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

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Acknowledged Headquarters for anything and everything in the way of Books for Churches, Col-leges, Families and Schools, and literature for Sunday Schools. PLEASE REMEMBER That by sending your orders to us you help build up and devel-op one of the church institutions with pecuniary advantage to yourself. Address H. S. BONER, Supt., . THE GETTYSBURG JJEEGURY The Literary Journal of Gettysburg College VOL. XL GETTYSBURG, PA., JUNE, 1902 No. 4 CONTENTS GENERAL READING : ITS USE AND ABUSE . . . no EDWARD C. RUBY, '02. THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE ROMAN LAW 114 WILLIAM M. ROBENOLT, '02. THE SUB-CONSCIOUS SELF 119 FRED. A. HIGHTMAN, '02. A ROMANCE OF THE REBELLION . . . . ' . 126 STANLEY G. FOWLER, '04. . NATURE IN EMERSON'S POETRY 132 . J. F. NEWMAN, '02. EDITORIALS 138 Adieu, 1902—The Spectrum—The End of Work. EXCHANGES . . 140 BOOK REVIEW . 142 I IO THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. GENERAL READING: ITS ABUSE VS. ITS PROPER USE. EDWARD C. RUBY. (First Prize Gies Contest.) . 1 ^kjEVER in the history of the' world were good books so ■* ^ plentiful and so cheap as they are at the present time. If in the time of Solomon, when the printing press was not yet in - • existence, there was reason for saying that of the making of books there is no end, what would he say concerning the vast amount of reading matter produced to-day ? Every year there are about twenty-five thousand books published Every town of any considerable size issues one or more newspapers. Maga-zines can be counted by the hundreds. It is utterly impossible to read all that is offered to us. Even the wise saying, "Read everything of something and something of everything," must be followed within the limitations of reason. Every course of reading which our friends may prescribe for us is somewhat like an encyclopedia; it usually takes in every-thing. Now, any person who thinks that he can take in every-thing in the scope of his general reading will be likely to be "taken in" himself. The mass of accumulated knowledge as it now exists is so great that it is scarcely possible for the well educated to get even a cursory view of it. To know something of everything is, day by day, becoming a more difficult task; but to know almost everything about something is more nearly within everybody's reach. There are individuals who are so imprudent, not to say reck-less, in their reading as to peruse all the new books that time allows them to examine. Let us for a moment follow the career of one of these persons. He buys a morning paper. He is not looking for the price of stocks, nor at the religious column, nor at the proceedings of his country's Congress, nor on the editorial page. No, he sees none of these till he has read the publisher's notices. He knows, by reputation, all the publishers in the land. With some of them he is personally acquainted, as well as with a few authors. He knows the history of the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. I I 1 most important journals as well as of the magazines that have arisen in his day To say that he is insane enough to buy all the new publications, would be injustice; but not, therefore, does he fail to read them. Fortunately for his taste, he has the friendship of a neighboring editor, whose desk is always bur-dened with the latest productions. In this sanctum our busy reader spends his happiest hours. Ask his judgment upon a late romance, and he can tell you to which one of the author's previous works it bears the closest resemblance, its marks of improvement or retrogression in our literature, and in what respect it is most worthy of attention. But notice that he never says of any new book that it is perfectly useless, for that would be a confession of lost time and labor. In conversation, he makes frequent use of foreign phrases and is always rambling and superficial. He values his author friends highest, but they are not the most attentive to his caprice and convenience. Only once has he played the author, having collected some of his critical notices into a volume which received from the public the contempt of silence. He is now growing infirm, less by age than excitement. His life draws to a close; and with the last new romance in his attenuated hands, he grows bewildered, then sinks into the sleep of death. There he lies, the victim of a strange intoxication. Faithful friends convey him to his last resting place. Deep on the slab that covers him let these words ' be traced—"Gifted with a noble mind, it was ill-directed by des-ultory and shallow reading. His death was induced by the vain attempt to keep pace with the current literature. Traveler, let this life be a warning to you." This man was a professional reader of new books. I do not mean to say, however, that there are so many liter-ary cormorants to the extent that this man was; but the name is legion of those persons of every class, age, profession and trade, who make the same effort to know something of every product of the press. They sew and knit; they work in the factory; they plow the fields; they measure the muslin; they plead in the Courts; they sit in the legislative chamber; they are too often found in the pulpit. Single out these persons of I 12 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. your acquaintance and look at