Doctor Spesicka at Columbia. The other was Doctor Hunt. The one that was the most popular one, he had a theater. We had small classes, 7 or 8 of in the class, but there was this one big class and he was the big, we had it in the theater, about 2 or 3 hundred were in his class. And I can't remember his name! But I remember Spesicka and Hunt. And Issy was there and I took her to class with her one time, when I was working for a master's degree. But it helped, because ah 4, 4 sessions, there used to be 5 and they cut it down to 4. So I was waiting, I said, "Gee I don't want to lose out all around," and I was biting my fingernails wondering whether to – what was it? To decide whether I was going to do something or go back to Columbia? Can't remember what it was. My choice was go to Columbia or Army I guess it Page 22 was. And I said, "I got to make up my mind before the 4 th of July," and it went by. And anyway I went to Columbia anyway, and I got a full year at Columbia. JP: You've had a lot of experience in education. A lot of life experiences with teaching people things and - MHS: The courses that you take in education was dull, dull and meaningless in education. They did not carry any weight, there was no substance to it, education courses. I mean they were stupid, they were dumb. And you had to take 18 hours, you were supposed to have 18 hours to get a, I guess a degree. And ah, I took 2 or 3 courses, and they were stupid! A waste of time! There was a misnomer calling them education courses. They prepared you, they didn't prepare you for anything but took them because they were required and so I went just that one time, and then I went into the Army. I was debating between, I didn't want to lose out on the second term for Columbia, I was biting my fingernails, and I said, "Well it's too late now I have to take what I get," and then my orders came through for active duty. So I played that right. I was lucky [chuckles]. JP: Do you want to take a break now or are you okay? MHS: Oh I'm okay. FRIEND OF MHS: I gotta go along, Moe. Your checks are all set there you have to sign them. MHS: Oh uh, oh the bills. Yeah, okay… come tomorrow, will ya? Okay, you are learning something about me. [chuckles] FRIEND OF MHS: You should tell her all the stories you have about the different generals you have worked for. MHS: Oh yeah, that's right. I have worked for, here is a funny thing. General Newgarden4 had the 10th Armored Division. I was in his division, well he came to the Armored School, and I was, I was something in the Armored School. I was a big, kinda a big wheel. Big wheel. I was a department head and he, everyone, they go to class and then they have to take a 10 minute break and then they go back to class for 50 minutes then 10 minute break. He was a tactics guy, tactics class. So I came up to see him, he didn't know me, I said, "General Newgarden." I said, "You probably don't remember me," (cause he had a division, he didn't know all the people). I said, "I was in your 10th Armored Division!" I said. "I was under your command at one time." So we had a nice chat. I remember his stars were—a pep they call it, a little round thing that clips to your collar, it was gone. And I said, "Gosh I should have fixed that but I didn't." I said, I should have said something, what I should have said was, '"General, your general thing is askew, you lost your pep." And I'd take my pep, "Here take my pep I got another one." That's what I should have done but I didn't do it. I was kind of scared so I let him go with his U.S. dangled Major 4 Major General Paul Woolever Newgarden (1892-1944) Page 23 General. And we talked but he didn't know who I was, so I told him, I said "I was in your division." A lot of officers in a division, you don't get to know them all. FRIEND OF MHS: So you did a lot of, you were in charge of Army training for a lot of , a lot of your career. MHS: Oh yeah, and in Hawaii that's all I did do. And I was the head of the school. FRIEND OF MHS: Who were those, the Spaniards that came, or Spanish speaking group that came? MHS: Oh, well we'd have tourists from all over the country. Colombia, for example, sent two or three different groups at different times. But the colleges all around would send their handpicked people to study our system of education, which was, ah, you could see it! It wasn't that you read something in a textbook and then recite it, but you could see it. It was all hands education. We would take an engine apart and put it together again. Assemble it right on the floor so we, we had engine cells and we would set up engine troubles, trouble shooting, and then the class would come in. We had a little, we had this big dynamometer, a big dynamometer engine in the middle and little cells around there. And we divided, about six officers or noncommissioned officers to a cell and there would be an instructor in there. And depending on whether, maintenance 1, maintenance 2, trouble shooting, so forth and they'd go through that and that'd be one week at each section. And I had the trouble, trouble shooting for over 1 week. So there's 6, 8, I think 8, different sections and then they'd graduate either 6 to 8, they'd graduate after about 2 months. I didn't do it exactly because I can't remember but about 2 months. They would have it on their records that they were graduates of the Tactics Department. The Armored School was the Tank Department, armored cars, tanks, wheeled vehicles, and motorcycles. There were five divisions of the Armored School. It took every, every week, 100, every third class was an officer class. We had an enlisted class, an enlisted class, an officer's class. Enlisted class, enlisted class, an officer's class. So there are 1,200 students at all times in the Armored School. 1,200. So 100 would graduate, 100 would come in. And every third company was an officer's company, so it'd be 300 at any one time, be 300 officers and 900 enlisted men in the Armored School. I had the Trouble Shooting Division. We would have these engine cells, we'd set up troubles on the tank, tank wouldn't start and so they'd figure out why it wouldn't start. And for motorcycles, wheeled vehicles, tank, and halftracks. FRIEND OF MHS: So what happened when the Colombians came to visit? MHS: Well that was, that was a good thing. They, ah, they spoke in English. They came through and they could with just what they could see. I found after, they didn't know what the hell was going on. They didn't! We spoke English and while they could see something, but the instructor - Maintenance 1 or Maintenance 2 or whatever it was - would talk in English and they told me, they [the Colombians] didn't know what was going on. And when they got down to the engine task, I knew that in Spanish, because I took Spanishm, I majored in Spanish in college. So I had Page 24 a corporal, god he was good, he was good. So I had no English-Spanish/Spanish-English dictionary so I had my speech in Spanish. So this, and I had been, I majored in it so I knew quite a few of it but I needed some help in polishing up. So I called this corporal in, he was, god he was a whiz-bang, I'll tell you. So I said, "What's the, what's the word for troubleshooting?" And he said, "There is no word for troubleshooting. It's busca fias look for troubles, that's trouble shooting." And so he helped me with my speech and I memorized it, because I majored in it so I knew quite a bit of it and he filled in the gaps for me cause I had no dictionary. So when the, when the Colombians, when the Brazilians - particularly Eurico Dutra, Chief of Staff of the Brazilian Army - came around, they didn't, they told me, they didn't know what was going on. We just spoke in English. Well when they got up to my place, I delivered it in Spanish they went for their notebooks and started writing like mad. Of the 16 stations, mine was the only one that meant anything to them because they didn't know. My people didn't know Spanish and they'd deliver it in Spanish [means English] but it went over their heads so when I started my speech in Spanish, boy they whipped out their notebooks. I tell you they were writing furiously so it wasn't a complete failure [laughs]. It made me feel pretty good. JP: Thank you. MHS: Any other questions? [laughs] FRIEND OF MHS: Oh. Mike Popowski downtown, his father, what was his association with you? MHS: We were at Norwich together. [At] Norwich noncommissioned officers lived with noncommissioned officers, commissioned officers lived with commissioned officers, privates lived with privates. FRIEND OF MHS: So how did you know Popowski or Pop? What was his nickname? MHS: Well as a sophomore, at commencement the end of my freshman year, my name wasn't on, I was a private. Well I had been there just a week and I was called into the commandant's office the very first week of school and was promoted to, made a corporal. So I was already living with privates. Popowski was a private. There was four of us: Sullivan (an Irish man), Uthenwoldt (a German), and me (English), and Polish, Popowski. We were in Jackman Hall, A Troop, A Troop. We were troops then, now they are, later became companies. It was A Troop and uh… [trails off]5 FRIEND OF MHS: Now did you stay with Popowski all through your school? MHS: So I was a private up until the very first week of school. I wasn't promoted at commencement. So I had my roommates, so when I was promoted to corporal I think I was the only one rooming with privates. All the others were noncommissioned officers with 5 Michael Popowski, George Patrick Sullivan, both Class of 1934 and Fred William Uthenwoldt, jr., Class of 1935. Page 25 noncommissioned officers. And they would keep the privates with their group so they didn't break it up. So I stayed where I was, but I was a corporal. I guess I was the only corporal, noncommissioned officer, who was in with privates, and Popowski was a private. FRIEND OF MHS: So but did you stay with him when you became a junior or a senior? MHS: No, just my sophomore year. And then my junior year it was just two of us. Sullivan, Sullivan I guess it was. I roomed with him from New Hampshire, Berlin, New Hampshire, was my roommate from, to junior and senior year at Norwich. Troops. I can't remember if we were troops. I think they went from, I think my sophomore year they went from troops to companies. They used to be troops for cavalry, cavalry troops. Same number pretty much, and makeup, but they would call them troops. So the band leader, I would take reports, I would be the officer of the day, and I would say, "Report to reveille." And they'd say "A Company present and accounted for. B Company present and accounted for. C Company." And you would say, "Dismiss your troops," if you were the officer of the day. And they would dismiss their troops. Well the band leader, I can't remember his name now, he wanted to call them troops and they were companies. They went from troops to companies. Well he wanted, the Band Company, he wanted to call 'em troops. So when I go out to take a report I say, "Report!" for if you are on duty, if you are the officer on duty for the whole regiment. And then "A Company present and accounted for. B Company present and accounted for," so on and "Band Company present" and, uh so this guy I can't remember his name now said, called it troop, said "A Troop present and accounted for." Well I could have called him on it and say, "Hey look, we are companies now. You will report as a company not a troop." But said, "My god if he wants to call them a troop, I'm gonna let him call it a troop." So he was the only one in the regiment that called his Band Company a troop. Everybody else was a company, and I let it go. I said, "Hell, I don't give a damn if he wants to call his band a troop, I'll let him." Any other questions? FRIEND OF MHS: I can't think of any right off there, chief! MHS: Well, we'll… FRIEND OF MHS: We'll catch up tomorrow. JP: Thank you very much. FRIEND OF MHS: I'm Dick Brockway JP: Brockway, that's right, we met before. I've got a, I can leave a card if you want, I gave Moe a card. Thank you. MHS: You know that, that helped me, that Colombia deal, it was on my, on my record so I got some wonderful assignments. I was, I was on the Armored, I was an obscure major, and I do not know how many majors there were in the Far East Command. I mean hundreds of them, and in three days they picked me out to be on the General Staff. And I said, "By god, I said God is with Page 26 me, God made that appointment." I mean all these majors, and I was an unknown major and they put me on the General Staff. I never could figure that out. [Moe's friend says goodbye] JP: So let's see, you were in, third overseas assignment was the Japan Logistical Command after the war. You were on the Commander General's Staff and you wrote reports that went up to General MacArthur's Headquarters in Tokyo and then to Washington. MHS: It went through channels, through channels. JP: Through channels. So you worked… MHS: In the final, in the Far East Command, MacArthur, MacArthur's headquarters, he was in, so it went to MacArthur's headquarters because he was the Far East Command. He was command of all, all the post caps and stations in the area, Far East Command. MacArthur, and then to MacArthur, my report went to MacArthur's headquarters, Tokyo, and he sent them on to Washington and what they did with them I don't know. JP: So then you went to Chicago? You were in Chicago during Korea. MHS: Chicago was my last duty station. JP: Last duty station. MHS: I was in Chicago. Oh, Headquarters, Fifth Army. I got it in my hat. Headquarters, Fifth Army, and I lived uptown from Chicago. I wasn't down in the loop, I lived a few blocks north, but it was still Army Headquarters. So I was in Fifth Army Headquarters in Chicago. JP: And what did you do there? MHS: I was a, I was a - Command Reports, I managed Command Reports. In other words, feeder reports came into me and I'd give it to my Division Commander whose business it was to write a report. So he wrote up the reports for me. Ah. Month, weekly or monthly reports, I can't remember which, I can't remember if they were weekly or monthly. So they would come across my desk. He would, he was the head of the—I had 4 divisions, 3 or 4 divisions in my company. And his division was to write up what went on in the Fifth Army Area. So they came to me, and I'd read 'em and there was one time that I changed something. I took out a paragraph that didn't belong, I took it out. So they came to me, I signed it as if it were my report, and sent it on to the next echelon of maintenance. And he would read it, and then he would sign it, that means it was his report then, and then it would go on to GHQ, to General MacArthur. And somebody in Special Services, I was in Special Services, in Special Services in the Far East Command would sign it, and then it is his report! Then it went on to Washington. JP: So what was it like when you worked under Harmon at Norwich? Page 27 MHS: I was, it was pretty good. It started out pretty rough, I guess I told you that something was happened. JP: Yes you got in the elevator and it was slow but Colonel Black… MHS: It was good, it was good under Harmon. We went to the uh, we had something at White River Junction, Dartmouth, and uh, at White River Junction, Dartmouth. And I had a big Cadillac and Harmon, I had a carful in my Cadillac there, and I drove with the wives. We drove to White River somewhere, we drove to some headquarters. And uh, [pause] and we met, we had a meeting, a big meeting somewhere. I don't know if it was White River or if it was Dartmouth, could've been Dartmouth. We had a meeting and Harmon rode in. I had Harmon, Mrs. Harmon and the director of admissions and his wife. And I had Issy. Six of us and we went to this, this meeting for the Area Command or something. I can't remember what it was. And Harmon, he was, he could swear quite a bit and he was a, so he made a speech using pretty rough language. Well the Norwich wives knew he spoke that way, and they expected him to speak that way, but the people outside our command didn't, youknow They had their wives there, they were civilian college wives or something like that. And so Harmon said something using his salty language and they sucked in their breath, you know. He could be pretty salty. And Harmon, so on the way back Harmon knew he made a mistake, "Oh god," he said, "I could cut off my tongue for saying what I said." I said, "Well gee General Harmon," I said. "People know you, they expect you to talk that way. If you didn't, you wouldn't be General Harmon. They'd be disappointed." He said, "Yes, they weren't Norwich wives. They weren't all Norwich wives, means there are some Dartmouth wives in there and they're the ones who sucked in their breath at his language." And I had no reply to that, he was right! JP: So you heard quite a bit of salty language. MHS: Huh? JP: So you heard quite a bit of salty language [louder]. MHS: Oh, oh yes. He was a…I remember one time, we were right here, I think I may have told you already. Women were sitting in here, Mrs. Harmon was sitting right here, and maybe not in this chair but in this place. The men were out around here, was it the Norwich community? I guess it was, yeah, high ranking people, Norwich department heads. And so I looked at him and Leona was sitting here, and Harmon you could hear him, god he had a booming voice. And he said, I guess I told you, "I've thrown my leg over many a French lad!" And I said, "My gosh you can hear him!" How you could hear outside and over here, he had a booming voice. Leona sat there and didn't, she knew Harmon, she didn't flick an eyelash. And he didn't care if she did hear, and he was true. He was quite a, as you call it, cocksman? [laughs] JP: I guess when you live in the military and you work with people closely you get to know their personalities. You get to know their good sides and their bads. What is it about Norwich, you Page 28 seem to really love Norwich and the training and the education that you've got. What is it about Norwich, you think, that makes people so loyal and so attached to it? MHS: Well it's the esprit de corps. It's the spirit of the corps. It's the, it's a, now in my day only, I think 2 graduates were accepted into the Regular Army. The rest including me were reserve officers but two, every year, they would take two for the Regular Army commissions. And then I think they dropped that rule. I don't know when they did go about the Regular Army. Oh I know, the reserve officers, I think it was at [Fort] Knox, they had, we were a lot of reserve officers. So they had a special course, and it turned out not to be much, it was a week of special training for the small group that wanted to go into the Regular Army. So a few reserve officers went. I didn't, I wish I had. But it was a short course, it wasn't demanding at all. It was a piece of cake really, and those people who went to that get a Regular Army commission. I was in the whole time on a reserve Army commission. I could just as well done that, and I thought, I said it was gonna involve a lot of work and isn't probably worth it. What I thought, what I heard, it wasn't hard at all, it was a piece of cake really for that week there was nothing to it. You'd get your Regular Army commission. So I went through all those years as a reserve commission. But, got the same pay. Get promotions just the same as everybody else. JP: And you have lived across from Norwich after you retired. So you've been close to Norwich for, gosh… MHS: I was at Norwich for I think 16 years. JP: I think 18, 16 or 18. MHS: I will tell you one thing really gripping. I was registrar. It is recognized that the registrar's duties were fanned out, or under - when I came in it was all coordinated. I was the first registrar as such, full time registrar in Norwich history. Guinn who writes the history told me that. And now where were we? What did you say? JP: Oh, you said you were going to say something gripping about being a registrar. I said you had lived here a long time. MHS: I was the, I was the first registrar in Norwich history. And, well, Dean Perry, and I loved him. Registrar comes under the Dean, he was the Dean and Registrar is under the Dean.6 So the Dean was my boss. So he came in one day. I had the best office in Dewey Hall with a fireplace on it. It was for the Dean but the Dean didn't want it, he wanted to be off the beaten path 'cause he didn't want to be where people were going by his office. He wanted the privacy, so he took the office way down at the end of the hall and I had the spacious office as Registrar, fireplace and everything! Now where was I? 6Col. Lewis Ebenezer Perry, (1899-1963) died on June 7, 1963 on a Friday, at the Cadet Corps Commencement Parade on Sabine Field. Page 29 JP: A gripping story about being registrar. MHS: The Dean came into my office one day and I liked Dean Perry, I guess I loved him really. He was a wonderful, man wonderful man. [Takes sip of water] And he said, "Let's get down to the," he said, "C'mon," I guess I was a colonel, "Colonel," I might have been a lieutenant colonel. "C'mon and we'll go and go down for the alumni parade." I looked at my watch, and I was pretty busy there. And he said, "I know it's early," he said, "but I thought we'd take our time." I said "okay," it made sense to me. So we started out, he started to take his car. I thought, "What the hell is he taking his car for? Jeesh all we have to do is, Jackman Hall is just down the steps and you are there." But, I thought, "Well, we're early, that's why we are taking it." I said to myself, I was talking to myself. "Oh we're early that's why we are." And so we'd go down and take a step, and stop. Take another step, and stop. And we would talk. And what's he going so damn slowly floor. Then again I said, "Well we're early of course." Now there was a reason for us doing that. He didn't feel good, Well, I didn't know that. So two or three different things I didn't question, I said "Oh, well were early we don't have to hurry about anything." So we got down there and I thought, "I'm gonna have some fun today." The Academic Board is the all-powerful board. The Academic Board is the big thing, academic board, department heads mostly make up the Academic Board. So I said, "I'm gonna have some fun with these guys," 'cause I was a colonel, I was a full colonel and they were lieutenant colonels, the department heads were lieutenant colonels. Now they're colonels, but at that time they were lieutenant colonels and I was a colonel. So I said, "I'm gonna have some fun with these guys." So we had to, we were out on Sabine Field, standing back where the tank is, milling around. So we had to march on to the field and they had a seat for us right in the middle of Sa-Sabine Field, seats. So I was to march them down on. I was the Registrar, so I said, "I'm gonna have some fun with these guys." I said, "I'll treat them like recruits." I said, "Alright Academic Board," I said there to the all-powerful board and department heads. I said alright "Academic Board, fall in!" Like they were a bunch of Rookies. I said, "Fall in!" And they fell in, they fell in, they knew what I meant. So we marched in and "I said, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4," but I didn't shout like "1! 2! 3!" Just timed it, 1, 2, 3, 4, so we would be on step but the rest of them aren't supposed to hear necessarily. So we marched on the field, I halted them, and I said, "Fall out" and they fell out and went to the seats. Well, we were, I looked out at the men and the wives were there in the, in the, in the seats, you know out in the stadium, you know, and I looked around and they were laughing. I said "Boy, the girls are having a wonderful time." The wives of the department heads and everything, they were laughing and having a nice afternoon, they were laughing and everything. Well this cadet came up, he got some award, a corporal, he got some award. And it was the awards parade and they had some special academic awards or whatever awards they were. The Dean was pinning them on, Dean Perry, he went out with me, I took him down. I mean I walked down with him. And so he was a, this corporal I guess came up and he was pinning an award on him at the awards parade. And he turned as if to go back, as if he is going to go up into the stands then he Page 30 whirled around again to get back to where he was and he went down in a heap. And I said "Oh God," and I was looking, before that happened I looked and said, "What's that on the back of the dean's neck." It looked like an hourglass of red. I said, "What the hell is that on the Dean's neck?" I said, well, I don't know. So Lillian, his wife, came down crying cause he, I guess he had a little heart trouble but he tried to do, skate, ice skate and everything to stay in shape and to exercise his heart, you know. I didn't realize that till later on. So she came down crying, after they had been sitting there laughing and having a wonderful time. And all of the sudden [snaps] the switch turned and now she was crying. We didn't know it, but he dropped dead, dead on the parade ground. So they got the ambulance, loaded him into the ambulance and took him down here I guess. And ah, so when they went on with the awards parade, finished the parade, I couldn't tell you what happened, I don't think anybody. To hell with this parade, they just took our minds off worrying about the Dean. So when the Public Relations Officer, I didn't know his name, came to the gate we all rushed over to see how the Dean was and he said, "Well he is dead." Oh my God, what a shock. I tell you that, that, that whole summer we went up to Maine, to Popham Beach, and I didn't have any fun at all, really, I couldn't get him off my mind. Oh God, it was terrible. I had a terrible summer. And I remember this time, I went first day registering for classes and everything and I went there, and all of a sudden I got involved, I was in the midst of organizing something, my position there had me organize. And I swear the Lord put his hand on me and said, "Son, forget it." That's how I figured it out, just like turning on the switch I went from a miserable summer thinking about the Dean, I couldn't get him off my mind, and I went there and still felt bad and then bingo, I rolled up my sleeves and went to work. The weight just dropped right off and I said, "My God, the Lord just answered my prayer, I'm healed, I am ready to go to work." It was that fast. And that is when I began to believe in God. And that's how that went. JP: What was the hourglass on his neck? You said there was an hourglass on his neck. MHS: Well I don't know what it was. It was—showed up from the stands. It was red like an hourglass and I said, "I don't know if anybody else noticed it, probably did." I noticed it when I was sitting back there with the Academic Board. And you see, I was on the Academic Board as Registrar, without a vote. Well I didn't give a goddamn whether I voted or not, but I was on the Academic Board without vote, because of my position as Registrar. And so I sat there and looking for anything in particular and I did see that on his neck, and it was bright red, like an hourglass, spider. What's that spider that has an hourglass and is poisonous? JP: Oh, it's a black widow. MHS: Yeah, looked like a black widow spider and I didn't think anything of it, but it showed up and I was kind of, I sat in back and uh, I could see that. Then I poo-pooed the idea, I said, "Oh that's, that's nothing." But then he dropped, of course we didn't know whether he fainted or what it was, he dropped dead, and that whole summer I was, spoiled my summer, spoiled my whole summer. Page 31 JP: Was it a spider on his neck? MHS: I don't know what that was. I don't know what it was. Bright red. And I said "What is that on his neck?" I wasn't going to ask that. Then he dropped, and course we didn't know he died, we thought he could have just fainted, you know, but he dropped dead. And when the Public Relations Officer came through after the parade, I couldn't tell you what went on the parade, I don't think anybody else did either, paid attention to the parade. But they had the awards parade, and then I remember everybody rushed to the gate because the Public Relations man went up the ambulance that picked up the Dean. He came back and we knew he'd have the story on the Dean. So we all rushed to him to see how the dean was, and he said, "He is dead." JP: Oh my goodness. MHS: And let's see. And I remember so plainly. I of course spoiled my summer. That first day I, so I rolled up my sleeves and went to work and it was, I said, "It left me. It stayed with me all summer and bang!" so I turned on a light switch, and I said, "I'm done, I'm through with it, it's done, it's over with it. And I won't grieve no more. I won't grieve anymore." And I didn't and I marveled at what happened because I was—had such a miserable summer and I guess it was just to work, but like turning on a light switch. I went feeling miserable to I said, "I'm healed now, God made that, made that for me," that's what I said [chuckles]. JP: That's nice, that's nice, is there anything else you want to add about Norwich or your service? MHS: I really can't think of, it was important that I almost quit before I started [chuckles]. And Black, Black was—the Corps played tricks on Black7because Black was deaf. He had a hearing thing. He was pretty deaf. He had this hearing thing, he was always twisting it in his ear, everyone knew he was deaf. So they played a trick on him. One time the band was down at the end of the parade so they decided that they wouldn't play it, take their instruments and make believe they were playing and he wouldn't know the difference. So he walks out of here the band appeared to be playing and they weren't and he figured it was his hearing piece and cadets will do those things, you know, when a weakness, they're good at springing in there. [chuckles] They're clever that way JP: They are resourceful. Did you, when you rode horse, at Norwich, in the cavalry training, did you ride Roman style? Did you stand? Did you guys do that thing where you stand on the two horses? MHS: No, they had, no we didn't do that trick riding. We had, it was scheduled like a class, but, or the classes was every other day, meets 3 times a week, this equitation, everybody had to, was 7 LTC John W. Black, USA (ret) Commandant from 1953-1957 Page 32 a class, you got credit for it or met once a week, and that was in the, I guess the riding hall is still down there. Or the stables are there, I guess, not the riding hall is gone, and what you say now? JP: Did you get thrown at all? Or did everyone get thrown? MHS: Oh [clears throat] No. Once we were, we had a night ride and my horse we ended up in a ditch and it just wide enough for a horse and I was—I straddled the horse and I could get out, my feet were pinned in the trench, you know. It was a deep, deep trench, and it was dug, it was a trench I don't know what the purpose of it was. And I kept my feet out because it was wet in there and I got out but my horse couldn't get out. And they got, I don't know how, they got out, I've gone, but they had probably had to dig to get a pathway out, he was wedged right in there and all you could see was his head, [chuckles] head and his rump, with little bit of his rump. And just room enough so he filled that trench right up, you see? So I didn't see what they went through to get him out, of course they finally got the horse out. Now what did you say? JP: Did you get thrown? But it sounds like everybody… MHS: One time I did. I didn't get thrown, but we were galloping toward the, toward the stables and it was a free-for-all and we were going wide open. Well I was riding a horse named Ham, H-A-M, he slipped and he fell, and it landed probably by—my feet were in my stirrups but landed on my leg, but it didn't hurt me. It was a body, you know, soft, just soft and it didn't hurt me at all, didn't even make me lame, it didn't hurt me at all. And I don't know how it did get to stab- going into the stables. And well I was dismounted, because the horse stumbled and fell, so I went with the horse. That was the only time I ever fell off. JP: But the horse fell, yeah, wow. [pauses] You've done a lot of interesting things from flame throwing to… MHS: Probably, you know if you talk long enough, one things leads to another, and you, maybe one or two of them, most important things I probably haven't even mentioned yet, but I, like anybody else, like you or anybody else, you have certain experiences. And if you go off to visit and you come home, your parents want to know what you did, or somebody wants to know what you did and you try to recollect what you did. Things that impressed you. And I said so many things can happen in the situation I was in. I can, one thing can lead to another, probably two or three funny things that happen that I can't remember right now. The art, I went to theater in Morrisville, we called it Bijou Theater and they'd, before the main figure, they needed a comedy, short comedy. One reel, a comedy or a news. So this time I was sitting in the theater the Pathè News came on. It was a Norwich scene, and I said, and I said, I was so surprised, I remember the scene, I said, "I was there!" I don't know if anybody heard me in the theater. And here I was in the theater and here was a scene "I was there! I was there, "I said, "My God, I was there!" It was Pathè News and it was a big news company, worldwide, Pathè News, and somebody like Pathè, P-A-T-H-E, and everybody knew what Pathè News was. And they'd have either that or a comedy. [inaudible] I don't think anybody heard me when I said, "I was there," but I was. Page 33 JP: Where was, what was Pathè News covering? Was it overseas? MHS: It was, it was, they showed the events of Norwich, showed them coming down a steep hill, very steep hill and they're, horses were fighting, you know, as they went. Horses are well-trained, and I guess they have they trust the rider, he knows what he's doing, and they do, they have to trust the rider, so they knew didn't throw anybody, they knew they had to get down, and they were scooting, sliding, they couldn't walk or down or they had to slide down, down they went, dutifully down the steep hill. And Pathè News, which was a big news in those days, it was the big news and they recorded that scene, so that's why I said, "I was there." [chuckles] I was surprised, small world. Well as you try to recollect things, one thing leads, leads to another. If you ask me something, I go off on a tangent and probably have some remarks, yeah [chuckles]. JP: So you worked at Norwich and then you then retired, what did you do after you retired from Norwich? MHS: Let's see now. I retired, oh, I was in, oh I retired from Norwich… JP: In '70….? MHS: Oh I was Norwich for, oh I retired from Norwich, oh I guess went to, let's see. I retired from Norwich, where was I? Where was I living? I was in Chicago when I came home, I was in Chicago and [pauses] oh well I guess I retired. I just retired. Yeah I just retired. JP: So you retired here? MHS: Yeah, I had several incomes. I had 5 incomes, I can't remember all of them—TIA-CREF, a pension, Norwich salary, working at Norwich. And I remember I had 5 incomes. I had a rental income, so I had 5 incomes. So I had a good income, and when I— JP: Did you travel with Issy? Did you and Issy travel to the places? MHS: Well I, when in the Army, yes. Issy went with me. Took about 5 months for a dependent wife down in Japan. A dependent could not go to Japan. They could go to Europe, because that was all settled, but in Japan that came later on. So the wife, so after the war was over in Japan, it took about 5 months to get your dependent wife over. So I was in Japan and Issy joined me in Japan. Well she had a, it was a Washburn, it was teaching school, teaching American schools, just teaching Americans in schools in Japan. No Japanese, American dependents, children. And Issy, they were waiting, Washburn, her husband, she worked in the school system and she knew Issy was a teacher so they desperately need teachers. So I [she] said, "Has Issy got here yet, when's she coming and everything?" So Issy got there 11:00 in the morning and 1:00 she was teaching school, American children [chuckles] and so what we did, we lived—Issy she had a GS-7, that's a federal rating, you know the ratings? And she was a GS-7, which is officer, I mean, so Issy on her own, if she wasn't married to me, well that job she could go to an officer's club. IfPage 34 she was GS-5, she couldn't, but with a GS-7 she could go on her title to an officer's club. So now what