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Review for Religious - Issue 59.4 (July/August 2000)

Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus

Issue 59.4 of the Review for Religious, 2000. ; )ULY: AUGUST 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 4 to Gbd~s ,univerial call, to holiness by ~n~aking available :to tb~mJtbe~piritual legaHes }bat flow from tbe cbarism~ of Catbolic ~onse~ated life:, Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: foppema@slu.edu Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP P.O. Box 29260; ~VVashington, D.C. 20017 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2000 Re'biew for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (article~, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ ¯ Patricia Wittberg SC JULY AUGUST 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 4 contents 342 women religious Another Window on the Crisis in Women's Communities Mary Anne Foley CND presents the renewal of women's communities as a work in progress which faces the challenge to move beyond .present viewpoints in order to see a fuller truth. 358 A Path of Humility and Truth: Historical Reminiscence Bernadine Pieper CHM shares her experience of being in leadership at the time of Vatican II changes. 368 finding God Einding God's WiII--A Maneuver W. Henry Kenney Sj describes a process for finding God's will by popping loaded questions to God in prayer and noticing the pattern of desolations or consolations. 379 Consulting Your Inner Wisdom Hilary Ottensmeyer OSB guides us to the central core of ourselves where we hear the echoes of the voice of Jesus and of all the good people who have been examples of faith and good conduct for us. Review for Religious religious vocations Tell Them, Tell the New Members. Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ proposes the need to share with younger members of congregations hints about what is most central to religious life: the mystery of divine intimacy. 396 Sister Moms: Something Old, Something New Louise Cababe OP reports on the contemporary phenomenon of women, having been married and having raised a family, bringing a new and beautiful experience to religious congregations. 399 Vocational Confidence Donald Macdonald SMM sketches out an environment of vocational confidence whei'e vocations are invited, expected, challenged, and supported. 410 prayer perspectives Praying through Sleep A. Paul Dominic SJ explores various relationships between our sleeping and our praying. 420 Toward a Spirituality of Weariness Michael D. Moga SJ considers some of the paths that lead to spiritual treasures hidden in the areas of our exhaustion and weariness. departments 340 Prisms 430 Canonical Counsel: Exceptions to Duration of the Canonical Novitiate 435 Book Reviews July-August 2000 prisms Te jubilee year we are cele-brating provides us a challenge to our observance of the Sabbath. Sabbath has always been identified with the seventh day--the day of the Lord's rest after the six days' work of creation as depicted in chapter one of.the Book of Genesis. The Christian tradition reidentified the Lord's day with the resurrection victory of Jesus, bringing to fullness the work of redemption. The idea of refraining from work has often received greater attention even though the church has always identified "making holy" the Lord's day--Sunday--by the twofold obligation of celebrating the Eucharist and doing no servile work. Of course, there h~s been a lot of moral casuistry applied to the meaning of servile work, so much, perhaps, that the focus on God slipped because of the overwhelming emphasis on human activity--what was right, what was wrong, how long or how drudging could the work be, and so On. Pe.rhaps this year of jubilee can be a call to us to mov~ beyond the casuistry and to recapture the spirit of the Sabbath. Sabbath means, above all, a chosen awareness of spending time with God. If we are to spend time with God, then we have to take time for ourselves--not just time filled up with more "doing," even .with passive sporting events or active participations in games, but time which we describe so well today in terms of just "being." Sabbath is meant to be a deeply humane time because then God can become more active in us. Sabbath points to the movement of the oft-quoted expression of St. Irenaeus: "God's glory is the human being come fully alive, and seeing God is what human life is." Review for Religqous Eucharist belongs to the Christian Sunday observance because we celebrate God's glory shining out in the victorious risen Jesus, the firstborn of the new creation. But what else for us belongs to our Sabbath observance? What enhances our relationship with God? In other words, how do we devote time to making ourselves more humane--loving, compassionate, wise, generous, available, shar-ing- so that God's glory does shine out now through us? When we truly observe the Sabbath, we are more and more like the sacra-ments of God that our Christian vocation calls us to be. Another viewpoint. In the northern hemisphere, vacation time is upon us. Vacation, being personal rest time, shares in the sabbath notion. We sometimes refer to spiritual retreats as "vacations with God." Retreats, of course, take their focus from considering our relation with God. But would we be acting more Christian if we viewed ordinary vacation time through a prism similar to our Sunday observance? Vacation time does not need to be spent "reli-giously," performing devotional prayers and acts. But would it not be appropriate for us Christians to spend our recuperative and relaxing time with a more spiritual focus? Vacation means a time of "emptying out" (of mental cobwebs and secular preoccupations) and a "leaving space" (for attention to an ever present and loving God) in the ordinariness of our life. "Keep holy the sabbath day," then, should draw our attention not to what is to be avoided, but to what enhances our relationship with God, with ourselves, with our neighbor, and with our world. Those relationships are meant to be observed together, as a whole, when we speak of "keeping holy." Keeping holy deals with all our relationships viewed in the light of God and Jesus Christ. 'When we keep holy, we move with the Spirit. We let ourselves be moved by the Spirit--with all those with whom we converse, in all things we do. Jubilee, sabbath, and our secular vacation all find their mean-ing in the one reality of celebrating God in our life. This millen-nium year is the opportunity to remember thht jubilees, sabbaths, and vacations come to us not by some kind of law or right, but by gift--the gift of God. These time periods remind us to take stock and enjoy the God-with-us now so that we take from these "moments" the realized promise and consolation of our lifetime with God forever. ¯David L. Fleming SJ 37uly-August 2000 women MARY ANNE FOLEY Another Window on the Crisis in Women's Communities religious Last year I spent much of Holy Week working my way through Ann Carey's Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities.l The book's reviews did not make me anxious to read it, but I felt obliged to do so. For some years most of my research has focused on the history of religious communities of women, and my concerns about initiating new members have forced me to confront questions about the future of this way of life. Moreover, having lived through the tumultuous past three decades of change in women's communities, I have wanted and needed to gain some perspective on the experience) Although not planned, the timing of my reading proved to be both appropriate and helpful. I felt pain and anger at seeing the women who were most instru-mental in leading the changes characterized as deliber-ately manipulative, bent on revenge, unfaithful, and heretical, and those who moved with the changes they advocated, as naive, foolish, or incapable of under-standing what was taking place. At another time I might have been inclined simply to dismiss Carey's work, but reading it in the shadow of the cross enabled me to lis- Mary Anne Foley CND, a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal, is an associate professor of the-ology at the University of Scranton; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. Review fir Religious ten to what was being said under and through the words, and hence to become vulnerable to it. It was somewhat like the expe-rience of reading The Autobiography ofMakolm X. I knew I was not the "white devil" he came to loathe while in prison, but I began to see why he viewed me in that way and then to recognize my own complicity in his hellish situation. Carey's stated intention is simply to document the significant changes that have taken place within Catholic communities of women in the United States over the last forty years. She does so as a journalist, relying not on her own experience but on personal conversations and extensive archival research. The book's subtitle, however, reveals the perspective from which she writes. She is convinced that the changes have been an aberration, leading these groups away from genuine religious life. Carey belieyes that the sis-ters most disaffected as a result of the changes are afraid to speak for themselves, and so shehas chosen to speak for them. While always naming the "change-oriented" sisters she cites, she often identifies her sources among "traditional" sisters only by the name of their congregation or as Sister S., for example) One of these anonymous sources insists that many older religious are experi-encing "a time of martyrdom" as they risk being "cut off, threat-ened, and persecuted" if they challenge the directions their communities have taken (Crisis, 309). Whether or not this sister represents the views of many others, and even whether or not the threat she describes is real, it is important that she be heard, and Carey challenges the reader to listen. According to Sisters in Crisis, the reason for what emerged during the postconciliar years was, first of all, a program of mis-information concerning authentic Vatican Council II teaching, orchestrated prifiaarily by officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), known earlier as the Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW). Carey traces the rebellion back to the Sister Formation Movement in the 1950s, which exposed young sisters to the social sciences and "controversial and speculative" theology. The Sisters' Survey of 1966-1967, con-ducted by the CMSW, is presented as playing a key role in "indoc-trinating" sisters about possible new directions for change. The definitive step in the process of "co-opting" and "stealing" the renewal is said to be the "coup" by which the officers of the CMSW altered the nature of their organization by arranging for a revision of its bylaws and changing its name from CMSW to LCWR. At var- July-August 2000 Foley ¯ Another Window on the Crisis ious points in the process, in Carey's view, the Vatican issued clear mandates to return to a more controlled process of renewal, but these leaders refused to obey. Opposing Perspectives Since Lora Quifionez and Mary Daniel Turner were among the leaders of the LCWR during the 1970s and 1980s, it is not sur-prising that their interpretation of the last forty years is diamet-rically the opposite of Carey's. As a result, reading their book, The Transformation of the American Catholic Sister, in conjunction with Sisters in Crisis was both fascinating and unsettling. According to Quifionez and Turner, the changes in women's communities are not the result of a plan devised by a few politically astute activists and then foisted upon an undereducated and unsuspecting mass of sisters. Rather, the transformation of these communities reflects a maturing of American sisters at large; that is, they have grown more conscious of their identity as Americans, as women, and as moral agents? Given this difference in interpretation, it is interesting to note the substantial agreement of these two works on the importance of the Sister Formation movement and especially the LCWR in shap-ing the last forty years of religious life in the United States. Both are clear that the Sisters' Survey went beyond its original purpose of assessing the readiness of American sisters and the availability of resources for the renewal mandated by Vatican II. Both con-clude that the survey itself affected that renewal. And both main-tain that underlying the changes was a new belief among sisters in the validity of their experience. As Carey describes it, "some women religious determined that their own 'lived experience' was more valid for defining religious life than were any of the direc-fives coming from the church" (Crisis, 75). Quifionez and Turner not only agree; they chart the emergence of that beliefi "Sisters began to notice that even long-held and never-to-be-challenged philosophical and theological premises lent themselves to the pur-poseful sounding of experience, personal and social. Experience possessed its own authority" (Transformation, 38). More significant still is the fact that neither work acknowl-edges the possibility that those whose perspective on renewal is different could contribute something toward a more profound renewal. This is more apparent in Sisters in Crisis. Although Carey Revie~v for Religious admits that at times ignorance may have played a role in the deci-sions that were made, for the most part she attributes baser motives to the main actors: "Some religious institutes purposely expanded the years between general chapters so that experiments could be stretched out. Others purposely incorporated items into their con-stitutions that they knew would never be approved by Rome so they could continue experimenting endlessly" (Crisis, 38-39). Quifionez and Turner are far more nuanced in their expression, and they do not impute motivation to such groups as the Consortium Perfectae Caritatis, which consisted largely of community leaders who had renounced membership in the LCWR. However, the absence of any critique of actions taken by the LCWR makes the reader suspect that their account may not be as objective as it first appears. This becomes particularly evi-dent in the concluding chapter of Tran~Corrnation, where Quifionez and Turner list questions to be resolved if religious communities of women are to have a future in the United States. They accurately iden-tify one of the key questions: Is it helpful or even honest to retain canonical status? But they proceed to a further series of questions, all of which imply that the only possible answer to the question of canonical status is no. Moreover, in noting that the hierarchy and the sisters must face the questions honestly, they assert that such a process "will exact a different price from each of them. For the hierarchy it will mean giving up dominative ways of governing; for sisters it will entail laying claim to rightful uses of power. For both, it will involve owning that they are peers, no matter how distinct their role in the church" (Transformation, 167). Tran~orrnation offers ample evidence of "dominative ways of governing" by members of the hierarchy, and even Carey admits that the church officials have been "obstinate" at times. These few words seem to imply that only the hierarchy has misused power and that sisters' only sin has been the failure to use it. This would surely be an oversimplification, of