them. By no means are they the most profitable company. You will learn less during a day in their society than in the half hour of twilight spent with the next door shoemaker who sits upon his step and moralizes upon man and his duty to God. Reading should never be aimless or superficial; but always with some good purpose in view. Much of a professional man's reading is, of necessity, along the lines prescribed by his pro-fession; but even he, to be eminently successful in life, must give some time to what we call desultory reading. He should engage in this kind of reading, however, with no other purpose in view than to amuse himself. The mind can not be "keyed up" to the highest pitch all the time. It needs rest and relax-ation. An amusing anecdote or story is as necessary as sleep, and may be far more salutary than a dose of medicine. Still the chief motive in reading should not be amusement or recrea-tion. Nor should it, indeed, be merely the acquirement of knowledge. It is very desirable that a man should be well informed and able to give an intelligent opinion on matters of vital importance to himself and others. Yet he should be something more than a walking encyclopedia. The chief purpose of reading should be the development of a pure and noble character. It should touch all the springs of life and take hold of every fibre of our being. Character is one of the greatest things in the world, and good reading is as essential to its growth as sunlight is to the development of plants. Culture is not to be despised, and refinement of taste is not to be depreciated, but both must be attended by the awakening of man's nobler aspirations and broader sympathies, in order to justify the time given to reading. Our reading should make us dissatisfied with our present knowledge and attainments, and beget within us a worthy ambition to be and do our very best. As soon as the taste for reading is formed, that taste begins to improve, and its improvement should be sedulously culti-vated. Every man who has read a great deal will tell you that he has left far behind him the books which he admired when THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. .• I I 3 he began. What he admired at twenty is far inferior to what he admired at thirty or forty. He is constantly going up a literature ladder. It is the act of climbing which is beneficial, not the elevation attained. • A book should never be read be-cause it is bold, curious, or new; for then it may leave no ini provement in the mind. In all our reading we need such works as will educate our entire being—not merely let in the light, but draw out native gold. We want to learn lessons in our reading, trace God's hand in history, read his glory on the scroll of science. By so doing we shall become richer by our books, have a healthier religious life, and secure an increase of intellectual strength. "THE WORLD'S NEED." THE world don't need your theory, However grand or great; It needs no long diversions On "irony of fate." The world needs men who do things With zest and power and might, Who place no price on virtue, "In the contest for the right. The world needs cheerful-hearted men— That optimistic class Who meet the world's repining By bringing things to pass. The world needs men of talent, And preparation, too, Who in the fiercest conflict Can plan, and then can do. The world has many thousand needs; But foremost of the van, And chiefest of the. thousands Is, a good, industrious man. —A. E. BURCH, in Wm. Jewell Student, 114 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE ROMAN LAW. WlUIAM M. KOBBNOLT, '02. (Second Prize Cies Contest.) ^T^7"HATEVER be the religion of any nation it has a ^ " greater or less influence upon the habits, customs and rules by which its citizens are governed. The laws and re-ligion of a country are inseparably connected. That connec-tion may be indirect and have a slow, practically unnoticeable tendency towards identifying their principles and precepts, or it may at once be extremely binding, the one upon the other —either the law subordinate to the church or the church to the state, as is found in some tribes and nations of antiquity. The progress of Christianity encountered a great many ob-stacles, but, by slow persistent endeavor, wielded ah influence which has had an ameliorating tendency wherever it has been proclaimed. At its inception the Romans were rulers of the then known world, and, of course, it could not spread without pervading their territory. Its progress in Rome was slow, gaining a few converts here and there, but from the time of Paul's imprisonment in their city and his epistle to their people, it was gradually gaining more of a foothold. Amid the varied interests of the universal 'empire, with its ever changing masters and the pomp and state of the imperial palace, the business conducted with all parts of the world, and the public games with their demoralizing tendencies, Christian-ity was ever drawing some from the different ranks, even from among the slaves, and lifting them from an abyss of ignorance and superstition to a dignified plane of humane sympathies, pointing the soul to a sense of immortality. Not until the conversion of Constantine to the Christian faith, however, did it have any effect on the Roman juris-prudence. By his liberality to and sympathy with its teachings it gained converts from among the magistrates who brought their new views to bear