were? JP: Issy traveling and teaching in Japan MHS: Yeah. She taught a—I think a graded school, then she had a special class of Japanese. And I didn't think Japanese were very goodly people but by golly, Issy, well she was at the wheel, she had this meeting and she passed out certificates. They passed a certain field in education, she trained them—she was the head of the school system, of that particular school system. And so Issy ran that show and I'm pretty proud of her and by gosh and I sat there and they'd come get their diplomas and oh they were so pleased those Japanese to get their diploma, and I look at them and for the first time I saw a beautiful Japanese girl. Most of them aren't very pretty, but by golly they were that day, I said, "By God, what a beautiful, beautiful girl, they came by me." The Japanese you have to get used to them, they have kind of a flat look like somebody slammed the door on their face or something there they, I couldn't see a pretty one there, but after I'd been there awhile there were some pretty Japanese girls. We had a maid, we were allowed two but we only wanted one. We had a male, he was a handsome Japanese man, young man, but he was a really handsome guy. He wasn't dependable so we let him go, he didn't show up when he felt like it. So we fired him. All we wanted was one anyway, and our quarters was just where we wanted it [phone goes off]. Our quarters were on a block. You could look down south of the yard and see all the shipping in the port. Oh it was a beautiful thing, we were up high and we'd look down and we were, my office was right down at the customs, customs building port of entry in Japan. And we'd, we'd, many a time there would be a cloud, you couldn't see anything, and you'd drive about a quarter or half mile, quarter or half mile, you'd be riding that cloud, when you're in it, you couldn't see much, but it was like a heavy fog. Then you'd come out of it, come out of it there's the blows all laid out for it. It was the headquarters, it was the port of entry for Japan, for commercial shipping, commercial shipping. And I had an office down there. JP: You liked Japan? MHS: I was up on the bluff. Oh I had a real, it was quarters and 388. "Oh I want those quarters." Well what they do, they post them as they come available. I knew 388 had, of all of quarters up on the bluff, way up, looking down, I said, "That is the one I want." Well they'd post - be 5 or 6 housing be available - and when your name got to the top, you got a choice, you take second place, second choice of those say ten or dozen available. And if you didn't take it, you're holding up someone, then your name went down to the bottom of the list. So you, so you couldn't get top and stay in the top. If you didn't take something, holding up for something better, you went down the bottom. So they said you couldn't do that. So I, my number didn't come up and wasn't my time to choose yet and I said, "Oh geez I hope that number doesn't come up too soon." And so my number came up, a group of people for housing, you like to stay there, at such time that you can get housing for you, you had to be there a little while before you got housing, say 10 days or something like that to get housing and that's it, oh man I said, 'Oh God, I Page 35 hope that 388 is there, if isn't I'm screwed, 'cause that's the one I wanted,' and it hadn't been on the list at all, my name was on it, that's where my lame name come up, then you got to choose, and if you don't, then you get down the bottom of the list, so you got to choose, and 'Bam' me, 388, and 'Bam,' just I wanted so I was high on the bluff and I could look down at the shipping and the port, it was way up high on the bluff, oh God it was nice. JP: What port was it, what was the name of the port, do you remember? MHS: The port? JP: Yeah, what town was it? MHS: I think it was the main port of entry, had a big huge beautiful brick building. JP: Was it Tokyo? MHS: Yeah, no, no Yokohama, Tokyo was about 17 miles I think it didn't take long because it had a beautiful, I think, 2 way highway between Yokohama and Tokyo. So you can get to Yokohama, you can be in Yokohama, and you can be in Tokyo in 20 minutes, you couldn't drive very fast. It had this beautiful road but the—I think you're limited 25 miles an hour, and I got stopped once I thought I was staying, and the GI, GI's they wrote me up I guess for speeding, I think I was going probably 26 miles an hour, something like that, and I got a ticket from a GI but he was authorized to do it, he was an MP. JP: What did you drive, what kind of car were you driving? MHS: I had a, I had Buicks, I had a new Buick, I bought a new Buick and two weeks after I bought it, I got my call to report to, I was in New England, in Vermont, to get, Seattle I think it was, a certain time no San Francisco, be in San Francisco. Then when I got in San Francisco, then Roosevelt directed me to Seattle, I got to San Francisco, then for two or three days, then they sent me to Seattle, so I shipped out of, originally it said San Francisco, but they sent me to San Francisco, I waited then they sent me to Seattle and I shipped out of Seattle for Japan, does that answer your question? JP: That's good, so you liked Japan? MHS: Yeah, so my—your car follows you by about 2 weeks so they ship your car but you have to wait about 2 weeks, before your car catches up with you. So I did, so I had a new Buick and I traded every year for a new Buick with the Japanese people, they're nice people and what I did was I'd buy a new Buick after a year I turned it in and they'd give me another new Buick. No deprecation or anything, so I got 3 brand new Buicks at no cost, and when I got home, I sold it for what I paid for it, you couldn't raise the price on a new car. That was a Japanese law, you couldn't raise a price on a new car, you could on a used car. So what they would do is buy a new car, and if you didn't want put it up on the market, then they'd probably double the money, you Page 36 couldn't sell a new car beyond the market price. Well I wanted a, they had 4 Cadillacs, well I guess I was—I was outranked or something another, I didn't get the Cadillac anyways, they only had 4. So I said to the Japanese, I said, 'Don't you now wished now you sold me the Cadillac, because I said I would sold it back to you?' that's what I did with my new Buick. I said I sold it back to you, double your money, and said, 'Yes we could have.' That was—I was too late. [chuckles] Background voice: I'm sorry to interrupt, we're about to leave, and we're about to pull out of the garage. JP: Oh, sure, well, do you have anything else you want to add Moe? MHS: Not unless, you have any questions. JP: I just want to thank you, truly for giving me the time and all this wonderful information. MHS: I like to rehash old times and I have to stop to think, to, you forget these things, but I was, I remember I felt like, I said, 'God's with me and I was an unknown major, and I had been there 3 days, and I was named the General Staff and I said, 'Uh huh,' I said, 'there must be hundreds of majors that would give their ITs to be on the General Staff,' and I was a new major, and somebody God, somebody lead me to them or me, and after 3 days I got a job on the General Staff, and I thank God for that, I said, 'God had a hand in that.' [chuckles] JP: That's certainly true, well you must have been good, [both interrupt] MHS: Oh well, I don't know…
Issue 2.5 of the Review for Religious, 1943. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious SEPTE/xlBER 15, 1943 Prayer to Christ the King . Thomas A. O'Conno'r" Progress in Prayer. . Robert B. Eiten ,Sacred Vessels and Linens . ~ . James E. Risk Leadership in Catholic At÷ion ¯ ¯ ¯ . , ¯ Vouree Watson Devotlonto the Holy Name Gerald Ellard Sfimmer School in the Spiritual Life . Patrick M. ,Regan '~ Book Reviews Communica÷ions Questions Answered Decisions of the Holy See VOLUME II NUMBER 5 RF.VII::W FOR. RELIGIOUS VOLUME 11 SEPTEMBER 15. 1943 . NUMBER CONTENTS THE PRAYER TO CHRIgT THE KING--Thomas A. O'Connor, S.J2.81 PROGRESS IN PRt~YER--Robert B. Eiten. S.d .2.9.7 THE STORY OF CARMEL . 306 THE HANDLING OF SACRED VESSELS AND LINENS---~ James E. Risk. S.d. .~ . 307 PAMPHLET NOTICES . 311 THE PRINCIPLE OF LEADERSHIP IN CATHOLIC ACTION-- Youree Watson. S.J . 312 D.EVOTION TO THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS--Gerald Ellard, S.J.327 A SUMMER SCHOOL IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE'--- Patrick M. Regan. S.J . 329 COMMUNICATIONS (On Vocation) . 333 BOOK REVI-EWS (Edited by Clement DeMuth. S.J.)m THE MASS PRESENTED TO NON-CATHOLICS-- By the Reverend John P. McGuire . 336 . A HANDY GUIDE FOR WRITERS--. By the Reverend Newton B. Thompson, S.T.D. 336 AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH BY CENTURIES-- ¯ By the Reverend Joseph McSorley . 337 THE ONE GOD. By the Reverend Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange, O.P.337 HANDBOOK OF MEDICAL ETHICS. By the Reverend S. A. La Rochelle, O.M.I. and the Reverend C. T. Pink, M.D., C.M. ' 338 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 32. Meaning of "Constitutions" . . 339 33. Blessing of Subjects by Superigress . 339 34. Legislation on Benediction of Blessed Sacrament . 339 35. Moment when Dispensation from Vows takes Effect .~ . 340 36. Diocese of Origin for a Convert . 341 37. Abstinence Imposed by Rule and by Church . 341 38. Presence Required for Mass of Obligation . 342 39. Intention Required for Gaining Indulgences . - 342 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE OF INTEREST TO RELIGIOUS343 REVIEW~ FOR RELIGIOUS, September 1943. Vol. II. No. 5. '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, Topek.a, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.3. G. Augustine Ellard. S.3. Gerald Kelly. Copyright, 1943, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author., Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. The Prayer Ch ris : !:h e,King,- Thomas A. O'Connor, S.3. 44 lONG live Christ theKing!" The shout rose to a roar.Up from the streets below, this battle cry of the persecuted Mexican Catholics floated through the open windows of the presi-dential palace. Calles heard it and knew that somehow his triumph .was being turned into defeat. Only a day before he was sure that he had conquered. The scene of his imagined triumph was an enclosed courtyard, with powder-blackened Walls, pockmarked.by bullet holes, before which jutted up a protecting log barri~ cade with flat, human-sized wooden dummies before it. This was where the firing squad did its bloody work. The political prisoner, whose death Calles had unjustly decreed, showed not even, the slightest trace of hatred or surliness in his manner, as he stood there'in his dark suit with a checkered vest sweater showing through his unbuttoned coat. "Have you any last request?" barked the captain of the firing squad. "Permit me to pray," he calmly replied; and he knelt down on the sand and gravel, turning slightly away from the crowd. Reverently he made the sign of' the cross, prayed devoutly for a few moments with joined hands, then, kissing fervently the little crucifix he held in his hand, he rose and faced his executioners. Crucifix in hand, he made the sign of the cross over the soldiers and officers there. "May God have mercy on you all." 281 THOMAS A. O'~CONNOR Then with his rosary twined about his left hand, he extended his arms in the form of a cross. "I forgive my enemies from the bottom of my heart." Saying this, he lifted his eyes to the clear, blue heavens. A moment's pause: then slowly, r~verently, firmly came the beautiful words: "Long live Christ the King!" Th~ rifles cracked. The prison~er slumped heavily to the ground. An awful silence. A sergeant stepped up, and fireda bullet through the victim's head. It was 10:30 a. m. November 23, 1927. Two years before, on December 11, 1925, Pope Plus XI had issued his encyclical on Jesus Christ King. Father Pro arid hisloyal Mexican Catholics had heard this call to a more valiant service of Christ the King. In trying to win their country to the Kingdom of-Christ, the)~ had sealed their lives with their blood. Father Pro's last words, "Longlive Christ the King," had been the spark which detonated the thunderous roar that Calles heard the next day, as six thousand marchers and five hundred cars escorted the body of Father Pro to Dolores Hill for burial. The Feast or: Christ Our King In his encyclical, Quas Primas, establishing the Feast of Christ the King, Pope Plus XI said: "When we command that Christ Our King be venerated by Catholics throughout the world, We are providing for the special needs of our own day a very effective remedy against the pests which pervade human socie.ty." In other parts, of the same encyclical, the Pope further explained these special needs of our time: "Evil has spread throughout the world because the greater part of mankind has banished Jesus Christ ~nd His holy law from their lives, their families, and from public 282 PRAYER TO CHRIST THE KING affairs . There will never arise a sure ho]ae of lasting peace between the peoples oi~ the world as long as individ-uals and nations continue to deny or refuse to acknowledge the rule of Christ, Our Savior. It is necessary for all men to seek 'the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ' . "Today.we grieve., over the seeds of discord apparently sown everywhere, the rekindling of hatreds and-rivalries between .pe0ples which prevent the re-establish-ment of peace. In spite of :this we are sustained by the holy hdpe that the Feast of Christ Our King, wbich will be ' :celebrated hereafter every year, will at last lead society to our Blessed Savior . It appears to us that an annual cele-bration of the F~ast of Christ Our King will greatly assist all nations . In fact, the more the dear name of Our Redeemer is passed over in shameful silence, be it in inter-national meetings, be it in parliaments, so much the more nec?ssary is it to acclaim Him as King ~ind announce every-where the rights of His royal dignity and power. "All indeed can see that since the. end of the last century, the way Was being prepared for the long desired institution of this new feast day . The supremacy of the Kingdom of Christ w'as also recognized iri thi~ pious practice of all those who dedicated, even co.nsecrated, their families to the Sacred Heart of Jestis." Then he referred to Leo XIII's cons.ecration of the whole human race to the Sacred Heart. Announcing his intention to do this, Pope Leo XIII had said: ."I am about to perform the gr~eatest act 6f my pontificate." .In his encyclical on "The ConSecration of all Mankind to the Sacred Heart," given on May 25, 1899, he added: ",lust as, When the newly born Church lay helpless under l~he yoke of the Caesars, there appeared in the'heavens a cross,, at once the sign and the cause of the marvelous vict0~y that was soon to follow, so today before our very eyes there appears 283 THOMAS A. O'CONNOR another most happy and holy sign~ the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, crowned by a brilliant cross set amid raging flames. In this Sacred Heart we shall place all our hopes; from it, too, we ask and await salvation." "In virtu~ of Our Apostolic authority," said Pope Pius XI, "We institute the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ King, and decree that it be celebrated everywhere on the last Sun-day of October . Likewise We decree that on this very same day, annually, there is to be renewed the consecration of all mankind to the. Sacred Heart of Jesus." Pra~ter t~ ~Christ the King On February 21, 1923, through the Sacred Peniten-tiary, Plus XI approved the Prager to Christ the King, and to its recital he attached a plenary indulgence, once a day, under the usual conditions (Preces et Pia Opera,. 1938, n. 254). Undoubtedly it was the Pontiff's wish that every loyal follower of Christ would daily recite this act Of per-sonal loyalty to Christ the King. In the remainder of this article we are developing the various phrases of the Prayer to Christ the King, somewhat after the. manner .of the second method of prayer, by quoting generously from Pius XI's encyclicals on "Christ the King" ~Quas Primas), and "Reparation to the Sacred Heart" fMiserentissimus Redemptor), and from Leo XIII's "Consecration of all Mankind to the Sacred Heart" (Annum Saqrum). "'0 Christ Jesus" "Whose name is above every name . who though by nature God . made (himself) like unto men . appearingin the form of man" (Philippians 2:6). In the words of the Athanasian Creed, "He is God begotten before all ages from the substance of His Father, 284 PRAYER .TO CHRIST THE KING and He is Man born in time from th~ substance of. His Mother." The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, assuming human nature, united it to the Divine Nature under His single Personality in a union which is called the Hypostatic Union. Hence "not only is Christ to be adored as God by angels and men, but also angels and men must be subject to His empire as Man." He is perfect Man as He is perfect God. "Thou art beautiful above the sons of men," says the Psalmist, "grace-is poured abroad in thy lips, therefore hath God blessed Thee forever and ever." In Him, flowering forth in all its fullness, is ever~ virtue and perfection: kindness, sympathy, patience, strength, courage, wisdom, loyalty, self-sacrifice, love. He is also God with full power and kingly majesty: all-wise, all-holy, all-powerful, all-merciful. Christ .Jesus, at whose name "every knee should bend of those ifi heaven, on earth and under the.earth, and every tongue should.confess that the Lord Jesus.Christ is in the glor~ of God the Father" (Philippians 2: 10). '~I Acknowledge Thee King of the Universe" "We assert that it is necessary to vindicate for the Christ-Man both the name and power of a King in the full meaning of that term." (Quas Primas) "Christ reigns as King in the minds of men not only because of the keenness of His mind or the vastness of His knowledge, but also because He is the Truth. It is there-fore necessary that all men seek and receive the truth from Him in full obedience. "Christ reigns as King in the wills of men either because there was in Him a complete submission of the human will to the Divine, or because He influences our free will in such 285 THOMAS A. O'CONNOR an efficacious way by His holy inspiration that we are led to desire only the noblest things. "Finally Christ is recognized as the King of Our. Hearts because of that love of His which surpasses all understand-ing and because of the supreme attraction we have for His divine meekness and kindness. No man, in fact, ever was so much loved as Jesus Christ, or ever will be." (Quas Primas) "The. Empire of Christ extends not only over Catholic peoples, and over those who, reborn in the font of Baptism, belong by right to the Church; it embraces even those who do not enjoy the Christian faith, so that all mankind is un-der the power of Christ." (Annum Sacrum) The doctrine of Christ the King is amply vindicated in the words of the New Testament. The Archangel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she was to bear a Son. "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of David His father, and He shall be king over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:32). Christ took every opportunity to call Himself King and publicly affirmed His Kingship in the court of the Roman governor (John 18:37). "Thou art then a King?" asked Pilate. "Thou sayest it," Jesus answered, "I am a King. This is why I was born, and why I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth." In the Apocalypse (1:5) St. John calls Him "the ruler of the Kings of the earth" and again (19:6) "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords." Of His kingship Christ said: "All power in heavena.nd on earth has been given to me. Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." 286 PRAYER TO CHRIST THE'KING "Could He possibly have meant anything else by these: words than that His regal power was absolute and that His kingdom extended over all th~ earth?" (Quas Primas) "He announced before .the Roman consul that His kingdom 'was not of this earth'," yet, "since Christ has received from His Father an absolute right over all created things, so that all are subject to His will, they would err grievously, who would take from the Christ-man power over all temporal things . " (Quas Prirnas) "'All That Has Been Created Has Been Made for Thee" "All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing that was made" (John 1:3). "As God, Christ possessed full and absolute sway over all created things. As Man, it can be said-that He has received 'power, honor, and a. kingdom' from the Father." In the book of Daniel (7:13) we read: "I beheld a vis-ion of the night, one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven., and he gave him power, and glory, and a.kingdom; and all peoples, tribes and tongues shall serve him; his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away; and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed." The prophet Isaias tells us of the future coming of the King, who will be no less than God Himself, appearing up-on earth in the lowly and endearing form of a human babe. "Achild is born to us and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name shall.be called Wonderfu!, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. His empire shall. be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to es-tablish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for ever" (Isaias 9:6-7). "The Lord hath made all things for Himself," saysPro- 287 THOMAS A. O'CONNOR verbs (16:4). God brought into being from nothingness all things that are. Being Infinite Wisdom He could not act without some definite purpose in mind. Since nothing had existed previously but Himself, and since nothing but Him self could be an end worthy of His action, He created all things for Himself. Not that He needed these. No. For, being Infinite, nothing was wanting to Him. Nor cou!d these add to His perfections since, being All-Perfect, He pos-sessed all things in their fullness. But being Infinite Goodness He longed to communicate His gifts to others; and "from His fullness we have all re-ceived" (John 1:16). By His omnipotent fiat all things were made. Every-thing called into existence is a copy, even though necessarily imperfect and limited, of some aspect of His infinite perfec-tion. Each reflects something of His nature and attributes. "The heavens show forth the glory of God and the firma-ment declareth the work of his hands" (Psalms 18:2). "If any one Shall say that the world was not created for the glory of God, .let him be anathema" (Vatican Council). "'Exercise upon Me All Tby Rights'" "Christ rules over us by right o1: birth." He was born a King. "He has dominion over every one of us by His very essence and nature. "But Christ rules over us not only by right of birth, but also by right of conquest," by His redemption of mankind. "You know that you were redeemed., not with perishable things, with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ" (2 Peter 1 : 18). "We therefore no longer belong to ourselves alone, for Christ has bought us with a 'great price'." (Quas Primas) "Do you not know . . . that you are not your own? For you have been bought at a great price. Glorify God and 288 PRAYER "~O CHRIST.THE KING bear. Him in your body" (I Corinthians 6:20). "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 6: 15). "Your members are the temple of the Holy'Ghost" (1 Corinthians 6:.19). Christ rules over men also by His right of law-glver. "For the Holy Gospels not only tell us that Christ promul-gated laws, but they also present Him in the very act of making them." (Quas Primas) Again Christ rules over men b.y His right of judge. "For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given, all judgment to the Son" (3ohn 5:22). lzastly, "executive power must equally be attributed to Christ, since it is necessary for all to obey His commands," and no one violates them without meeting the punishments He has established. "I Renew Mg Baptismal Promises Renouncing Satan and All His Works and Pomps" The Kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness.are opposed to the Kingdom of Christ. In his Epistle to the Ephe~ians (6:11) St. Paul urges us to "Put on the armor of God that you may be able to stand against the. wiles of the devil. For our wrestling i~ not with flesh and blood, bu~ against the Principalities and the Powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness on high." We renew the promises we made at Baptism. "Do you renounce Satan and all his work~ and pomps?" the priest asks at Baptism. And the one being baptized or the sponsor answers: "I do renounce them." "'I Promise to Lead a Good Christian Life'" The Kingdom of Christ "requires from its subjects not only that their souls be deta, ched from riches and worldly things, that they rule their lives, and that .they hunger and 289 THOMAS A. O'CONNOR thirst after justice, but also that they renounce themselves and take up tl~eir cross." (Quas Primas) Before Christ can reign over the whole world, He'must reign over the hearts of individuals. Before world-conquest'for Christi we must think of self-conquest. With a complete surrender of ourselves there will follow quickly an entire dedication of our energies and ability to His Divine service and to doing Our part in conquering the world for Christ. Christ the King must rule over our minds, over our ¯ wil!s, over our hearts, over our bodies. Listen to the~vords df Pope PiusXI: "It is necessa~ythat Our Lord should rule over the mind of man, who by his intellectual submission shall firmly and at all times assent to the revealed truth and doctrines of Christ; that He rule over the will, which shall obey the divine law and com-mands; that He rule .over our hearts, which despising mere natural love shall love God above all things and be united to Him alone; that He rule over our bodies which as instru-ments . will promote the sanctity of the soul." (Quas Primas) By leading a good Chris;an life we not only horror God, but we bring great peace and happiness to ourselves: For, truly; to serve Him is to reign. He alone is deservng of our whole-hearted attention, and to serve Him devotedly i~ to reign in a peace and happiness which the world cannot give. To serve Him and not the world; to serve Him and not the flesh, to serve Him and not ourselves; is to reign over the deceitful allurements of the world, is to reign over the imperious demands of our traitorous fl~sh, is to reign over the fretful importunings of our self-love with all its yearn-ings for prominence and vain display. To serve Him is to reign over our fickle feelings, our wild, intemperate impulses, and all the chaotic twists of our sin-disrupted 290 PRAYER TO CHRIST THE KING nature: our outbursts of impatience and irritability, our fits of moodiness, our haughty airs and domineering ways, our quick, sarcastic tongues, our instinctive shunnings of little hardships, our selfish seeking of comforts and the good things of life, our petty quarrelings, and our puerile nursing of work-a-day bruises as serious, intentionally- .inflicted wounds. Only by serving Him and forgetting ourselves, do we rise to that greatness of soul whereby we reign over self, over the vicissitudes of life and over the. creatures of time. .~ t//"And to Do Ail in M~! Power to P~ocure the Triumph of the Rights of God and That Church" "The rule of Christ over mankind'has been denied, the Church has been refused the right which comes from th~ very law of Jesus Christ to teach all peoples, to make her own laws for. the sp!ritual government of her subjects in. order to bring them to eternal happiness. Little by little the Christian religion has been made. the equal of other.and false religions . The Catholic religion was made subject to the civil power and was practically abandoned to the control of rulers. . There were not wanting governments which imagined they could do without God and ~over up their lack of religion by irreligion and disrespect for God Himself." (Quas Primas) How are we to meet this modern apostasy from God and bring back Christ to the modern wbrld? We must do all in our power to bring about the ]:eign of Christ. We must use every legitimate means to restore His. rule over the individual, the family, the nation, and the whole, world. For this "purpose the Feast of Christ the King w.as instituted. It is a clarion call to a "more virile, more militant, more 29i THOMAS A. O'CONNOR aggressive Catholicism." Every Catholic is called upon to serve in this campaign. "To hasten this return to Christ by means of good works and organized social actions is a duty incumbent on every Catholic, of many of whom it can be said truthfully, that neither positions nor authority in civic life have been accorded as would be fitting to those who tarry before them the torch of Truth. "This condition perhaps is due to the a.pathy or timidity of the good who abstain from strife and are apt to resist only too weakly. From our weakness the enemies of the Church are emboldened to greater and more fearless acts of audacity. "But w.hen the Faithful clearly understand that they must fight with courage, always under the banner Of Christ Our King,. they will then sttidy with the zeal of Apostles how best to lead rebellious and ignorant people back "to God. At the same time they will themselves acquire strength to keep inviolate God's holy laws." (Quas ¯ Primas) Last Christmas Eve Pope Plus XII, b.roadcast[ng t6 ~he whole world, called upon "all men of good will to unite in a holy crusade . . . Sad as is the condition of the world today, it is not a time for lamentation. Now is the time for action . ¯ Be ready to serve and sacrifice yourselves like the crusaders of old. Then the issue was the liberation of a land hallowed by the life of the Incarnate Word of God. Today the call is to set free the holy land of the spirit, that, liberated from all the evils and errors to which it is subject, there may arise thereon a new social order of lastingpeace and justice . Thesewords are meant as a rall_ying cry to the magnanimous and brave of heart." They are a call'to them "to unite in a solemn vow" whereby they pledge themselves "not to rest until in all peoples and in all nations 292 PRAYER TO CHRIST THE KING on earth there shall be formed a vast legion who are bent on bringing back man to God." "'Divine Heart o~: Jesus, I Offer Thee M~t Poor Actions" Young and 01d, weak and strong, learned and unlet-tered-- Leach one can do much to hasten the reign of Christ over man. ¯ Made a soldier of Christ by Confirmation, each of us must "labor as a.good.soldi~r of Christ" (II Timothy 2:4). .- Insignificant as our actions seem, they yet have great efficacy for good. "A wondrous bond joins all the Faithful to Christ, the same bond which unites the head with the other members of the body, namely, the communion of saints, a bond full of mystery which we believe in as Catholics, and by virtue of which individuals and nations are not only united, to one another but likewise with the he~d itself, 'who is Christ. For from him the whole body (being closely joined and knit together through every joint of the system according to thefunctioning in due measure of each single part) derives its increase to the- building up of itself in love' " (Ephesians 4:15-1 6). (Miserentissimus) "W.e are held to the duty of making reparation by the most powerful motives of justice and love; of justice, in order to expiate the injury done to God by .our sins and to re-establish by means of penance the Divine Order which has been violated; and of love, in order to suffer together with Christ. so that we may bring Him, in so far as our human weakness permits, some comfort in His sufferings." ( M iserentissimus ) "At the present ,time we in a marvellous manner may ¯ and ought to console that Sacred Heart which is be.ing wounded continually by the sins of thoughtless men, since Christ Himself grieved over the fact that He was abandoned 293 THOMAS A. O°CONN~R by His friends. For He said, in the words of the Psalmist, 'My heart has expected reproach and misery. And I looked for one that would grieve together with Me, but there was none; and for one that would comfort me, and I found none. "Anyone who has been considering in a spirit of love all that has beefl recalled [namely about the sufferings Christ endures from men]., if he has impressed these thoughts, as it were, upon the fleshy tablets of his heart, such a one assuredly cannot but abhor and flee all sin as the greatest of evils. "He will also offer himself whole and entire to the will of God, and will strive to repair the injured Majesty of God by constant prayer, by voluntary penances, by patient suf-fering of all those ills which shall befall him; in a word be will so organize his life that in all things it will be inspired bythe spirit of reparation . "We order . a solemn act of reparation in order that we may, by this act, make reparation for our own sins and may repair the rights which have been violated of Christ, the King of Kings and our most loving Master." (Mis-erentissimus) "'That All Hearts Mag Acknowledge Thg Sacred Rogaltg'" "The annual celebration of this feast [o~ Christ the King] ~will also become a means of recalling to the nations their duty of publicly worshipping Christ, that to render Him obedience is not only .the duty of private individuals but of rulers and governments as well . His royal dig-nity demands that. Society as a whole should conform itself to the commandments of God and to the principles of the Christian life, first by the stablizati0n of its laws, then in the administration of justice, and above all things in pre-paring the souls of our young people for the acceptance of 294 PRAYER TO CHRIST THE KING sound doctrine and the leading-of holy lives." (Quas Primas) "If the heads of nations wish the safety of their govern-ments and the growth and progress of their country,, they must not refuse to give, together with the people, public testimony of reverence and obedience to the Empire~of Christ." (Quas Primas) "'And That Thus the Reign ot: Th~ Peace Mar Be Established throughout the Universe. Amen." If men, both privately and publicly, will recognize the ~overeign power of Christ, the signal benefits Of a just free-dom of calm order and of harmony and peacewill pervade . the whole human race. Just as the royal rights of our Lord" render the hflman authority of princes and heads of states sacred to a certain degree, so too they ennoble the duties imposed by obedience on the citizen. "If princes and legitimate rulers will be convinced that. they 'rule notso much in theii own right as through a man-date from the Divine King; it is easy to see what holy and wise use they will make of their power, and with what zeal for the common good and the dignity of their subjects they will be inflamed both in the making and the enforcing of laws. When. this happens every reason for sedition is removed and order and tranquility flourish and grow strong. When citizens see that their rulers and the heads of their states are men like themselves, or are for some rea-son. unworthy or culpable, they will continue even then to o.bey their commands because they Will recognize in them the image of the authority of Christ, the God-m~in. "As for the effect of all this upon concord and peace, manifestly the vaster this Kingdom is and the more widely it embraces mankind, so much the more will men become conscious of the bond of brotherhood that unites them. 295 THOMAS A. O'CONNOR Just as this consdousness of their brotherhood 'banishes conflicts so too it weakens bitterness and turns 'them into, love. If the Kingdom of Christ, which rightly embraces all men, should in fact embrace them, could we then despair of that peace which the King. of Peace brought to earth, that King, We say, who came 'to reconcile all things, who did not come to be served but to serve others' and who, though the Lord of all, made Himself an example of humility and charity as His chief law? 'My. yoke is easy and my burden light' (Matthew 11:30). "Oh, what happiness might we enjoy if individual families and states would only allow themselves tobe 'ruled by Christ! 'Then indeed,' to use the words of Our Prede-cessor, Leo XIII, addressed twenty'-five years ago to all the Bishops of the Catholic world, 'would many wounds be cured, and every right would r.egain its ancient force and the blessings of peace would return, and swords and weapons would fall to the ground, when all would will-ingly accept tl6e Empire of Christ and obey Him and when every tongue would proclaim that Our .Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory, of His Father'." (Quas Primas and Annum Sacrum) To serve Him is to reign, now and forever. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. Long live Christ the King! [NOTE: The ~ompl~te text of the Prager to ChriSt the King reads as follows: 0 Christ Jesus, I acknowledge Thee King of the universe. All that has been cre-ated has been made for Thee. Exercise upon me all Thy rights. I renew my bap-tismal promises renouncing Satan and all his works and pomps. I promise to, live a good Christian llfe and to do all in my power to procure the triumph of the rights~ of Go'd and Thy Church. Divine Heart of Jesus, I c.ffer Thee my poor actions.in order~to obtain that all hearts mag acknowledge Thy sacred Royalty and that thus the reign of Tb~l peace may be established throughout the universe. Amen.] 296 Progress In Prayer Robert B, Eiten, S.J. 44=I"o PRAY well is to live .well"--this is an old saying | famiiiar to us all. In modern scientific dress and as applied to religious, the first part, "to pray well," might be paraphrased by "progress in prayer"; and the last, "to live well," by "spiritual progress." Thus complete, our new title would be: "Progress in .Prayer is Spiritual, Progress." We religious are-all certainly-interested in spiritual progress5 for we have often heard of the obligation of tending to perfection or of making spiritual progress. We must then be interested in progress in prager since it is a very important factor in our spiritual growth. Note the title reads: "Progress in Prayer," not "Prog-ress through Prayer." Here we are not concerned with showing how prayer helps us to grow spiritually. We have taken that for granted. With this in mind our whole attention is rather focussed on progress in prayer. Besides--to make a brief important digression=-if we had been told in our early novitiate days that we should always make our prayer in the same way and that there was no hope of progress in our prayer-life, I believe that we should have been much discouraged and not very ambi-tious. That is only natural, for all life-activity seeks im-provement and development. Thus, prayer, being an activ-ity of our supernatural life, naturally.should develop, or, t6 come back to our title;there should be "Progress in Prayer." Progress in prayer carl refer either to the intensity, that is, the deep fervor of our prayer., or to. its continuity and frequency, or to both at the same time. We shall limit our- 297 ROBERT B. EITEN selves here.to its continuity, for through this approach a mode of intensified prayer-life will also be found. Perhaps there are some souls who never have the proper attitude towards prayer. These really need a few ¯ simple and correct notions on prayer so that in their minds prayer vcill not be a stilted and formalistic affair or some-thing which only the learned can do well. Quite the con-trary, Learning can be a great hindrance to successful prayer if it is not joined with the great Simplicity of soul which prayer~ r~quires. While it is true that prayer should correspond to all our relations with God, still there is one relation that we have with God which should brdinarily be emphasized more than the others. God is not our taskmaster and merely a severe Judge, and we his slaves and servants. No, He" and We are more than .that. No~ is God merely our friend, He is still more than that~ RatherGod is oui: Father and we are His dear children, as God Himself tells us: ". And I. will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters" (II Corint~aians 6: 18). But God is even more than our Father; he is our tooing Father, for St. John defines God as Love (I John 4:16).' Yes, God is Love, purest and infinite Love; He is~ our Lover, our Divine Lover, the mightiest and purest of all lovers. Hence, while ¯ we realize the fact that God is our Judge, we must espe- Cially stress the fact that He is the most loving of fathers. ¯ Ordinarily our attitude towards God ought to be that of a simple and loving child towards its father.or that of a lover towards his beloved. How simply; spontaneously, and lovingly a child converses with its father and. tells him how much it loves him and what it wants! . Or again, how simple and direct is the language of tho~e in love! . Prayer is but a familia'r and childlike conversation with God. It is a heart-to-heart communing or chat between God, our 298 ~ PROGRESS IN PRAYER loving Father, and ourselves, His children. In the intimate associations between a loving child and its dear parent, as .weli as between lovers, ~usually there is no set form ~f words or speech. Words a, nd forms of speech come spon-taneously. "Heart speaks to heart.". We may use fix.ed forms of prayer, such as the Ogice, the Our Father, the Hai! Mar~t, and giveoutward expression to them. This is called vocal prayer, an excellent fo~m of prayer and necessary for all public Church services. The Church by its wide use Of vocal prayer gives it very high approval. ~ Nevertheless, when we are alone, other things being equal, it is preferable for most of us to express to God, our Father and Divine Lover, the intimate feelings of our souls in our own words without always resorting to fixed expres, sions, although mental prayer may be made up of the latter also. Mental prayer is. the inner expression to God of the interior sentiments of ourseFces, His dear children. The Church, realizing ~he importance of mental prayer, req.uires religious superiors to see to it that their subjects devote some time daily to mental prayer (canon 595). Let the foregoing jottings suffice to show the utter free-d, orh of prayer from intricacy, as well as point out our ordi-nary attitude towards God in prayer. Such a proper atti-tude, I believe, is all-important for progress in prayer and,- perhal~s, some souls never have it. And now to return more directly to our theme: Prog, resgIn Pra~/er, From the remarks on our attitude.towards God i~ prayer, we must be even further convinced of the necessity of our progress in prayer. Does not a perfect intimacy or nearness between two souls require a.mutual interchange or communication of their ideas; longings, and projects as often as possible? And should there not be between God and us an intimacy and nearness which far surpass all other intimacies of any and all people, seeing 299 , ROBERT B. EITEN that God is the most loving of all fathers, and the .mightiest and purest of all lovers, a Lover Divine? We' all surely realize that We carry on and further this intimacy with God through pra~jer. Thus it is a question of trying to pray as well and as much as possible within the limits of prudence. In heaven a constant uniori with God will be our normal lot and one of the big factors of our happiness. In view of this future, too, it would seem that here below we ought to aspire to make this constant union with God or a pro-gressive prayer-life our Chief quest. But can this be realized? Is it possible to reach this without c~ausing violence to our souls or, as they say, "cracking our headS?". ¯ Certainly it is impossible for us to be.'praying uocatly all the time. Because of the fatigue involved, one of the greatest spiritual writers of the last three centuries recom-mended that a priest avoid saying all the hours of the Divine OfFice in one grouping. Likewise it is impossible to prolong incessantly strict meditation, which is the lowest form of men~al prayer and one made up of a chain of distinct reflec-tions or considerations with at least some simultaneous or subsequent affections. The same is true, at least for a very large majority, and particularly for those not exclusively devoted to the contemplative life, in regard to ordinary af- ¯ fective prayer. oIn affective prayer, as the name indicate~, the affections occupy more of the time than do consider~itions and reflec-tion. As more o~dinarily practised, this form of prayer includes a great variety of affections: for example, senti-ments of love, praise, gratitude, contrition, and so forth. In this ordinary form, because of the variety of the sentiments, it can scarcely be made continuous without the risk of brain fatigue. Hence we must look for something else, if we wish. to cultivate an intensive andI uninterrupted prayer-life. 300 PR0.GRESS IN PRAYER The next step forward in mental 'prayer brings us to simplified affective pra~jer or the prayer of simplicity. It is sometimes called acquired or active contemplation, the prayer of simple regard or simple presence of God. In this form-of acquired prayer, intuition or an immediate grasp of a supernatural truth largely replaces the reasoning process found to a greater or lesser degree in either meditative or ordinary affective prayer. While iri ordinary-affective prayer there is usually a variety of affections and resolu-tions, here in simplified affective prayer little variety in either is noted. Likewise representations of the imagination. as of God or our Lord,~here have little or no appeal. It is sufficient for the prayer of simplicity that there be a spiritual sentiment or affection, which is not necessarily accom-panied by sensibleemotions or even by any distinct idea such as a representation of God or our Lord or a conscious 'reflex thought of the presence of God. DeSmedt, the famous Bollandist, describes it as follows: "'It is enough that the soul be found in a disposition. similar to that of a child living for a long time near its mother, whom it loves tenderly and by whom it knows itself to be tenderly loved. It passes all its days near her, it enjoys .constantly her presence; but for this it has no need to say constantly: My mother is here, I see her. It knotos that she is there. When it has something to say to her or ask 6f her, it has but to lift its head-and speak to her; and even when it is not speaking to her, it has a very'lovirfg feeling of peace and joy, on account Of the presence of its mother."1 We said that in the prayer of simplicity there will be some thought or affection that r¢cursqalways allowing for 1Notre vie surnaturelle, t. 1, 4th ed., p. 468. I am especially indebted to this work (pp. 465-471) for much of the material in this article, especial!y for the means to arrive at the prayer of simplicity. I have also made liberal use of Poulain, Tan-querey, and Marmion. 301 ROBERT B. EITEN some inte.rruptions arid modifications--frequently, readily, and rather spontaneously, with .little or no development and in the midst of other various thoughts, some useful and others nbt. Poulain describes this occurrence as follows: "We may compare it to the strands which thread the pearls of a necklace, or.the beads of a Rosary, and which are only. visible here and there. Or, again, it is like the fragment of cork, that, carried away-by the torrent, plunges ceaselessly, appears and d!sappears. The prayer of simple regard is really only a slow sequence of single glances cast upon one and the same object.''2 Some other comparisons Of things familiar to us are the "following. Con~ider a~mother watching her baby. She thinks of it for hours lovingly,, with relish, and without reflection and fatigue, but still with some interruptions. All this she does without any concern of mind whatever, for it seems, to her such a spontaneous and loving thing to do. Or again, note how an artiit without any fatigue can become absorbed for hours with some beautiful scene or great masterpiece. AS anotherexample, s~ippose the case of a man who is 2000 miles away from home, when he is informed of the sudden death of his mother. His grief will be so intense and persistent that it will, no doubt, continue to be felt even when he is carrying on engaging conversations on the train homeward for the funeral. Perhaps best of all is the case of a person in love. Day and night he thinks of the object of his love. Yet his thoughts and affections for his loved one show little variety: and he, on his part, experiences/~o need ot~ a cfiange. Tlaus for instancea devoted husband and Wife can ~erriain alone long hours.together at home, not always having new ideas ¯ 2The Graces of Interior Prayer, 6th ed., p. 8. .302 PROGRESS IN PRAYER" to exchange, but still .relishing the joy found in being together in quiet and silence. And when they are apart, how readily their thoughts are directed to each other? When~ we realize, as we .just saw, .that God is 'our loving Father and that we are His dear children, and even more, that God is our Lover, is it not strange that this simplified affective prayer is not more common? Should we not be spontaneously prone to be occupied'with this loving Father by a loving, simple, and uninterrupted gaze just as a child is with its mother, or as one in lov~ with the object of his love? We can readily se~ .that this prayer should be a spontaneous outcome of the full realization ~ that God is our loving Fathe). and our Divine and mighties~t of lovers. The praye~: of simplicity thus brings with it a threefold simplification: first, that of reasoning or reflection; sec-ondly that oi~ the affections; and finally something that should rather naturally fbllow: that of our life, . which is ". really a'result of this prayer rathe~ than an element of it. In ordinary affective prayer there is some simplification of reasoning, but not of the affections; and as the affections of affective prayer become more simplified; this prayer verges more into simplified affective prayer or that of simplicity. It is easy-to see how this twofold simplification of reason-ing and of the affections will bring a simplification of our entire life-~-a" consequence of this form of prayer, as was just said. We pursue our work, studies, and spiritual exer-cises in the presence of God and with the spirit of faith and love. Thus, as a result of this prayer, ours is a life of uninterrupted and continual recollection. Of course, when we say uninterrupted or continual,, we are not speaking mathematically. We are rather referring to a frequent recu rrence. How are we to begin the practice of this prayer of sire- 303 ROBERT B. EITEN plicity? In keeping, with the idea that God is our,loving Father and the mightiest of all lovers, we must first of all be thoroughly convinced that God tenderlyloves us and that He finds great pleasure and ~atisfaction. in our love of Him. Secondly we must exclude from our lives, by thor-ough conquest of the senses, mind, and heart, every affec-tion which is not perfectly subordinated to the love of God arid which cannot serve to nourish this love; In brief,- through complete detachment from creatures we try to be-come wholly attached t6 God. Thirdly, we must put on Christ, .God's model Son, by bringing burselves to a com-plete conformity with His ideas~ longings, conduct, and en-tire mode of living. The more we put on God's model Son, the Apple of His eye, the more He will love us. Besides the foregoing, it is also necessary to make a deliberate attempt to live an intensive prayer-life. This prayer-life would include the following points: a ) A great fidelity to exercises of piety prescribed by rule: making them at the time and place and in the way pre-scribed, except in the rare cases of hindrance, dispensation, or other lawful excuse. b) A similar fidelity, but without childish anxiety or a sense of compulsion, to exercises of supererogationchosen with the approval of the spiritual ,director or the superior. Whatever these exercises are, they should not be left to passing whims, but should be definitely marked out ina plan of life. This plan might contain such details as the following: the amount of time to be spent daily before the Blessed Sacrament; how this time is to be distributed; how daily recollection is to be linked up with morning prayer; whether or not a weekly Holy Hour is to be' made, and so forth. One of the functions of these.,superer0gatory exer-cises is to help us to perform our prescribed exercises'better. c) A frequent use of ejaculatory prayer. It may b~ 304 ' PROGRESS II~ ~RAYER preferable to use ejaculations of our own making, since this will insure greater spontaneity on our part as well as greater fervor, whereas other fixed ejaculations are apt to be recited in parrot-like fashion. These ejaculations should be said slowly and with relish. We.can readily be deceived by large numbers here, although we might well ,aim at large num-bers if we can recite our ejaculations with .relish, slowly, and without strain. d) Eager and instinctive recourse to God in all our diffi-culties whatever they are, as in the case of trials crossing our path, or on the occasion of faults of surprise and weakness. By this constant recourse to God we acquirea habi~t or dis-position whereby in the presence of the least difficulty, suf-fering, obstacle, or unexpected consolation, we turn imme-diately by instinct to God, in an ~lan of prayer approPriate to the case at hand. This. promptness is an indication of unbroken union of our soul with God. We resemble the little child-who instinctively has recourse to its.mother in any and all difficulties. Familiarity with these four exercises, especially with the ¯ fourth, will surely bear fruit, even though it may be several years before we acquire the continuity.of the prayer of sim-plicity. If, however, after noble efforts we do not reach this continuity, let us riot be discouraged, since there are souls very holy and the object of God's special love who have similar difficulties. Among those who reach this degree of prayer in a certain measure, the majority arrive there but gradually, at the price of effort, or rather of the inner work of grace continued over a period of years. In this matter let us resign ourselves to God's Holy Will, believing that He will dispose all things sweetly. Beyond simplified affective .prayer we cannot advance with our own efforts, for'the next stel~ forward is into ~he realm of infused contemplative prayer. Howev.er, we ought 305 ROBERT B. EITEN to realize that the careful practice of this simplified affective prayer is the best disposition for and a stepping stone to infused prayer. Conceiving the higher phases of the prayer : of simplicity as a bridge between acquired and infused men-tal prayer, let us march forward towards this bridge, resigning ourselves, however, to God's Holy Will, after we have done our part, to decide whether or not we are to arrive on the other side of it--the life of infused contem-plation. THE STORY OF CARMEL The Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Milwaukee have edited a brief history of the Order of Carmel entitled Carmel of the Mother of God. The book includes the interesting and traditional acount of the foundation of the Order, mentions the existence of Carmelite nuns as early as 1452, and sketches St. Theresa's reform. More in detail is the inspiring story of the Carmelites' early days in the United States. The Carmel founded in Milwaukee in 1940 is completely described, since the book was written especially at the request of many friends in that city. A frank discussion of the Carmelite's daily routine and of the chief devotions fostered by the Order makes, the book both devotional and instructive. Twelve illustrations and a diagram showing the date and location of each monastery of Discalced Nuns in the United States add further interest. Copies 6f Carmel of the Mother of God may be obtained at Carmel, 4802 West Wells Street, Miiwaukee, Wisconsin. The price is fifty (50) cents.--C. A. CHAPMAN, S.J. 306 The N. andling of Sacred Vessels and Linens James E. Risk, S.J. SO GREAT is the reverence due the HolyEucharist tha~ the Church not only requires that special respect be shown to persons dedicated to the service of the Altar, but also demands that the sacred vessels and linens used in the Holy S~acrifice be accorded reverential treatment. ¯ The law regulating this treatment is expressed in Canon I306, one of the canons governing the externals of divine worship. The first,part of the canon prescribes that no on,e except clerics and sacristans be permitted to handle the chalice and paten, and the purificators, palls, and corporals that have not been cleansed after having been used in the Holy Sacrifice. The second part of the canon prescribes that the first washing of purificators, palls, and corporals used in the Holy Sacrifice be performed by a cleric in major orders, and not ~y a layman, even a religious, and that the water from this first washing be thrown into the sacrarigm or, if this be lacking, into the fire. The objects of the first prohibition are the consegrated chalice and paten, and certain linens that have been used in the Mass itself, namely, purificators, palls, and corporals. The corporal always comes into contact with the sacied .species; and both pall and purificator are !ikely to do so. The pall can absorb traces of the Precious Blood that may adhere to the rim of the chalice; the.purificator can absorb either minute particles of the Host or tiny. drops of the- . Precious Blood; though, generally speaking, none of these should remain after the ablutions. To avoid confusion, it may be useful to refer to some 307 JAMES E. RISK objects that lie outside the restrictions of this "law. The Code is silent about the ciborium, the pyx, and the lunette. Though these contain the Sacred Host at times, they are not consecrated, and they are not, properly speaking, objects whose function is directl~t connected with the Mass. Need-less to say, only a priest or a deacon may handle these ves-sels when they contain the Sacred Host. No special rest~ric-tion affects the handling of purificators, palls, and corporals that ,have never been used at Mass or that have been used, but in the meantime cleansed. The corporal used at Bene-diction is not included in the prohibition; nor are the. chalice veil, burse, vestments, and other accessories of the Holy Sacrific.e. But it is well to note here that the absence of any prohibition do~s riot excuse anyone, cleric or lay-man, from observing a reverential attitude towards al! obje4ts in any way connected with the Sacrifice of the NeW Law. Priests and religious, by word and example, should inculcate this lesson of reverence in the minds of the young, lest a carelessness born of familiarity towards holy things supplant an attitude of respect. The persons allowed to handle these sacred objecFs. according to the. first part of the canon, fall into two classes, namely, clerics and sacristans. One who receives the ton-sure formally enters the clerical state a~cording to Canon 108. Such a one may tOUCh the sacred vessels used at Mass as well as the linens described above. The second class comprises sacristans or, as the Code puts it, "those who have custody" of those objects. Sacristans are usually given charge of the sacristy and all the liturgical equipment. An assistant sacristan would enjoy the same right since he would come under the heading of those entrusted with the care of the sacred vessels. Since the law contains no restricting clause, we may conclude that the office of sacristan may be filled by man or woman, religious or lay. 308 SACRED VESSELS AND LINENS ¯ By inference we know those who are excluded from any contact with the sacred vessels or linens. They are those who have never been formally inducted into the clerical state by reason of the tonsure and those who are in no wise charged with the care of the sacristy or the altar furnish-ings. The mere fact that one is a religious does not confer on him this right. An emergency wouldjustify the handling of the sacred vessels or linens by anyon.e. Danger of theft or irreverence or harm of any kind would demand their removal to a. place of safety by any one of the faithful who ¯ happened to b~ 6n hand. To prevent immediate contact with the sa~cred vessels a cloth is sometimes used. This is a laudable custom, but there is no obligation to follow it, It may not be out of place to .propose the following question, closely allied to the matter under discussion. Who may arrange the chalice for the priest who isabout to cele- .brate Mass? The first answer comes fr.om the Rite to be Follovoed .in the. Celebration of Mass, Title ,1, no. l., instructing the celebrant to prepare the chalice. The Sacred Congregation of Kites, in response to a query, permitted such a preparation to be made by one who is allgwed by law or Apostolic privilege to touch the sacred vessels, but in the same response it recommended that the celebrant' him-self carry out the prescription of the Rite of Celebration just mentioned. This is found in the Authentic Decrees of the Sacred .Congregation of Rites, no 4198. ~ The second part of Canon 1306 concerns the first washing of pu~ificators, palls and corporals used in the Holy Sacrifice. These objects are mentioned in particul~ar because they are used in the Holy Sacrifice in such a way as ' to come into contact with the sacred species; the corporal, since it providesa resting place for the Sacred. Host; the pall and puriticat0r, since their functions do not exclude the possibility of contact with the sacramental species. The 309~ "JAMES E. RISK same may' be true to a very slight extent of the little purifi-cator used to dry the fingers of the priest who has distrib-uted H61y Communion outside of Mass or who has helped the celebrant to distribute Communion during Mass. No other linens are affected by this law. .Persons allowed to wash these linens are clerics in major orders to the exclusion of all others. The washing reserved to major clerics is the first washing, a more thorough cleansing being left to others. The two 'additional washings are.traditional but not obligatory, nor is there any obliga-tion to throw into the sacrarium the water from these addi-tional washings. The exclusive nature of this function is clear from the exhortation given to those about to be ordained subdeacons. The ordaining Bishop addresses them in these words: "- "°Dearly beloved sons, who are about to receive the 'office of the subdiaconate, consider with care the nature of the ministry which is given to you. It is the duty of'the subdeacon . to wash the altar cloths and the corporals ¯ . the cloths which are laid over the altar should be washed in one vessel, and the corporals in another. And none of the other linens should be washed in the watei in which the corporals have been washed, and this water should be thrown into the sackarium." Any exception to the law expr~essed in Canon 1306, part. 2, must be granted by the Holy See. The Congrega-tion for the Propagation of the Faith, realizing the emer-gencies and the inconveniences that often arise in the mis-sion fields, has granted to missionary Bishops the faculty to permit Sister sacristans to perform the/irst Washing of the, purificators, palls and corporals; a duty reserved by law to " those.in sacred orders, as we have just seen. When there is a serious reason for it, this same privilege can be obtained 310 SACRED V~SSELS AND LINENS from the Congregation of Religious for Sister~ outside mis= sion districts: A final word concerning the oblioation imposed by canon 1306. The first part of the canon does not seem to impose a strict obligation on lay persons not to touch the sacred vessels and linens, but merely a caution for superiors not to let them do so. The second part of the canon is" phrased more strictly: "Purific.ators, palls, etc . must not be given to lay persons for washing . . . ': To delib-erately act contrary to this prohibition without a sufficient reason-would be sinful; though, in the opinion of eminent commentators, it would not be a serious sin, as the matter is hardly grave, and the irreverence manifested would be slighk. Of coursea special emergencTmight arise in which these linens shouldbe cleansed without delay. The absence . of a major cleric and.the inconvenience involved in finding one would then justify a lay sacristan in performing the first washing of these linens, and no sin would be com-mitted in the case. The spirit of reverence that has always characterized religious sacristans makes easy the observ.ance of this law. PAMPHLET NOTICES VChat is the Bible? by the Reverend Frar.cis P. LeBuffe, S.$. Revised edition. Single copy by mail, 12 cents; 50 copies, $4.00; 100 copies, $7.00; The America Press,-70 East 45th Street, New York" 17, N. Y. Indulgence Ale, and Little Praq. ers with Plenary lndulg~nces--both by the Reverend Francis J. Mutcl~., Each 10 cents per single copy; 5 for 25 cents; 100 for $3.50. Our Sunday V.isitor Press, Huntington, Indiana. 311 The Principle ot: Leadership in Ca :holic Action Youree Watson, S.J. ARE we religious perfectly satisfied with the youth com-mitted to our care? On the whole our boys and girls are "good".---no question of that. One cannot but be aware, however, that in most of our young people this goodness is mixed with" a more or less high degree of world-liness, so that a painful new question inevitably presents itself: will they stay good after they have left us? We must acknowledge that very many of our Catholic students! are worldly. Their ambitions are of the earth: their heroes and heroines are from Hollywdod, not Heaven; their daydreams revolve around the hope of amassin~g a for-tune with its accompaniment of pleasure and prestige, or of wielding great power and influence (of course, they will be benevolent despots!) or of living long, comfortable (ig-noble) days. Surely they intend to pay to God the tribute of weekly devotion, and in many cases considerably more; but in their ordinary daily thinking the supernatural life of 0~grace doesn't loom very large or shine very brightly, so that we wonder if in the end they will not be ensnared by the spirit of this .world and come to have much the same point of view on life as the pagans who surround them. Why this worldliness? The obvious answer is that it springs from the worldly environment in which our youth live. And when I say "environment," I am not using the 1Although in this article the technique of specialized Catholic Action is for the sake of definiteness applied to a particular environment; namely, that of the student worid: nevertheless, with certain minor adjustments the very same technique is equally applicable to other environments, as that of farmers, or of workers, or of professional men and women: doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc. 312 LEADERSHIP IN CATHOLIC ACTION word in ~i narrow sense. All the numerous-influences that come tO a person from without--the sounds that crowd ~his ears, the sights that flood his eyes, and all the "meaning" which these carry---constitute his environmentl Almost every action of a man is at the same time a reaction tohis milieu. Understood in this broad way the influence of en-vironment on character is of incalculable importance. If then we are to lead the masses of our youth to the feet of Christ, we must take into serious consideration the environment, the milieu, in which they live. If the cus-todian of a goldfish pond discovers that his fish are slowly dying because of some poisonous substance in the water, he doesn't engage in the long-drawn-out task of treating each fish separately with some specific remedy., o.nly to leave him in the water to be. reinfected--no, he simply proceeds to change the water. The efficient process of saving souls is not dissimilar. Why.do we insist that Catholic parents send their chil-dren to ou[ religious schools,, if not in order that these may receive their education in a proper environment? Certainly, relative to the environment of a public school, the "atmos-phere" of any St. 2oseph's or St. Anne's Academy is deft-nitely superior. But we must not deceive ourselves; what we.say to thi~ pupils in tl~e classroom is only a part of the school environment and, from the point of view of charac-ter training, not the most important part. Most teachers will no doubt agree that our students are more affect.ed by what the majority of their companions think and do than by all we can tell them about what they ought to do. Besides, a student is not exposed merely to the school environment. First of all there is the home, which of the several elements of the total environment is in the longrun the most important. If the home is truly Christian, our worries will be halved from the start. However, a specia! 3'13 YOUREE WATSON factor for teadhers to bear. in mind is that from early, ado-lescence the influence of parents is very considerably lessened bY. the natural craving for independence from older people --"freedom from the apron strings"--that awakens atthis period. But child and home alike are strongly affected by the influences of our great public amusements: the movies, radio, books, and magazines (to say nothin, g of comics and comic books). These too are youth's environment, insofar as they constitute the matter of his exp.eriences, the source 6f innumerable ideas and judgments, his stimuli to action. All these are, as a rule,, not imme'diate!y d~ingerous; it is their slow but steady inciHcation of false attitudes on life that makes the Christian educator fear them. How often, for example, do they not show, in vivid, concrete portrayal,. how~a person can be supremely happy without the aid of God and religion! It is a platitude to say these public amusements are pagan, but like so many .platitudes itstates a truth too often .ignored. No one who allows himself frequently to enjoy such things, and does notat the same t~me react against the wrong attitudes of mind which they so commonly imply, can possibly escape being tainted with naturalism, or, if you prefer, worldliness. He will come ultimately ~o consider the supra-sensible world--terra ir~cogrlita to most movie and radio stars and to heroes of fiction~as of little practical importance. Religion will be thor.oughly dissociated from life. It is this propaganda of modern paganism, joined with a constant association with an ever-growing number of religious indifferen.tists, which acts on home and individual to pervert the straight-ness of our Christian thinking. We immediately recognize the fact that, if we are seri-ously interested in training the. character of our young charges, we must in some way try to improve their environ- 314 LEADERSHIP IN C~THOLIC ment. outside the hours of formal class, and even the environment of the classroom insofar as it is not constituted by. ourselves how many classroom traditions of indolence, inattention, cheating~ oi of something-less-than-innocent deviltry flourish sometimes in our despite! ' Now, we cannot affect the family environment directly: no more.~an we affect the "public amusement environ-ment," except, perl3aps, negatively in our boarding schools. "What then can we affect? That which, when all is said and done, is, for older students at least, probably the most important of all environmental factors: the influence of fellow-students. But are we not in a vicious circle? What can we do to influence the student milieu bther than to prepare with utmost diligence our catechism classes, our little spiritual talks, our references to God and His saints scattered thrgughout the daily lessons? No more, perhaps, is possible to us working as teachers on the student mass as a whole, but there is a certain indirect approach which may prepare wl, iite harvests for our zeal. We must get allies amongthe stu-dents, must win over to the cause of Christ's apostolate two or three leaders, and then set them to work on their fellow students. ~This is according to the. principle of "like to like" recommended so warmly by our late pontiff, Plus XI: "Each situation will have then," he tells us, "its corre-sponding apostle: the apostles of the workers will. be workers; the apostles of the farmers will be farmers; the apostles of the seamen will be seamen; the apostles of the ¯ students Will be students." We have thus far considered a grave problem of our times--the poisoned air of modern life in which our Cath-olic youth must breathe and grow--and we have intimated its solution; namely, specialized Catholic Action with its leadership technique. Catholic o.