a sort that would tend to polarize further those who disagree about the direction the changes have taken. Underlying the changes was a new belief among sisters in the validity of their experience. July-Auffust 2000 S#ters in Crisis was published five years after Transformation and appears to be intended in part as a response to that work, a sort of revisionist history. While Quifionez and Turner did not have the opportunity to respond to Carey's assertions directly, the current leadership of the LCWR responded by claiming that the women in American religious, communities today are not "sisters in crisis," but rather "sisters in service."s There is truth in this assertion. Many of those castigated by Carey really are performing service of inestimable value, and for them to focus more on that service than on institutional survival does not call for the word "tragic" in Carey's subtitle. But that is not to say that I think there is no ~ri-sis. 6 It has been common in recent years to refer to the two Chinese characters that together convey the meaning of crisis, one referring to danger and the other to opportunity. Carey is right: there is a real danger that women's religious communities as we have known them in the United States will become extinct. But the LCWR leadership is also right in noting that the service which women's communities offer indicates a time of great poten-tial. Here I offer some reflections on how the opportunity pre-sent in this moment of crisis may be recognized and embraced. A Window of Opportunity The story is told of two men seated in the same room in a library. One was very hot and opened the room's only window. The other, afraid that his papers would blow all over, immediately closed, it, only to have it reopened by the first. The reaction of the other can be guessed. When the librarian saw the brewing conflict, she went into the next room and opened the window there, thus providing cool air without creating a disruptive, breeze.7 It seems to me that those who find themselves in deadlock on how women's communities have come to be where they are need to discover another window through which to view the last three decades. For this they may well be helped by James Fowle~:'s the-ory of faith development. For Fowler faith is a verb; it is how a per-son makes meaning of the world. We tend to "faith" in a particular way until that way of making meaning no longer works for us and compels us to make meaning differently; this he describes as a new "stage" of faith.8 During adolescence, for example, many peo-ple begin to base their faith on that of the significant people in their lives. They may have reflected deeply on what they believe Review for Religious and can probably describe the content of their faith, but it is largely tacit. Later the demands of adult life, particularly in a culture no longer homogeneous, often move people toward Individuative- Reflexive faith. Those in this stage can articulate the reasons for their faith. In addition, the source of authority for their faith has moved inward, so that they believe because they have chosen to believe. Even if the content.of their faith remains the same, it has become their own.9 Fowler notes that, as a result of midlife stocktaking, some adults experience yet another transition, to what he calls Conjunctive faith, in which they can peacefully hold their own belief while truly listening to another whose belief is different. No longer do they perceive difference as an attack on their hard-won faith that must be defended at all costs. Rather, the other person's faith becomes an invitation to deepen and refine their own belief. Such faith is not possible until one has fully moved to the Individuative-Reflexive stage by both internalizing authority and making one's belief explicit. (Otherwise what appears a willingness to allow one's own faith to be influenced by others may simply be a form of the tacit faith that allows others to define what. one believes.) The fruit of Conjunctive faith is real dialogue, which begins with the belief that each one comes to the table with a perspective on the truth and includes the humble acknowledgment ~hat each has in some way failed to serve that truth. Fowler's theory has been applied to the "faithing" process of groups as well as individuals. Of course, not all members of the group are at the same stage at any given time. But the theory can be helpful in describing a group's changing "corporate culture." In the years before the Second Vatican Council, for example, when sisters lived in an environment that exemplified one and the same faith perspective, many were able to make meaning of their world through the tacit faith that the environment supported. As Quifionez and Turner describe that time, "canonical definitions, legislated by church authorities, gave 'religious life' its existence, its legitimacy, and its value" (Transformation, 36). In asking women's communities to return to their sources and to read the signs of The other person's faith becomes an invitation to deepen and refine their own belief 3%dy-dugust 2000 Foley * Another I4andow on the Crisis the times, the council caused them to become more analytical. At the same time, both the changes sisters began to make and the movements in the church and in society around them weakened many of the structures which had reinforced their commitment, so that those who remained were forced to acquire personal reasons for doing so. The movement between external and internalized authority is well illustrated by the responses which the members of LCWR gave to actual and proposed canons of church law in 1968 and 1977. Quifionez and Turner note that these responses differed, not in content, but in the way they were justified: "While in the 1960s sisters invoked Vatican Council II to legitimate their view-points, in 1977 they relied on the authority of their own experience to ground their critique" (Transformation, 56). This suggests that Carey is mistaken in assuming that most changes were the result of a few very influential leaders imposing on the rest their way of seeing the world. That may have been true for some, but, by illus-trating the extent to which "change-oriented" sisters began to appeal to. personal experience, Carey herself provides evidence that in general these women had come to a personally appropri-ated faith?° In my view, profound as this kind of faith may be, it is limited by the tendency to exalt one's internal authority to the extent of being unable to allow one's belief system to be affected by oth-ers. This can make it almost impossible to move together as a group. At a chapter several years ago, it was proposed that the community as a group fast and abstain on Fridays as a sign of their hunger for peace. One person objected vehemently, not to the action in itself, but to committing the whole group to any practice. Her memory of practices imposed in the past seemed to make it impossible for her to accept such a limitation on individual free-dom, even when that limitation was chosen. I believe that the future of religious communities depends on their moving beyond such a stance toward the deeper openness that constitutes what Fowler calls Conjunctive faith. Over the years, many "change-oriented" sisters have looked at and tried on elements of what Carey calls "the latest theological, sociological, psychological--and eventually New Age--fads" (Crisis, 138). She condemns both this and what she considers an excessive tolerance for the views of everyone. It seems to me, how-ever, that for many sisters the opportunity presented by the pre- Review for Religious sent moment is the call to a still greater openness, by which they can allow themselves to truly listen, on the one hand, to new alter-natives and, on the other, to those who question their new ways of understanding and living. Carey does not provide evidence to sup-port her accusation that "change-oriented" communities have deliberately silenced their more traditional members, and yet I believe that in some cases the voices of these sisters have not been heard, or their views have been dismissed as reactionary, irrational, foolish. Any honest dialogue would have to begin with everyone admitting some failure to listen. Openness to dialogue is possible, though certainly most dif-ficult, when the other is not similarly open. Carey speaks of "dia-logue" as if it is often used like a ploy in a game,11 and her position throughout Sisters in Crisis suggests an unwillingness to concede that "change-oriented" sisters could possess a piece of the truth. That, however, does not free the latter from the need to continue discerning where the critique offered by more traditional sisters has its own truth that deserves to be faithfully responded to. Opening a different window on the future requires humble dialogue around many of the issues raised by Carey, among which are the mission and vowed life of sisters, their place in the church, and the impli-cations of "refounding" religious communities. Mission Even though she acknowledges that justice has played an important role in sisters' traditional apostolates, Carey maintains that "change-oriented" sisters have recently replaced their true, "spiritual" mission with social justice as "a new primary mission" (Crisis, 112). For example, she criticizes the choice of nonviolence as the theme of the 1996 LCWR conference, claiming that this reveals "the conference's continuing priority bf placing sociopo-litical issues ahead of spiritual issues" (Crisis, 242). In this.discus-sion she comes close to what Quifionez and Turner describe as the worldview of sisters before 1960, for whom the sacred and the secular occupy two different spheres. The coauthors contend that since then many sisters have moved beyond such a view and "increasingly frame the meaning of their life in terms of the church's evangelizing mission" (Transformation, 59). The bishops at the 1971 synod called "action on behalf of justice., a consti-tutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel."12 In light of that July-./tugust 2000 Foley ¯ ~lnotber Windo~ on the ~ teaching, Carey's apparently outdated perspective seems to have nothing to offer the women about whom Quifionez and Turner write. Indeed, seeing spirituality as somehow pitted against jus-tice is not helpful. This aspect of Carey's position, however, masks an important criticism that "change-oriented" sisters would do well to recognize. Quifionez and Turner state that dedication to mission has comd to encompass the meaning of many sisters' lives. They cite a "grow-ing tendency . to define religious identity as witness against cultural values and attitudes" and assert further that "work and identity are inseparably related" (Transformation, 79 and. 39). In my view, this comes perilously close to insisting not only that my work is my prayer, but that it is my life. This is indeed what our culture often proposes; I consider.it an area where sisters are called to take a countercultural stance. Surely there is a middle path between a spirituality that would have no relation to justice and a life that would collapse itself into work on behalf of justice or any other important value. Carey's articulation of the mission of sisters in apostolic com-munities is not satisfactory, but neither is that of Quifionez and Turner. Hence the need for dialogue around what Carey would call the "spiritual" .mission of sisters. Such dialogue could very well occur in the context of the vowed life. Vows Carey claims that many elderly sisters who disapprove of the directions in which their congregations have moved "take very seriously the vows they made, and they are not only disturbed that religious life has been fundamentally restructured in their own communities, but even more alarmed that in the restructured model it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to live out the vows they made to God" (Crisis, 306). Nowhere does Sisters in Crisis explain how the restructuring of communities could make it "impossible for them to live out the vows." Perhaps these sisters believe that, for them to fulfill the demands of obedience and poverty, there must be specific persons designated as superiors who give commands and permissions. If so, a system in which decisions about ministry and the use of goods are made commu-nally may never provide what they are demanding. As has already been noted, Quifionez and Turner maintain Review for Religious that the defining element of many sisters' lives is no longer the vows, but rather witness. This suggests that for these women the concerns of the sisters whose perspective Carey shares are irrel-evant. And yet Quifionez and Turner also say, "For a large num-ber of the women, their shared life has to be linked to ultimacy, to the values of the gospel, to the deepest insights of religious tra-ditions" (Transformation, 166). Just how their lives can be "linked to ultimacy" is an ongoing question that must be addressed if there is to be a future for women's communities. It seems to me that addressing it will be difficult as long as the expression is as vague as that given here. I suspect that the word God is omitted because of the desire to be inclusive. To be sure, speaking of God is dangerous, and moreover help on the journey toward God can come from various traditions, including those that do not name God. But one must begin a journey from some point. Sandra Schneiders has pointed out the danger when communities that consider themselves religious have highly indi-vidualized, and eclectic spiritualities unconnected to the Christian tradition in which the communities are rooted. For such groups, she suggests, "the quiet sidelining of Christian .identity believed and practiced in the church is not compatible with their ongoing life and self-renewal as a religious congregation." 