upon the legislative enactments of the time. By creating a community of interests and sympathies THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 115 among all classes, there resulted a tendency to make uniform all the rights and privileges of these classes. It at last brought about a complete moral, social, and, in a certain sense, political revolution. Its new converts gradually working into the legis-lative bodies instituted a new order of things. Perhaps the great gateway or channel through which Chris-tianity has conducted its precepts, to be exerted on the sea of humanity at large, was the Roman law. To use this law as a factor in spreading its teachings, the influence upon it, to say the least, must have been far reaching. Its connection with the Roman law can be described best by considering its effects in three directions, viz.: upon persons, property, and crime. In order to understand its effects upon these different subjects we must have a knowledge of their status before the introduction of Christianity. In the ordinary meaning, the word "person" signified any human being irrespective of his condition. There was such a distinction made in the legal capacity of different persons, how-ever, that a legal person was one vested with a civil capacity, and in Rome many persons were deprived of this capacity to a certain degree, so that all persons were not equal in this respect. They were divided into three classes as regards civil position: libettas, whether a freeman or a slave; civitas, whether a citizen or a foreigner; and familia, whether independent of parental authority or dependent upon it. Although the later Romans did not agree with the early Greek philosophers in saying that slavery was consistent with nature, yet they accepted it as a custom handed down from their ancestors. They divided persons into three classes as re-gards freedom servi, or slaves; libertini, or freedmen; and in-genui, or freeborn persons. The servus, or slave, was not con-sidered as a person in the law. He could not contract civil marriage; he could not hold property; he could not form a legal contract; nor did he possess any legal rights as against his master. The libertini were divided into three classes ac-cording to the extent of their freedom. There was no uniform-ity in the rights and privileges secured to them. u6 THE GETTYSBUR6 MERCURY. Now with the advent of Christianity and its gradual but marked progress until the time of Justinian we see practically a new order of affairs. The word libcttas was becoming ob-solete, at least in its practical application. The common re-lations between master and slave, which had been inaugurated by the humane spirit of Christianity, tended to equalize and identify the rights of these two classes. The old idea that they were by nature slaves was fading away, and their inborn rights were now respected. Manumission was encouraged and the slave was protected from those cruelties to which, in former times, he was as much subject as an irrational creature. To unjustly treat a slave would incriminate the master as much as though he were dealing with a person of his own rank. To indulge in practices characteristics of former times would make the master culpable, and he could not escape with impunity. Manumission was not only encouraged but more simple methods were introduced, and when once free, the barriers which had made a distinction as to the extent of their freedom were removed. The libertini now shared equal rights, so that when once free all legal restraints were removed. As Justinian declared, "full citizenship was involved in the gift of liberty." The civil condition of the libertini was now made uniform. As regards the ingenui little effect was brought to bear upon them except that their attitude towards all classes and conditions of mankind was mollified and their views were liberalized. The civitas was more easily extended to foreigners. There was a tendency to bring all classes to a greater degree of uni-formity in all respects. Having seen the effects upon the legal status of the different classes, our attention is naturally turned to the domestic rela-tions. How far the paternal authority extended over the son first commands attention. This authority was designated by the term patria potestas and "involved the power of life and death on the part of the father." It seems hardly credible to us that the father could be so cruel as to kill his child, expose it or sell it into slavery, and it seems the more incredible that the law ot the land should allow it and even sanction it. Not until THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. u; Christianity introduced its elevating principles into the rules of jurisprudence was there any final action taken by magistrates to mitigate the severity on the part of the father. By inculcating a more humane idea as to the relation between parent and child such laws were enacted as protected and gave privileges to the child very similar to those of to-day. The parent was finally brought to substitute affection for atrocity. Together with this reforming tendency in the patria potestas came better legislation concerning the status of women. Her rights with respect to her children, her property and her varied interests were made nearly equal to those of men, and were equally worthy of recognition and protection by the law. Christianity had a great effect on the law regulating all the