~ganizations for youth 315 YOUREE \VAT$ON have always stressed the importance.of developing le'aders, but specialized Catholic Action is,entirely based on wha~ we might call the principleof leadership. This can be simply expressed.as follows:, there are leaders in every human environment: namelyl peisons who havea strong influence on others, whose personal opinions become the opinions of many, whose conduct or misconduct sets the style, so to speak, for their companions. To this tru, th is the corrol-lary: there are followers, persons easily influenced one way or the other. Of course, there are many degrees in the abil-ity to lead; but a really powerful personality will usually -be able to override, the weaker influence of lesser leaders. This is true whether on a world scale a dictator sways the thought of millions, or a fourteen-year-old student man-ages to get the crowd to accept his ideas and schemes. ¯ " One might argue that this "principle of leadership" seems undemocratic. The objection is at once seen to be point1~ss, for by this "principle" we say no moie than that men have different degrees of intelligence, imagination and emotion, of temperamental-courage and prudence. Again~ the "principle" merely states the fact of natural leaflets: it. does not assert that these persons have any right to govern others authoritatively, unless they should be delegated to this by popular choice. Can one deny, . moreover, " that it is ordinarily the natural leaders who rise to politicalpower even in a democracy? It is not different in the case of social influence in factory or farm or classroom. If there are natural leaders-~-as psychology and litera-ture and, indeed, every' day experience affirm--it is of utmost importance in the battle ever going on between Christian. and pagan-influences in the various environments that we win leaders to serve wholeheartedly and with the deepest conviction on Christ's side. But there are many . ¯ leaders in every environment, and some will not easily be .3.16 LEADERSHIP IN CATHOLIC ACTION brought to fight for the Christian ideal, so that we must content ourselves in the beginning at least with winning over ttvo or three leaders of considerable influence. Of course, these leaders acting alone could never change the whole environment of'a school. However, with the aid of a powerful, closely-knit organization based on the prih-ciple of leadership they could go far toward the realization of this[ The Catholic Action cell with its ramifications provides, us with such an organization. Organization is necessary. Some peopl~ have an unreasonable contempt for organization. They could learn a lesson from the Corffmunists and Nazis, who have suc-ceeded in firing their youth with a burning enthusiasm for their false doctrines by means of an extremely well-organized onslaught on their intellectk and emotions. "Organization," wrote Pius XI, "is a necessity of the time." Lal~er in a public discourse he added: "Good, well-disciplined organization can alone achiev~ full succesS." The present papal Secretary of State, in a letter written, two years ago to the president of the Canadian Semaines L%ciales, after recalling the exposition of Catholi~ Action given by our present pontiff, Plus XII, added by way of further specification" "Catholic Action is a strongl~j organ-ized collaboration, differentiated according to the different categories of persons to be reached. " There are, as we know, many types of organization. What we want is an apostolic organization, one whose pri-mary aim is the conquest of so.uls, whose spirit is militant Catholicism, and whose dynamic structure gives full scope to the leaders to lead., Such again, as we shall show, is the organization proper to the Catholic Action cell With its" accompanying teams. The cell is a group of about eight persons exercising a very active apostolate, a group of young students or factory 317 YOURE~- WATSON workers or farmers or others determined to win over their environmentto a more thorough and living Christianity. Their characteristic technique is the Social Inquiry. This. consists of three fundarriental steps:-OBSERVE, JUDGE, ACT. According to these, they first investigate the state of their environment, usually in regard to some particular religious or moral question. In a school such topics as the following would b'e looked into: the spirit of fraternity among students, attitude of students toward study, honesty in school work and games, attitude toward authority, ,atti-tude in regard to the Mass, preaching, religion class, and so forth. Other inquiries would take up corresponding prob-lems of the students' home life. As each of these larger inquiries would constitute more or'less a whole year's work, their would all be subdivided into a number of subordinate inquiries. Having carefully observed the actual situation--a process which may include several weeks in a minor in-' quiry--the militants will next consider what the ideal situation would be. A most effective way of doing this is by a sort of group meditation on those Gospel passages which bear on the problem in hand. If no immediately pertinent passages can be. found, then the teaching of the catechism, supplemented by information from moral and ascetical theology, can be substituted for these. Naturally, the-guidance of a priest or religious is always called for here. The alI too common, but none the less sad, discrepancy between the actual and the ideal will awaken in the student pity and the desire to do something to help out, and also, if he be a real leader, a definite sense of responsibility for others who, perhaps with no less good will, are less blessed than he with religious conviction and moral strength. This,. the Judge stage of the inquiry, consists ultimately in a 318. , LEADERSHIP IN CATHOLIC ACTION firm practical judgment: "I ought to do somdthing about this." Exactly what is to be done must now be decided on --both a long range activity and also some definite things for the next weekl Lastly there comes the all important execution--the action toward which all cell activity is orientated. The main features of the cell and its technique were well described in an article by Father Albert S. Foley in the May issue of this REVIEW. Moreover, all those who would actually wish to start a cell can find all essential material in The Technique of the Catholic Action Cell Meeting. Thi~ excellent booklet was recently compiled by Father Stephen Anderl and Sister M. Ruth (see REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July 15, 1943,. Bboklets, p. 251). In the present article, as we consider.anew the workings of the technique, we can tOUCh on many points which for lack'of .space could not be takefi up in Father Foley's article: but above all we wish to observe as we go along how the principle of leadership comes into play. Theyoung person who is most outstanding for his apostolic leadership will naturally become the president of the Catholic Action organization. As the most zealous of the officers, he is expected to keep the ardor of his two fel-low officers up as close as possible to his own high level. (while their companionship will save him from the weak-ness of isblation). All three--president, s~cretary, and treasurer--constitute a .governing committee made up of the most ardent of the youthful lay apostles in the cell. As "apostles of. the apostles" they must be given very special attention by the director (in oNcial Catholic Action this is always the chaplain appointed directly or indirectly by the bishop; but in many schools a rel!gious assistant exercises much of the immediate direction under the .general super-vision of the chaplain, who, moreover, must attend to his 319 YOUR~ ~'rATSON priestly function ~f guiding souls). If the chaplain or assistant cannot be present at the officers' meeting, the preside.fit of the Catholic Action organization should dis-~ cuss all important matters'with the one or the other ahead of time. Why the officers' meeting? Precisely in accordance with the principle of leadership. The officers are leaders relative to the ordinary cell.members; they are to e'xert their encour-aging influence on the rest. They will surely do this if they have come together ahead of time and planned the mat-ter to be brought up in the cell meeting. They will then be able ~o furnish fresh ideas, if these seem to lag, and new motives Wherethese are called for; they will at the same time h~ve organized a united front which tho~e who would be tempted to think certain points in a campaign a bit too difficult will find it hfird to resist. We have seen the-princ!ple of leadership active within the cell itself. In the actual apostolate of the cell members --whkh .we are now to consider--its application is even more important. To. begin with, the apostolic influence W-hich the cell exerts is of two kinds: general, by means of all the ordinary types of propaganda--talks, skits, posters, bulletins, and so forth; personal, by means of man-to-man contact. Both are important, but the latter is more distinc-tive of the cell-movement and absolu~el3~ indispensable to its success. I.t is carried on chiefly through small groups known as "teams." The "team," which is certainly an integral part of cell technique as it has been worked out in the now interna-tional movement of Jocism, has sometimes been too much neglected in the "cell movement" of this country. How- .ever, according to the best practice here as elsewhere the cell is made up of "leaders of teams." In Joci~t literature, to 320 LEADERSHIP IN CATHOLIC ACTION be sure, the cell rfieeting is often--and properly--called "the meetinKof team leaders." What is a team? It is a group of about four or five persons under the influence of, a leader. The names given to this leader indicate what is expected of him: in New England among the Franco-Americans he is known as a "'responsable"; and this key virtue of responsib!lity is also stressed in their slogan, "Your team is your family!" More commonly he is known as a "militant." As his name im-plies, the militant is a full-fledged apo.stle, lavish of his time. and energy for Christ, willing to do hard things for the tri-umph of His cause. The team member is one who, while not willing to "go all Out" for Christ, is, nevertheless, willing to cooperate in m. any ways with his militant leader in his apostolic work. A militant's team will be drawn from those with whom the militant fihds himself in most frequent contact. For the most part they.will be those whom he would naturally influence, including, perhaps, a couple of close friends; for, after all, the first ones whom the militant should wish to lead to a closer service of the Ideal are those most intimately associated with him: his brothers and sisters, his friends, his acquaintances. The militant should gather his team together~the more informally the better-~- at least every two weeks (whereas the officers' meeting and cell meeting would be a ¯ weekly event); he will, of course, keep in frequent touch with the individual members, giving special attention ~to anyone whom he thinks to be of leader caliber, c~pable himself of becoming a militant. It is not necessary, how-ever, for an evident leader to pass a definite term of appren- ' ticeship on a team. We begin to see how the good personal influence radi-ates. In any particular inquiry with its resultant campaign the initial spark may come from the chaplain Or religious 321" YOUREE ~rATSON assistant of the .Catholic Action group, but it is essential that the cell officers.catch fire. At the cell meeting the~e set aflame the Other members of the cell. ¯ Each of these mili-tants has, in turn, the primary task of communicating his convictions to his team; thenhe must raise them ~o that pitch of enthusiasm wherein they themselves-will b~ suffi-ciently apostolic-minded to try to get yet others to see the thing as they do.If ~ach team member on the average wins over one other person, see how far the ~'drive" will have gone already! Let us say there are seven young people in the cell, each with a team of about four members. Then twenty-eight.persons will be actively engaged in promoting any campaign decided upon by the cell. Th~se twenty-~ eight~will get at least twenty-eight more. Then some of these last "sympathizers" can be counted on to exert fur-ther influence, to win over,,say, fourteen more; so that at the beginning of every concerted effort toward the realiza,- tion of the Christian social order the leaders could count on about seventy regulars! If the .general propaganda is well conducted dozens more are.sure to "come around"; while as the thing becomes more and more widespread, many oth-ers will "climb on the bandwagon." The team is the ordinary instrument by which the leaders keep in touch with the mass and leaven it. For the benefit 6f those who may doubt the necessity of this some-what complicated system of personal contacts, we might call to mind again the "good" example of the Communists and Fascists along these lines. But to choose a less exotic illustration,' let us .consider one of our own American political campaigns. If a person has anyknowledge of the procedure~ followed--which is in the last analysis purely and simply an effort to persuade people to do something, for example, to vote for such and such a candidate he will realize that for this, cell-team organization is both 322 LEADERSHIP IN CATHOLIC ACTION natural and essential. ~There will be general propaganda in such a campaign: poste.rs, handbills, newspaper articles, and so forth. But no candidate would dream of doing with-out a little cell of supporters in every important voting center--a cell of campaigners who Willwork chiefly by personal contact, who will try to enlist to the cause more and more active supporters or at least sympathizers who, when occasion offers, will put in a good word for their side. This. organization may be ordained for a very different ultimate purpose from the organization found in Catholic Action, but their immediate end is the same--to influence public opinion. Catholic Action organization too must take into account the general rules of persuasion, and the natural ways of'ieading the public mind. This is what the new technique actually does. It is apparent that it demands a lot, not only from youth, but likewise from us, the chaplains or. assistants. Nevertheless, the resialts will be so exceedingly worthwhile (and the consequences of Our failure to invigorate the reli-gion of our student masses so terrible) that there is not one among us who will stop to count the cost. The results have been e.xceedingly worthwhile wher-ever it has been seriously tried by competent directors. For - all this is not just "theory"'; movements using this tech-nique are flourishing~in some eight different countries and are well established in about fifteen more. Even in our own United St~ites, where the movement hardly dates back more than four years, it is being carried out in very many places. And as elsewhere so also among us such organizations, whether operating independently or as a sort of "apostolic committee" within some larger, long approved organiza-tioi~, are in a particularly effective and intimate way pre-paring leaders for Catholic Action--o~cial Cathoiic Ac-tion, if the bishop of the diocese should see fit to give his 323 YOUREE WATSON mandate for~this, as indeed several, bishops have already done in particular instances.2 Young men and women, boys and girls are getting their companions to live fuller Christian lives. Sometimes we read that they have cured an unhappy lad of the habit of telling dirty stories; again we hear of them stopping an epidemic of cursing. Now we find them substituting admiration for Christ for admiration of Superman; now they will be .getting their fellows to go back to the Sacra-ments, which they have been neglecting. In one city a year after their first beginnings nearly every cell had either won a convert or brought Several fallen-away Catholics back to the Church--and often enohgh such successes as these are won 'under circumstances which call for truly heroic courage and charity on the part of the"young, layo leaders. To sum up, these militants are fighting for whatever will promote thereign Of Christ in the student world--anything f~om changing public opinion on the relatively mild moral blight of cheating in class to remedying the truly grave evils of. over-drinking and improper dating. Their Work is by no means all negative; rather it is fun-damentally positive. In their observation of. the actual mbral and religious situation of the environment, they seek for every force tending to uplift and do all in their power to encourage it. Sucha spirit leads themmallowance made for human weakness--to cooperate with all our older Cath-olic organizations, to work through them and with them, and, when occasion offers, to serve them. 2It is necessary to distinguish between Catholic Action less properly so-called, by which is 'meant any apostolic lay activity, and Catholic Action in the strict sense of the term, which designates a particular, definite organization with an episcopal man-date for its apos.tolate. For a complete explanation of'the nature and char;icteristics of Catholic Action the reader is referred to Father Win. Ferree's booklet: "'An Introduction to Catbollc Action," N.C.W.C. (Washirigton, D.C.) and to Arch-bishop Charbonneau's Pastoral Letter, The Apostolate Press, 1 I0 E. La Salle Ave., Southbend, Indiana. 324 LEADERSHIP IN CATHOLIC ACTION This movement is by now firmly established in some of our schools.However, through our graduates, specialized Catholic Action should spread among the workers and other groups. This, as. Bishop McGavick says in his inspiring foreword to the booklet on cell technique referred to above, is the gr~at hope of th~ Church~ The achievements thus far would, indeed, seem to jus-tify this h0pe.They may well be illustrated by the story of a former militant in a mid-western university. This young man was suddenly snatched out 9f school and sent to a naval training base. The job assigned to him was that of clerk in ~n office under a Master of Arms who ~uns a certain company. This MA was a fallen-away Catholic, and foul-mouthed. However, the militant, who happe.ns to look amazingly mild and unaggressive (a leader does not have to be noisy and self-assertive!), started to use what he had learned in the cell back at the university. He "brought. this MA round," got him to stop obscenities, and took him to the chaplain to have his marriage fixed up. Now the MA is making every "gob" whom he hears using bad language scrub out a barracks, sends .others /~o Mass or to church; or something of the sort. He is also reading a good deal of Catholic literature supplied by the young apostle, who likewise gave him his rosary, medals, and whatnot when the MA asked for them. The sailors call this militant the "preacher," but he just laughs at them, jokes good-humoredly with them, gets them to attend Mass, even got a crowd of them to go to Mass and Communion every day~ for a week before Mother's Day. He is now working on the problem of "leaves." Many of tl-;e young boys go out tothe tough districts of nearby cities and come back with souls badly stained. He is trying to get a team of older fellows quietly to plan leaves and week-ends and herd ~mall groups of youngsters around to 325 YOUREE WATSON decent e.ntertainment. T~is means plotti~g~ getting tickets, spending much time that he might employ for himself in legitimate recreation. Yet his apostolic ,~pirit and his sense of responsibility drive him on to new battles for Christ. _ ~ There ha~ existed for centuries an all too popular mis-conception that only priests and religious are supposed to" be saints, that theirs alone is the business of sa3ring souls. This false notion has been the cause of truly calamitous losses in the realm of grace. Theologians have often dem-onstrated the falsity of this ancient, Satan-born lie; our young militants are even more effectively disproving it by the Christ-like beauty of their deeds. So enthusiastic are these Catholic Actionists, so zealous in their apostolate, so ardent in their desire to Serve (the movement has been called "charity on the march"), so strong in their conviction of the social lessons of the doc-trine of the Mystical Body, that the story of their efforts and victories--may it some day be written in fullmreminds us not a little of the things we read about the first Christians in the Acts of the Apostles. If we were to try to sum up their spirit in a word or tWO, we should say it is a spirit, of Christian conquest; for our new techniqu~ has truly revealed to us many a secret in the art of training leaders for the arrfiy of Christ. It was doubtless with such glbrious possibilities in mind that Cardinal Lepicier, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation ofReligious, some years back called "the knowledge of Catholic Action henceforth indispensable to all who are engaged in the education of Christian youth." 326 . Devotion t:he I-Ioly Name 0t: ,Jesus Gerald Ellard, S.J. #/~ .SPECIFIC devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus is a legacy to us ~--~ from the Middle Ages. A zealous son of St. Francis has recently. summarized the history of the devotion in a doctoral disserta-tion, presented at St. Anthony's Pontifical "Athenaeum" in Rome, and no.w published in this countr~y.1 Its style is lively, not to say, sprightly; its factual data, well-substantiated; its inner story, very intei:esting. If the roots of the devotion are traced to some classic patristic'phs-sages, which were quoted by medieval v)riters with all manner of ascription, still it is in the written records of the twelfth century that the devotion is found to have taken on'its characteristic notes and forms. St. Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109), St. Bernard (d~ 1153), and his great Cistercian contemporary, St. A~Ired of Rievaulx, Eng-land, (d. 1167), were among the foremost prom0ters'of the devo-tion at that time, 'as; in the subsequent century, was the author of the desu dulcis mernoria. Under Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) .a Mass in honor of the Holy Name was first approved. St. Francis of Assisi _(d. 1226) bequeathed to his order a special reverence for;the written Name of Jesus. Under the presidency of St. Bonaventure, the Coun-cil of Lyons (1274) decreed that all should bow. the head on hearing o? pronouncing the Name of Jesus. In the fourteenth, and early fifteenth c~nturies, most particularly in northern Italy, this devotion was giving its prestige to multiple associations, confraternities, and even institutes of religious. Thus in 1338, tb~ C~mpagnia del GesC~, a group of flagellants.at the Santa Croce Church in Florence, claiming a long corporate existence, was .given by ~xtension the privileges of the Friars Minor (pp. 122-3). More .famous" were the Jesuati, and their female counterpart, the Jesuatesses, respectively a nUrsing brotherhood and sisterhood founded in 1354 at Siena by Blessed John Columbini and his cousin, .Blessed Catherine Columbini. The men's organization had existence as a religious institute for three full centuries, the women's for more than five hundred years. ~History of the Det~elopment of Deootion to the Holy Name. By Peter R. Biasi-otto, O.F.M. Pp. xii q- 188. St. Bonaventure, New York, 1943. $1.50. Page numbers cited in the present article refer to this book. 3217 GERALD ELLARD Of course'the greatest popularizer of devotion to the Hbly Name was the Sienese Franciscan, St. Bernardine (d. 1444), by means of his celebrated painted monogram. St. Bernardine founded in Siena in1425 what he called the "'sotietas benedicti nominis Yhesus," (p, 123). .o An interesting linking of Franciscan, Domini~can and Jesuit for-tunes is seen in the circumstance that the oldest Holy Name Society in Rome was St. Bernardine's foundation in 1427 in a small church that then occupied part of the site of the prese.nt Church of the ¯ Gesi~ (pp. 95, 6). The author advances the suggestion that St. Ignatius of Loyola derived his devotion to the Holy Name in part from the then current legendary account of such a devotion on the part of his-patron, St. Ignatius of Antioch. According to the legend, the heart of St. Ignatius of Antioch was cut open after his martyrdom, and there in letters of~gold wasfound the'Name of Jesus. The suggestion does not lack probability, since it is well known that the founder of the ¯ Society of Jesus was at baptism given the Christian name of Inigo, and that he deliberately took the name of Ignatius after his conver- 'sion. The legend concerning St. Ignatius of Antioch is found in the Legenda Aurea, read by the wounded knight of Pampeluna during the period of convalescence that was climaxed by his conversion. St. Be~nardine had much to suffer, chihfly at the hands 0f reli-gi09. s of other institutes, before the devotion he was preaching had overcome all opposition. The dissertation recounts the story, but there-is no need of entering upon it heie. ;i'hestory of the growth of'the devotion is broken off at the .z.enith-pdint, th~ account of the great Battle of Belgrade, 3uly 21-22, 1456, Mien, inspired and led by St. John Capistran, under the sole rallying cry of Iesu, the attacking Christians were victorious over vastly.superior forces of Islam. Among the interesting links with the present age, mentioned at the end of the dissertation, are that the Litany of the Holy Name, suppressed together with nearly all litanies in 1602, was restored to the Universal ~hurch by Pope" Leo XlII in 1886, and that a peti-tion was handed in at the Vatican Couficil for the addition of a Preface of the Holy Name to the Missal. Dodsn't Cardioal New-man tell'us, too, of his own boyhood institution of a prayer-union to be known as the Society of Jesus? 328 , A Summer School. in t:he Spirit:ual/it:e1 Patrick M. Regan, S.J. ACOURSE in the spiritual life is something comparatively new in summer school curricula. Let it be noted at the o.utset that it is not a course in philosophy, a summary treatment of questions in special ethics. Nor is it a course in dogmatic theology ada, pted to the needs and talents of religious. Nor is it, as some insist on calling it, "Religion," a course closely.related to dogma. Neither is it so par-tict~ larized or restricted as a series of lectures on mental.prayer, for example. Rather the spiritual life course pertains to ascetical the-ology, since it has for its purpose the explanation of some aspects at least of the life of perfection religious follow accc~rding to their institute. The particular course in the spiritual life which is. the subject of this article was giyen at Webster College in Webster Groves, Mis-souri, during the past summer. There were some two hundred and fifty Sisters in attendance at the"course, mo~t of them Sisters of Loretto; besides these there were also Sisters of Mercy, Ursulines, Daugh.ters of the Cross, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and Bene-dictines. Textbook The choice of a textbook is as difficult as it is important. One instinctively thinks of The Spiritual Life by Tanquerey; as a matter of fact this text has frequentl3i been used in similar courses. It labors under the difficulty of being too encyclopedic for a six weeks' course. Yet there are not many other works of ascetical theology written in English. One must avoid the mere devotional, since the object of- the course is to teach underlying principles of the life of perfection. Ultimately we selected Dora Aelred Graham's book, The Looe God. The particular advantage of this work is that it treats the essential element of the spiritual life, the love of God, under various 1During the summer the Sisters of Loretto provided courses in the spiritual life i~ a number of'their larger houses, thus making it possible for practically all their Sisters to attend such a course. Father Regan was one of the many priests conducting the courses. We asked him to give us his impression of his course. The response is contained in the present article.--ED. 329 > PATRICK M.'REG~N" aspects; conversely it gives a conspectus of the spiritual life under its most fundamental aspect. In the words of the author: ". :. we have chosen to discuss the love of God in the light of Thomisfic principles rather than make miscellaneous selections from authorities who, though possessing greater emotional appeal, .are not so fundamentally satisfactory" (p. xii). Furthermore there is the added advan~tage that the spiritual life i~ thus unified, all its parts tied together'by the pre.- dominant idea of the love of God. It was a revelation and inspiration to those who followed the course to consider the way of God as it is treated in thefirst section of the text, "The Nature of the Love of God." The reason for thi~ new enlightenment is significantly brought out in thd very chapter he.adings: "The One Who is Loved; . The One who Loves;" "The Love Itself." Most of the matter treated in these chapters is ordinarily .taken for granted or merely all'uded to in the-fraining of religious; but a study of these c~apters will convince one that the spiritual life suffers greatly from passing over such fundamentals. In thesecohd section of the book, "The Conditions of this Love;" the necessity of growing in knowledge of God takes on new signifi-cance when considered as a condition for growing in the love of Him. Likewise, "Drawing near to God" and "Unworldliness" (two remaining chapters), as conditions of growth in tl~is love of God, appear under a new and attractive explanation. The third section. of Dom Grabam's .book, "The Expression of this. Love," treats: "Prayer," "Self-abnega.tion," and "Action." Our six weeks' c6urse "concluded with the study of prayer as the expr.ession of 19ve. This was an excellent stopping place, as it completed the re-organization, as it were, of the copious life of prayer of the religious under that arresting aspect often heglected: the expression of the love of God. , That each member of the class might have an available record of the ~ourse, a summary of the class lectures was made and issued in the form of mimeographed notes. Not quite so satisfactory as the book itself, these had the advantage of being, considerably less expensive. Each Sister had her own individual set of the notes, which she was free to annotate during the lectures; furthermore they were hers at the end of the course,.a handy reference for future study and meditation. The Lecture As there was a double lecture period, there was danger that the 330 SUMMER SCHOOL IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE course would become dull and tiresome, especially on the hot July days in St. Louis. Moreover, a spiritual life course can easily deteri-orate into a monotonous repetition'of pious platitudes which have been offered the auditors from the early days of their religious life in retreats, exhortations, instructions, rules find books of devotion. The course should be aimed at the enlightenment of the intellect, and very interesting indeed will be reactions of the listeners as theji realize more deeply the what, the how, and the why of the practices of reli-gion._ The lecturer must be prepared tO exhaust all the skill of peda-gogy be may possess to make the course interesting and enlightening. The blackboard with its diagrams.must really slaveto make sublime and abstract thoughts a bit less difficult for the mind to grasp. Count-less examples, as original .as possible so that they' may make a deep impress on the memory, must illustrate the matter at every step. Any-one. who reads a page or two of Dom Graham's book will p~rceive at once he has not steered clear of deep philosophy and theology. But that is precisely what the Sisters want and need, though it must be adapted to their capacity. Lest the matter overawe, insist with the auth6r: "The philosophy of the Church is not an esoteric doctrine; it'is nothing more formidable than common sense and requir.es for its understanding only patience and mental simplicity. Indeed, experi-ence shows that scholarship and imaginative brilliance can often be obstacles rather than aids to anything deeper than a verbal appreciation of the pbilosophia perennis. Here, as in another context,, the things hidden from the wise and prudent are revealed to babes." (p. 5) Variety was also introduced into the class by the use of the "question box," the numerous contributions to which were read and answered at the end of the first period each day. This was found to be the most feasible way of maintaining contact with the audience. It afforded the opportunity of wording questions-carefully and cir-cumvented the fear of speaking out before a large group. Still, many chose oral questions also. Another bit of variety was achieved by electing one of the Sisters as "Mistress of Novices" and referrihg practicaI cases to her. This opened the way to off-the-record discussion which was also helpful. Semi-Retreat But a spiritual life course, to attain its ideal, cannot be merely a series of classroom lectures. AsDom Graham notes on the title page of his book, citing St. John of the Cross: "At eventide they will 331 PATRIGK M. REGAN examine thee in love--." L6ve, as well,as knowledge, should grow in such a course. The soul should reap its harvest,, the spiritual life should be improved, the lessons of the classroom should be reduced to p~actice. And the director of the course should help individual souls in their personal efforts to reduce the principles to practice. Each day, therefore, an hour was set aside for confessions and another hour for individual private conferences. The eager response to these oppor-tunities was clear'enough proof of their great utility. The final exercise of each day was the giving of Points for .the meditation of "the following morning; this afforded the director another oppor-tunity tO bring theoretical teaching down to the plane of practice. The Sisters appreciated this semi-retreat atmosphere. It was somewhat the realization of a dream that has come to many of us in time of retreat: if only we could have a get-together to discuss some of the excellent spiritual matter offered in the various retreat confer-. ences, surely great profit would accrue to our souls. The Sisters realized this to the full. The dinner and supper tables buzzed with di~cussionof the spiritual life, while the conversations at recreation neversuffered from that mid-summer ennui that so often afflicts them. Ai one put it: "We really battled it out and "for once knew what we were talking about"; and another: "Whycan't we have such spirit-ual conversationsMl the year round?" Fruits Only God; of course, can judge the fruits of such a course. But all the indications are that this forward-looking policy of the Sisters of Loretto will pay spiritual dividends fdr years to come. Such enthusiastic participation in the course, such earnest application, such deep interest in spiritual theory and practice must fructify. Not only will each individual gain but the order also will gain by having its whole spiritual tone deepened and made more substantial. While it is true that new knowledge does not necessarily lead to new love and better service, still among religious of high ideals and purposes it can hardly fail to accomplish that result. Thus the certitude we have that we grew in knowledge of God in our summer school of the spiritual life is a trustworthy guarantee that we also grew in love. 332 ommun ca ons [EDITORS' NOTE: The following letters are the first responses to the Editorial in the July number (p. 217). Other communications on Vocation will be welcomed and will be printed ano.nymously unless the writers explicitly request that their names be given. Address communications to: The Editors of Review for Religious, St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. The Editors assume no responsibility for the opinions expressed in the com-munications. Judge thegn on their own merits.] Reverend Fathers: I have found on more than one occasion that ~i hopeful candidate for the religious life will seek advice from several persons at the same time. Such a one is inclined to choose the advice more to her liking, though it may not be more to her advantage. I have in mind a girl who had been in the convent. After a few interviews itwas perfectly clear that she had no vocation. But another priest, quite truly not at all familiar with the religious life, advised her to try again. She tried and lasted less than six months. Today she is quite.a nervous wreck and resentful of those who did not "keep her" in religion., Another girl, having made' tw6 attempts at the religious life seeks counsel from a nun and from me. The nun insists that she should try again--though this nun was not of either community which she had tried--and is in opposition to me who advi~e that she sh6uld not try a third time. A former mistress oi~ novices to this girl has assured me that she.had no vocation--a desire but not the gift of vocation--and it is next to impossible to persuade xhis girl that she should seek to settle herself in some position in the world. So Iwould make a point that there should be no more than one who is to guide and direct a vocation. The conflict of advice is almost certain to result in disaster for the advised. Another point on which I should like to see you take a stand is that seco~d. 