13 Over the centuries Christian women and men have sought to link their lives to ultimate, reality, which they have named God, by means of the vows. They have done this not only and, in my view, not primarily as a witness to others, but because God has somehow reached into their lives, and so, in being true to them-selves, they structure their lives around their relationship to God.14 Certainly there is need to reconceive and even reformu-late what is meant by the vows,15 but this must be done with recognition of their connection to the divine and hence of their significance beyond that of any actions .they imply. Vows of this kind must indeed be taken seriously. Surely there is a middle path between a spirituality that would have no relation to justice and a life that would collapse itself into work on behalf of justice. July-duffust 2000 Foley * Another Window on the Crisis Church Quifionez and Turner say, "Central to their quest for mean-ing, we believe, is the identity of sisters as church women" (Transeormation, 166). But, as Eucharia Malone RSM pointed out as early as 1970, "this relationship with the.church seems to be the point on which we are divided" (see Crisis, 95). In fact, the very definition of church is often at the heart of the polarization within and between women's communities. At first glance it is difficult to imagine a rapprochement between the understandings of church espoused by Carey and by Quifionez and Turner. Sisters in Crisis assumes a church in which the initiative comes from the hierarchy. As a result, Carey implies that sisters' meetings held in 1964-1965 to discuss strategies for renewal were subversive because Perfectae caritatis had not yet been promulgated formally)6 What could she have to say to those for whom church is a discipleship of equals, each of whom is responsible for initiating change? Many traditional as well as "change-oriented" groups have claimed to be following the teachings of Vatican II in their very different approaches to renewal. But the council documents them-selves represent compromises between bishops of various per-spectives. They are often ambiguous concerning the church and hence concerning the role of women's communities within the church. The situation is not unlike what followed in the wake of the last reforming council, the Council of Trent. Like Vatican II, Trent carried its own contradictions within itself,, including both a call for widespread education and an insistence on cloister for women ready to dedicate themselves to the education of young women. The conflicts, that resulted were virtually inevitable. Indeed, the experience of the post-Tridentine church calls into question any notion of reform as neat or uniform in application. In general, Carey fails to place the events she narrates within a larger historical context. She takes the American experience of religious life in the first half of.this century as normative and con-sequendy disparages many of the changes that have occurred since then. Research into the foundations of many communities before this century has revealed considerable struggle, especially with members of the hierarchy, over the very issues of ministry and conformity to monastic lifestyle that so concern Carey?7 Her lack of attention to the history of women's communities appears to be related to her sympathy with the representatives of the Consortium Perfectae Caritatis, who wanted discussion with LCWR officials Review for Religious to focus on "absolute truths that would transcend., any age, any period of time, any period of history" (Crisis, 283). Quifionez and Turner, on the other hand, are well aware of the various forms in which what is called "religious life" has mani-fested itself over the centuries, accurately noting that it is always a "historically conditioned" phenomenon.~s They are less attentive, however, to the values sought by sizable numbers of contemporary women and their foremother~. For genuine dialogue to take place, it might be necessary to declare a moratorium on valuing things either as "absolute" or as "historically conditioned." It could go far toward healing not only some of the divisions in women's com-munities, but also some of the woundedness of the larger church. Refounding In her concluding chapter Carey addresses herself to tradi-tional sisters who find themselves in communities that have moved away from what she considers the essence of religious life. She believes that such women may be called to "refound" their com-munities, and so offers a number of recommendations for how that might take place: "This refounding must be accomplished by the sisters within those institutes themselves, for refounding of religious orders cannot be mandated or directed by hierarchy, clergy, or laity, though legitimate refounding efforts should be supported by these other groups of people. In the refounding pro-cess, some members of a religious institute may come to the real-ization that their concept of consecrated life really does not fit the church understanding of a religious institute, and so those women may wish to pursue one of the other forms of consecrated life defined by the church" (Crisis, 328). Carey does not clarify why refounding a community "cannot be mandated or directed by the hierarchy" even though that is precisely what she believes its role should have been during the postconciliar renewal. Equally surprising is the open-ended pro-cess she describes, which it cannot be assumed will conform to the standard definition of a religious institute. Of course she assumes that, if what emerges does not fit that definition, the alter-native is another already defined form. In contrast, Vita consecrata, among other documents, assumes that forms not yet defined are also emerging at the present time.19 . In these comments Carey sketches out, no doubt unwittingly, j~uly-/lugust 2000 Fole~ ¯ Another l~ndow on the Crisis what many perceive to have been going on during all these years since the council: initiatives taken by those within the commu-nity, support for those initiatives from (some) other constituencies in the church, and ~n honest confrontation of the questions that traditional understandings of religious life bring to the fore. The element that Carey believes was missing in so many attempts at renewal is "legitimacy," which she understands to be close con-fortuity to the document "Essential Elements of Religious Life," issued by the Vatican Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes in 1983. Many "change-oriented" sisters and commu-nities consider that sense of legitimacy overly narrow, but in so doing they seem often to have acted as if all changes were equally legitimate. I believe that Carey and others have rightly criticized processes of experimentation that lacked mechanisms of evalua-tion. 2° Many are not fully satisfied with what has emerged in the. course of renewal, but are not sure how to name what is missing. Carey comments sharply on the failure of "change-oriented" communities to attract many new members. In her view, there are only two possible reasons for this, "unselfishness or pathological denial" of the imminent demise of their congregations, and she is quite sure that the latter interpretation is the accurate one. I think' these are false alternatives, though both no doubt play a role at times. A more significant factor in the decline in the number of women joining these communities seems to be a feeling of ambivalence, both among members of women's communities and in the church at large, ambivalence which results in part from massive change without evil-uation and consequently without general ownership. Carey, along with ~¢arious church officials, has declared the period of experimentation for women's communities to be over. But her proposal for refoundation suggests that a new, more pro-found kind of experimentation is just what is called for. The women who are coming to communities these days, particularly those young enough not to have lived through the years immedi-ately following the council, do not share the ambivalence of their older sisters. No doubt it is they who will lead the way in the founding and refounding still to come. Neither/Nor, Looking Anew, Nuancing In my opinion, the renewal of women's communities in the Catholic Church over the past forty years was not "co-opted" or Review for Religious "stolen" by their leaders, but neither has it been fully accom-plished. It is a work in progress, and in that work there has been considerable polarization between different approaches, and mutual recrimination as well. The challenge at this time may be to move beyond present viewpoints, to look through some other window onto those same issues and see a fuller truth. Those who wish to find such a window would do well to heed what Carey has written. Certainly Sisters in Crisis is flawed in its use of sources. Many are cited out of context, they are often listed without explanation or analysis, and generalizations are made on the basis of undisclosed and apparently meager evidence. But Carey's effort to speak in the nameof sisters whose views may have been ignored in the process of renewal provides a significant resource for those who are willing to look and listen. What has been said here about renewal within women's com-munities is true of the renewal of the whole church; in many ways it holds true as well for liberation movements within North America and across the planet. It is often asserted that communi-ties of men and women are called to take a prophetic stance. In my view, such an assertion requires careful nuancing. But, if sisters who represent different perspectives can learn to engage in gen-uine dialogue about their recent history and possible future direc-tions, I believe that could be prophetic indeed, not only for the church, but for all of humanity. Notes i Ann Carey, Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Press, °1997). 2 The focus of my work is women's communities, and the sources for the present reflection deal specifically with women in the United States. Other groups, too, may find what I say relevant. 3 These are not my preferred terms, but since Carey uses them I will follow her lead. 4 Lora Ann Quifionez CDP and Mary Daniel Turner SNDdeN, The Tranyformation of American Catholic Sisters (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). s "Book rebukes renewal; nuns rebuke book," National Catholic Reporter, 23 May 1997, p. 6. 6 Former LCWR president Doris Gottemoeller RSM agrees, but she believes that Carey has not named the crisis adequately. See "Religious Life in Crisis," Origins, 25 February 1999, pp. 634-638. ~uly-August 2000 Foley ¯ Another Window on the Crisis 7 One modern source for the story is Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 40. Walter Wink suggests that finding a third alternative in a situation that has reached an impasse is a gospel imperative. See his Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992). s Fowler suggests that the pattern of stages he describes remains valid regardless of the content of one's faith. It is rather a factor of one's cognitive and moral development,.although the circumstances in which one finds oneself tend to propel one toward a new stage. His theory is quite pragmatic: no stage is better than another; it simply may be more adequate to the realities one has to confront. 9 Note that one of these elements can be present without the other. Persons with an analytical bent can ana!yze the content of a faith that is not personally appropriated. Similarly, persons who tend to be inde-pendent may formally reject the faith of significant others before being able to give a reason for their own belief, other than the fact that it is their own. 10 This is not to say that more traditional communities have not made the same transition. I simply do not have enough evidence to make such a judgment. II She maintains that, when their constitutions were not approved, "many institutes simply played the game of prolonged 'dialogue' with Rome, hoping to win approval for practices that already had been in effect for years" (Crisis, 314). 12 Justice in the World, §6. 13 Sandra M. Schneiders IHM, "Congregational Leadership and Spirituality in the Postmodern Era," Review for Religious 57, no. 1 (January-February 1998): 26. ~4 I am indebted to Edward Vacek SJ in "Religious Life and the Eclipse of Love for God," Review for Religious 57, no. 2 (March-April 1998): 118-137, for his description of the vows as'structuring one's life around the relationship to God. ~s Barbara Fiand SND has articulated a theology of the vows in keep-ing with an e~;olutionary, nondualistic worldview. See her Living the I~uion: Religious Vows in an Age of Change (New York: Crossroad, 1990) and Wrestling with God: Religious Life in Search of Its Soul (New York: Crossroad, 1996). 16 See Crisis, pp. 110-111. 17 HWR News and Notes, published by the Conference on History of Women Religious (ed. Karen M. Kennelly csJ; Mount St. Mary's College; 12001 Chalon Road; Los Angeles, California 90049), tracks current scholarship in this area, much of which is presented at that orga-nization's triennial conferences. Both the enormous variety of expressions and the common themes Review for Religious manifest in that variety are very evident in Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). ,9 See ~ta consecrata, Origins 25, no. 41 (4 April 1996); also in The Church and Consecrated Life (St. Louis: Review for Religious, 1996), pp. 323-436; see esp. §§12 and 62. The latter section is explicit about the pos-sibility that new forms emerging today may come to be approved offi-cially at a later time. 20 For example, Gottemoeller, "Religious Life in Crisis" (see note 6), p. 635. At the LCWR assembly in August 1999, there were a number of calls for evaluation of the processes of renewal. Musings of the Prodigal's Brother Look at him! The life of the party. Music, fatted calf, ring- all to celebrate my brother's return from a wasted life. Squandered inheritance, prostitutes, and hunger shared with swine. Look at my lathe!! Joy-filled, radiant, his long-awaited prodigal is home. Unconditional, all-forgiving love Lighting up the room with warmth and joy, my father - our father - now at peace. Look at me! Lonely, jealous, bitter. The son who did not squander - but gave my father only loyal, total service, What's this? My envy giving way? My inner blindness praying, "Lord, that I may see"? Maria Corona Crumback IHM ffuly-August 2000 BERNADINE PIEPER A Path of Humility and Truth: Historical Reminiscence T~ay, thirty-five years after Vatican Council II, many people nk that the changes in religious life arose spontaneously, somewhat like Athena springing from the forehead of Zeus. In fact, the changes took place because of intense preparation. That preparation happened in the contexts of the general culture and the individual religious communities. My community, the Congregation of the Humility of Mary, was a small congregation of approximately 430 members, and so most sisters knew one another. The sisters came from a variety of ancestral ndtionalities: Irish, German, Czech, Italian, Mexican, and others. Many of the sisters had rural backgrounds, had the experience of living with Protestants as well as Catholics, and had attended both public and Catholic schools at all levels including university. The congregation had moved from France to Pennsylvania to Missouri to Iowa and had experienced losing the motherhouse in Ottumwa, Iowa, in a 1957 fire. They were pio-neers, risk takers. Further, a remarkable group of women made up the leadership of the Congregation of the Humility of Mary from 1960 to 1966. In November 1964 the general superior, Mother Mary Nicholas, and the general council called for a congregation-wide Bernadine Pieper CHM was elected general superior of her congre-gation in 1966, shortly after Vatican Council ii. She writes from her experience of the past forty years. Her address is Humility of Mary Center; 820 West Central Park Avenue; Davenport, Iowa 52804. Review for Religious vote on a revision of the delegate selection process for the 1966 general chapter of affairs. That same month she and the council ¯ asked every convent to discuss renewal of religious life with spe-cial applications to our congregation. Background material sent for the study included Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy, chapters 5 and 6 of the Constitution on the Church, Pope Paul's discourse of 23 May 1964 to all religious, the original 1858 rules and regulations of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary, and Father Bernard H~iring's Christian Renewal in a Changing World. The sis-ters were also asked to study related sections of Scrip~re. The virtues listed in our original constitutions were to be studied along with the congregation's apostolate. The sisters were asked whether " we were meeting the spiritual and religious needs of the people of our time in the localities where we