family relations, for it worked on the family as a unit of society in extending its influence. When its precepts were once in-culcated in the family they would as a result be adopted by the legislative bodies. The idea of marriage was greatly exalted and was transformed from a civil contract into a religious sacra-ment. Marriage was also to a certain extent restricted to non-relationship of the parties. With this greater sanctity added to the marriage relation came enactments by which restraints were placed upon divorce. Matrimony was considered as "the union of man and woman, constraining them to an inseparable co-habitation." Divorce was granted for a few reasons only, very similar to those of the present day. In its effect upon the laws of property Christianity came in only in an indirect manner. With the evolution which it brought about concerning persons and civil society, it also ex-erted a gradual effect upon the enactments concerning propri-etary rights, so that they came to be exercised to the best in-terests of those concerned. A new order of succession to the estate of the deceased was introduced. Legislation concerning crime was not so much affected by the introduction of Christianity. The laws with regard to crime and punishment, except those which distinguished the freedman from the slave, were moderately humane. This distinction be-tween, and the cruel nature of, the laws of the condition of the u8 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. slave as over against that of the master have been discussed above. The abhorrence which Christianity had for unlawful indul-gences caused the passage of laws for the prohibition of these indulgences and imposed penalties upon persons addicted to them. The modes of punishment were, however, made more humane. Crucifixion, for instance, was abolished. A greater amount of testimony was required to convict a person con-demned with crime. Better enactments were instituted concern-ing prisons and the treatment of their inmates. Legislation, in general, as affected by Christianity, was char-acterized by a more humane spirit and more liberal views to-wards the amelioration of man's condition. We may say that the ultimate result of Christianity upon the Roman law was to bring about; such adaptations of jurisprudence, in its varied ap-plications, as should best serve and attain moral ends. -^^-"^ SAMAR. A TRENCH dug in the sand, a sun-charred place, Outside the village whence the foe have fled; A shape in brown, blood-stained and some hours dead With unshut eyes and blue unshaven face. A type, a hero ! say you? he who lays His life down freely as the rain is shed, Whom high devotion from his home has led The stars and stripes in triumph to upraise. Such are the deaths of heroes—but do they In such unrighteous warfare loot and slay? Is not their blood more honorably spilt? Crown not his fame with undeserved praise: He hath partaken of his country's guilt And bears the crimson stain of her disgrace. —J. B. EDWARDS, in Western Md. College Monthly. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 119 THE SUB-CONSCIOUS SELF. FRED. A. HIGHTMAN, '02. *T*HERE lies beneath the threshold of the consciousness a. self "*" not the less real because so little known and recognized: indeed it is, for that very reason, all the more potent in its action and aggressive in directing the thoughts and deeds of men. When the sphere of its influence and the potency of its action come to be more fully recognized, and its existence as one of the chief constituents of the soul's energy is admitted as a fact in the philosophy of life and the psychology of mind, another jewel will be added to the rich store of knowledge now in possession of man. The little knowledge already gained of this, the real background and foundation of the soul's energy and character, offers to man the means of escaping the evils of hereditary taint and brings him to a better understanding of his true relations with God and the world. A correct understanding of this deep background of the con-scious life will do more for humanity than any possible cure for nervousness, insanity, and other failings of the brain; it will suggest the means of elevating man to a higher plane than ever before in the field of culture and morality. That the soul is continually undergoing a change not only in the moral realm but in all its intellectual activities as well, needs no proof; but when we find that, in her composite make-up, there is a constituent over which the intellect and will cannot always exercise their power, and that the sphere of its influence extends not only through the hours of slumber but through all the activities of life, we come to recognize in it a force far too significant to be ignored. We know that consciousness is a steady stream of thoughts, feelings and volitions, ever flowing through the mind in all its varied activities, and that the content is mainly received from without. The stream flows on over the horizon and seems to disappear. But it is never wholly lost; ever and anon is it re-called by memory, or is made to serve the power of imagina-tion. 120 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. It is to this realm of consciousness, this deep into which the stream pours, that we give the name of the sub conscious or the sub-limenal. It embraces the things that are recalled by voluntary or involuntary memory and all that cannot be so