'and "third attempts, generally are bound to be futile attempts. I do not mean to say that occasionally a girl or a young man may not have made a wrong choice in the first place. But this should be carefully tried and tested before he or she will be ehc0uraged to make a second attempt in a second community. Nor do I mean to say that, where sickness has required that one leave a community, one .might not be readmitted to the community of the first choice; I do not mean to say that when family needs may have forced a departure from 333 COMMUNICATIONS reiigiou~ life such a one cannot be.taken back into the community that had been "home" the first time. But from my experience, and it has been over some twelve or thirteen years, and with ,a couple of scores of those about whom I speak, I don't hestitate to say that if once tried it should not be tried again,, especially if the community .of the first choice would not read-mit the candidate. A community that. makes a specialty of receiying subjects who have belonged to other communitiesis apt to become a home of malcontents. If commfinities--and all of them are in need of subj.ects--could be brought to realize that quality not quantity makes for the best community life and religious spirit, as well as for the accomplishment of. great things for God's .lasting glory, there would be fewer defections from the ranks of religious life and there would be a fuller accomplishment of the ends for which each com-munity was established. Reverend Fathers: , May I suggest, in the matter of irocations, that the observance of the following three-point program thrqughoht the land would lead to a pronounced increase in vocations. To plunge at once in roedias res: pastors can foster vocations to " the priesthood and the religious life'by carrying out the follow, ing program in their respective parishes: 1. Once' a year let them preach one sermon on the priesthood and vocation thereto, and once a year one sermon on the religious life (religious priests, Brothers, and Sisters) and vocation thereto. 2. Once a yearlet them call in "a strange priest," as the expres-sion has it, to give one address to the school children on vocation, on a school day and to give one sermon, at all the Sunday Masses, to all the people on the same .subject. 3. In connection with the above-mentioned sermorls and addresses, as a most effective follow-up, let the pastor see to it that appropriate reading matter on the subject of vocation is placed into the hands of every boy and girl in the parish who is able to read, through whom it will also reach the whole family at home. By following ~his three point program, universal interest will be aroused in the matter of. vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. ', Interest having thus been created in vocations, doubts will also 334. " COMMUNICATIONS arise in the minds of many~ questions will b~ asked. The soil will be tilled and ready for the sowing .of seed that may sooner or later germinate in vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. Reverend Fathers: We religious have to be ready to reply, to youth's questions about vocation with answers, that are honest, straightforward, and hu,mbly sincere. But are we truly prepared? First of all, let each ask him or he'self: "Am I myself thoroughly convinced of the greatness, the beauty, the enduring charm and richness of my own vocation?" A disgruntled, popularity-seeking religious doesn't know Christ with ¯ that dey6ted familiarity which makes him yearn to increase the circle of our Lord's close friends. Comradeship always t~lls on. character. When the major objective of life is SELF, there is no room for Jesus and His interests. The true religious is like a pane of plate glass, so crystal-free of selfishness that the Christ in him or her is easily discerned in the Words, motives, .actions, and .smile of everyday life. That warm smile ~--tiny and simple as it may seem--is a priceless boon to the boy or girl who comes seeking a private interview. Frequently young people come with, "I know you are very busy, but do you think you can spare the time to answer a question or two for me? I know you can do it in a minute." Just such a request is our golden oppo.rtunity. That query is" the verbal expression of an interior prompting of the Holy Spirit. Of this we may be certain, for the Prince of Darkness never urges the solu-tion of. doubts by. God's chosen servants. Suppose you were vouch-safed a glimpse into the future and there you saw this young woman or young man.as a Mother. General or some outstanding member of the hier.archy, a zealous missionary, an inspiring Brother or nun. ¯ You would be glad to know that you had been the trusted confidante of a one-time adolescent and perhaps awkward youth, would you not? Cheerfulness, whole-souled sympathetic unddrstanding, interest in all ~hat concerns the youthful caller--these are the keys to the heart which will some day carry on after God has called us to rest in the garden which might well bear the slogan of a Trappist monastery: "Pax Intrantibus." Calmly we may face that long sleep if we have done our pa~t in aiding young folk to find themselves. 335 ¯ Book Reviews THE MASS PRESENTED TO NON-CATHOLIC;S. By the Reverend John P. McGulre. Pp. 80. The Bruce Publishing C;ompony, Milwapkee, 194~3." $ 1.00. O~ all the elements of Catholic worship, the Mass is, perhaps, both the most widely known and unknown to non-Catholics. They know of the Mass througl~ newspaper notations in Sunday Church sections, or from placards at Church doors, or by casual inquiry of Catholics, But it is generally unknown to them in its detail and its world-wide, time-wide, significance. Hence it was a we11-directed zeal that urged Father McGuire, by this brief booklet, "to introduce the average non-Catholic reader to the study of the official act of wbrship of the Catholic Church--the Mass." The n6tion and. 'necessity of sacrifice is treated succinctly. A ¯ detailed explanation of the Mass-liturgy includes the full text of the Ma~s pr.ayers. Twelve pictures of key actions help the exp.lanation. The Mass Pres'ented to Non-Catholics is not controversial but simply explanatory. Hence it is equal also to the p~rpose of introducing Catholics to a better understanding of the focal fact of their faiths-the Mass.--R. E. SOUTHARD, A HANDY GUIDE FOR WRITERS. By fhe Reverend Newfon Thompson, S.T.D. Pp. 248. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, 1943. $2.00. ¯ This small book aims to provide in convenient form an answer to most of an author's perplexities. It distinguishes the most fre~ ~quently confused synonyms, gives adequate rules for correct punc-tuation, capitalization, and hyphenation, offers detailed instructions for the compilation of an alphabetica.l index and for proofreading, Under the entry "Manuscript" the author makes a number of common-sense suggestions about the preparation "of a manusdript. Under "Spelling".he lists more than twelve pages of words that authors often misspell in their manuscripts. Under "Translation" he offers twelve pages of suggestions to translators, "largely the fruit o~ my limited experience." Although A Handg Guide for. Writers contains little that.is new, it should prove to be a ready and reliable reference work for busy authors and editors.--H. MCAULIFFE, 336 BOOK REVIEWS. AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH BY CENTURIES. By the Reverend Joseph McSorley. Pp. xxlx + J084. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louls, 1943. $7.50. To say that most Catholics, even educated ones, know practically nothing of the history of their Church is to state a regrettable fact. If this situation persists in the future it xvill not be the fault of Father McSorley. This zealous, scholarly Paulist Father has given us a remarkable volume which stands head and shoulders above any simi-lar work obtainable today. To tell the many-faceted story of the Church's first two thousand years in one thousand pages would seem an impossible feat. Yet in that limited space Father McSorley has produced an incredibly full story. In a clear, direct and interesting style the author relates, century by century, the Church's trials and triumphs setting them against their particular political backgrounds. Espedally stressed are the Papacy; Catholic Life in doctrihe, disci-pline, and practice (Official Teaching, Councils, .Art, Education, Writers, Saints); Opposition (Persecution, Heresy, Schism, Other Religions) ; and'the Missions. Over a hundred pages are devoted to the Church in the United States'. primarily a textbook, the book contains many valuable peda-gogical features. These include a preview and summary of each chapter, time charts, maps, bibliographies, and a full, carefully pre-pared index. But the Outline is more than a mere textbook. It contains genuine appeal for the general'~eading public. No teacher.of any field of history can afford to ignore it. No Catholic library can omit it from its shelves. No Catholic who wishes to be well-informed should miss Father McSorley's superb contribution. It is an ideal gift for priests, religious, or laity.--P. T. DERRIG, S.J. THE ONE GOD. By the Reverend Reglnald Garrigou-LaGrange, O.P. Translated by Dom. Bede Rose, O.S.B., S.T.D. Pp. viii -I- 7~16. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, 1943. $6.00. This volume is a translation of Father Garrigou-LaGrange's Latin commentary on the first twenty-six questions of the Summa Theologica. Students who have perused previous works of the An~lelico professor will be familiar with his general technique and outlook. In this work, the' author has broken down the structure of St. Thomas' article-form into the common "state of the question," 337 BOOK REVIEWS "objection," "doubts," "argument" sequence. Positive material Of thecommentary i~ drawn from Thomistic commentators, both old and new. Scotists, Suarezians, together wi~h the usual modern adversaries, flee to the same slit-trench before the block-busting of the reverend author. This line-up, too, will be familiar to old readers. A preface of thirty-0dd pages on the general character of the Summa~ the basis of St. Thomas' teaching, and theological method iS excellent. The translator has from time tO time appended foot-notes which should do much to aid the none-too-skilled reader. Despite "the hopes which prompted the translation of this opus, it is our opinion that only the clergy or the almost-professional lay-man will find the going tolerable. Ordinary readers will not attempt it. The style, though fairly clear, is often burdened by a compli-cated method of presentation. For the professional student of sacred science and the stout-hearted clergyman this-book will make valuable reading. Patience will be required, besides the will to overlook the bite in many of the author's remark's, born of over-preoccupation With disputes among the schools.--T. C. DONOHUE, S.J. HANDBOOK OF MEDICAL ETHICS. By the Reverend S. A. La Rochelle, O.M.I., and the Reverend C. T. Fink, M. D., C. M. Translated from the Fourth French edition by M. E. Poupore, with the collaboration of the Reverend A. Carter and Doctor R. M. H. Power. Pp. 363. The New-man Book Shop, Westminster, Maryland, 1943. $1.75. The handbook is intended for nurses, physicians, and priests. In format it resembles a small pocket dictionary. It covers the general ethical principles pertaining to conscience and human conduct, a very large number of ethico-medical problems, a number of practical prin-cip. les relative to the Sacraments, and some principles of charity and justice that have special reference to the medical profession. In two appendices it gives the Moral Code for Catholic Hospitals and a num-ber of prayers used by ~he Church on the occasion of ministering to the sick and the dying. A bibliography (mostly French) is included. The book is certainly valuable by reason of the number of sub-jects of which it treats. Yet in many places it seems to lack one qual-ity that seems to me essential to a good ethics book--clarity. Perhaps the real fault lies in the translation.--G. KELLY, S.J. 338 Questions and Answers m32~ What is the exact meaning of the word "constifufions" in the Code? (E.g. canon SOS: "the higher superiors shall be temporary, unless the con-sfifutions determine otherwise." And canon SI6, § 4: "if the consflfu- ¯ lions are silent on ÷he manner of electing the bursars, they shall be elected by the higher superior with the con'sent of his council.") Does the term include the enactments of a general chapter? For all practical purposes the term "constitutions" signifies the collection of laws which govern a religious institute and have been approved by the Holy See, in the case of a pontific~il institute, or b~ the local Ordinar]r, in the case of a diocesan institute. Hence theterm does not include the enactments of a genera! chapter. 33 May a religious superloress bless her subjects? ' A religious superioress may bless her subjects just as a parent~ may bless a child, that is, call down God's blessing upon them. "~his is a private blessing since it is not given in the name of the Church by an authorized minister of the Church. In some of the older orders the rule. prescribes that subjects ask the blessing of their superiors before leaving the house and upon returning. A superioress should not demand that her subjects ask for her blessing, unless the rule or the constitutions require them to do so on certain occasions. 34 We have been told that the Second Council of Baltimore permlfs pub-lic benediction with the Blessed Sacrament in all churches as well as in chapels of religious on Sundays and holidays of obliga÷[on, on feasts of the first and second class, twice a week during Lent, every day during a mis-sion, and during the oc%ve of Corpus Christi twice a day, at Mass and Vespers. May pastors and religious avail themselves of this legislation? While it is true that the Second Council of Baltimore in decree N. 375 legislated for the solemn exposition and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament as stated above, it is difficult to understand how pastors and religious may follow this legislation today. Canon. 1274 339 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS of the Code of Canon Law regulates exposition and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament as follows: "In churches and oratories in which the Blessed Eucharist is reserved with permission, private exposition with the ciborium may be had for any just cause without the permission of the Ordinary; public exposition with the monstrance may be had in all churches on' the feast of Corpus Christi and during the octave, both during Holy Mass and Vespers. At other times a just and grave, particularly pub-lic, cause and the permission of the Ordinary are required even in churches belonging to exempt religious." Canon 6, 1 ? of the Code tells us that all laws, whether general or particular, which are opposed to the prescriptions of the Code are abrogated, unless express mention is made providing otherwise in favor of particular laws. Number 375 of the decrees of the Second Plenary Council is a particular law, and differs from canon 1274, which contains no special mention of particular laws. Hence it seems that the Baltimore law is abrogated by canon 1274. This is also the opinion of Father 3ohn D. M. Barrett, S.S., who has made a thor-ough comparative study of the Councils of Baltimore and the Code of Canon Law.1 If a religious is granted a dlspensatlon~and changes his mind about leavin9 and his congregation is willing to keep him, what steps must be fak~n~in order ~hat he may rema,n in religion? Provided ¯that the rel!gious has not actually accepted the dispen. sation, no steps need be taken in order th~at he may.remain in religion, sin'ce the dispensation is effective only when accepted by the person who requested it. The Sacred Congregation of Religious, in a reply. dated August 1, 1922, stated that a religious who has obtained an indult-of secularization or a dispensation from simple vows can refuse to accept the indult or the dispensation when he receives notice of it from the local superior, provided superiors have not grave reasons to the contrary, in which case they should refer the matter to the Sacred Congregation. On the other hand, the moment the religious who has requested a dispensation from his vows receives the same and freely accepts it XBarrett: A Comparative Studg of the Councils of Baltimore and the Code of Canon Law, Washington, D. C., 1932, p. 153. 340 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS h~ ceases to be a member of the institute, and a dispensation must be obtained from the Holy See to receive him again. N36--- Regarding the testimonial letters required by canon 544, § 2; which is the diocese of origin for a convert: the place where he was born, or the place where he was baptized? Must the testimonial letters be obtained from other dioceses in which he lived for more than a year previous to his conversion? Canon 90 states explicitly that the place of origin, euen/:or a con-uert, is the place in which the father had his domicile or quasi-domicile at the time the child was born. Since canon 544 makes no; exception for a convert, testimonial letters must be obtained likewise from other dioceses in which he lived for more than a year previous to his conversion. No commentator dn this canon, as far as we know, makes an exception in favor of a convert. Our Constitutions read: "Besides fasting and abstaining on the days prescribed by the Church, the Sisters abstain from flesh meat on Wednes-days and Saturdays." Does this impose a double obligation of observing Hne precept of fast and abstinence: namely,,becau~e it is a law of the ~ Church and also because,it" is a part of +he Constitutions? ~ Is it permissible for a superior to grant a dispensation from the rule of abstaining on Wednesdays and Saturdays over a ralher long peri?d of time, say, three months of every year? The purpose of the Constitutions is to impose abstinence on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The days of. fast and abstinence ¯ according to the Law of the Church are mentioned only in passing. ' Hence on Fri.days of the year, the religious in question have only one obligation to abstain, namely, tha't imposed by the gei~eral law of the ~ Church; and on all fast days they have but one obligatibn to fast. However, if a day of abstinence 'prescribed by theChurch happens to fall on Wednesday or Saturday (for instance, the Ember Days), the religious are then under a two-fold obligat~off to observe it. ~The powers of a superior to dispense from the rule :should be defined by the Constitutions. Superiors who are granted the power of dispensing from the Wednesday and Saturday abstinence could remove the obligation imposed by the rule, but if these h@pened to 341 QUESTIONS ~ ANSWERS be also days of abstinence according to the law of the Church, the dispensation from the rule would be of no avail unless the subject were also excused or.di.spensed from this latter obligation. The Code gives superiors of clerical exempt orders the power of dispensing from "the laws of fast and abstinence. Other clerical superiors may ,have special po~ers by delegation. Lay superiors are never given this power. m38u Does a.ssistlncj at Holy Mass from a side. room or back sacristy of a church or from a hallway outside a chapel satisfy the obligation of hearing Mass on Sundays and Holy Day~ of obligation? ~ The ordinary.rule for determining presence at a Mass of. obliga-tion is this: one must be in a place in which he can be reasonably con-sidered as a part 6f the congregation, if. there is a congregation, or at least as United with the priest, if there is no ~ongregation.In practical ¯ terms we say that anyone who is within the .body of a church in which Mass is being celebrated can satisfy his obligation; regarding other places, the obligation can still be fulfilled if the distance sepa-rating the person from the. priest or, congregati6n is not great and if the progress of the Mass can be followed by s6me sensible means. There. appears t6 be no difficulty about the places referred' to in the "question. m39m IS it necessary that one have in mind a specific aspiration to which a plenary indulgence is attached, when making the prescribed visit to a church, or when reciting prescribed prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father, or will a general intentidn to gain these indulgences suffice? No, it is not necessary to have in mind a specific aspiration to which an indulgence is attached when making the prescribed visit to a church, or when reciting prayers prescribed for the intentions of the Holy Father. A general intention ~o gain all indulgences, suffices, provided the good works enjoined are. performed. If one wishes to gain an indulgence for the souls in purgatory, a special intention is required, since, under normal conditions; one gains all indulgences for oneself. One may, of course, make a general intention to gain all indulgences possible for the souls in purgatory. Such an intention will prevail until it is revoked. 342 June 29, Iq43: His Holiness, PoPe Pius XII, issued an Encyclical. Letter, M~stici Corporis (of the Mystical Body), which contains an extensive .theolo~gical study of-the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. Though the complete text of the Enc3~ lical is not available at this time, a g.ene~al summary of its contents was sent out from Vatican City on July 3, from which the following points are culled. The first part of the Encyclical explains why the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ: 1) Cl~rist became the Founder of the Church when He invested the Apostles with supernatural poweis after having called them to their high office and instructed them regarding the propagation of the Church throughout the world. 2) Christ is the Head of the Church: primarily in virtue of His supreme dignity and pr~-eminence; also because, while exercising. His power invisi.~bly and
Issue 34.3 of the Review for Religious, 1975. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building: 539 North Grand Boulevard: St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~ 1975 by Review [or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.75. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $I1.00 for two years; olher countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to repre~nt Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor May 1975 Volume 34 Number 3 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 Noah Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. Models of Spiritual Direction David L. Fleming, S.J. David L. Fleming, S.J., is Co-director of the Institute of Religious Formation at the School of Divinity of St. Louis University; 3634 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Religious men and women today often find themselves in deep disagreement about the role of spiritual direction in their lives. The basic problem lies often enough in the inability to distinguish the various ways of understanding spiritual direction which have been developed in the Christian tradition. A. Models of Spiritual Direction lnspi~:ed by Father Avery Dulles' book, Models of the Church, 1 would like to propose a similar approach.to be used to better our understanding of spiritual direction. Dulles carefully makes the case that church has no single comprehensive definition, but as contemporary theology views it, church is in need of many models held simultaneously to gain a more adequate under-standing. In a similar way, I believe that we will come to a far richer apprecia-tion of spiritual direction if we consider various models which haye tried to capture what it is and how it works. The advantage of models in understanding spiritual direction, just as in working with the notion of church, arises out of the necessary obscurities of religious language and the area of religious experience. Spiritual direction deals with an ultimate level of religious mystery of a God and man love-relationship. As a result, our religious language should be looked upon as forming models because it can only approximate the object which it is trying to grasp. Whenever we use a model conception, we break the illusion that we are actually holding the infinite within the finite structures of our language. Moreover, a variety of models opens up the possibility of our not getting fixed upon any particular one and taking it as an idol. At the same time, through a 35'1 352 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 variety of models we will more easily allow for the greater expression of the subjective element which is at the core of,all religious experience. 1 will propose, then, five models of spiritual direction that are found in our Christian heritage. Spiritual direction can come in a group setting such as faith-sharing groups, small group discussions, or review-of-life groups. But here I will propose five models that deal only with personal spiritual direction, that is, one director with one being directed. For personal direction holds a privileged place in our tradition, and group activity does not eliminate its value or its need. 1 do not pretend that five models form an exhaustive list, but I think that it covers a help.ful spectrum of ideas about spiritual direction as it has come to be understood and practiced in the Church. The five models 1 have chosen are: I) direction as institutionalized; 2) direction as interpersonal relationship; 3) direction as charismatic; 4) direction as sacramental; and 5) direction as incarnational. ! will describe briefly spiritual direction as un-derstood in each of these models, touching somewhat on both the strengths of the model and the weaknesses. In trying to identify each clearly, I face the risk of caricaturing, but that is not my intention. All models should be valued and respected. I) Direction as Institutionalized Spiritual direction is institutionalized in the functions of the novice direc-tor, the designated spiritual director of a seminary, the tertian director, and sometimes the superior, especially as understood in the original role of the ab-bot or in the lgnatian idea of a superior. Direction in this model is carried out particularly by instructing in the spiritual and religious life. Spiritual direction is considered in terms of formation; it has a molding role, and so it connotes a certain control over a person's life development. Oftentimes direction in this model exercises a judgmental role because candidates for religious life or for the priesthood must be declared fit or not fit and so accepted or rejected. Spiritual direction in this designated job-form plays an important part in the Church today, just as it has in past centuries. Among the advantages of this model, the clarity of formation is assured, because the necessary instruction about spiritual development is not left to chance. Definite goals and some set means are a part of the direction ex-change, in this model, we find a certain control over the competency of the director since the "job" of direction was assigned usually by superiors who have judged a person's fittingness for such a role. From the letters of St. Paul giving direction to communities and to individuals, through the early models of direction by the desert fathers, we find deep in Christian tradition the bases of this institutional model. But a number of weaknesses are also apparent in this model. Obviously freedom is minimal in setting up the relationship of direction since the one be-ing directed must subject himself to the person whose function it is to fulfill the assigned job as director. Direction seems to be more a matter of imposition of Models of Spiritual Direction life style and spiritual practices than an evoking of personal growth. Direction also appears to be quite limited in time-value, for it covers primarily the for-mational period or, beyond that, the possible crisis period which needs infor-mation or judgment. 2) Direction as Interpersonal Relationship In this model, spiritual direction is defined primarily in terms of a per-sonal relationship--the closer the friendship the better. Direction, then, usually has the aspect of friendly sharing and loving support. While still main-taining the interpersonal basis, this model of direction sometimes makes studied use of psychological techniques, e.g. the transactional analysis methods. Even with the possibility of a certain psychological approach being consciously employed, direction attempts to focus equally upon the interper-sonal relationship of the two friends (the one directing and the one directed) and the growth in a life-response to God. Frequently in this model, the two people involved exchange roles of director with each other so that spiritual direction becomes a mutual involvement. The strengths of this model are evident in the presence of the love, care, and concern which permeate the relationship in all its aspects. As in any friendship, the free gift of self to each other is assured. Self-disclosure with all its dreams, ideals, fears, and disappointments flows very naturally as the friendship continues to deepen. While contemporary attitudes, especially in reaction to the institutional model of direction, favor this kind of approach, historically it also rests on strong evidence from the example of various saints' friendships with each other and from the written correspondence of direction. When we consider the weaknesses, we note that such a model may overstress the humanistic and so not allow for the distance between reason and grace, which never perfectly coincide. Even though in one sense friends can speak up honestly and forthrightly to each other, in another sense their lack of distance may blind each other to the very areas which need attention. Sometimes even the best of friends find that they are frozen in speaking about one or other area because of the delicacy of the love relationship between them. Another difficulty arises when psychological techniques enter into the picture too consciously; we may find a good helping relationship, but one which takes very little notice of the presence of God or the dynamism of grace. 3) Direction as Charismatic Spiritual direction in this model finds a basis in the diakrisis or discretio of St. Paul's grace-gifts within the Body of Chrigt. Because of the stress upon the special character of this person who is truly a "spiritual discerner," spiritual direction itself is seen as a rarity. St. Teresa of Avila is often quoted in support of this viewpoint because she said that only one person in a thousand is capable of direction work. Just to make the point more clearly, St. Francis de Sales is cited for his observation that a director may number only one in ten thousand. 354 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 Following the biblical image of forgiveness as seventy times seven, both saints are not using modern statistics, but rather they are indicating the special gift which is demanded of the director in spiritual direction work. For spiritual direction as understood here is defined more in terms of insight or infused in-tuition from God. Direction has an aura of the marvelous about it. The emphasis seems to focus more on the arcane directions which will be given to the person directed--special divine messages which come from the "reading of a soul" by the inspired director. The strengths of such a view certainly include the great stress made upon the gift-notion of spiritual direction. Direction in this model catches up two people in the atmosphere of the divine, and the process receives its proper emphasis of being more than human technique and human response, it does point up that a "seeing deeper" with the eyes of faith highlights the relationship of direction. There is a certain basis in both the Old and New Testament, and some examples in Christian hagiography to support such a viewpoint. The weaknesses become apparent in the over-significance attributed to the power of God's grace--looking for its presence only in the spectacular or the marvelous. It seems to restrict God's gifts far too much to the extraordinary in the light of human judgment. As a result, spiritual direction itself becomes an extraordinary means in the life of the Church spiritual tradition. But the history of spirituality does not support this conclusion. 4) Direction as Sacramental Spiritual direction has long been seen in terms of a sacramental model because of the confessor-penitent relationship in the sacrament of penance. Because of the sacramental grace of priestly ordination, the priest himself was seen to be a very special instrument of God and to embody the gifts of ministry which we find in the writings of St. Paul. The words which a priest speaks, then, have greater importance than mere human opinion or advice because they are spoken by God's human representative. More particularly, within the sacrament of penance the priest-confessor often has words of advice or counsel. This context becomes the only true setting of spiritual direction because of the certain ex opere operato effect of words spoken within the sacramental encounter. Such counsel within the context of the sacrament takes in, not just the area of sinful tendencies, but all the attitudes and ways of acting which relate to the God-orientation of a person's life. The advantages of this model include the emphasis given to a more balanced sense of the sacrament of penance. Confession itself is not a mechanistic forgiveness; it has a human relationship involved between the priest-representative of the Church and the penitent. There is no doubt that God-inspired words of counsel or advice do take place in the sacramental con-text. Yet as every priest knows experientially, such words cannot be presumed automatically--one flagrant handicapping of God's action being the prepared Models of Spiritual Direction / 355 little "sermon" which each penitent, no matter what he may confess, may receive on a particular Saturday confession period. But two-human beings, so consciously aware of the special presence of God in the sacramental relationship, are both more readily open to the word of God being spoken and being received. The merit of this viewpoint rests upon a long tradition stem-ming from the penitential manuals of the Irish monks of the eighth century to the more contemporary confession manuals dating from the seventeenth cen-tury in which direction brings a fullness to and finds its proper setting in the sacrament of penance. The weaknesses of such a model are found in the restrictions which it puts upon spiritual direction itself. Because of the sacramental setting, a priest is the only qualified spiritual director. Direction, then, flows properly from the ministry of priesthood. If other men and women carry on this work, it is only as "secondary" helpers to the priest who gives over to them this function. This viewpoint seems to take for granted that priesthood ministry inclu.des all the ministries to be found within the Church, but this conception has no sound basis in scripture or tradition. Direction in this model also takes on too magical a sense in that whatever is said within the context of the sacrament becomes true spiritual counsel. 