were working. This was a time of excitement and ferment. Discussion of these topics provided an opportunity for departure from the rather superficial conversation typical of specified recreation times. A 22 February 1965 letter from Mother Mary Nicholas states that the objective of our study was profound renewal inspired.by bib-lical, liturgical, and apostolic documents of Vatican II and by wis-dom from the congregation's experience. She said some changes would be decided by the congregation itself while others must await legislation expected in the future. "We realize that renewal of religious life will not be easy," she said. From each of four geo-graphical areas (east Iowa and Illinois, midwest Iowa, southeast Iowa, and the west), she and the general council appointed the following committees: liturgy, common life and discipline, poverty, obedience, works and apostolate, and formation and maturity. Committee members included every sister in the community. After a year of discussion, each of these committees sent a posi-tion paper, including reports and recommendations, for study by the congregation. From October 1965 to May 1966, sisters prepared proposals to present to the 1966 chapter of affairs. A total of 545 proposals on a variety of topics were prepared by the sisters, both by indi-viduals and by committees and groups. The recommendations included practically every facet of the sisters' lives and customs: elections, prayer, charity, social work, spiritual renewal, revision of rule and directory, companionship, cloister, letter writing, use of gifts, permissions, and other more mundane items such as swim-ming, ceremonies, appointments, and speeds at which to drive. ~uly-August 2000 Pieper ¯ ~t Path of Humility and Truth There were few proposals about chastity and friendship, pos-sibly due to the fact that no study group was assigned to this topic. During the previous fifty years, obedience had assumed priority for religious life. Three sisters were appointed to organize the pro-posals for presentation to th6 chapter of affairs in a logical way. After attending a workshop for religious superiors at the University of Notre Dame, the local superiors of the congregation met in the summer of 1965 to look at common life. They recom-mended a variety of changes to Mother Superior and the council. Among the changes approved were: talking at breakfast, walking outdoors after 6 p.m., eating with guests, retiring early, noncen-sorship of mail, elimination of the chapter of faults, yearly general permissions, and going without a companion to medical appoint-ments. Previously three other sisters were involved when one went to the doctor: one as her companion at the doctor's and two oth-ers to drive them there and pick them up again. In 1965, upon the recommendation of the liturgy committee, sisters began to use the breviary for morning and night prayers. A workshop on guidelines for renewal was held in spring 1966 with the cooperation of the Canon Law Society of America and the approval Of Davenport Bishop Ralph L. Hayes. The speakers were Father Paul M. Boyle CP, past president of the Canon Law Society of America; Father Kevin O'Rourke OP, coauthor of Canon Law for Religious Women; Sister Jane Marie Richardson SL, secretary of Sister Mary Luke Tobin SL, auditor at Vatican II; Sister Ignace RSM, province councilor of the Mercy Sisters' Chicago Province; and Sister Maristella (Elizabeth) Picken CHM, member of the Marycrest College religion department. Davenport sisters had also traveled to Aurora, Illinois, that spring for a speech by Sister Mary Luke Tobin. The membership for the 1966 chapter of affairs was entirely different from that of earlier chapters, which had been composed of almost as many superiors as nonsuperiors. Besides the seven ex-officio members--major .superior, council, former major superi-ors, secretary, and treasurer--seven superiors were elected from among 38, nine sisters from among 88 more than 50 years old, ten sisters from among 90 between 35 and 50 years of age, and four from among the 80 sisters under 35. All these sisters had per-petual vows. Sisters with temporary vows had only active voice. During the chapter the delegates voted to abolish all secrecy. Chapter delegates represented a wide variety of sisters. There was for Rdigious a wide spectrum of emotion--fear and impatience on the one hand, hope and excitement on the other. Everyone, however, cared for the congregation and worked hard to follow the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Relaxation of discipline and introduction of the breviary were not the only changes which took place before the 1966 chapter of affairs. The number of entrants into the congregation had already declined before 1966. The largest number of persons to enter the congregation came in 1959 and 1960:27 and 32 respec-tively. In 1965 only six women entered, and in the spring of 1966 only four had been accepted for entrance. Sisters were aware of and inter-ested in civil rights. Though no one went to Selma or other places in the South for demonstrations, they were deeply concerned and prayed particularly when Medgar Evers was killed. They also began to help with local problems. For example, some numbers went sandbagging along the Mississippi in Davenport during the 1965 flood. They tried to do this quietly; when a picture of the sisters appeared in the daily paper, not everyone in the CHM community was happy. Probably attitudinal changes were the most important. In the 1960s the culture implied that one was incomplete without a sex-ual partner. Vatican II taught that perfection was obtainable not just by sisters in community, but also by married persons. At Marycrest College, where over one-fourth of the CHM community studied during the summer, creative and critical thinking was a college goal. Sisters began to recognize that they were thinking creatively .and critically about everything exc.ept their own lives. They became aware that they had been founded as an apostolic community and were neither cloistered nor monastic, but had been trying to live as if they were. At the chapter of affairs, on 27 June 1966, I was elected the general superior. My experience as a superior was limited to sev-eral summers for the sisters who were students at Marycrest College. I had, however, taught a majority of members of the con-gregation. This was my first chapter of affairs. M6ther Mary In 1965, upon the recommendation of the liturgy committee, sisters began to use the breviary for morning and night prayers. Pieper ¯ A Path of Humility and Truth Nicholas Sheetz, who might have provided me some guidance, died in October 1966. Mother Mary Magdalen Wilmes, another potential source of information, asked to move to Phoenix. "You can make your own mistakes," she said. I retained the designation "Sister" and took the title president instead of mother superior, as have those who succeeded me. When Father Paul Boyle CP spoke at Marycrest College in April 1966, he assured the members of the committee which orga-nized the proposals that he would be happy to help at the chapter. He came to Ottumwa from Monroe, Michigan, and was invaluable in distinguishing among aspects of church law, community law, customs, and culture. He advised us tobegin with a discussion on prayer because that was the most important topic and further-more was likely to be less controversial than the others. After considerable discussion and revision at the regular June session and a short one in December 1966, about sixty motions were approved by the delegates, either unanimously or at least 10 to 1 in favor. Mass, lauds, vespers, and an annual retreat were the only requirements regarding prayer. However, the value of prayer was endorsed, and continuing past practices was recommended. In the area of poverty, the sisters were asked to be as poor as they wished and to provide community witness to poverty by sharing things. Minor finances were to be a subject for experimentation. Each sister was to be given $15 a month for clothes and personal needs, while housing, .meals, and travel were to be provided by the local house. One sister commented that her girdle alone cost $13. Investigating congregational health insurance was approved. Home visits, travel without companions, retention of baptismal names for those who so wished, eating with persons other than commu-nity members, and letters and phone calls without censorship were approved. Broadening our apostolic works was recommended, with particular emphasis on Latin America. The value of long-range planning was noted. The following commissions were described and set up in great detaili (1) the coordinating commission on apostolic works, with subcommittees in the various areas of work; (2) rule and directory revision; (3) formation and religious renewal; (4) finance and development; and (5) habit revision. The sisters were asked to participate in annual meetings of the whole con-gregation. No time limit for experimenting was set because Pe, rfectae caritatis allowed twelve years. Review for Religious In the letter I wrote to the congregation accompanying the record of the June 1966 chapter, I said: "Many of you have prob-ably read Michael Novak's 'The New Nun' in the July Post, in which he says, 'Press reports emphasize the shortened skirts, the briefer veils, the appearance of nuns on public beaches, but these are misleading superficial aspects of a deep-running revolution. In ever increasing numbers the sisters are creating new rules to define what tasks they may or may not tackle, what styles of life they may or may not adopt.'" Change in clothes was symbolic and probably the change most criticized by the sisters' publics. The original intent was to design and adopt a simple costume with a modified veil. The process, however, led to diversity. Sisters sent requests to the coordinating commission on habit revision, with the final decision to be made by the general superior and council. At first the sisters were expected to wear a veil and white, gray, black, brown, or blue clothing. Many sisters quickly adapted to the change, Next came . requests and permission to wear red and green and finally flowered blouses. Just before the 1967 summer school, the gen-eral council decided to allow sisters to go without veils, having noticed that sisters in some communities who were still asked to wear the traditional habit were surreptitiously wearing street clothes when they were ¯ away from the convent. We felt that honesty was the better policy. At first clothes were usually made out of habits and cloaks and often were ill fitting and not very well designed. Generally sisters wore blouses, skirts, and suits. Some sisters reverted to the hairstyles of their teen years; some bought wigs. Fairly soon, though, the sisters emerged as attractive women rather than neuter icons, and sometimes this incited the envy of other women. For example, one sister found a suitable coat with a small fur collar in the poor box for the parish. She was criti-cized by some parishioners as being too extravagant in clothes. The change to contemporary clothes, the sisters thought, necessitated some means for identification. For a while each sis-ter had a name tag; then we adopted a design for a medal. It is still being used. Change in clothes was symbolic and probably the change most criticized by the sisters' publics. July-August 2000 Pieper ¯ A Path of Humility and Truth This was a time of energetic hope and gloomy predictions as well. One priest "expert" predicted that within five years the con-gregation would be extinct. Before 1966 the vow of poverty implied permission for the use of material things. After the 1966 chapter, the meaning of being po.or as one wished and sharing material things was open to interpretation. General congregational'needs included care of retired sisters, administration, and the retirement of a debt on the motherhouse. Up to this time, each house had sent as much as possible to the motherhouse. In fact, sometimes superiors vied with one other to see how much could be sent, even at the expense of local needs. As sisters began to live outside established con-vents, the question arose about ensuring a balance of individual and congregational needs. Since CHM local houses had sent to the congregational fund the amount each determined, it seemed logical to continue this process. Hence, each sister was asked to deduct from her income what was needed for her individual or house costs and send the rest to the motherhouse. Little by little most of the sisters began to contribute as much as they could to the congregation's fund. Diocesan stipends were entirely too low. In the Des Moines Diocese the stipend set for each sister was $50-$100 monthly. In the city of Des Moines, all except one parish paid $50 per month per sister. I had to go to bishops and pastors to ask for an increase in the stipend. Frequently I was told that, if the sisters went back to their habits, they could get along on $50 a month! I prepared and distributed a budget so that the sisters could be informed about real congregational needs. Funds for retreats and education were budgeted. A study was made of average expenses for an indi-vidual. Many sisters responded favorably when they were informed about the needs, both for the congregation itself and for works to assist the poor. To free active sisters from increasing costs for sisters already in retirement, we enrolled in the social security program in 1972 when it became available for sisters. Using unclaimed interest on patrimony, we set up the CHM retirement trust in 1976. Until the summer of 1966, health expenses were cared for gratis by several related hospitals. One of these began charging the sisters for services. Then we initiated a health-insurance plan. Each sister in the congregation was asked to have an annual phys-ical examination. Revie~ for Religio~ The commission on rule revision met almost immediately after the 1966 chapter. Unable to decide what to call the first product of their efforts, it settled on "Spirit and Goals" until a better name could be found. After considerable discussion a state-ment of about a page and a half was sent to all the sisters for study and recommendation. After several revisions, a statement of spirit and goals was approved by a vote of the sisters in August 1968. The statement began, "We Sisters of the Humility of Mary are a group of women in the Catholic Church who have banded together to dedicate ourselves through a special common effort to the pur-suit of life's essential meaning and to a radical response to the Christian gospel of universal love." The Spirit and Goals document was intended as a basic state-ment explaining our spirit and the meaning of religious life for the Sisters of the Humility of Mary. The remainder of the rule was intended to be directives approved by succeeding chapters of affairs. After some years, and after the rules and regulations had been arranged according to topics and divided into Books I and II, the CHM president and I presented the document to the English-speaking committee of the Sacred Congregation for Religious (SCRIS) in Rome in 1982. The committee, finding several sections unacceptable, told us to make mandated changes and resubmit the document. Since the total congregation had already approved the 1982 document, it was necessary that they subsequently vote on SCRIS's mandates. This CHM approval