re-called. Out of its deep recesses come forth the issues of life. The past life thus emerges into the present and goes far in de-ciding for character and disposition. The conscious self and the sub conscious together form a dual relationship as complete and abiding as do the emotional and intellectual. There can be no thought without feeling; neither can there be any conscious effort without being in-fluenced more or less by the impressions absorbed and recorded in the sub conscious self during the past life. It is hard for a man, who is brought up in the midst of evil and cruelty, to free himself entirely from such influence, in his daily thought and action. These impressions are lasting and telling in the form-ation of character. He can never wholly escape from the influence of his early environment. And, what is more, they enter unawares and form a body of impressions and tendencies capable at any time of being transferred over to the realm of knowledge and thought. Such impulses to action often sur-prise us, and we wonder why the son is so like his father, especially in his faults. Too often do we attribute it to heredity, when it is merely a result of close companionship; the boy may have learned it by conscious observation and imitation, but he may just as likely have "followed suit," while unconscious of ever having received such an impression from his father, prob-ably at a very early age. Then, too, hereditary tendencies must be attended with similarity in the modification of brain and nerve cells in father and son, and when no such similarity exists at birth, there must be some conditions of environment to en-sure tendencies so often ascribed to heredity. Make a change of home for the boy before the age of puberty, while his char-acter is not yet fully formed, and he will be quick to change in temperament and adapt himself to the new environment. Even a perceptible bias may be overcome, and, under the stimulus of proper conditions, aided by a true appreciation of the enor- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 121 mity and heinousness of an evil to which he is particularly liable, he may be able to free himself entirely from its power. So unobtrusive are these forces of the sub conscious, and yet so potent in their influence over man, that his character and disposition are apt to change without his being aware of it. A student will have a close friend and may associate with him freely, but will invariably fail to see that his companion is all the time exerting a powerful influence over his soul, either re-tarding or developing the growth of his good habits. He enters his friend's room and finds him busily engaged as usual, caus ing the very atmosphere about him to seem charged with activ-ity and purpose. The visitor glances around the room only to see the same harmony of decency and order in the arrange-ment of papers and books. He may not take special note of it, for he has come on an errand and is directing his conscious energy upon the matter of conversation in hand, but at the same time there enters into his sub conscious self a correct im-pression of all about him, and with it comes an appeal to his aesthetic nature. He has been greatly benefitted thereby. If he is inclined to slothful habits, there will rise up in his breast a feeling of disgust for himself, followed perhaps by new resolu-tions. These new motives will cause him to improve his sur-roundings and arouse in him a desire to do better work. Thus will he be elevated in character and self-respect, and at the same time, the ties of friendship between him and his friend may be greatly strengthened, though he may be wholly oblivious as to whom he owes the credit of the transformation. These sub conscious influences are as potent in their power over the other faculties of mind. The condition and the power of adaptation to the work at hand will decide the competency of.the workman. In the deepest mental work—that of thought or reason—the effective work is accomplished by the will only under favorable circumstances, when there are no outside or in-trusive impressions to hinder or retard the working of the thought powers. A man put to work amid new and strange surroundings soon finds himself unable to work with his former celerity and accuracy; his mind is being disturbed, the while 122 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. endeavoring to readjust itself to the new surroundings, and the energy of the sub-conscious self, instead of assisting the intellect, now requires a portion of the soul's energy which the intellect is wont to make use of; so that if he attempt by mere force of will to recall or produce a thought, he may be wholly unable to do so. But when the mind is at home the thought will come to him with comparative ease. There are, however, conditions with which it is hardly pos-sible to become accustomed in the pursuance of intellectual activity—at least to the degree of non impressibility. A student, for instance, may be of a nervous temperament—a condition probably brought about by his early environment in the home or elsewhere, who, in the preparation of the lesson, may be annoyed continually by some low but constant sound, or by the continual intrusion of a thought caused by an un-worthy desire to make "good marks." He is endeavoring to concentrate his attention upon the study, but the sub-conscious impressions time and again thrust themselves up into