5) Direction as Incarnational This model of direction is one that is probably receiving most attention to-day in the revival of the practice of spiritual direction. The name incarnational given to describe it calls a little too ostentatiously to the Christian connotation of God-becoming-man. Spiritual direction takes it place among the many "fleshly" means which make up God's ordinary way of salvation as un-derstood in Christianity. From Jesus Christ through the Apostles down to our own contemporary Church, we know that God has a design of salvation mediated by our fellowmen. Direction, then, is seen in its ordinariness of one man helping another to clarify and objectify God's will in his life. At the same time, direction is known to be a relationship of two persons caught up in the presence and power of God in this very ordinary encounter, and so both are aware by faith of the privileged grace-time which direction makes available. Elements which are present in the incarnation of the God-man have their analogous components in the direction relationship. Human preparation, faith, and an openness to the movement of God are necessary, and then a recognition that any true fruition of the direction relationship comes from the Spirit. This model of direction is also properly identified as incarnational in that no aspect of a person's life is left apart from the direction context, since man as a whole--physically, psychologically, and spiritually--must grow in his response to God's unique call to him. The advantages of this model are especially seen in terms of the developments of our own day. It presents a conceptual notion of direction that is deeply in tune with the whole process of renewal in the Church. It builds 356 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 upon the richness of contemporary scriptural and theological studies, par-ticularly in the areas of Christology and Ecclesiology. It maintains a sure emphasis on the humanness of this relationship in direction, while still placing the solidity of growth as a God-empowered gift. Direction in this model is an ordinary means of spiritual growth in the embodied spirituality which is Christianity. This way of understanding direction has good foundation in both scripture and tradition since we find God acting through men in giving advice and warning (e.g. Jeremiah), in making a person aware of how to listen to God (e.g. Samuel and Saul), in clarifying and objectifying a response (e.g. David and Nathan), and in instruction (e.g. Ananias and Paul). The example con-tinues in the many volumes of spiritual writings and letters which we have as a legacy from holy men and women in our Catholic history. The weaknesses of this model arise somewhat from the novelty of its recent re-emphasis. It may too easily be seen as a good human relationship sprinkled over with pious words about God's will. Direction may look so ordinary that the only conclusion to be drawn is that everyone needs it and is capable of profiting from it and just about everyone has the ability to give direction. Then, too, taking in the whole of one's life as the subject-matter seems to leave this model of direction open to a lack of preciseness--no clear understanding of the concerns of direction or the ways of going about it. In a similar way, direction seems to lack clarity about the quality of this spiritual relationship--mixing friendship and distance or professionalism, and or-dinariness and the sense of the holy. B. A Model of Models? In review, all the models have played and do play an important part in our full understanding of spiritual direction--what it is, who does it, to whom it has value, how to go about it, and so on. What 1 hope to have shown is that we can understand spiritual direction in various ways (not just one right way), and that as a result there are various expectations on the part of the director and the one being directed, various methods of directing, and even different ways of valuing its importance for mature spiritual life. To try to reduce the various models of spiritual direction to a single one is to lose sight of the incomprehensible richness of religious experience which forms the content of direction. Neither the strengths nor the weaknesses of the various approaches or models are neatly reducible to a single model. Even after describing each model in its purity, we should be aware that a blending often happens in ~ictual praciice. What we tend to do is to make one model our pivotal model for adapting and understanding other ways of functioning in spiritual direction. But to hold one model as pivotal is quite different from maintaining that there is only one way of understanding and practicing spiritual direction. If I were to opt for a pivotal model for our own day, 1 would choose direc-tion described as incarnational. I believe that it allows for a greater understand-ing of the continuing importance of spiritual direction, especially for the men Models ojSpiritual Direction / 3!i7 and women who have recognized or who are in the process of recognizing the call to specialized ministry roles within the Church. It also more easily allows for the importance of other understandings of direction and other methodologies according to circumstances, though it maintains an adequacy for its own method as a common pattern. Far more work must still be done to gain .an appreciation of the richness which we possess in the Christian practice of spiritual direction. Presently, to be able to hold the different models of direction in tension allows us to draw a little closer to a more adequate truth and a more varied beauty which encompass the mystery of spiritual direction ministry. Creative Response To A Call Within "The Call" Sister Marie Gatza, I.H.M. Sister Marie Gatza, I.H.M., participated in the Workshop of National Vocation Directors which met at Mercy Center in Farmington, Michigan, during the summer of 1974. She is Assistant General of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; Saint Mary Convent; Monroe, Michigan 48161. The area of "Transfer," is, I am told, fast becoming a matter of concern among Vocation Directors. In the past, there have been rare instances of transfers centered mostly on permissions given to leave an active for a con-templative congregation, a less strict order for a stricter one. However, the topic of "Transfer" is a relatively recent new-comer among religious life con-cepts within Congregations of women in the United States, and so not too much has yet made its way into current literature. Opportunities to learn more about the idea of "Transfer,'" "therefore, come best through situations like the workshop of Vocation Directors at Mercy Center in Farmington where during the Summer of 1974, I had the privilege of contributing the ideas developed in this essay. In trying to think how I could most effectively focus the concentration of workshop members on the topic of"Transfer," 1 found that four key questions readily surfaced: I. Why would a Sister desire to leave her parent Congregation? 2. What factors greatly influence the thinking of Sisters in their search for a Congregation into which they can transfer? 3. What motivation would impel a Congregation to welcome into its membership a Sister who has already finalized her commitment in another Congregati6n? 358 Creative Response to a Call Within "The Call" / 359 4. Given mutuality on the part of the Sister to enter and of the Congrega-tion to receive, what procedural steps are basic to achieving the transfer of a Sister from one Congregation to another? I would like to treat each of these questions, now, in some detail. Then in addition to these four questions, it seems well to attend, even briefly, to the beginnings of evaluation of the concept of "Transfer" as we perceive it operating today within religious Congregations. I Why do Sisters feel convinced that they must leave the Congregation in which they pronounced Perpetual Vows? Because the reasons given by each of the Sisters cited here are so in-dividual, it would not be wise--or even possible--for me to generalize in response to this question. What we can do, however, is to take some mini-glimpses into the lives of a few Sisters who saw "Transfer" as vital to the continuance of their religious commitment. From them we may learn that the motives which led Sisters to request transfer are many and varied. My first example is SISTER P who had been for almost twenty years a member.of a cloistered Congregation, which recently, as a matter of entering into renewal of Religious life, permitted coursework for its Sisters on the cam-puses of nearby Catholic colleges. Sister P was greatly enthusiastic about her opportunity for college education, and discovered that she had a gift for and a great desire to impart knowledge to others in a classroom situation. She found the world of apostolic teaching increasingly fascinating, and at the same time was aware of a persistent questioning within herself as to whether she was really fitted for, or any longer drawn to the contemplative life, despite the years she had already spent within it. She asked for a leave of absence in order to test out her vocation in a Congregation whose main apostolic thrust is education. SISTER N became a candidate in the Congregation of her choice after completing secondary school, and entered, with apparent enthusiasm, into full-scale studies toward becoming a teacher in the Congregation's apostolate of education. Toward the end of nearly twenty years of service in various schools, and maintaining only love and reverence for her own active congregation, she felt the persistent call of the Lord to continue'her religious life in a more con-templative setting. Her transfer to a contemplative community was, therefore, effected. SISTER T's story is a second testimonial to the fact that transfer is a two-way proposition: some come, others go. 360 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 Sister T, brilliantly endowed intellectually, chose to transfer from the original foundation Motherhouse of her congregation to one of its branches. Her choice for this action seemed to be motivated by the fact that the style and tempo of that community much more surely encompassed her thoughts on renewal in religious life than did that of her own Congregation. When SISTER S first came into contact with the congregation into which she ultimately transferred, she was in her early thirties, and had already been questioning her current situation in religious life. Sister S's diocesan Com-munity consisted of only thirty-four, mostly older members, who in Sister's es-timation had not sufficient theological background to enable them to cope with renewal. At the offset, Sister's motivation for approaching another religious con-gregation was primarily one of a desire to earn her degree. In the course of completing her studies, she came into close contact with the life-style of the faculty, Sisters who were her peers in the Juniorate, and a number of other Sisters belonging to the Congregation which staffed her college. At gradua-tion, Sister realized that the determination to transfer was still much alive within her, and took a most natural next-step: seek transfer permanently to that congregation. SISTER G, educated in elementary an'd secondary schools staffed by Sisters dedicated primarily to education, chose to enter another congregation whose apostolate included social work, for which she felt-a strong inclination. Ironically, at the time she requested entry into religious life, the congregation of her choice was in great need of teachers rather than of social workers, and so, Sister G was educated for the teaching field, a profession in which, however, she learned to find joy and satisfaction. After 19 years in community, Sister G's mother became ill and was in desperate need of her help. Sister appealed to her Provincial, requesting to live and teach with the group of Sisters in the town where her mother's home was located, a move that enabled her to be closer to her mother. Because Sister G's congregation at the time did not approve of inter- Congregational living situations, she was required to take a leave of absence in order to'care for her mother. Sister's two years of leave were painful ones for her in that she felt an absence of support from her Congregation, and grew in-creasingly concerned that her request to care for her mother in this way had displeased her former superiors. A sense of disappointment,-discouragement and alienation resulted. Meanwhile, her conviction of being at home and loved in her temporary living situation became more compelling, and Sister's thoughts focused on the advisability of asking for a transfer. Her present status 'is one of preparing to finalize her commitment to the Lord in her new Congregation. SISTER M is a promising young Ph.D., gifted as well with an unusually Creative Response to a Call Within "The ('all" / 361 strong sense of commitment to religious life, and a very real love and loyalty to her own Congregation. Sister M's reason for seeking transfer is expressed clearly in this sentence taken from one of her letters: "I am reluctant to make this transfer, but have found peace of mind with the decision, since affiliation with the community, ¯ promises greater freedom to respond to the heart of my religious vocation and to the needs of the Church as ! understand them." Interestingly, Sister M is at the present moment making one last effort to work things out with her own Congregation. I do not know whether or not her transfer will materialize. These examples, though few, indicate that reasons for thinking of transfer are much conditioned by a variety of circumstances in which Sisters find themselves. I1 What considerations greatly influence the thinking of Sisters in their search for a specific Congregation into which they would hope to transfer? I suppose that it would be next to impossible to make a comprehensive listing of the factors influencing Sisters in their search for another Congrega-tion in which they can live out the religious cohamitment already begun in the first, their parent Congregation. It is my experience that most Sisters who are interested in a possible transfer express in some way a feeling of affinity with the "new" Congrega-tion, and a supportiveness toward its thrust in Renewal. Where a House of Prayer has developed, for example, many Sisters relate very positively to the significance accorded this growing movement in the Christian life of our day, and are attracted by the centrality of importance accorded to both personal and communal prayer. Again, a basic belief in, and an inner assurance of, competency in relation to the apostolate of the new Congregation seems to enter significantly into a Sister's choice of a Community to which she might like to transfer. Sometimes, style Of living is an important consideration. A person's contact in childhood with the elected Congregation, that is, in elementary or secondary school years, or contact with members of a given Congregation in adult years may influence the Sister'.s decision to opt for one Congregation rather than another, if a transfer is sought. Occasionally, a more insightful approach is brought to the resolution of this question, i.e. "which Congregation?" ! recall, for example, a Sister who had entered religious life as an Aspirant after completing the eighth grade. Twelve years later, having pronounced perpetual vows, Sister asked to be ex-claustrated from her Congregation for the purpose of searching out whether religious life should c~ntinue to be her life-style. Her searching she did under direction, concluding that, yes, religious life was, indeed, what the Lord was :362 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 calling her to live; bt~t not, however, within the Congregation she had entered. After asking herself what it was within the spirit and heritage of her own Congregation that had been most helpful and inspirational to her, really at the heart of her vocation, Sister contacted better than a.dozen Congregations ask-ing for brochures. These she studied for indications of the traits that best em-bodied the spirit of the Congregation in which she had made her vows. In the end, it was the Congregation which she thought did this best that she ap-proached asking for a transfer. But whatever the method used, or whatever the degree of logic or clearness of purpose perceived by the Sister considering transfer, I believe it is fairly safe to say that the seeker is hopeful of finding in the new Congregation cir-cumstances that will be favorable for her living, in some rewarding way, a commitment which means very much to her; circumstances which for some reason or other may have been painfully absent in her life in Community up to this point. III What would be the motivation of a Congregation which welcomes as a new member o fits own a Sister who has already lived under permanent profession within another Congregation? First off, let's clarify one point beyond any confusion. There is probably small encouragement in the Church for supporting transfer at all. The nature of religious commitment, as it has been historically understood and accepted, i.e., "Community", "family", "leader-followers" concepts, argues for permanency within the parent Congregation. We have learned to speak of the "charism" of a Congregation: that unique spirit that characterizes a group of Sisters as a religious Congregation. Although it is hard to put one's fingers on exactly what it is that distinguishes one Congrega-tion from another, no one will deny that there is a certain something, a family bond or spirit which is recognizable to the members, and, to an appreciable ex-tent, able to be detected by outsiders, as well. In some effective way, it seems that the act of transferring from one Congregation to another has to take this matter of Community-charism into consideration. Granting this fact, even slight reflection leads to the conviction that transfer is not an action one opts to pursue lightly when life's more adven-turous movements taper, off into routine. No. To transfer from one's Congregation to another can result in virtually total uprooting, loss of friends, and severance from all that has been familiar for the individual. Should transfer become a more.common pr~actice, we could anticipate con-sequences for the parent Congregation, also. Loss of morale within the ranks, and diminished confidence in the Community outlook and thrust on the part of many of the members can develop exceedingly fast, as we have all learned through our own decrease in numbers sustained in recent years. Creative Response to a Call Within "'The Call" / 363 These considerations being so, a large number of transfers could hardly be thought desirable. One might ask, then, why do leaders of Congregations entertain the idea of transfer at all? Their motivation has to arise from a basic reverence for each individual call to religious life, and a desire to support a fellow Sister in her efforts to re-main faithful to her vocation, even if it means a painful re-planting. Those sup-porting transfer would have to act from a willingness and desire: a. to provide for a Sister some "time" and "space" away from her Congregation in which she can be free to sort out priorities while still being basically observant of the life style of a religious, -or-b. to provide a Sister with an opportunity to embrace the life and mission of a new Congregation for the sake of remaining faithful to her commit-ment to Christ, when it becomes apparent that she can no longer achieve this end within her own Congregation, -or much more rarely, willingness to engraft upon one's own Congregation (as was recently the case within a diocesan group in one of our Eastern States) a whole Com-munity of Sisters when a basic similarity of spirit, or charism prevails in the two Congregations in question. These thoughts indicate in some way, why a Congregation is sometimes willing to accept Sisters asking for a transfer. IV Given a Sister who believes she needs to have a new setting in which to continue living her religious vocation, and given a Congregation willing to think of her as a potential new member of its own, what must be done? The essentials are not too numerous, in my .experience. a. Willingness of the General Superiors of both Congregations to allow and welcome the fact of a transfer, is undoubtedly, of the essence. b. Some good help provided the Sister in discerning whether transfer is, in-deed, the Lord's will for her seems essential too. c. And, of course, proper transactions with Rome are required for the ob-taining of the needed "paper"--the Rescript of Transfer. Of these three, the step which admits of many specifics is the second one; the discernment process. Taking more time than not enough at this point, and being free to meet the individual needs of the Sister is a matter that must 364 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 receive priority at all costs. The space of a year, or more, can very profitably be employed in initially resolving the question of whether it would be mutually advantageous to bring about a transfer, and then of building a readiness for a transfer which is directed to future personal and apostolic fruitfulness for the Sister and for her new Congregation. In my Congregation, which has been open to requests of Sisters to transfer, dealing with Sisters who are thinking about this possibility is a work delegated to the Assistant of the General Superior. It is her responsibility as contact per-son to keep the General Superior and Provincials aware of the Sister's progress at stated times throughout the year. It is also understood that the contact person in some suitable way perform the following duties in re to the Sister seeking to transfer: I. The Contact person enables the Sister to find a situation in which she will live and work among her new Sisters as an actual member of her own Congregation for at least one year before any formal request is made to Rome. During this year a two-way evaluation is on-going: on the part of the Sister who is acquainting herself with the new Com-munity; and on the part of the chosen Community which tries to ask honestly: "Can our Congregation assist this Sister in her living of a healthy religious life and further our Community interests as well by welcoming her into our midst?" 2. The Contact person makes efforts to assist the Sister to become familiar with the members of the elected Community and their life-st'yle, Constitutions, prayer, Community history, and so on. 3. She arranges a realistic and practical system of contacts by means of which she herself, will keep in close contact with the possible transfer- Sister throughout the year. 4. It is her responsibility to establish, as well, during the year, some means of contacting the Sisters residing with Sister-transfer to see how they in-teract with her and she with them. 5. The Contact person may significantly assist her Superior in preparing the portfolio of materials needed to formalize the transfer at Rome, and within both Congregations of Sisters. 6. She enters into facilitating plans for the liturgical celebration marking completion of transfer. 7. She, finally, keeps files current: documents, letters, various com-munications. These suggestions form'at least a working outline of practical steps that will take on significance during the discernment period, especially. Here, then, are some thoughts on each of the four questions presented in the beginning of this essay. I have shown that transfer from one Congregation to another is possible; and while certainly not giving the last word on how it can come about, I have indicated the outline of a procedure for a starter. With Creative l~,esponse to a Call Within "The Call" / 365 all of this, ~owever, there is a yet unasked, but key question that must be sur-faced: I When all the externals and!formalities of the transfer have been com-pleted; when the document~ have been validated; when the ceremonial commemorating the event l~as become a matter of history, it still seems imperative to ask: Did a transfer really occur? Is it possible for a person to sink permanent roots in new soil twice in the space of a single, human lifetime? What sort of on-going~considerations would have to be borne in mind by the "new" community and satisfactorily dealt with by the transferred Sister so that she will not: -- be constantly lone!y? -- be often lacking in ~nderstanding because her past is so foreign in many ways fro~ the past of those with whom she now lives? -- be many times Iook~ing backward to a chapter of her life which is largely unsharable with others and now closed even to herself?, These questions--very real and, sometimes, harsh, lead one, unerringly to the ultimate question: "For h~w many can transfer really be an alternative'?" This presentation really c~uld end with the question 1 have just posed. Ho ever, as a kind of epilog~te, let me ask one further: w'what would happen were it possible for a Sister to live within another Congregation on an extended leave until such time arrived at which she could return in dignity an~ peace and joy to her own Congregation?" Might not this be an unusu~ai service of love that a Congregation could ex-tend not only to an individual ~eligious, but to its Sister-Congregation, as well? it's worth a thought! I Integrity in the Religious Life Sister Mary John Mananzan, O.S.B. Sister Mary John Mananzan is attached to St. Scholastica's College; 2560 Leon Guinto, Sr. St.; P.O. Box 3153; Manila, Philippines. There are virtues which are so all-encompassing that one can explain the other facets of religious life through them. It is not infrequent to explain religious life primarily through one of the vows--(of poverty, of chastity, and obedience) or primarily as a life of love and from there explain all its other features. One such encompassing virtue which, however, is rarely used to view religious life, is integrity. And it is not infrequent that religious people who ex-hibit m~iny external manifestations of virtue can be lacking in integrity. This lack of integrity .can be so subtle that such religious people become a real problem to honest but simple people who deal with the.m. These cannot put their .finger to a particular fault but somehow .they feel something is wrong somewhere. This article will try to analyze situations that exhibit the presence of integrity or the lack of it particularly in the religious life. Integrity is a many-faceted word. Its nuances encompass different but related levels of meaning--from honesty to wholeness of being. But all along this spectrum of meaning runs a single beam that relates them to each other, namely TRUTH. Integrity describes the many aspects of being true. That is why it is a basic virtue. Without it all other seeming virtues are a show and the lack of it makes any manifested virtue suspect. The most basic meaning of the word is "wholeness" or oneness. A religious who is a "whole" is one who has achievi~d a certain harmony in his being, which presupposes a basic self-understanding and self-acceptance. Further-more he has a certain sense of reality and a coherent system of values which form the framework for this authentic self-awareness. Most religious tend to mature intellectually before they do emotionally and morally. There is thus a Integrity in the Religious LiJ~" / certain incongruence and inconsistency in their life. They can give very good lectures, sermons, or write beautiful articles about behaviour, attitudes or vir-tues which can be sadly lacking in their lives. The catching up of one's emotion and one's will with one's insight is a progressive growth in integrity and wholeness. This tendency of the earlier maturation of the intellect may explain the expert way religious.can rationalize actions which deep in their heart they feel guilty about. Laymen can be more honest about their faults than many religious because they don't need to live up to an image. Religious on the other hand have to live up to the imperatives that rule their lives--the imperative to perfection, the imperative to excellence, the imperative to fidelity, the im-perative to unselfishness, the imperative to sacrifice, etc. There is thus a ground for varying degrees of hypocrisy in the religious life ranging from unconscious inconsistency, through semi-conscious in-congruence to alarming schizophrenic tendencies. In this connection, one can look at the crisis of celibacy today as the crisis of integrity. Celibacy can be viewed as the virtue of integrity par excellence. The fact that physical integrity is a sign of virginity is a significant symbol of the main characteristic of celibacy which is personal wholeness. Lived celibacy is not just renunciation but it is at the same time a fulfillment--namely the coming together of heart, mind, body in a singleness of purpose of serving God and being wholly there for others. Any religious who has had a crisis of celibacy must have undergone the literally heart-rending experience of being drawn to two poles--to the demand of the religious life and to the preoccupa-tion with the person with whom one is emotionally involved. Even without indulging in sexual relationships this inner splitting of one's heart threatens one's integrity as a religious. Sooner or later one will reach a critical point which can result in two ways: It can result in a greater wholeness, in a greater integrity due to a conscious re-direction of one's being to one's religious commitment or to a totally new way of life. But it can also lead to disintegration in one who refuses to heal the dichotomy of his heart. At this point all the other forms of lack of integrity will come in--justification, dis-simulation, outright deceit. The more clever the religious the more ingenious the rationalization. The whole of theology can be overhauled to justify the in-fidelity of the human heart, In those who have come to the point of indulging in sexual relationships, the element of passion comes in which blinds them to an almost unbelievable degree. It is not just a matter of moral disintegration that ensues; it can mean a disintegration of pe~sonality. Whole articles can be written about the so-called "third way." Here, only its effect on one's integrity has been discussed. Less dramatic but nevertheless harmful forms of lack of integrity can be found among religious. Where positions of power are held, there certain danger to one's integrity is present. As has already been said, the imperatives of the religious life conditions the failings of religious to be less glaring, less gross, more subtle, more refihed, and consequently more insidious. One can, 361~ / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 for example develop a way of manipulating facts to serve one's purposes, it is not a matter of downright deception or lie but a way of leaving out facts or choosing them or presenting just an angle of them in order to get what one wants. One cannot put a finger on any downright falsified item but the whole thing is a lie nevertheless. The manipulation of reality can be so subtle that only the most clever can see through the whole scheme and yet ordinary people have an uneasy feeling about it. A more serious form of this lack of integrity is the manipulation of people. It is bad enough to manipulate facts, it is worse to manipulate people. There are clever persons who can play on the weaknesses and strength of other people to their advantage. When one has a project all wiles will be exerted to manipulate people into it. This can lead to sickening forms of "false sweetness," to borrow from the little girl who transformed the 8th commandment into--"Thou shal( not bear false sweetness against thy neighbor." For a positive treatment of integrity, one has to go back to the basic mean-ing given earlier in the article, namely--wholeness. There is in the religious who has achieved a certain amount of integrity, a certain consistency and con-gruence which gives his personality an identifiable core. This gives him a cer-tain reliability and trustworthiness lacking in "shifty" personalities. One. knows where one stands with him. One is aware of encountering someone who remains what he essentially is in differing circumstances. He is real! This solid ¯ reality of his personality is, moreover, transparent, not made opaque by masks, pretensions, dissimulations, or defenses. He is by this very fact vulnerable, because he does not change color like a chameleon or become elusive like an eel. Therefore his weak points are apparent and open to attack. But even this vulnerability is an asset because it is what makes him at home with all men. The link that binds human beings is most often their capacity to be hurt rather than their invulnerability, their common misery rather than the superiority or achievement which set some apart from others, It is a vulnerability that survives being pierced without falling apart. The process of personality integration is an on-going one. A person who has reached a certain degree of integrity continues to make experiences which are to be integrated into his personality if they are to become meaningful to him. One's integrity when one's world is still relatively simple is qualitatively (not only in degree) different from that which one has achieved after going' through major life experiences. There are experiences that are more easily in-tegrated than others because of their familiarity and relative lack of impor-tance. Utterly new experiences, shattering or overwhelming ones are more dif-ficult to integrate. These can cause crisis situations. A person of integrity however, can undergo the most serious crisis, even one caused by his own failings and therefore incurring real guilt without suffering a personality dis-integration. He somehow arises from the ruins battered but whole. He is able to integrate even these negative experiences into his life making him richer and. even more whole because of the confirmation of the links that unite his per-sonality. Integrity in the Religious Life / 369 This is probably the reason why religious who sense an inner integrity in their being tend to take more risks and are less bound by conventions or legalistic observance of rules. They have a sure instinct for what is right, what is true, what is demanded by a situation, what is false or genuine in people they live with. Because of all these, they enjoy an inner freedom which makes them more creative and innovative in the living of their religious commitment. Reprints from the Review "The Confessions of Religious Women" by Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. (25 cents) "Institutional Business Administration and Religious" by John J. Flanagan, S.J., and James I. O'Connor, S.J. (20 cents) "Authority and Religious Life" by J. M. R. Tillard, O.P. (20 cents) "The Death of Atheism" by Rene H. Chabot, M.S. (20 cents) "The Four Moments of Prayer" by John R. Sheets, S.J. (25 cents) "Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation" by the Congreg~ition for Religious (35 cents) "Meditative Descriptiori of the Gospel Counsels" (20 cents) "A Method for Eliminating Method in Prayer" by Herbert Francis Smith, S.J. (25 cents) "Religious Life in the Mystery of the Church" by J. M. R. Tiilard, O.P. (30 cents) "Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of Discernment of Spirits" by John R. Sheets, S.J. (30 cents) "Consciousness Examen" by George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. (20 cents) "Retirement or Vigil?" by Benedict Ashley, O.P. (25 cents) "Celibacy and Contemplation" by Denis Dennehy, S.J. (20 cents) "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat" by Herbert F. Smith, S.J. (20 cents) "The Healing of Memories" by Francis Martin (20 cents) Orders for the above should be sent to: Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri 63103 Religious Government: A Reflection On Relationships Sister Doris Gottemoeller, R.S.M. Sister Doris Gottemoeller, R.S.M., whose reflections here have grown out of her experience with the nine provinces of the Sisters of Mercy as well as conversations with members of many other congregations, resides at the Generalate of the Sisters of Mercy; 10000 Kentsdale Drive: P.O.,Box 34446; West Bethesda, Maryland 20034. The renewal of religious life inaugurated by Vatican II required the adaptation of every aspect of that life, both external practices and internal attitudes. One of the most readily observable of these external areas is that of religious government, the network of structures which regulate the interrelationships of members and groups within a community. If the revitalization of communities in the light of Gospel vision and community charism was to occur, the Council saw that it had to be done in the light of the "physical and psychological con-ditions of today's religious," "the needs of the apostolate, the requirements of a given culture, (and) the social and economic conditions everywhere."' More particularly, the Council specified that the way in which communities are governed had to be re-examined in the light of these same standards.