was not forthcoming, so for seven years the congregation followed Books I and II without papal approval. In 1988 a new rule-revision committee attempted to integrate the directives of SCRIS, now called the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) in such a way that our identity would not be compromised. We con-sulted a canon lawyer working in the English-language depart-ment of CICLSAL. Her suggestions included moving as many items as possible to Book II, which did not require canonical approval. The main objection of CICLSAL had been our election process. After numerous revisions we were able to present the document to the CHM general assembly in the summer of 1990. It was approved by the Representative Assembly in that year and sent to Rome requesting the approval date of December 8. We distributed approved copies to the congregation in the summer of 1991. We are still probing self-determination versus community focus. ~uly-August 2000 Pieper ¯ A Path of Humility and Truth That sisters could choose their work had both positive and negative results. By 1968 we were sending openings for available positions to community members. That sisters could choose their work had both positive and negative results. Some felt insecure in having to find their own positions. Sisters who were not good teachers or who had no interest in teaching were able to go to school and train for and find occupations more in keeping with their talents. Justice was adopted as the congregation's priority. More sisters began working directly with the dispossessed, and the congregation supported their efforts. After the recommendation of Pope Paul VI encouraging American religious to go to Latin America, Father Louis Colonnese, director of PAVLA (Papal Volunteers for Latin America), rec-ommended about half a dozen places to the sis-ters. All of these were dioceses where the bishop had a pastoral plan to follow the spirit of Vatican II. Several of us went to visit Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of the San Crist6bal de las Casas diocese in southern Mexico. He took us over mountains to see places where sisters had been working to show us what had been done and what the pos-sibilities were. We were so impressed that we decided not to look further, but rather to use for the program in Chiapas the money we might have spent on airplane fare to other potential sites. We were urged to send sisters also to Ambato, Ecuador. Four si~ters went to these two missions; two are still in the San Crist6bal diocese. Although the commission on formation devised an extensive plan for formation, very few women applied. Furthermore, a :great many, particularly among those who were in temporary vows, left the congregation. Perhaps they were still in the process of being integrated in the congregation in a pre-Vatican II mode. Of the many reasons for the mass exodus from religious communities, I think a good many were cultural. Quite a few young women said that, if they could be as holy living as married women with chil-dren as they could as celibates in community, there was no reason to remain as sisters. The sexual revolution implied that one could not be a whole person without genital experiences. Some sisters, particularly those working directly with the poor, found that their primary community was one, other than the ClaMs. Some who left were those who had been dissatisfied for years. On the other hand, Review for Religious some were sisters who had worked most diligently and effectively for the changes. Some were unable to identify with a patriarchal church. Without a doubt all of us made mistakes. It might have been better to have informed our public about proposed changes, but we were intent on our internal study. In any case, I doubt if the pub-lic would have approved of the changes if we had asked them beforehand. The Sisters of the Humility of Mary moved some-what faster than other communities at this time of. change. As I watched communities that made the changes later, I used to think that I could be a consultant, telling them what to avoid. However, all of us had to learn from our own mistakes even though many of them were similar. Not everyone was mature enough to take per-sonal responsibility. The changes in discipline, clothes, works, and so on were only the expressions of a hope for the inner renewal of each sister and of the entire congregation. Celibacy in community has replaced obedience as the defining vow for sisters. Since the early 1970s, associates have expanded the search and service aspects of com-munity. Among the sisters, responsibility for private prayer some-times meant temporary abandonment of prayer altogether. Inner renewal is difficult to assess and is known only to God and the sister. Bishops witl~ whom CHMs worked were supportive during this time. One said that he did not understand everything that we did, but trusted us. On one occasion he commented, "I would never presume to tell a woman what to wear." Today we are an older and wiser congregation. The renewal set in motion in the 1960s has, I think, resulted in return to the spirit of our founders and a steady love for God, people, and the universe. Father Richard Hill 'SJ died on 29 January 2000 in the Jesuit infirfna~ at,Los' Gatos,~ Cahfornia: " 'Fathei" ~li ~sed~tor for c~nonical ~ounsel from Janua~ 1985 to July.19~)0. ~ : Let us remember him in burp~ay~ers~ July-August 2000 w. HENRY KEN-NEY Finding God's Willm A Maneuver finding God My title, "Finding God's Will," purposely suggests a prior search. In an age when some prefer to think of God as havin~ no specific will for individuals, but only a general wish for us to use our freedom well, the whole concept of seeking and finding God's will seems out of place. But I do not think it is. The theological assumptions behind searching for and finding God's will are, I believe, not of this age. They have appeared in the spirituality of countless saints, and espe-cially in those who lived in the last four or five hundred years. My large debt to an acknowledged master of search-ing for and finding God's will, St. Ignatius of Loyola, I gladly own. I am also quite indebted to dozens of pray-ers (my preferred term for directees) whom I have accom-panied on many a search and in many a finding. So my basic assumption is: God has a specific will which can be searched for and found--in large, medium, and lesser matters. A very good case, I believe, can be made that this is the prevailing assumption of the Bible and that it shines forth especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For instance, along with many scripture scholars, I see Jesus' desert temptations as part W. Henry Kenney SJ, founder of the Bluegrass Spirituality Center in Lexington, Kentucky, is now a free-lance "prayer coach." His address is 153 Barr Street; Lexington, Kentucky 40507. Review for Religious of his search for the Father's will on how to undertake and exer-cise his public ministry. Near the end of his life, we see Jesus in Gethsemane struggling to get beyond his aversion to an igno-minious death ~and coming finally to embrace his Father's will peacefully and courageously. Presuppositions for Fruitful Searching My first presupposition is that searching for and finding God's will is a gift, and God's best gifts most often come in answer to persistent prayer. Hence, the guiding light for a searcher is: Beg, beg, beg. That repeats in short compass the longest teaching of Jesus on prayer: keep on knocking, seeking, begging for God to reveal their (Father, Son, and Spirit) will (Lk 11:1-13). For those who are settled into a significant prayer life, recipients of one of its gifts--a strong desire to know God's will--persistent begging for the revelation of God's will strikes them as quite right. To be given the knowledge of God's will and the courage and joy to do it is perceived by such pray-ers as a most precious gift coming from God's Spirit, the gift. Happy are they who experience their begging turned into receiving--the knowledge and love of God's s, pecific will for them. The second presupposition is that the principal impediment to finding God's will is my own will, often enough so attached to X or so averted from Y that it is very difficult or nearly impossi-ble for Y to be revealed as God's will. Spirituality writers used to call that state "attachment" or "lack of indifference." Currently that state is described as insufficient openness to God's will or lack of spiritual freedom. If I am mildly or strongly attached to getting married or averse to becoming a priest or religious, it is more difficult for me to recognize that God's wisdom and plea-sure are calling me to the priesthood or religious life. When there is very strong aversion or attachment, it is nearly impossi-ble to know and accept God's willing the opposite of our own wills. Let us state this positively. A necessary condition for our finding God's will is our possession of indifference, detachment, real openness to God's will--spiritual freedom. St. Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises (§157) supplies a soul-testing remedy for such "inordinate attachments": When we feel an attachment opposed to X [Ignatius instances actual poverty] . it will be very helpful in order ~ly-.4ug~st 2000 Kenney ¯ Finding God's Will to overcome the inordinate attachment, even though cor-rupt na(ure rebel against it, to beg our Lord. to choose us to serve him in X. We should insist that we desire it, we should beg for it, plead for it, provided, of course, that it be for the service and praise of the Divine Goodness. (Puhl translation) With some discomfort I own that I have seldom suggested that a praying person follow §157's recommendation. However, from directing pray-ers (and from my own seeking of God's will) I have happened on to a maneuver that achieves, almost by indirection, what §157 seeks straight on. The third (and, for some, shocking) presupposition is this: God's will is usually revealed not by words or images, but by feel-ings: feelings of peace, of increased or continuing peace (called consolation), or feelings of diminished peace, of distancing (called desolation). Novice pray-ers have usually not had enough prayer and life experience of consolation and desolation for those feel-ings to be without the assistance of a spiritual guide--true instru-ments for revealing God's will to themselves. Conditions for Finding and Choosing God's Will Here are four necessary conditions for finding God's will: The first is spiritual freedom or openness. Being reasonably "at balance" is necessary for being really open to God's alternatives. How cru-cial this is can be seen in Ignatius's Exercises, in the extensive instructions and reflections given to help a praying person come to a reasonable level of spiritual freedom. The second is homework. Suffic-ient investigation of the par-ticulars of the available options (who, what, where, when, for how long, at what cost, and so forth) is absolutely necessary. Some per-sonality types want to rush into choosing before they have done their homework, or done it well enough. Pray-ers will often have discerned, in the first place, whether to commit themselves to an in-depth investigation of the alternatives, that is, the pros and cons of each. The third is kairos. There is a kairos, an appropriate time, for the discerning process. Some times are inappropriate, for example, wanting to know if I should accept a job offer before I am offered the job. That is clearly quite different from discerning on whether I should commit myself to investigate some job possibilities or to Review for Religious make some applications. Further, for those given .to control, there is often the temptation to discern alternatives--to have closure-- long before there is reasonable need for a decision. A help in the searching process is to fix the actual date wl~en a decision is needed. Then the discerner can assign a reasonable number of days for discernment before the due date. The fourth is a discernment companion. If a pray-er is leaning to one alternative and strongly dislikes the other, the aid of a dis-cernment companion is usually essential. The companion can help the praying persons to follow the process correcdy and thereby get beyond their subjectivity. Novice discerners with strong attach-ments are astonishingly adept at fouling up the discernment pro-cess. A person who read this article in manuscript form was dumbfounded to find in it a finger pointing out an inclination to subvert true discernment of a touchy personal decision. Even mature pray-ers, at least in their earlier searchings for God's will, usually have need of human help to discern and interpret patterns of consolation or desolation in response to their continued search-ing for the Lord's will. There would, then, be great risk if non-pray- ers or novice pray-ers attempted such formal discernment without a discernment companion, and even greater risk in the maneuver suggested below. The~, would too likely get into magic, divination, or self-deception. A ManeuvermOne Way of Searching for God's Will Central to the maneuver is repeatedly asking a loaded question of the Lord in the middle of prayer. I call it "popping the ques-tion." Unfortunately, there are several gloriously wrgng ways of popping the question. First is popping an unloaded question, such as, "Lord, do you want me to marry Susie?" That sounds quite sensible. What is so unproductive about this Way of phrasing the question is that it demands a vocal answer: "Yes" or "No." The Lord, however, is not in the habit of giving such answers. Not a few pray-ers continue to be scandalized that the Lord's preferred way of communicating "answers" to us is through our emotions, through consolations and desolations. A second wrong way of popping the question is to pop a ques-tion that is loaded towards the alternative the pray-er wants. This, unsurprisingly, greatly muddies the spiritual waters; self-gener-ated "peace" tends to obscure any subtle message from God. If I j~ly-August 2000 Kenney ¯ Finding God's Will greatly desire quitting my job and I keep asking, ".Lord, you want me to quit my job, don't you?" my strong emotional bias will give me so much'comfort that a contrary response from the Lord will likely be blocked out. Third, pray-ers will often fudge the process by alternately popping questions loaded against and loaded for themselves. Once again, muddied waters will result. A right way to phrase discernment questions is to use a loaded question consistently, a question loaded against my inclination or aversion and thereby loaded in God's favor. For a young or not-so-young woman attached to her single lifestyle, the loaded phras-ing of "Lord, you want me to marry Stan, don't you?" will cause disturbance, negative feelings, the first several times she pops it. These initial affective responses will likely prove untypical of responses later on, but she needs to experience them now. I say this because I have quite often seen sincere discerners surrepti-tiously (without knowing it themselves!) try to bypass such dis-comfort and get approval of the alternative they want either by asking an unloaded question or by unconsciously switching to the loaded question that favors their own present inclination: "Lord, you don't want me to marry Stan, do you?" Pray-ers that "lean" toward a preference of theirs need to be assured more than once that it is just