the con-scious thought and claim his undivided attention, so often it may be, that they sometimes cause him to despair of success in his work. The recitation follows and even though he has had comparative success in his study he may not be able to re-cite, because of the absence of the conditions and impressions he had during the study hour, whether they were of conscious effort—as the constant thought of possible failure, or impres-sions received ^ub-consciously from the varied surroundings. An instance may be cited analogous to this in which a student had determined to make a good recitation, but was unfortunate in trying to prepare the lesson while taking a walk along a quiet path. The unusual mental effort, at a time when a part of that portion of the soul's energy generally required by the intellect was being appropriated by the senses to record within the sub-conscious self the impressions received from the new surround-ings of nature, caused him to make a complete failure in recita-tion. Such manner of study may indeed be of no benefit what-ever to the future life. The power of complete concentration of thought—the power THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 123 to use at will all or nearly all of the soul's energy at command should be one of the first lessons in the life of the student. If the youth has been fortunate in spending his early life in the country, where there is every chance of developing his power of concentration by the soothing effect of the contemplation of nature and the quiet hour of rest after a day of hard toil, he will be a fine subject for the higher education, or a promising youth to fill a position requiring the service of a skillful and trusty financier. It is a noteworthy fact that the boys of the country are the successful men in the city. Were it not for the addition of the wholesome lives which the country boys make to the city life, it would soon become lifeless and collapse. The city life, with its excitement and bustle, is not a fit school for the early development of the boy; there is too much hurry and diversity of purpose to permit a normal development of the conscious self, and too many uncertain and harmful impressions upon the sub-conscious self. It generally produces an abnormal development of the susceptibility and is apt to cause a nervous condition of the organism. When this occurs the power of con-centration is weak and the boy can no longer control his thoughts or, it may be, even his temper; neither can he tell when he will have feelings of satisfaction or discontent, for the sub-conscious self, which has grown out of proportion, is continu-ally asserting its authority and influence over the conscious self. The growing youth or young man can, by selecting and choosing his environment, modify the force of these sub-con-scious impressions, and thus change his whole life. If he is conscious of any change of feeling that he cannot account for, he would do well to look about him for the cause. There is probably near him some sound or motion which has awakened within his sub-conscious self a like impression, which in turn has revived the mood or feeling he had at the time of such impres-. sion and may even cause the suggestion of some former thought. Impressions thus received sub-consciously may have been stored away since early childhood. The reading of the funeral service at the burial of some friend, or even some peculiarity in the 124 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. attitude or personality of the pastor may be awakened for the first time after many years, bringing with it the feeling of sad-ness experienced at that time. The environment of the youth, then, and the manner of his education is of the utmost importance. If the teacher of the child is cross and inactive, even though there are opposite in-fluences at work, the impressions received of the manner and the tone of voice will be far more effective upon the life of the child than the conscious effort of the child to master the lesson. The kind word of the mother in the time of need and trouble, or the assistance of a little friend, will tell greatly in the forma-tion of its character. Why, then, should we not expect the child to be like the parent? Is it not learning only by experi-ence and observation ? And is not the very foundation of all its future intellectual activities and moral attainments being grounded and formulated by these early impressions and thoughts? In the very choice of the furniture and adornments about the house—the carpet, the color of the wall—the parent shows his or her taste and likes or dislikes, and these become as much a part of the child as are the peculiarities in its mode of expression or even in its physical structure. The little prayer at mother's knee, though at the time it may not have had much meaning to the little one, other than that of obedience to mother, will in after Irfe be to him as a guiding star through the dark clouds of fear and doubt. The humble trustful attitude of the mother and the earnestness of those tender loving words ad-dressed to the infinite Father somewhere above, will not only awaken in the little breast implicit trust and faith but will go far in molding a character and disposition of like temperament that will not easily be lost in the face of adverse conditions. The religious life almost invariably has its root in and is dependent for constancy upon these