~ In order for renewal to truly involve and touch each member of a com-munity, structures had to be altered in order to create channels for each in-dividual voice. Moreover, the spirit of collegiality and subsidiarity which enlivened the Council itself implied the necessity for structures of participative decision-making within other Church groups, such as dioceses, parishes, and religious communities. Before renewal began, role definitions of officials in religious communities (e.g., major superiors, councilors, local superiors) had 'Vatican Council II, Perfectae Caritatis. no. ~. ~lbid. 370 Religious Government." A Reflection on Relationships / 37"1 ¯ provided predictable patterns of decision-making. Furthermore, little revision of rule or policy was required from year to year in an era when lack of change was valued as a sign of strength; constitutions and custom books provided guidelines for every situation, whether of great or trivial importance. With the recognition of the need for on-going adaptation, however, structures had to be altered to provide for on-going participation in the vision-building and direction-setting of a community by every member of that community. Not only was widespread grassroots participation needed for the successful carry-ing out of the special general chapters which inaugurated adaptation, but government plans had to be tailored to allow for continuing involvement in the affairs of the community. At least five years have elapsed since this work began, and some obser-vations can be offered as the fruit of a backwards glance over those years. The remarks which follow can be characterized as insights gleaned from observing the efforts of many communities to re-structure their governments into more responsive and responsible models. They are reflections on the phenomena--not evaluations from a religious or a theological point of view. This work of evaluation is certainly called for, but first we must form a good idea of what is happ.ening before we probe further. The following observations apply to representative bodies, to administrative groups, and to the methods whereby leadership is selected. Representative Bodies The ultimate authority in a religious community has always been vested in its general chapter. Accordingly the efforts to update communities had to begin here in a twofold sense: the chapter itself had to be updated as an instru-ment of leadership and then it, in turn, had the responsibility to inaugurate change in every Other aspect of community life. To this end communities modified their chapters in various ways and, in some cases, supplemented them with other representative groups described variously as assemblies, boards, and congresses. All .of these representative bodies are discussed together here, because certain observations can be made which pertain to all of them. Therefore, in the paragraphs which follow, "chapter" is used to refer to any representative body with responsibility to and for an entire religious in-stitute or a large portion thereof, e.g., a province. I. Most representative bodies have been made truly representative. Great progress has been made here, in the sense that chapters are no longer con-trolled by a preponderance of ex-officio delegates. In most cases the size of the group has been expanded and communities have been diligent in trying to bring together a genuine cross section of the congregation--diversified as to age, apostolic experience, community experience, and geographic location (in instances where a community is widespread). One thing we have learned here, however, is that this effort has its own inherent limitations, in the sense that to specify the configuration of the delegate group too particularly may arbitrarily 372 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 limit the freedom of the community members to have the representatives of their choice. In other words, suitable chapter delegates are not always or necessarily found in equal proportions in each geographic region or age group. 2. A distinction between the chapter and other non-legislative representative groups is not always viable in practice. This observation applies to those com-munities which have created an additional representative group to serve in the interim between chapter sessions in an advisory .capacity to the administrative group (major superior and council). The composition of this new group usually overlaps, to a large extent, the chapter membership, so a certain confusion of roles and responsibilities results. As chapter members, while the chapter is in session, the delegates have dominative authority over the affairs of the in-stitute or province. As assembly members, however, the delegates have only a consultative function. However, a crisis of confidence in the leadership of the administrative group would soon develop if they overrode or ignored the con-sidered judgment of the assembly very often. So, in practice, the assembly becomes, effectively, legislative or policy-making. Also, assembly members would soon lose interest in serving in that capacity if the matters submitted to them were not of real significance and/or if their judgments were not adopted and implemented by the administrative group. Therefore, the tendency is for such assemblies to either develop a quasi-legislative function or else to be con-sistently frustrated by the ineffectiveness of their role. The question must be asked, though, how many significant agenda items are t~ere which should receive the attention of a broad-based chapter group? It would seem that on many issues the administrative group would profit more from consultation with a more specialized committee within the community, such as the representatives of one particular area of apostolic service, than from the broad-based consultation which a chapter can provide. 3. The frequency with which the group meets is more significant than whether or not it is defined as legislative. If the group meets frequently (e.g., as often as bi-monthly, or even quarterly), there is a tendency on the part of the ad-ministrative group to submit a comparatively larger number of items to its consideration and to defer action even on relatively noncontroversial issues un-til after consultation with the chapter or assembly. Thus there is the possibility of paralyzing the activity and initiative of the administrative group, or at least of weakening their effectiveness as a leadership group. Major superiors may hesitate to make any personal creative approach to a problem or issue without submitting it to a chapter 'referendum.' In some cases this is by design: the administrative group is conceived of as the executive arm of the chapter which, in a sense, retains ordinary authority in the community. If this is patterned on the federal government's model of separation of powers, it fails to take account of the fact that the executive and legislative arms of the federal government are (ideally!) separate but equal and, furthermore, are counterbalanced by the judicial arm. If it is patterned on the model of the relationship between a board of trustees and administrators Religious Government: A Reflection on Relationships / :373 who are responsible to the board, then it should be noted that trustees or-dinarily entrust a large amount of ordinary authority to their administrators. If the administrators abuse that trust, they are replaced by the trustees, but the latter are not involved in the administration per se of the institution. One ques-tion which a community which adopts this "strong chapter/weak ad-ministrator" model must ask itself is to what extent the chapter members are willing to prepare themselves to consider and to involve themselves in a succes-sion of varied problems and issues. Too frequent meetings also may have the unfortunate effect of discourag-ing otherwise qualified community members from serving as delegates. Once this occurs the moral authority of the chapter is subtly undermined because the community senses that somehow serving as a delegate is not a priority respon-sibility and that the composition of the delegate body does not reflect the 'first choice' of the members of the community. 4. Chapter authority is weakened by confusion over its function. Formerly the understanding of what chapter delegates were to do was quite clear and recognized throughout the community. Ordinarily general chapter meetings coincided with the election of the major superior and other officials, and this task was the primary responsibility of the delegates: In addition to this elective function, the delegates knew they had legislative authority. However, in the pre-Vatican Ii era little change was expected or seemingly desired. Therefore the responsibility for this legislative function did not weigh too heavily on the delegates. Beginning with the special general chapters, however, the whole situation changed, and the legislative aspect assumed great prominence. Chapters vir-tually legislated anew on every aspect of religious life, even to the extent of abrogating their former constitutions almost in toto. Since that time com-munities have been using interim constitutions and chapter decrees in place of their former constitutions. The changes reflected in these documents, of course, could not be effected by simply promulgating them: on-going develop-ment had to take place in order to assist community members, delegates and non-delegates alike, to test out the new vis{on in terms of concrete experience and to internalize that vision in their personal value structures. Quite naturally, chapter delegates thus saw that their responsibility did not end when a chapter session adjourned. They had to communicate the chapter vision to everyone and become agents of on-going renewal. Subsequent chapter sessions then became occasions of further corporate reflection on the values embodied in earlier chapter decrees and led to appropriate modifications, refinements, a shared search for ways to implement ideals, and so forth. Thus the legislative function of chapters shaded into a new one, the renewal function. While this evolution of chapter responsibility is understandable and, from some standpoints, desirable, from another viewpoint an unfortunate blurring of distinctions may occur. That is, all of the pronouncements of the same legislative body tend to carry the same weight. As a result, chapter enactments 374 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 may appear to regress to the minutiae of an earlier era, and hence invite dis-regard, or they may all appear to be merely exhortatory without the benefit of stress or emphasis. If the authority of the chapter becomes weakened in the general estimate by too frequent pronouncements, there will be no authoritative voice left in a community to make a really solemn or effective point when it is called for. Perhaps this is an argument for less frequent chapter meetings, preceded by extensive reflection and development of issues within the community. The renewal function, then, would remain primarily the responsibility of the ad-ministrative group and such other community members and committees as they invite to share their responsibility, while the deliberative and legislative function--the ultimate direction setting--would remain the primary emphasis of the chapter itself. Administrative Groups The day-to-day administration of religious communities as well as or-dinary authority between chapter sessions is entrusted to a major superior and councilors and staff persons who collaborate with them. Just as with represen-tative bodies, there have been a variety of new approaches to maximizing the effective service of~.administrative groups. 1. "Teamwork" is seen as an ideal for administrative groups. Scarcely a group could be found today which would not lay claim to functioning as a "'team," but the connotations of this term are sometimes elusive. The use of it probably reflects an effort to escape from a hierarchical arrangement within the administrative group in which distinctions of rank and authority were strictly maintained, or from a rigid system of role descriptions within the council which tended to discourage creativity and initiative among the members and to stifle leadership in all but the major superior. To state what a team is not, however, is not the same as filling the concept with positive mean-ing. The chief characteristic of a team relationship is probably the high degree of communication and interaction among its members. Team organization is not incompatible with differentiation of tasks and authority among the members--after all, there is only one captain of a football team, and everyone plays a different position on it. (There are even offensive players as well as defensive ones, althgugh one would not like to push the analogy this far!) A team does imply a common goal for the members' efforts, however, and a genuinely concerted effort to reach it. There can be a distribution of authority on a team, and there certainly should be a flexibility in approach, a willingness to capitalize on one another's strengths and to compensate for one another's weaknesses, and a relative freedom to revise the "game plan" or to strategize as play progresses. A few communities have organized their administrative groups in such a way that two or more persons have co-equal responsibility. For example, there Religious Government: A Reflection on Relationships / 37~i may be three co-provincials who have different spheres of responsibility (such as religious formation, apostolic placement, finances, etc.), but seemingly equal accountability for the affairs of the total province. At least one com-munity reported that they found this to be an ineffective and inefficient arrangement because~f the lack of dynamism and leadership which resulted. Another effect of dividing the decisions to be made into approximately equal shares might be that the "co-provincials" tend to make decisions in isolation from one another without reference to the fact that these decisions ought to flow from an integrated vision of what the community is and is about. On the other hand, if "co-provincials" are all equally involved in every decision, the community's expectation will be that all will be equally knowledgeable about every area of responsibility--which would be a wasteful use of time and effort in some cases. These difficulties highlight the importance of studying the decision-making functions of the administrative group in order to provide, insofar as it can be anticipated, for participation which is proportionate to the centrality and im- 'portance of the issue. Formerly, constitutions took care of this by enumerating those matters which required a deliberative vote of the council and those for which only a consultative vote was required. The fact that administrative teams function in a more collegial and less formal style today should not obscure the insight that different matters require varying amounts of delibera-tion and ~consultation. 2. Administrative responsibility is increasingly shared with staff persons. This phenomenon results from the newly-emphasized distinction between charismatic and administrative leadership, as well as from an increasingly specialized and professional approach to traditional areas of administrative responsibility, such as finances, communications and record-keeping, per-sonnel services, and the management of apostolic institutions. Major superiors and their councils are seen primarily as 'in-spirators' and 'enablers' of religious community life--a role which is distinguished from the more management-oriented phase of their responsibility. It is further recognized that such tasks as financial management and personnel services require specialized preparation which is not always had by those whom the community wishes to elect to office. Also, these specialized tasks are often done better when a continuity of responsibility is maintained, and the tenure of such per-sons as the treasurer is not tied into an elected term of office. While in principle such distinctions can be made, there are also certain dif-ficulties which have been evidenced. First of all, the distinction between "charismatic" and "administrative" leadership cannot be exclusively main-tained: a religious leader who did not have a firm and sympathetic under-standing of the realities of the community's existence in every facet of its life would not be able to give credible inspiration to anyone. The leader's respon-sibility is to-cultivate an integrated vision of every aspect of community life in order to be able to challenge the members to further generosity in their 376 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 religious and apostolic life. Therefore the superior and council must collaborate closely with any staff persons in order to keep abreast of what they are learning about the community and also to help determine the priorities of the staff and to set the overall direction of their work. Another difficulty is apparent when the staff has insufficient authority to be effective. Community members must respect the expertise, community dedication, and delegated authority of the staff in order for their collaboration with the administrative group to really benefit all concerned. There are infor-mal as well as formal ways for the administrative group to i'einforce the staff's authority and responsibility in the community's eyes. For example, if a staff person has been designated to respond to a certain type of regularly-recurring request, the councilor should usually refuse to deal with such a request unless it can be shown that the staff person failed to give satisfactory service. Community members themselves sometimes create problems by requiring leaders to hold in confidence information which effects a staff member's role performance. Then the councilor is forced to intervene in the staff person's area of responsibility and to give a seemingly arbitrary direction, thus cir-cumventing the whole process. Councilors must be wary of allowing such situations to occur very often if they wish to have the assistance of a credible and effective staff. The relationship between the administrative group and the staff brings into focus the question of how large each group should be. This is probably a more relevant question than one which is more frequently'heard, "How many full-time persons are r(quired for community leadership?" In a day of declining membership and ever-pressing apostolic demands, releasing talented members for full-time community leadership often seems like a luxury which a com-munity cannot afford. But if more attention is given to a proper balance of elected leaders (full or part-time) and a supportive staff (full or part-time, lay or religious), new possibilities for maximizing leadership potential can be en-visioned. Obviously this answer varies from community to community, depend-ing on such factors as size, geographic expanse, diversity of apostolates, and the willingness and/or ability of council members to perform staff functions. Choice of Leadership No attempt will be made here to discuss varying and even inconsistent ex-pectations of leadership, although how to deal with that reality is a challenging question that applies both to representative bodies and to administrative groups. As noted above, community members expect chapter delegates~to be e.lectors, legislators, and (sometimes) renewal facilitators. They also expect major superiors and their councilors to furnish both charismatic and managerial leadership, in varying proportions. These areas of ambiguity do furnish a backdrop, however, for some remarks about the ways in which leaders have been chosen in recent years, a period in which there has been ceaseless experimentation with differing methods. In fact, most chapters spend Religious Government: A Reflection on Relationships / 377 more time determining the method by which they will choose their leaders than they do in carrying out the proce.ss itself. In general, four methods can be identified: choice by discernment, election by the chapter, election by the total community, and a nominated-appointed method. 1. Discernment. This method is difficult to define because its interpretation and application vary in different situations. In brief, though, it is a method whereby the electors reach a prayerful consensus about their choice of leadership. It is an application of the spirituality of discernment--the prayer-ful and communal effort to discover and respond to God's will for a group--to the specific matter of selection of leadership. Its proponents usually contrast it to an election which is considered to be mechanical or political or insufficiently attuned to God's will for the community. Since the effectiveness of the method is dependent on khe development of faith community within the group, its usefulness is qualified if the electors represent a very large or wide-spread community, and do not ordinarily see one another except on the occasion of a chapter meeting. In some cases the discernment process has involved not the chapter delegates, but the nominees themselves. In other words, after a process of nomination (in which the entire community has both active and passive voice), those nominees who decide, after personal discernment, that they would be open to being called to community leadership enter into a process of com-munal discernment. Great objection can be raised to this practice, however, since it arbitrarily restricts active voice in the election to only the nominees. Religious constitutions have traditionally specified very exactly who enjoys the right to elect the major superiors, namely, the chapter delegates. To create a situation in which there are no electors except the nominees themselves--some of whom may have received only a single nominating vote while others may have received hundreds--runs contrary to this whole tradition. There must be many qualified electors in a community who are not themselves potential can-didates for the office of major superior. 2. Election by the Chapter. This is the traditional method for selection of leadership, but the manner in which this process is carried out within the chapter admits of many variations. For example, communities have ex-perimented with nominating procedures which involve the entire community and/or with search committees who are charged with developing a list of nominees. Within the chapter itself great efforts are made to allow candidates to discuss their views and their vision of the future direction of the community in an open forum before the election takes place. The election of major superiors, since it is one of the gravest respon-sibilities of a chapter, should be carried out in a prayerful context (as should "all of the deliberations of a chapter). The chapter body should strive together to search out the best-qualified persons to call to leadership in the light of the religious and apostolic goals of the community. Prayers for divine guidance, for freedom from prejudice and error, and for generosity in responding to God's will should all surround the election. If this is the case, then the sup- 371~ / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 posed contrast between the discernment method and the election method seems to fade in significance. Furthermore, election by the chapter seems to be the only one which readily safeguards the traditional requirements of a valid election, namely, that the votes be free, secret, certain, absolute, and determinate.3 Even a total community election (to be dealt with below) risks compromising these con-ditions. Some would argue that these requirements should no longer apply and that, for example, the community would be better served if ballots were not secret. While at first glance this may seem to represent a growth in the level of mutual trust and evidence a breakthrough in communications within a com-munity, further reflection might lead to an enhanced appreciation of those traditional safeguards which the Church has provided in canon law. Any com-munity which forswears the use of "free, secret, certain, absolute, and deter-minate" ballots should understand full well what it is sacrificing and be con-vinced that a proportionate good will be achieved. 3. Election by the Total Com~munity. It is doubtful whether this method cduid be successfully applied in any but a very small community where all of the members can be present at an election or where the ballots can be collected within a short period of time. Those who advocate a direct popular election probably reflect a lack of confidence in their chapter, a serious problem which should be dealt with in itself since it affects more than the elections. If the chapter is truly representative, however, and the community has confidence in its responsible leadership, then the desire for a community-wide election would seem negligible. 4. Nomination-Appointment. In this method a higher administrative group appoints major superiors from a list of nominees prepared by the constituency. For example, a province (or provincial chapter) may submit a list of nominees to the administrator general and council who then appoint the provincial superiors. Or the provincial administrative group may appoint regional superiors from among nominees presented to them. The alleged advantage of this method is that the higher superior is able to look over the list of nominees and appoint an administrative team with complementary talents, a result which isn't always obtained in a direct election by the appropriate chapter. This method also reflects the authority and responsibility of the higher ad-ministrative group with respect to the smaller units of the community. The method is compromised, however, if the higher superior feels insuf-ficiently informed about the qualifications of the nominees, or is unable to en-dorse any of them with enthusiasm, or does not feel genuinely free to choose from among them. This last condition might apply, for example, if the list of nominees and the total number of votes each received is published to the com-munity at large. Then there is a subtle expectation that the major superior will 3Canon 169. For a discussion of these requirements, see Canon Law for Religious Women by Louis G. Fanfani, O.P., and Kevin D. O'Rourke, O.P. (Dubuque, Iowa: The Priory Press, 1961), pp. 91-93. Religious Government: A Reflection on Relationships / 379 automatically appoint the nominee ~with the highest number of votes, and the appointment becomes only the ratification of a fair accompli. Concluding Remarks Many other aspects of religious government today could be singled out for observation and study. Some of these which come to mind are the utilization of different kinds of balloting in elections (e.g., preferential ballots and weighted ballots), the respective advantages of staggered terms of office and concurrent terms, the participation of ancillary groups such as committees and commissions in the governing process, and the ways in which different units of government discharge their responsibilities (e.g., how they develop their agen-das and how they formulate and communicate policies). Moreover, in addition to the simple observation of phenomena and trends there is a need to evaluate them in the light of assumptions and principles which are acknowledged by the religious community. These espoused beliefs are of many kinds: political, sociological, philosophical, and theological, to name four important areas. This is not the place to develop a list of represen-tative assumptions and, indeed, the renewal process in communities may not have progressed far enough yet for them to be able to articulate these cor-porately. However, any in depth critique of government should deal with questions such as the nature of human persons, the role of law and structure in human life and associations, how government structures can reflect the emphasis of Vatican II on collegiality, subsidiarity,, and shared decision-making, and on the Gospel challenge to be poor, chaste, and obedient in a world which values none of these. Religious government is the point at which a religious community comes together to organize for its collective mission. Those who occupy leadership positions perform a temporary service for the others in order to facilitate that mission. Many relationships should be facilitated by a government structure: relationships of communication, of consultation, of decision-making; relationships between and among community members, community leadership, lay collaborators, Church, and world. The ideal plan of religious government is simple, clear, adapted to contemporary needs, and flexible. The government should be the point of integration of all the concerns of a com-munity, internal and external, and it exists in order to enable the community to better respond to those concerns. There is abundant evidence today that religious communities have in fact grasped the importance of adapting their government structures to these insights and that many of the changes made, and the inevitable trials-and-errors, have brought them closer to that goal. A Note on Religious Poverty J. Robert Hilbert, S.J. Father J. Robert Hilbert is presently assigned to St. Francis Mission; St. Francis, SD 57572 Introduction In many discussions of religious life, it has struck me that, of the three vows, poverty is the most difficult to come to grips with. One is tempted often enough to suspect that the fundamental problem is an unwillingness to take the direct approach of simply being poor. On the other hand, that might be a simplistic move prompted by the desire to escape the discomfort of the in-evitable tension involved in being in the world, but not of the world. There is a fundamental dilemma: poverty is either a good or it is an evil. If it is a good, if it is true that "Happy are you poor," that it really is harder for a rich man than for a poor one to enter the kingdom, then it makes sense for one to himself choose poverty and to counsel others to choose it, but it does not make sense to dedicate one's energies to the elimination of poverty. On the other hand, if poverty is evil, if it hinders man's ability to know, love and serve God, if it is destructive of the human spirit, then certainly it makes sense to work to overcome poverty, but it does not make sense to choose poverty, es-pecially to make it the object of a vow by which one expresses devotion to God. One can say that the Christian concern is not with poverty and wealth as economic or sociological realities, but is rather with poverty of spirit, a spirit which acknowledges man's basic helplessness and dependence on God, which sees man's good as a spiritual good in reference to which material possessions are either indifferent or are subservient as a means. A man who is materially wealthy may have this poverty of spirit in terms of real humility and detach-ment from his possessions, and a man materially poor may have the opposite of this spirit in terms of pride and greed. Yet one does have somehow to deal with the fact that the Gospels present Christ as saying that it is morally im-possible for a rich man to enter the kingdom, that the beatitudes, at least in 380 A Note on Religious Poverty Luke, seem to be talking about the poor and the rich in a sense that includes the material. in considering the sense of Christ's--and the Church's--call to preach the Good News to the poor, one might say of it that it is an assertion to those who are generally looked down on or who experience pain and need and helplessness that they are important to God and are loved by Him. Not that those who experience comfort, and social and mental and physical well-being are not loved, but that they are more apt to know it and so have less need of assurance than do the sufferers. Poverty in this context, one might then say, is not an economic term, but just a generi~ term for those who are needy in any way. Surely Dives is as poor and needy in a spiritual sense as Lazarus? So it is to him perhaps even more than to Lazarus that we are sent to bring the Good News. One hears arguments, too, on the point that Christ did not urge structural social change, much less work for it. Though he responded to physical needs of people on occasion, as when he fed the multitudes or healed the sick, he did not attempt the elimination of poverty or the overthrow of Roman domination any more than he attempted the elimination ~f disease or of earthquakes. Ob-viously he commanded love of neighbor and a practical expression of that love in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc., but he did not preach economic or political structural reform. What manner of reflection, then, led the bishops in their 1971 Synod to say that "action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation?''1 (Is there a possibility that our Lord received his death sentence because his teaching and activity constituted a threat to the established social order?) This note is not an attempt to offer solutions to the difficulties and am-biguities of religious poverty, nor is it intended to touch all the elements in-volved. It is simply aimed at emphasizing a few points that seem to me to be often missed or slighted. Before taking up those, however, it might be worth recalling a few presuppositions on which these reflections are based. The Church's Poverty and Religious Poverty One is that a religious community is a community within the Church. Its way of life, its values and ideals are those of the Church. It gives particular ex-pression to certain values in a way different from the way in which other groups in the Church do, but these values are those of the whole Christian peo-ple. Religious life is to give evidence of, to point to, to make sharply visible certain aspects of what it is to be a Christian. There must, then, be continuity in the sense of poverty of religious life and the sense in which the Church speaks of its poverty. This sense, of course, comes to the Church through the ~Synod of Bishops, Justice in the World (U.S.C.C., Washington, D.C., 1972.) p. 34. 382 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 example and teaching of Christ. "Just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and under oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path in communicating to men the fruits of salvation. Christ Jesus, 'though He was by nature God . . . emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave' (Phil 2:6), and 'being rich, he became poor' (2 Cor 8:9) for our sakes. Thus, although the Church needs human resources to carry out her mission, she is not set up to seek earthly glory, but to proclaim humility and self-sacrifice, even by her own example.''