as easy for the Lord to "answer" no to a loaded question as to answeryes. Understandably, many "leaning" pray-ersfeel that the question is too loaded against themselves for the Lord to be able to say no. In phi'asing discern-ment questions, it has gradually and experientially ~ome clear to me that it is much better to formulate the questions positively. For example, if a pray-er pops "Lord, you don't want me accept this job offer, do you?" the negative tends to muddy the process. The right-ness of the positively phrased question, "Lord, you want me to con-tinue in my present job, don't you?" can be sensed by pray-ers who lean toward accepting a new job. They experience more dis-comfort with positive questions than with negative ones. When to pop? I ask discernment questions of the Lord only, only, only when I am prayerful, that is, when I am at peace and have some sense of being with the Lord. Never do I ask when I am even a little unpeaceful or lack some real sense of being with the Lord. Praying persons, indeed, are frequently tempted to do this. If they yield, it is like asking the wall and expecting a revela-tory response within themselves as a reaction to the wall's action! Review for Religious When one is consciously with the Lord, whether in formal prayer or at'liturgy or at another time, a question should usually be popped only once. Popping the same question several times in the same ,prayer experience usually comes from a control drive that tends to commandeer the discernment process. How to pop? When I am in the middle of being connected with the Lord, I pop the question, as it were, eyeball to eyeball. Then I wait a short time, seconds. If I wait longer, I am trying to manipulate the Lord or influence my reactions. After popping I need to notice what happened to my con-nectedness and consolation. Did it remain the same? Did it increase? Was it subtly modified? Often pray-ers say "Nothing happened" after they popped the question. My response is "Something always hap-pens!" If my connectedness and peace remain the same, that is a very revealing, though low-key, response. Hence we need to keep a record of our post-popping reactions so that we may discover a pattern. How often to pop? For a small matter, once usually suffices if there has been a clear enough affective response. For larger mat-ters-- a new job, undertaking a volunteer project or pulling back from one--five, ten, or a dozen times usually give a clear picture. Very large questions--marriage, religiou~ life, another child, major change in employment or lifestyle--may need months of discern-ing. What is always being sought is a clear pattern of responses from multiple poppings. Confirmation. When repeated poppings have yielded a pat-tern that tells us we very probably know God's will in a large or very large matter, it is good to supplement the discernment with a further process that may increase and strengthen our careful cer-tainty. Regarding marriage, the confirming question (in full detail, useful for the first popping) could well be "Lord, I think you have revealed to me that you want me to marry Stan. That is your will, isn't it?" Interpreting patterns. If pray-ers' first discernment efforts involve large or very large issues, I usually say nothing beforehand about htw to interpret their experience. Rather, I tell them they should pop the question "about X times," note carefully what hap- I ask discernment questions of the Lord only, only, only when I am prayerful. July-August 2000 Kenney ¯ Finding God's Will pens to their state of peace while and after popping, and record the experience of each discernment. At our next meeting we look at and interpret the responses together. The interpretation is very simple: The experience of consola-tion confirms the loaded question, whereas a lesser peacefulness or a diminished sense of being with the Lord negates the loaded ques-tion. In the example "Lord, you want me to marry Stan, don't you?" the results of the maneuver may be "muddied" by several years of attachment to a single lifestyle. The first few poppings will probably bring feelings of desolation, coming from pain at the thought of possibly losing certain blessings of the single life. But it is the pattern'of consolations or desolations, derived from many spiritual experiences, that reveals whether the alternative is in harmony or not with God's wisdom and love, and with what is deepest in herself as well. It is worth adding that in using the maneuver people may often experience desolation in new ways. They may sense a sud-den loss of contact with the Lord--no more disturbing than the quiet loss of a telephone connection during a conversation. Or they may sense the onset of a "vacuum" feeling, a severe feeling of emptiness, immediately after popping the question. Such feel-ings are often quite subtle, but are clear instances of desolation nonetheless. Sundry Choices Made by Means of the Maneuver Somehow it seems more appropriate to place this section at the end rather than near the beginning. My hope is that it will give some feel for the variety of discernments. I give some instances of choices that go ~ith the chooser's natural preference as well as againstdt. Understandably, I fictionalize to protect confidential-ity, but give enough details to suggest a "feel" for the shape of dis-cerned choices. First, four examples of big choices: a woman in her thirties who had enjoyed an active lifestyle met a man whom she feared God might want her tO marry and thus have her lifestyle signifi-cantly altered. Hers was a long discernment, spread over a num-ber of months, and she gradually became more open to marriage, especially through the use of "Lord, you want me to marry Stan, don't you?" Postwedding life has proved the fittingness of her def-initely not easy choice. There is a greatly loved child, and she Review for Religious found herself saying, "It's clear to me that I'm growing up now." A man in his early forties, increasingly uncomfortable with his military-connected job, sought first to know if God wanted him to give up his job and seek training and employment in some-thing more oriented towards human service. It was difficult to consider giving up a well-paying job without knowing what the next, step would be. His discernment was eased by his having a substantial amount of savings. In his case the discernment of per-haps five or six months gave him the certainty (and courage) to quit his job. This led to discernment about further education and eventually to a people-centered ministry. A young woman, thirty-two, who came with a strong prayer life and dedication to helping the poor, was not charmed when I asked if she had thought about religious life. "I want to get married and have children." "What if God wants you in religious life?" was a question she did not enjoy. In some-thing like a month of using the loaded ques-tion "Lord, you want me to be a religious, don't you?" she came to much more spiritual freedom for either marriage or religious life. She found herself eager to know God's will clearly, whatever it might be. That desire was fulfilled in another month and a half by a definite vocation to a missionary order. A woman in her forties taught'alternativ~ high school (possi-bly a universal euphemism for teaching students less than sixteen and expelled from regular schools). She heard of the possibility of becoming chief financial officer for a large God's Pantry opera-tion; she was both very qualified and very attracted. When, how-ever, she frequently asking loaded questions about whether God wanted her to continue in her present job, she came up with no clear sense of direction. Then, almost immediately after she was actually offered the CFO job, her prayer was filled with clarity that God wanted her to continue teaching "alternatives"--the very drift of her original popped question. Next are two examples of "medium" choices, but I flinch at such labeling because often the consequences are major. Probably the saddest accompanying I have done was with a man in his for-ties who was in a cult-like abusive relationship. In a discernment "What if God wants you in religious life?" was a question she did not enjoy. .~uly-Aug~st 2000 Kenn~y ¯ Findin~ God's W~ll which was long enough and clear enough, the answer was yes to "You want me to give up my relationship with X, don't you?" The sadness is that the relationship continued with great harm to him-self and to his family. Though I tried to persuade him to get coun-seling, the abuser convinced him that that counselors do the work of the devil. A man in his early fifties is a first-rate high school teacher. He got the idea that it would be good to get a Ph.D., but dis-cernment dictated otherwise. He continued happily and effectively teaching for several years. Because he is very gifted, he was asked to do all sorts of things at school, at church, and elsewhere. Before using formal discernment he was seriously fatiguing himself by undertaking too many projects. He began using a discernment notebook. When asked to do something, he noted it, carefully constructed a question for popping, used it in prayer,and logged the '~results." He says. no a lot more now, and notes the absence of fatigue. Out of the blue a department chair at the university asked him to supervise graduate students doing their summertime practice teaching. Not only did his discernment yield a clear "No," but also an unusual pair of words, "You're enough"--exactly what he needed to hear. He has no need for other and ever new achieve-meats to prove and feel his self-worth. Other Ways of Discernment The maneuver suggested here is one good way of seeking and finding God's will. There are many other ways. Experimentation vs. popping. In several areas of our lives where the prayer discernment process proposed here is not appro-priate, experimentation is a privileged way of finding God's will. It can be used for how long to pray, where and when to pray, what type of prayer is best for one's "daily diet," how much sleep, exer-cise, food, and drink to get, and so forth. Experimentation is not trying X one day, Y another, and Z on the third. Rather, it is try-ing one way five to seven times, then trying another way five to seven times, and afterwards reflecting on our experiences, espe-cially on the quality of our lives during the alternative experi-ments. St. Ignatius Loyola observes: "Now since God our Lord knows our [individual] nature infinitely better [than we do], when we make changes of this kind, [God] often grants each one the grace to understand what is suitable for [us]" (SpEx §89). Review for Religious There is another way that God answers sincere prayer--and, here, prayer to know God's will. My sister, her husband afflicted with Alzheimer's, knew they had to move into some form of assisted living because her heart condition was making her ever less able to care for him. She was more inclined to get care eight hours per day rather than 24-hour care--too pricey, she thought. Her earnest prayer that God reveal Their will was strikingly answered. The next two nights her husband had diarrhea and did not know what the toilet was for. Clearly, day care would not suffice. Another way of discernment is, I think, proposed by St. Ignatius, but unfortunately I cannot document this. This way involves offering the Lord different options as one would present different dishes to an honored guest, waiting to see which' he prefers. I mention, too, the experience of a Baptist minister who, faced with significant choices, would open his Bible to random passages and find in them helpful suggestions towards a particular course of action. He would say, "The Scripture came and grasped me." Summing Up First, the maneuver suggested here for finding God's will in larger and medium discernments centers on popping loaded ques-tions to God in prayer and noticing the pattern of desolations or consolations. By examining the patterns, the pray-er comes to suf-ficient certainty (especially if there is a confirmation process) that God's will has been found. This maneuver has been instrumental for scores of pray-ers in finding the peace of certainty about God's will for themselves even, sometimes, in small matters. The out-comes of decisions arrived at in this manner have been uniformly good (with one exception), and pray-ers have continued secure in their discernments, free from attacks by second thoughts. For persons who approached a decision leaning somewhat or strongly to one alternative, an unplanned and unexpected result of using the maneuver is that repeated poppings of a question loaded against their inclinations brought them--gradually, but more rapidly than I had dared hope--to equanimity about, or even real openness, to the unwanted alternative. With only one excep-tion, those who were led to "tough love" decisions were able to embrace them peacefully and live them energetically. Those who were led by the right use of the maneuver to embrace alternatives July-August 2000 L3-77-- Kenney ¯ Finding God's Will in accord with their initial preferences enioyed the special conso-lation, of knowing they had sought and found not merely their own will, but also God's. Magnificat I want to thank with all my heart the unknown man who, this summer, hacked back and burned the briars and unruly gorse which had covered that singing stream between Boolagh Bog and Bockagh Hill. And I will, because now eye can feast on the smooth black tables of rock down which clear brown water tumbles and bubbles and makes white foam. Ear had always heard the choir under the gorse-and-briar canopy. Body had always sat or stood there, soothed by sound. Now eye and ear heart and bone and soul and tumbling stream are humming their Magn~'cat in unison. Bernadette McCarrick RSM Review for Religious HILARY OTTENSMEYER Consulting Your Inner Wisdom Mnuch of our United States consumer-society mentality vades our quest for spiritual growth. We snatch up the latest acclaimed spiritual authors. We dash off to the latest popu-lar workshops. We try to take in more and more. The effort is laudable, for there is this hunger within us to know more about God's plan for us and to draw nearer to Jesus. All the restless searching, however, ignores the treasure that lies right at our feet. We look everywhere, but we do not see it. As Meister Eckhart wisely put it, "all people have a vintage wine cellar, but they sel-dom drink from it." What I propose here is a stop to all this chas-ing about and an invitation to look into ourselves at the inner wisdom that is already ours. We have access to it. Where the Treasure Lies Have you .ever noticed how easily we slip into states of total absorption, into trancelike states? I imply nothing "spooky" here. This is simply the way our minds work on certain tasks. In that state of absorption, of inner searching, we step out of time, away from the settings around us. We become so focused on a single idea that no other thought, no other emotion, intrudes. People who use their mind in this way experience vivid imagery and feel overall such bodily responses as muscle tension and sometimes Hilary Ottensmeyer OSB last wrote for us in our January-February 1997 issue. His address remains 1414 Southern Avenue; Beech Grove, Indiana 46107. July-August 2000 Ottensmeyer ¯ Consulting Your Inner Wisdom heightened blood pressure. Common occurrences: driving right past your own home, not hearing what people say