early impressions received often un-consciously and at a period of life when all must be taken as a matter of course, and be considered as conformable to the nat-ural order. Nor is it of small concern to the growing youth what kind of literature he shall read or with what class of companions he may THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 125 associate. The noble character in the good book, which is read thoughtfully and earnestly, will affect his soul and character as much as his living associates. All the time he will be pictur-ing to his mind's eye their various traits and dispositions, and these conscious efforts, whether of the imagination or not, will pre-pare his mind more surely to receive like impressions from all other sources. The mind always tends to act in the same way it has done in the past. And so, when the youth comes into contact with a friend, he will unconsciously seek out and find in him, if it be there, that same good quality or virtue the desire for which has already been implanted in his own breast. And the result will be that a living embodiment of the ideal in the book is being presented to him, which will become more and more precious as he grows older. Can we wonder then why the child is so like the parent, or why the intimate friend has influenced so profoundly the character of his fellow? K^y ON READING THE CEDIPUS OF SOPHOCLES. WE read the tale of CEdipus, the king, That lofty, frenzied soul, who shuddering fled From crime to crime, till all the sky flamed red, And glorious earth became a loathsome thing ; Then plucked he tortured eyeballs from his head, And staggered on through doom and God's deep hate, 'Mid whirling darkness of the winds of fate, Led by his daughters' love to join the dead. The tale was done, and homeward trod we late, The village street, antithesis of strife, But low the eyeless clouds with ambush rife, Their silence dumb and dread maintained, And in our hushed and sobered spirits reigned The old night-shrouded mysteries of life. —Williams Lit. 126 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. A ROMANCE OF THE REBELLION. STANLEY G. FOWLER, '04. ^\NE Spring morning, in my Sophomore year at Pennsyl- ^-, vania College, Gettysburg, my fancy drifted to scenes of war, and, being at leisure, I began an aimless stroll over the field, whose victory saved our Union. Unconsciously, though probably led by the grandeur of the scene, I slowly made my way to a wooded elevation—Culp's Hill—whereon our boys were stationed in '63, and where un-ceasingly, for one whole day, the Rebels sought to dislodge them. I had reached the summit and while debating mentally whether or no I would mount the government observatory built there, my eye caught the form of an elderly gentleman, seated upon a huge boulder half-way down the rear of the hill. Immediately my plan was laid, for, driven by natural im-pulses that ever make man crave for society, I determined to join him. I knew a number of New York veterans to be out on the field this morning, and surmising this man to be of that band I slowly approached him, for rudeness seldom gains its point; still, were my surmise correct, I had fully intended drawing from him some tales of the deeds, brought vividly to mind on one's view-ing again the scenes of their enactment. The old man had heard me approaching and now looked up calmly and with a good-natured smile addressed me. "Good morning, my boy, out strolling too?" "Yes, sir," I replied, and remembering my purpose added, "'tis ever a pleasure to me to wander over a field so dear to us all." "Ah!" said he quickly, "it almost repays one to hear young America talk that way," (He was a veteran and here was my opportunity) Quickly following up my advantage, I ventured, "Were you stationed here during that "second day?" The old man smiled—-as though discovered—and answered, "Yes, my boy; at one time during that day I wasn't far from this very spot." THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 127 I looked about me. To be here during "that day !" Imme-diately I recalled how we had studied of the noble charges the Rebels made all through "that day," and as I thought, it flashed upon me that here, this very line, was where our boys lay and so gallantly held the hill. Yes I was correct, for to both right and left stretched a line of regimentel monuments, plainly mark-ing the position ; but even better proof met my earnest gaze, for I awoke to the fact as I looked, that the very boulder we sat upon was the center of a trench, a low, now thickly grown wall of earth that stretched to the right and left, clear 'round the base of the hill. But for one to sit there and look down, down fifty feet or more, over the wildest, rockiest, roughest hillside that even a fertile imagination could conceive of; down over an area, well nigh impassable with trees, rocks and undergrowth, and to think then of the charges and repulses made, why Culp's Hill at once assumed a new beauty to me. I looked at the man, half doubting that ever human being could come out from such a hell as this; to calmly view it now with not so much as a look of wonder. The rock upon which we were seated had split from a main and larger body and lay directly in line with the low earthern wall; for say five feet on the sides of it were spaces. Low stone walls joined the rock to the earthern works on either side, and thus the protection stretched unbroken, save in height. Directly in front of our boulder, on an angle not quite as steep as the hillside, stretched the moss-covered face of the enormous main body (from which our resting place had split), forming a perfect plaza fully fifty feet square, clear up to the breastworks; and, over this vast boulder's lower ledge, up upon its smooth face, charged the Rebels, for history records their once reaching the trench. The spot we occupied was—could a decision be given—the wildest spot on the line. Turning, I saw the monument, some distance in our rear, to be the I22d N. Y. I now knew the old man's regiment, but was not carrying out my purpose. 