~ The Tradition of Religious Poverty Another assumption is that a religious community is both an inheritor of tradition and an interpreter of that tradition in terms of the present day. There is a long history of the practice of poverty in religious life. In the course of generations, we have developed a complex of values in the matter of poverty, including the following: detachment from material wealth; sparingness and simplicity in use of material things; possession of things in common; a life of labor; dependence on providence; hospitality; service of the poor. To some extent there is an'absoluteness in these values, aspects of them which are true in general for all men and all times. Even were there a time when the world had no drastic contrast between the rich and powerful and the poor and helpless, men would need reminders that the good life is not found in having things. "You have made all these things, made them very good indeed, yet You are my good, not they," It will always be true, as non-Christian cultures, too, realize, that man comes before God in nakedness and emp-tiness- not with reliance on possessions, nor on education, skills, achievements, nor even with security in good works as giving him in any way a claim on God; he comes to God with awareness of his own nothingness, and of God's infinite and personal love. Response to Particular Periods or Societies Beyond such timeless elements, howe, ver, values involved in religious poverty and modes of expression of that poverty are related to the contem-porary social situation of any given period. Modes of expression of religious poverty differ among various orders and in various times and places in part because religious poverty is an affirmation of values endangered by a particular period or society. !t is a prophetic witness directed to the needs of the time and place. Benedict, Francis and Ignatius had initially very different modes of poverty in their orders, not because they had different views of the fundamental and timeless values expressed in poverty, but because they were responding to the needs of the Church in different histo.rical periods. In considering renewal of religious poverty for our times and situation, ~Vatican 1 I, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,//8. (Documents of Vatican 11. America Press, 1966, p. 23.) A Note on Religious Poverty / 383 then, it is not enough to accept the externals of the expression of poverty ac-cording to the traditions of a religious order; one must consider the values and attitudes involved, both the religious values affirmed and the worldly values opposed. Let us put this another way. Christ'.s life of poverty, it has been said, was "characterized by a redemptive use of things.''3 This is not simply an accept-ance of an ideal order of creation; it is also a recognition that there is sin-fulness embodied in the present concrete order, a non-redemptive use of things, which must be counteracted. The non-redemptive use, the sinful use, of God's creation is evil not only because it is an undue or distorted valuing of things (St. Paul speaks of "greed, which is idolatry"), but because it leads men to degrade, exploit and treat unjustly their fellow men. Poverty Is Apostolic Another presupposition is that the poverty of a religious order is not an end in itself. It is ordained to man's redemption, to the development of the Kingdom of God. Hence, there will be variation in the poverty of different g~roups according to the nature of their apostolate. Yet this subordination must not obscure the fact that poverty is really meant and is deliberately chosen. Religious poverty is not a mode of life that is in total equilibrium; it is not a way of life characterized by use of God's creation in what might be the way one would hold up as the ideal for all men in the ultimately just world order. Religious poverty is a deliberate move to the side of the poor and oppressed, an affirmation of intended identification with them. It is this because in Christ God has identified himself with them. Furthermore, religious poverty is a mode of apostolate. A religious may recognize that there are many ways of working for the attainment of man's red, emption. In the spirit of the Kingdom and Two Standards of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, however, he chooses to work from a position of poverty and humiliations. This is not a completely rational approach to the improve-ment of the human situation. There is a mystery in God's mode of salvation in Christ--through poverty, humiliation, injustice, eventually an unjust death on the cross. Unless there is an acceptance in faith of that mystery as still operative, there can be no full acceptance of religious poverty. l have stated four points that seem to me to enter in to reflection on religious poverty: that religious poverty is to give clear evidence to the Church's sense of poverty; that it involves a sense of the tradition of poverty throughout history; that there must be a re-statement of the spirit and tradi-tion of religious poverty in light of the sociological and cultural situation of the present day; that religious poverty is apostolic, "as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and under .oppression." As I consider these points and my experience of religious life, it seems to aJohn R. Sheets, S.J., Toward a Theology of the Religious Life. (Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, II1,8; Nov., 1971, p. 173.) 384. / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 me that three areas which demand much and serious reflection in efforts at renewal are: that religious poverty must be in fundamental, radical opposition to the spirit of our affluent society, and must, then, require fundamental, radical personal conversion on the part of a religious; that contemporary con-sciousness of social injustice is integral and essential to the meaning of religious poverty and its expression in our day; that being concerned for the poor and being poor are not quite the same thing. Religious Poverty in an Affluent Society In referring to our affluent culture, what I am trying to suggest is that simply having things, being relatively wealthy in comparison to the major por-tion of the world's population is not an accidental adjunct to what we are as a people. Our material affluence is rooted in and has sprung from some of the most basic attitudes and values of our culture. In turn, our affluence reinforces and influences the development of these attitudes and values. Surrendering the right to personal ownership, professing a dependence on a superior or a com-munity for material things, even choosing a standard of economic life which eliminates certain superfluities and luxuries, does not signify or produce a very deep-rooted or wide-ranging change in the attitudes and values we have ab-sorbed since birth. It seems to me that this is the fundamental reason why it is so hard for us to come to any clear and satisfactory consensus about the meaning of religious--or Christian--poverty. So long as we consider the matter on the basis of the attitudes and values which are our cultural inheritance, there is no way we can conclude that real poverty is something which can be chosen and prized, for that culture is in diametric opposition to a spirit of poverty. In a brief article such as this, there is not scope for a full discussion of the American value system. What we are as a people, though, can be learned by reflection on our history. It was not an aberration of a few twisted individtials that brought about the centuries of enslavement of millions of Africans and In-dians. The greed, violence, lust for power, unquestioning assumption of superiority that underlay the centuries of European exploration, conquest, dominance and exploitation were not just occasional faults of isolated in-dividuals. They were part of the fundamental value system of an entire culture. Though we now repudiate some of the cruder manifestations, the same values and spirit are still endemic in Western culture, and have been incar~ nated in the social structures that our culture has established. It is not acci-dent, but basic cultural drive that has developed in this, the wealthiest country in the world, an economic and political structure which "virtually guarantees poverty for millions of Americans.''4 The greed, selfishness and exploitation of the colonial period have borne fruit, through the period of the industrial revolution and the growth of the multi-national corporations, in a world 4Poverty Amid Plenty, the report of the President's commission on income maintenance programs, 1969, p. 23. A Note on Religious Poverty / 385 economy which has created an enormous and ever increasing division between rich and poor, which threatens the human race because of the destruction of the earth's environment and resources. So the world is not one. Its peoples are more divided now, and also more conscious of their divisions, than they have ever been. They are divided between those who are satiated and those who are hungry. They a~e divided between those with power and those without power. They are divided between those who dominate and those who are dominated; between those who exploit and those who are exploited. And it is the minority which is well fed, and the minority which has secured control over the world's wealth and over their fellow men. Further, in general that minority is distinguished by the colour of their skins and by their race. And the nations in which most of that minority of the world's people live have a further distinguishing characteristic--their adoption of the Christian religion.5 What is significant is not only the fact of such division, but also our general ability to ignore that fact. How is it, after 80 years of modern social teaching and two thousand years of the Gospel of love, that the Church has to admit her inability to make more impact upon the con-science of her people?. It was stressed again and again that the faithful, particularly the more wealthy and comfortable among them, simply do not see structural social in-justice as a sin, simply feel no personal responsibility for it and simply feel no obligation to do anything about it. Sunday observance, the Church's rules on sex and marriage, tend to enter the Catholic consciousness profoundly as sin. To live like Dives with Lazarus at the gate is not even perceived as sinful.6 A concern for religious poverty which attends only to the externals of per-sonal or community economy is inadequate. If we continue to fit comfortably within the systematized greed, selfishness, cruelty, love of power of our society, we have no poverty of spirit. If we are ourselves to become Christian and to bring the Christian word to our society, we must attain an empathy with the poor and powerless in our own country and in the world. We have to feel the poverty of the migrants who harvest the food that is so plentiful on our tables. We have to know our society as it is experienced by an unemployed In-dian who sees his children growing up undernourished, falsely educated, and culturally destroyed in a country where his grandfathers lived in freedom and plenty. But once again, we have to become aware of and critical of our own ac-culturation. We must ourselves engage in that continuing education described by the bishops, an education which comes "through action, participation and vital contact with the reality of injustice." We must awaken in ourselves "a critical sense, which will lead us to reflect on the society in which we live and its values," and be "ready to renounce these values when they cease to promote justice for all men.''7 This examination will include not only our 5Julius Nyerere, Speech to the Maryknoll Sisters (Maryknoll Overseas Extension Service, Maryknoll, N.Y., p. 6). 6From an account of the debate at the 1971 Bishops' Synod, quoted in Henriot, "The Concept of Social Sin," Sourcebook on Poverty, Development and Justice, Campaign for Human Develop-ment (U.S.C.C., Wash., D.C., 1973, p. 67). 7Synod, op. cit., p. 46. 386 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 private lives, but the values incorporated in the institutions in which we work. It is necessary, for instance, to examine the basis of our judgment of produc-tivity and efficiency, our decisions about choice of means. Do we give due ac-count to the idea that we are called to follow the path of carrying out the work of redemption "in poverty and under oppression?" Abject poverty, we are told over and over again, is destructive of the human spirit, is an evil which must be eradicated, cannot be the object of a choice, certainly not of a vow, because it is an evil. True enough. But is it possible that our sense of how evil it is is to some extent a reflection of how good we think wealth is? Does our reflection on Christ's statement that it is a moral impossibility for a rich man to enter the kingdom suggest to us that perhaps wealth, too, is destructive of the human spirit, is an evil which must be eradicated? There are many ways in which the full acceptance and real valuing of religious poverty demand not simply a spirit of occasional.self-denial, but a very radical transformation of the basic values inculcated in us from birth within our society, values involved in our attitudes towards material creation, toward the meaning of human life, toward our country's position in world relationships. Addressing Social Injustice Earlier in this article 1 said that contemporary consciousness of social in-justice seems integral to our understanding of religious poverty. To some ex-tent l have introduced this idea in discussing the matter of a critical examina-tion of our values, but let me focus more directly on this point. Poverty has always been an essential of religious life--but its motivation and expression have been modified by the needs of the times. The sinful ab-surdity of the economic situation of our times is not in the fact that there are people who are poor, but in the division described by Nyerere, in the fact that the enormous and unprecedented technological, economic and political power of our times is ordered not to alleviating the plight of the poor majority of men, but to the perpetuation and increase of the imbalance of that division. The bishops recognize this situation as a claim on the Church's expression of poverty. Although in general it is difficult to draw a line between what is needed for right use and what is demanded by prophetic witness, we must certainly keep firmly to this principle: our faith demands of us a certain sparingness in use, and the Church is obliged to ad-minister its own goods in such a way that the (~ospel is proclaimed to the poor . In societies enjoying a higher level of consumer spending, it must be asked whether our life style exemplifies that sparingness with regard to consumption which we preach to others as necessary in order that so many millions of hungry people throughout the world be fed.8 8Ibid., p. 45. A Note on Religious Poverty / 387 What is that sparingness? In general, at least, "those who are already rich are bound to accept a less material ~way of life, with less waste, in order to avoid the destruction of the heritage which they are obliged by absolute justice to share with all other members of the human race.''9 Many cautions are given in discussions of religious poverty to the effect that it should not be confused with economic poverty, that religious poverty in its expression is relative to the milieu in which the community lives and works, that religious poverty is distinct from the claims of justice. Such distinctions, however, can be overdrawn to the extent that religious poverty is moved to an abstraction that has little in common with the poverty of Christ. His Kenosis was accomplished in concrete terms of real identification with the poor and ac-tual confrontation with the powerful of his times. When he said, "Happy are you who are poor," and "Alas for you who are rich," one has the impression that he was not abstracting from the economic situation. More fundamentally, Fr. Arrupe's statement deserves serious con-sideration: But God is not only the God of the poor. He is, in a real sense, God who is poor. For the mystery of the Incarnation has established a special relationship between God and pover-ty whose meaning goes much deeper than mere compassion . God is allpowerful. God has riches beyond our ability to estimate. But he is also a God of justice, who demands that justice be done. l f, then, God, allpowerful and infinitely rich, identifies Himself with the poor, it must be because the cause of the poor is somehow identified with the cause of justice?° Sparingness, for example, is fundamental to religious poverty in part as an example to all men that possessions and use of luxuries are not all that essen-tial to the quality of human life--may, in fact, hinder a man in his real development. Today there is clearly added to this motivation in the Church's consciousness the demand of some sparingness in order that justice be served. It is clear, too, that this demand goes beyond the matter of purely personal or domestic religious life to take in as well the means used in our apostolic works. If there is a demand that our society's use of energy, for example, be reduced, that reduction is called for in all aspects of our life and work. It seems to me, in short, that a level of example and witness in this regard is integral to a realistic understanding of the contemporary value of religious poverty--a poverty that is true to the Church's sense of her call to poverty, a poverty characterized by a redemptive use of things, a use redemptive of the actual sinful use of things in our day. Identification with the Sociologically Poor The Church, following the example of Christ, recognizes a particular call to showing concern for the poor and the oppressed. This call is felt with special 91bid., p. 51. 1°Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Witnessing to Justice (Pontifical Commission, Justice and Peace, Vatican, 1972), p. 38. 3~11~ / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 emphasis by religious, as the history of their efforts on behalf of the poor attests. The kind of assistance that is called for will vary in different periods and with different orders. In our times, there is particularly the note of concern that the structures which perpetuate and increase the division between rich and poor be changed. Even within the wealthiest country in the world, change of structures is necessary for the alleviation of widespread poverty: The paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty causes many to ask why some people re-main poor when so many of their fellow Americans have successfully joined the ranks of the affluent . It is often argued that the I~oor are to blame for their own circumstances and should be expected to lift themselves from poverty. This commission has concluded that these assertions are incorrect. Our economic and social structures virtually guarantee poverty for millions of Americans.1~ The call to concern for the poor and for working for structural changes that will ensure justice for the poor is a call to all Christians. For us who profess religious poverty, it is not only a call to have such concern and to work for such change, but to share Christ's identification with the poor. Discer.n-ment is necessary, harmfully simplistic approaches should be avoided--yet our life and mode of work should be such that our being accounted among the poor is clear. Whatever may be said of the relative norm of poverty with reference to the milieu in which a community lives and works, it should be clear that they are poor in that relative way. If it is a question for all Christians "whether belong-ing to the Church places people on a rich island within an ambient of pover-ty,''~ 2 it is preeminently a question for religious. We should share what we have, and it seems good, sometimes, that we do have in order to share. But we should be present to the poor as willing to share what little we have, not as well-to-do philanthropists sharing their excess. There is a lesson for us, though we might not wish to carry it to that extreme, in the example of St. Francis's unwillingness even to accept alms to be dis-tributed to the poor. There is, moreover, the very practical fact that it is most unlikely that we will appreciate the meaning of being truly poor, or be able really to see our society and its structures from the standpoint of the poor, if we ourselves do not in some real way share their experience. It is evident enough in our rec-tories and convents and schools that most of us share pretty completely the values and attitudes and experience and even prejudices of the affluent, not of the poor. It seems pertinent at this point to introduce a quotation from St. Ignatius Loyola which perhaps returns to the statement of my opening paragraph: ~tPoverty Amid Plenty, loc. cir. 12Synod, op. cit., p. 45. A Note on Religious Poverty Let me just say this; whoever loves poverty should be glad to be poor; glad to go hungry, to be badly clothed, to lie on a hard bed. For if someone loves poverty but avoids penury, following poverty only from afar, is that not to be comfortably poor? Surely that is to love the reputation rather than the reality of poverty; to love poverty in word but not in deed.t3 As 1 conclude this article, my sense of futility returns. If some of the honestly poor people of my acquaintance--in the slums of Milwaukee, in Belize, on the Sioux reservation where I now live--were ever to run into the sort of discussion I have written here, 1 suspect they would not find it so much the word of Christ as the confusion of one who is far from Him. 1 think it might cause some amusement, if not amazement, that a man with so much education and so many years of meditation on the Gospel can make such a complicated business out of the relatively simple question of how he can be poor. But this is written by one who lives in material security, even affluence, for others who live similarly, and so must inevitably reflect the confusion of those bound in that mesh. May that which is impossible to men, that which our own mental gyrations and personal anguish can never bring about, be accomplished by Him who can save; may He relieve us of the burden and constriction of our wealth, pull us through the eye of the needle, and introduce us to the simplicity and freedom of His Kingdom. t3Monumenta Ignatiana, Epp. l, 577. Mortification Brother Thomas E. Ruhf, C.P. Bro. Thomas E. Ruhf is.presently engaged in studies for the priesthood at St. John's University, where he was awarded a Master's Degree in Theology last year. He is a member of the Passionist Monastery; 178th St. and Wexford Terrace; Jamaica, NY 11432. The word "mortification" is seldom if ever heard these days, and, when it is, it strikes a strange and sour note because of its seeming lack of harmony with contemporary man's view of himself and his world. In a society ruled by the lords of consumerism, progressivism and utopianism, the concept of mor-tification is most assuredly an outcast. Mortification is viewed as no less than a perversion of life, since life's goal is seen to be the pursuit of happiness and self-fulfillment, which is attained in extracting from life all its treasures of pleasure and burying as much as possible its pains and sorrows. The mul-tiplication of wonders in science and technology is heralding the dawn of a new age when there will be plenty of pleasures and possessions for all, when disease and pains will be laid to rest forever, and when even death may fall victim to the march of man. To speak of death, suffering or any human limitation is to talk of problems to be solved and not perennial conditions to be fa~ed. Such a society has no use for mortification precisely because it is a radical, concrete and complete affirmation of these realities, precisely because it af-firms them as enduring conditions to be faced and embraced for their creative potentials. The problem with mortification is a problem with suffering and death, with their proper place in a full and authentic human existence. In spite of society's claims of present and future scientific and technological conquests, death, suffering and human limitations remain ever so real. Daily the media parades before our eyes the ~pectr'e.of human suf-fering- innocent children with bellies pregnant with starvation, the disfigured and bloodied corpses of victims of senseless terrorism and calculated wars, the 390 . Mortification / 39'1 sad streams of people with lives and homes ruined by the fury of natural dis-asters. At the same time the tales of polluted water and air, of shortages of oil and energy, of inflation and recession are bursting the bubble of the great American myth of the cornucopia of unending resources and limitless produc-tion. Yet modern society continues its masquerade of denial. This denial of the hard and enduring facts of death, suffering and human limitation is not without its costs, for modern man has fallen victim to a certain sense of cultural schizophrenia. It seems that the greater the claims made for man's omniscence and omnipotence, for his control over nature and life in the face of his obvious lack of it, the greater becomes his sense of personal impotence, of being victimized and fated by the forces of nature and life. As society as a whole becomes more integrated, mechanized and systematized, he as an in-dividual becomes more isolated, alienated and categorized. Sodiety's attempt to do away with all external forms of suffering and pain only serves to intensify and foster his internal suffering and pain. A Contemporary Understanding of the Problem of Suffering and Death If any concept of mortification is to be valid today, it must seek its basis in the new heightened awareness of pain and suffering not only as external world realities but also as internal personal realities. It must find its roots in a con-temporary understanding of suffering and death. Perhaps the most meaningful concept of suffering and death for today's world is the existentialist view. In such a view man is seen primarily as a being-unto- death. His very suffering and limitation become movements in con-sciousness toward the final limit of death, which brings man face to face with the fundamental questionableness of his own being without offering him any answer to it. This ultimate questionableness of life is faced by each man alone. Death represents the ultimate loneliness. All suffering, in being mine alone to bear, is essentially an experience of loneliness foreshadowing the ultimate Ioneliriess of death. Thus suffering and death give a character of existential loneliness to all life, a realization that no other finite reality can solve the basic questionableness involved in the finitude of my existence, that no finite reality can satisfy my radical desire to transcend this ultimate limit. This spectre of existential loneliness casts a long shadow of fear and anx-iety over a man's life. He can deal with this spectre in a number of ways. One way, which is most characteristic of contemporary man, is to avoid the whole question as long as possible. There is a retreat from the limits of his loneliness and death and a search for a sense of security in an immersion into th6 daily activities of pleasure and production. Indeed in America death is a taboo. The subject must never be raised, not even with a dying person. Death is always an unfortunate accident that happens to someone else. Likewise acknowledgement of a deep sense of loneliness seems awkward and inappropriate in a society.dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure and hap- 399 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 piness. Loneliness, a basic reality of life, like death, is viewed as a sickness which alienates people from each other and society and hence is an unfor-tunate development in life that must be avoided and spurned. But in fact "it is not loneliness which separates persons from others, but the terror of loneliness and the constant effort to escape it.''t If a man cannot face and affirm his ex-perience of existential loneliness as a condition of existence, he will not only be alienated from others but even from his very self. As Dr. Elisabeth K~ibler- Ross has observed in her study of terminally ill persons, nothing frustrates and alienates them more than their families' and friends' refusal to talk of suffer-ing and death. As a result Dr. K~ibler-Ross makes a plea in her book, On Death and Dying, for more people to face up to the reality of death for the sake of helping the dying and for their own sake in living real and full lives.2 Modes of Acceptance of Suffering and Death Assuredly the acceptance of suffering and death is necessary for a truly authentic and full life. However there are significantly different modes of acceptance that man has and can choose as his way of responding to these realities. Karl Rahner suggests that there are basically three postures of ac-cepting death? First of all, some see death as the stark and complete termination of all that they have found pleasureable in life. Death is a door op~ning out into dark oblivion, into the ultimate futility of all life and as such is a cause for frustra-tion and despair. Suffering is a grim foreshadowing and reminder of this ul-timate emptiness. Others embrace death with the full consciousness of their being, realizing that they have no answer to the enigma of its meaning, but yet remaining open to an answer to this ultimate questionableness of life from a source outside of themselves and time. It is a response of stoic resignation to fatedness and all suffering, leaving open the possibility that death could be a door to ultimate fulfillment as well as to ultimate annihilation. The third response goes beyond resignation, radically affirming death and all "little deaths" in suffering as doors to a life of ultimate fulfillment, as the necessary frontiers to be crossed on the way to the radical transformation of man's ex-istential situation by a gift from God. This response of acceptance is permeated by a sense of faith and hope in seeing in the very finitude of life its radical nature as free gift from the One v~ho is Infinite. This last response is of course the Christian response. We acknowledge in faith the efficacy of Christ's death and resurrection for the transformation of our own death into eternal life in God. Dying to ourselves becomes the only way to the fullness of life. Existential loneliness in suffering and death is the ~Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1961), p. 103. 2Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross, M.D., On Death and Dying (New York, N.Y.: Macmillian Co., 1969). p. 13. 3Karl Rahner, S.I., "The Passion and Asceticism," Theological Investigations (Baltimore, Md.: Helicon Press, 1967), v. 3, p. 92. Mortification / 393 very vehicle to authentic life since it is our only entrance into a participation in the Paschal Mystery which is the answer to the questionableness of all life. We believe that as an existential, ontological result of Christ's saving action all life can now be said to exist in a state of mortification, in a state of having already died with Christ that it may now live with him in a sharing in his resurrection. In this sense every life by way of baptism in Christ enters into a state of "ab-solute mortification."' Present Difficulty with Mortification No Christian has problems with accepting mortification as a state of life entered into in baptism, though we perhaps never consciously refer to life in Christ as mortified existence. The problem comes in the choosing of specific acts of mortification above and beyond the suffering and death inherent in the exigencies of life itself. These self-chosen acts of mortification, which have been termed "relative mortification," have for some time played a role in the tradition of Christian asceticism and been a prominent feature of religious life. But today it is a common assumption that relative mortification has no. place in authentic Christian living. In fact it has been condemned as a distortion and perversion of Christianity, and any mention of the subject evokes looks and words of scorn and disbelief. How can it be that such a long tradition of relative mortification has so suddenly been pushed aside and left to die?.llS it simply true that there is no value in practising it at all? To answer this question we must first identify and face the reasons for this rejection. There seem to be two fundamental reasons for this. First it stems from a reaction against the excessive and exclusively corporal nature of past practices of mortification. Secondly the rejection arises out of an affirmation that there is enough mortification inherent in trying to live a good Christian life of love. Certainly whenever the word "mortification" is spoken in Christian circles it immediately calls to mind a grim picture of severe corporal austerities aimed at prevention of or reparation for sin. Such practices of "attacking" the body do violence to our contemporary awareness of the sacrality of all material ex-istence. We react strongly against the Platonic dualistic view of life implicit in these practices which views the soul as imprisoned in the body and yearning for release from its evil propensities. Furthermore instead of releasing a person from his self-centeredness, these practices often enough focused concern on the self by creating an obsessive preoccupation with avoiding pleasure and con-solation in a fight to win salvation. The Christian call to turn outward from the self to Christ and his ~people in a spirit of suffering love is overshadowed by the quest for personal perfection in the conquest of temptation. Hence such prac-tices appear to have little connection with a valid Christian life. 'William J. Rewak, S.J., "Mortification," Review for Religious, May 1965, p. 374. 394 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 Inadequacy of Traditional Justifications for Mortification It certainly must be admitted that many past ascetical practices are quite justifiable on "worldly" terms alone apart from any connection with a Chris-tian view of life. Karl Rahner distinguishes three types of ascetical practices which developed independently of Christianity.5 The first type he terms moral asceticism, which uses corporal austerities as a means of self-discipline for the sake of attaining a balance of the various forces in man and thus enabling him to lead a life in harmony with the laws of his nature. Such asceticism seeks to conquer the "animality" in man so that his spirit may rule. This description would fit many of our past practices of mortification. Likewise "mystical asceticism," in using bodily self-denials as a preparation for an experience of religious enthusiasm and mystical insight, has nothing peculiarly Christian about it. The same can be said for "ritual asceticism" which also uses bodily austerities as a way to escape the profane sphere of life for the sake of contact with the transcendent. All these justifications for mortification deny the significance of Christ's Incarna;tion, deny the truth of the Word who is the flesh and blood revelation of God, who reveals the spiritual by means of th~ material. There is no prere-quisite of escape from material reality in order to find God. Contemporary Christianity has rejected past practices of mortification quite justifiably on the grounds that the reasons given for employing them had little to do with solid Christian belief. Indeed the decrees of dispensation of the Friday abstinence and of most of the Lenten fast and abstinence were viewed by many as a sort of"Emancipa-tion Proclamation" freeing Catholics from the slavery of past mortificational practices. In the ensuing exhiliration of freedom not only were the past prac-tices cast off but also the whole concept of relative mortification itself. In the name of freedom for a full human life, many could now repeat the words of James Carroll, "I have given up nothing but giving up for several Lents. I have denied myself self-denial.''6 In the same breath as was said "my work is my prayer," can be said "my life is my mortification." The Search for Enduring Values Yet with all this freedom from the past there seems to be a budding sense of frustration and emptiness. There is a growing awareness that in rejecting past practices we have neglected real values that were inherent in them though covered by distortions. A renewed emphasis on contemplation, solitude, and just plain "wasting time" is finding its way back into Christian literature. These concerns are arising not out of a sense of fear of the modern world and an attempt to hold onto the past but out of the faithfulness to one's own being and the call of need from others. There is a new movement beyond the 5Rahner, op. cit., pp. 60-66. 6James Carroll, "Mortification for Liberation," National Catholic Reporter. December 10, 197 I, p. 10. MortiJi'cation / 39~i smashing of past idolized practices to searching for the foundations of the en-during values and treasures of the Church. The present times demand that we be honest with ourselves. We must ad-mit that our work has not really become our prayer nor our living of life a full realization of the spirit of mortification. As Saint Paul so clearly stresses in the ninth chapter of his letter to the Corinthians, there is more to fighting the good fight and running the good race than the contests themselves. Any good athlete spends much time in preparation for the contest in rigorous discipline and training. Just because we find our exercises for the contest to be inade-quate it does not necessarily follow that all exercises are fruitless. What more appropriate time is there for re-examining and reassessing our own commit-ment to and training for the contests of life than now in this Holy Year of renewal and reconciliation with its special focus on personal, interior renewal? Necessity of Re-affirming the Value of Mortification From our discussion of the possible reactions to the experience of suffering and death, it is clear that total acceptance and creative affirmation of them in hope is not man's natural, spontaneous response. The mere acceptance of suf-fering and death as inevitable and a willingness to face it as it comes along is not enough in view of the Christian's radical call to affirm and give himself fully to these realities. If these "contests" are seen to hold out to every man the prize of the very meaning of all life, then they are not simply "contests" which we resign ourselves to entering, but "contests" to be trained and prepared for. A spontaneous response of faith and hope in the face of suffering and death springs from a person who has already radically affirmed these realities in the actions of his own life. The way a person affirms any values in his life is by means of the actions he freely chooses. It would seem that self-chosen acts of self-denial affect the depths of a person in a very special way that fate-imposed