and asking them to repeat, and not noticing that the phone is ringing insis-tently. Sometimes, by single-minded concentration on a prob-lem, we may come up with a "Eureka!" experience and have a solution. Most of the time, however, I suspect we choose this kind of intensive focus when someone's word or action has wounded us, and we retreat inwardly to chew on the bitter rind of our hurt pride. My suggestion here is that the mind's same powerful ability to focus, its intensity and bright-point targeting, can be used voluntarily in prayer--only this time the focus is on the inner wisdom we all possess through the grace of baptism and indeed all the sacraments and through our enriching experiences of striv-ing to be faithful followers of Jesus and reflective readers of the Gospels. In this way of prayer, we ask the Spirit of Jesus to guide and enlighten us. When we Christians go into the center of our minds and hearts, it is the indwelling Spirit who greets us there. There we hear the echoes of the voice of Jesus and of all the good people who have been examples of faith and good conduct for us. That central core of ourselves is the inner wisdom of which I speak. It is there, and it is available. But let me make a few distinctions. Some Clarifications I am not referring here to centering prayer or at least to what I understand by centering prayer. To quote Father Thomas Keating in his excellent book Open Mind, Open Heart: "A thought in the context of [centering prayer] is any perception that appears on the inner screen of consciousness. This could be an emotion, an image, a memory, a plan, a noise from outside, a feeling of peace, or even a spiritual communication. In other words, anything what-soever that registers on the inner screen of consciousness is a 'thought.' The method consists of letting go. of every thought dur-ing the time of prayer, even the most devout thoughts." ~ What I am referring to here about consulting your inner wisdom probably comes close to what Keating refers to, and dis-misses, as self reflection?. This, Keating says, is to be got over in order to reach pure cont.emplation. My own proposal is a delib-eratefocusing of thought as if one were using a magnifying glass to Review for Religious ' direct the beams of the sun to one spot. Such a tactic could pen-etrate steel. The discipline I propose is not behavior modification. That highly effective psychological tactic involves visioning an unde-sirable behavior of mine, such as becoming angry with the choir habits of a fellow religious, and then seeing myself calmly allow that person to do his or her own thing without my usual emo-tional upset. Consulting our inner wisdom means having in mind a specific goal (more on this later), then cleansing our mind of external dis-tractions by some relaxation exercise, and, in that calm and focused meditative state, inviting the Lord (or some other spiritual counselor) to help us understand and move towards atti-tudes and behaviors more consonant Jesus, unlike ourselves, with the obedient love with which a allowed himself to Christian wants to identify. This differ-entiates consulting our inner wisdom be angry only.when from simple behavior modification because it sees the change in ourselves the Father's honor and as inspired by the example of Jesus and glory were attacked. not simply as a personal social or emo-tional adjustment, helpful though that might be. Take, for instance, the ques-tion of boundaries. We are all aware how careful we are to pro-tect the spiritual frontiers of our Christan, Jesus-inspired integrity. Anger, rooted in pride, is one such protection effort. Jesus, however, unlike ourselves, allowed himself to be angry only when the Father's honor and glory were attacked. See, for example, the cleansing of the temple or the "woes" in Matthew's Gospel. At all other times, personal attacks did not seem to move him emotionally. When we honestly consult our inner wisdom, we may note boundaries of ours that we fail to protect enough. We may fail to caution ourselves regarding the sight or memory of a sexually attractive person. We may carelessly allow ourselves to recollect wounding words or actions that, even years later, cause us to tighten our fists or clench our jaws. Reflecting upon our inner wisdom, we can suspect or see the dangers of these reactions and thereby find ourselves protected against deep tenacities and inva-sive roots. "When you bury hate in your heart, you bury it alive" is a piece of liberating wisdom worth remembering. ~,~-~-~L~ ~ July-August 2000 Ottensmeyer ¯ Consulting Your Inner Wisdom Some Helpful Preliminary Disdplines Any relaxation exercise that suits our personality may be used to induce a meditative state. Relaxing the muscles from the head on down throughout the body is a common practice. The point is to pull the mind away from the leaping about that characterizes our ordinary mental activity. As one Eastern mystic put it, "the mind is like a tree full of chattering monkeys." Another approach, count-ing backward from thirty, demands just enough concentration to clear the mind of other thoughts. Paying attention to your breath-ing also slows down the inner agitation. The current enthusiastic practice of walking a labyrinth serves the same purpose--certainly this was the reason why many European cathedrals have a labyrinth carved in the floor near the entrance. Working through a series of yoga exercises, too, or focusing on a mantra helps some achieve the same end. Before entering into such a disciplinary exercise, it is impor-tant to have a goal in mind: "Jesus, I want to go into the place where you live in me, sit with you there, and talk about this com-pulsion to anger, to judgment, that spurts up so frequently, so involuntarily within me. Open to me your way of living with anger, for you felt it too. Help me draw on the many times I have given in, and the times I have restrained myself and 'stuffed' down my anger, only to see it blaze up in a trivial context once again, a con-text that was most inappropriate. Lord, I want freedom--to the degree my frail humanity allows--freedom from this compulsion. Lord, I am admonished by the wisdom you,.and others, have taught me. I have seen people mellow with the years, and others grow sour. Seeing someone act harshly, hearing another cut into someone's reputation, I react angrily at once, from the simple proud conviction that 'I wouldn't do it that way!' And I quickly find myself locked emotionally and mentally into scathing criticism." Jesus gently points out to us--after we wait silently for a while--that the only times he became angry were when the Father was attacked, ignored, impugned in some way. Our petty and obsessive responses melt before his gentle encouragement. Sometimes when we journey inwardly we become more acutely aware how often we fall into stubborn, addictive behaviors about which we feel helpless. Who is this "other" person who shows up within me, powerful, demanding, whom I watch with anguish as if it were a stranger? We have tried therapy, prescription drugs, behavior modification. The one.thing lacking to these tactics-- Review for Religious and I do not deny their value--is this: They rarely draw on that inner wisdom, that Jesus-centered encounter, where true change can take place. For instance, Alcoholics Anonymous has helped innumerable people, and indeed has an important spiritual com-ponent, namely, surrender to a Higher Power. But surrender in faith is only a beginning. There needs to be private self-ques-tioning that draws on the inner wisdom with which we are graced. Wl~en an addictive, destructive pattern has invaded our psyche so that a part of our life has become disconnected from the normal flow of life, we need to reach into the deepest resources within us: grace, the voice of Jesus, our inner wisdom. Within this intense, highly focused place in our mind, we call on Jesus to walk us through another pattern of behavior. Mental rehearsal is common to many forms of psychother-apy. Seeing yourself in the company of Jesus, however, and con-trasfing sad experiences of the past with "bright angels" of wisdom and true freedom, we choose a different, liberating pattern of action. We establish new boundaries, mentally and visually mov-ing away from the edges of danger. The mental rehearsal itself is now a new behavior that we can draw on when temptation returns. The hand retracts instead of reaching for the bottle, the eyes turn away from the stimulus to lust (maybe "custody of the eyes" was not just a life-depriving tactic after all!), the serving spoon is put down after one moderate portion. Psychologists continue to study how the mind visualizes behaviors and procedures. Imagination and imagery can be used in very sophisticated ways. In a recent New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell asks: "What do Wayne Gretzsky, Yo-Yo Ma, and a brain surgeon named Charlie Wilson have in common?" The answer: their practice of careful visualization before any action is taken. These men are virtuosi, and they exercise their great technical skills internally first. They mentally see an action through to the end before they perform it externally. Charlie Wilson, during his morning run, looks at each of the day's operations in his head, visualizing the entire procedure and its potential outcome. He says, "When I was actually doing the operation, it was as if I were doing it for the second time." Once, after finishing an operation, .taking off his gloves, and heading off down the hall, he suddenly realized that "the tape he had been playing in his head didn't match the operation that had unfolded before his eyes. 'I was correlating everything--what I saw, what I ~dy-August 2000 expected, what the X rays said. And I realized that I had not pur-sued one particular thing. So I turned around, scrubbed, and went back in, and, sure enough, there was a little remnant of tumor that was just around the corner. It would have been a disaster.''3 Consulting our inner wisdom involves a similar attention to detail. The skills to visualize here, however, are not the motor skills, but rather the spiritual skills we have accumulated over the years through prayer, scriptural study, and the counsels of wise Christians in spiritual reading and in the living church. It is all there inside, waiting to be drawn on like a rich bank account. Adding to the Inner Wisdom We sometimes feel empty, wandering endlessly in our private deserts. We feel locked into decades-old mental labyrinths. Our motivation flags. Dorothy Day once told a reluctant young friend that God "makes us understand this distaste, this recoil from reli-gion. The lethargy comes from a. consciousness of the immanence of the struggle, the fact that it is unceasing and will go on to death, and we often think that sheer thoughtless paganism would be a relief. ''~ But deep within we accept what the great John Cardinal Newman wrote: "Prayer is to the spiritual life what the beating of the pulse and the drawing of the breath are to the life of the body. It would be as absurd to suppose that life could last when the body was cold and motionless and senseless, as to call a soul alive which does not pray. The state or habit the spiritual life exerts itself consists in the continual activity of prayer.''5 Our task consists in never giving up on the faithful practice of prayer. How often we have heard that! And each morning we awake with renewed intention. But then we shoot through the day like a bullet, "busy about many things"--good things, too. When we finally bring ourselves to our inner wisdom, finally sit at the feet of Jesus just for a while, it seems we hear him say: "Until you are convinced that prayer is the best use of your time, you will not find time for prayer." And the sentence haunts us, but also frees us now for the best use of our time. It is as though a key has turned in a lock. Sometime~ it is helpful to have a favorite saint join you in that central place of peace. St. Joseph, who never ~ays a word in the Gospels, is delighted when you join him for an evening and sit with him on a bench just outside the little house in Nazareth. Review for Religious Perhaps Mary will come out, too, and rest awhile as the sun sets behind the Galilean hills. There is a beautiful view from Nazareth over towards the Roman city of Sepphoris, and even beyond to-the great sea. They will talk to you if you question them. When Problems Arise, When Hopes Surface When we go with Jesus into th~ place of our inner wisdom, we make starding discoveries. We may find problems we did not know we have. We are likely to become aware of wasteful, regrettable ways that our head and heart have been capable of, but cannot well afford. There are innumerable clamorous voices. There is the insistent voice of the Problem Solver. He wor-ries relentlessl~ about the future. The muscles around his eyes are taut because he is always peering ahead, looking for solutions there in the distance. He causes headaches and upset stomachs. The expectations of others are his con-stant concern as he tries to weigh a chance remark, interpret a fleeting facial expression. There is no center from which he acts. Life is one wrenching effort to get control of things and people. His bulky appointment calendar, like Marley's chain, gives him away. Another recognizable voice inside us is the Self-Accuser. Her skin gets hot, her hands become fists, as she recalls awkward words and clumsy gestures from years past. She plays memory tapes over and over in our head. No one is more persistent in tearing us down than she is: "You have been in religious life for fifty years now, but that is no proof that God loves you." Nothing so saddens, so pierces the heart like this cry, one we have all heard many times. The Self-Accuser has only to stop talking and thus give,us a quiet moment to lift our eyes to the cross or listen to Jesus' many words of love for us, or to hear Yahweh's endear-ments in the words of prophets and psalmists. But, beaten down by the Self-Accuser's words or shrinking from her grimaces, hear-ing we do not hear, seeing we do not see--because the Self- Accuser in us relendessly shares her deafness and blindness with us, and we chronically allow it. Sometimes it is helpful to have a favorite saint join you in that central place of peace. j~uly-Aug~tst 2000 There are other inner voices. Perhaps most persistent is the voice of the Lonely One. It does not let us forget that we long to love and be loved, to hold and be held, to whisper and be whis-pered to, to beclose to Another and not feel so alone. Sometimes we do feel consoled and calmed. The lonely restlessness at the center of our being, however, can never be completely quieted; perhaps it is not meant to feel so much peace. It is a reminder of" our desire for our heavenly home. How poignantly John of the Cross describes this quest for the Beloved in his Spiritual Canticle: "Where have you hidden, Beloved, and left me moaning?" In the hollow center of the soul where inner wisdom and grace live, there also dwells this urgent longing, We carry this wound in our heart. We become aware of it sometimes with hopeful anticipation, some-times with fear. In time, achieving greater integrity--the union between what we appear outwardly to others and what we know inwardly to be true--may calm us to some degree. Disturbing voices within us are balanced by "bright angels" calling us to. greater integrity. We long for inner peace, but only sometimes, with our inner wisdom, do we experience a joyous hope for it. Letting Memory remind us "of those splendid moments when we were touched by God, when we felt the reality of God deeply, is inner wisdom. Those blessed recollections remain when thought and emotions became as one with.an intensity that seems like an embrace. These are wells to which we can return time and again. Another support is Imagination: gathering together the way-ward impulses of our heart, humbly putting them before Jesus as the woman caught in adultery did during her brief moments with him after all the others had gone. And she heard him say, "Neither do I condemn you" (Jn 8:11). We long to hear such healing words, words of forgiveness that bring an offer of reconciliation. Unlike her, we may still hold out, failing to hear those words because of our pride and shame. St. Paul insists: "We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Co 5:20). The repetition of per-sonally inspiring gospel texts (we all have our own)--in a mantra-like fashion, but more intentionally, until they infuse the heart--evokes and strengthens the inner wisdom. "The Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name" (Jn 15:16). "You did not choose me, but I chose you" (Jn 15:16). Allowing such words to soothe the heart steadies our resolve. As the Curg d'Ambricourt affirmed on his deathbed in Georges Bernanos's novel The Diary of a Country Priest: "All is grace." l~eview for Religious Jesus the Center of Our Being It helps to anchor our resolve in one basic' truth: Jesus is the center of our being, our very existence. Until we can accept that, we cringe when we hear Jesus uttering those breathtaking demands to his disciples: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up h.is cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Mt 10:37-39). Who does this Jesus think he is, pushing into our lives and taking them over? Presuming on our most instinctive loyalties! Preempting our deepest affections! Usurping our natural ties to father, mother, son, and daughter! Boldly proclaiming himself the most important person in our lives! This cross which he demands we take up daily disorients our whole lives, doesn't it? These demands are one way of forcing us to admit quite simply--and we are dazed by the thought--that we are not the center of our own life. Everything in our consumer culture tries to convince us that we are. If we can swallow and digest that one truth, many of the pieces in this vast jigsaw puzzle of our lives would fit together wonderfully. When we realize that Jesus made us the center of his life within his obedient love for his Father--these demands become acceptable, even desirable. My favorite image of intimacy with Jesus comes from John's Gospel. The beloved disciple, while re.clining at table on that unforget-table evening, leans back onto the breast of Jesus. Consulting the inner wisdom that God has put into our hearts, we know we are invited to do the same. Do we have the courage, the love, to do so? Notes ~ Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Opoz Heart (New York: Amity House, 1986), p. 35. 2 Keating, Open Mind, p. 112. 3 Malcolm Gladwell, "The Physical Genius," New Yorker, 2 August 1999, p. 63. 4 Dorothy Day, "Letter to an Agnostic," America (90th Anniversary Issue) 180, no. 13 (17 April 1999): 8. s Quoted in Saint Meinrad Archabbey's Community Bulletin, 4 July 1999, p. 2. ~dy-August 2000 EILEEN E O'HEA Tell Them, Tell the New Members. religious vocations A Mission is clear. That is, most if not all religious insti-tutes have spent days, weeks, months on mission state-ments for their communities. And they have done this bravely, wisely, prayerfully. These statements, coming from their lived experience as dedicated men and women, represent not only what they are doing now but also what they hope to do, or do better, or do more of. Concern for the poor, the marginalized, the disenfran-chised is a substantial part of communities' commitment to do whatever they can to facilitate the reign of God here on earth. A sister in my community, Elaine, one we all agree is charismatic in the true sense of the word, has been riding the chartered bus from New York City to the Bedford Hills Women's Correctional Facility every other Sunday. The bus is filled with inner-city children going to see their mothers. It is a two-hour ride. Elaine's con-cern for the women in prison and for their continuing relationship with their children has made these Sunday visits possible. For more than thirty years Elaine has worked in what she calls "the slammer." Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ, a decade-long contributor to our pages, had her third book published in May: In Wisdom's Kitchen: The Process of Spiritual Direction (Continuum). Her address is still 1750 Marion Street, #8; Roseville, Minnesota 55113. Review for Religiotts "The slammer" is an accurate term because, as Elaine enters, at least ten gates must open and slam shut before she gets to the room where she works within the razor-wired enclosure of this maximum-security prison. The room is now called The Children's Center. Elaine's job has been to do whatever she can to help the women keep in touch with their children. This article will not attempt to describe all that is involved in Elaine's ministry in prison, or to describe the eight convents (called Providence Houses) that she and others have reopened so that women leaving prison have a place to live and a chance to begin again in a new environment. Their children come too, of course. The sisters liv-ing in these houses with the women and children are quite clear about the mission-and-ministry statements of their congregation, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, New York. Stories like Elaine's (or Eugene's, as the case may be) are true of individuals or groups in many communities--and are attract-ing new members. "Come and see," we say. Come, join us in try-ing to make a better world. Come, help to bring about systemic change. Every year a few do come. They are searching; they seek something worthwhile to give their life to. They want to make a difference, and they want to be with others, with communities that are facilitating the reign of God on this earth. For some new members, religious life seems to work for a while but then seems to be "not enough," not enough of what they looked for or hoped to find. "What do you get for doing this?" they ask, or "Why stay?" after the excitement of discovery fades; "I can do this without a vowed life of poverty, chastity, and obedience." And they are right; they can. Many women and men, ¯ married or partnered, hold the same values and are involved in the same types of ministry. When we invite new members into this little piece of the vine-yard, into participating with us in mission and ministry, we often forget a simple truth that might literally be underneath their skin. New members seem to be looking for three things: ° a lived expe-rience of gospel values through the mission and ministry of the community; ¯ intimacy, which is part of the friendship found within community; ° and intimacy with the Divine. It is this third one I am concerned about. Elaine and the Providence House sisters are, without a doubt, prayerful, God-centered, holy women. They reflect on the day's Scriptures together, talk about the meaning of the texts for their July-August 2000 O'Hea ¯ Tell Them, Tell the Nay Members. personal life and for their ministry, and they are committed to some personal prayer each day, usually some form of contempla-tive prayer. If we put prayer, community life, and ministry together, then why is it "not enough"? Admittedly, prayer or Scripture shar-ing sometimes means that those present share their personal strug-gles, philosophies, and theologies and thus can seem too intellectual, or too focused on the external ministerial needs, or too routinely self-focused. Most times, however, it is a heartfelt response to divine inspiration and the Gospels. Is this not "enough"? Perhaps not. Maybe those great mentors like Elaine and others are not sharing quite enough with the new member. We seem to do well at providing and accompanying new mem-bers in meaningful ministry. We also share community and friend- ~hip withthem, but we know, and hope they know, that we cannot supply what did not happen for them in their families of origin. Alice Miller, a leading psychologist of our time, states: "What you didn't get at age two, you will never get." Why? Not because we will not know love and affirmation, but because we will not know them as a two-year-old needed to know them. Intimacy and love is often an issue for new members, and they must work hard at discerning what they are meant to find within the community and what they must find within themselves. Frequently they feel there is not enough intimacy because deep friendships seem hard to find among the members. This is so because most of the members are much older, or are already bonded in relationships that have endured for years, or because the older members are so involved in their ministry that they do not have the time or the energy for anyone else. We probably will never resolve successfully all that is involved in the struggle for intimacy and love within religious communities, but we can do better. What remains after considering prayer, community life, and ministry is this: What do we get for doing all this? What has kept Elaine trudging up to the slammer each day for thirty years? What makes h6r such a holy woman? Is there some experience so sus-taining that makes it worth everything? Is it possible that you, Elaine, have experienced being grasped by Divine Love? Is there something that happens, intimacy with the Divine, that holds you, sustains you, makes you the very delightful and humorous person we all know? Did you encounter Christ in your ministry to the poor and is this what transformed you? Do you, Elaine, know, really know, intimacy with Divine Love or know you dwell in inef- Review for Religious fable Mystery? And is what you experience available to me, the new member? Can you tell me---if, indeed, it did happen for you-- whether it happened all at once, or gradually through the years, and what kinds of psychological, emotional, and spiritual ups and downs you have gone through? Was there one experience that was more formative for you than any other? Intimacy with Divine Love (and people experience it in a variety of ways) is what the human heart longs for, searches for. Our nature is such that we are all meant to realize union in and with the Divine even though each of us will experience it differ-endy. So, when we invite new members to "come and see," we must tell them what they get. In my novitiate days the sixty-four novices (thirty-two have remained these forty years) were told by a very wise and very Irish mistress of novices that, if we left all, we would receive back a hun-dredfold. Did we? I cannot speak for others, but my guess is that most (maybe not all) would say yes and that they would make the same life choice if they had the opportunity to live it over again. They just never say exactly why they would do this. Intimacy in any human relationship of true love is rarely spoken about in detail. The same is true of intim, acy in and with Divine Love. Mystics write about human and divine love because they break through egoeentricity and are no longer reticent or ashamed to speak of the wonder, the awe, the love they experi-ence. Poets write of human and divine love and tease our spiritual appetite by circling around some pro'found experience. They are like eagles riding the air current, then soaring so high we lose sight of them and what they are expressing. They stir up the embers of our hearts with their hints, but eventually leave us feel-ing tantalized by possibility. I do not think it can be any other way. Relationships of true love are intrinsically mysterious because the experience is beyond words, beyond intellectual constructs. The words of the poet point us to the moon, as the Zen saying goes, but once you see the moon the pointer is no longer neces-sary. In fact, it is an impediment. What remains after considering prayer, community life, and ministry is this: What do we get for doing all this ? July-August 2000 O'Hea ¯ Tell Them, Tell the New Members. What ke~ps us from at least giving hints as poets and lovers do? What can we say to new members if we are not poets? Some, like the poets, will use romantic language to describe their expe-rience of the Divine; others will be more concrete or more tran-scendent in expressing their experience. Recendy, at the end of a mission-and-ministry convocation, someone complained that he seldom heard Jesus referred to throughout the weekend. One of the participants responded by asking, "Is it more important to quote Scripture and refer explic-itly to Jesus or to do what he did and invite people to share the communion of table fellowship with us?" A good question, a great response. It has a familiar ring to many of us. It is the tension between doing works of justice and peace and theologizing about them, and then reflecting on them and integrating them as part of our own personal journey of faith. Simply naming God and Jesus as we talk about our lives and ministry is not what I am referring to. I want "hints" from Elaine and from the remaining thirty-two members of my novitiate. I think the reasons we hesitate to speak about our religious experi-ences are many. We do not all believe the same things about God or Jesus any more, and we do not want to offend, or we are afraid of exposing what is most sacred to us because it might meet with disdain and scoffing, or become the subject of theological combat. And so we are quiet. The pearl of great price is buried. Religious experience is always unique, different with every individual. Two categories, however, help to explicate distinct modes of experience. For those whose religious experience is the esoteric, God is the One beyond all names .and forms and is Mystery. There is nothing to say and nothing to tell because, over their years of spiritual searching, they have discovered this truth: God is ultimately an ineffable Mystery. Some not only take refuge in this discovery, but even collapse into it. They stop searching and ride on their limited knowledge, presuming that what they have discovered is all that can be realized. Consequently, their relationship with ineffable Mystery is rarely spoken of. I think some new members want to know that this experience of ineffable Mystery is not the dead end of the spiritual journey, but a realized source of joy in the one experiencing it; that this connection with the Divine, an experience beyond any human connection, makes a life of celibacy the only choice for them; and that it is this par-ticipation in divine life that impels them to minister to others and Reviev~ for Religious thereby have an experience, however fragile, of equanimity, integrity, wholeness. Esoterics must learn how to share their expe-rience of ineffable Mystery with the new members and admit to them that there is such a thing as the hundredfold. For some others, another type of religious experience is open, one frequently referred to as exoteric. It is the experience of a personal relationship with the

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