128 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. "It must have taken true courage for a man ever to reach this line, and none but Americans could ever have held the po-sition," I remarked. "Yes," he said, "they were brave boys to reach us. It was hard to shoot them down when they did get here. Hard for more reasons than one." "But how did you ever get out of this place uninjured?" I persisted. "Well, my boy, I didn't exactly. Down in that opening there"—and he pointed to the crack between the main boulder and the one upon which we sat—"down in there I lost pretty nearly all the life I had with me at the time." I looked at the fissure he designated, an aperture about four feet across, extending the one dimension of the rock and filled out with earth and underbrush 'till it was no deeper than about three feet. I now had visions of hearing a miracle. How could a man fall wounded there and ever be found ? I became desperate in my anxiety to hear, and arising, I bluntly exclaimed, "Sir, will you kindly tell me of that day?" Patiently, but eagerly, I awaited the result of this advance. The old man's face gradually lost its look of surprise, and over blankness there crept a genial expression of new-born friend-ship. "Well," said he, "sit down, my boy, and I'll tell you of scenes now dulled by forty years." "To begin with, memory takes me back to Savannah, Ga., where lay, nestled in her spacious campus, my old Alma Mater." "It may seem strange that one from America's metropolis could wander so far to a college, but I was ever eager to forsake, for growing years at any rate, that thought destroying din of city life." "My class of '61 had reached its Senior year. For three whole years had I reveled in Southern romance and nature. Far from my native State my erstwhile fancy had all but turned to love for a clime that, three years before, was strange to me." THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 129 "During my course, I had indeed made friends, as only col-lege associations can create, and, above all, by far the brightest spot in the memory of those days was the friendship, yes love, that had unconsciously possessed me, for one of Georgia's maids, a girl whose acquaintance I'd made at my first Fraternity dance. "From the day of my coming it was looked upon as strange, for even then was brewing that strife so soon upon us. "There were four in the class from my State, and dimly I could notice national pride struggling against the brotherly friendship my classmates held for us. At every visit made at the home of this maid, I could clearly see the feeling, while not strong enough in her to conquer her love, still full strong enough in her parents to curtail my stay. But I was not alone in the struggle for this maid's affections. A native Georgian, a dark-haired, handsome youth, a classmate of mine had, long 'ere my arrival, in vain sought her hand, and now, as I slowly but clearly gained the preference, his rivalry grew intense. "But to hasten on, one evening, as a score of us sat about the grate fire in my study, rather heatedly discussing secession, news reached us of Lincoln's election. Our discussion came to an abrupt end. Mightily were the passions of patriotism and friendship at strife within us, and slowly and in silence we separated. "When all had gone, realizing that were I a man, my stay in G. must cease, as my place was in the ranks of the Union, I hastily gathered some few valuables and stealthily leaving the dormitory, made my way to the home of my sweetheart. There, at the gate, I met her weeping She too had heard the news that must forever shatter fond dreams. "I can't tell of that parting".—here the old man's frame trembled, tears came to his eyes, but with an effort he sup-pressed all, and, looking up, continued: "Enough to say that our lives were pledged to promises of future bliss. "We parted as secretly as we had met, and continuing away, I so fixed my clothing, etc., as to present the appearance of a 130 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. rustic. Thus disguised I made my way to the wharf and as a stowaway reached New York. "At the first call I enlisted, together with my brother, in the regiment commanded by my father, the 122nd New York. Home ties were not a straw for we were blessed with a mother whose patriotism excelled our own, and whose farewell instilled that courage such as only can win a struggle. "Well, our regiment saw considerable active service from the war's very outbreak, and on the second day of this grand fight, had this stone wall to hold. "Opposed to us was the flower of the Southern army, and the regiment sent to take this position of our stronghold was the Seventh Georgia, raised and recruited from the ranks of my old college. "You have often heard this war typified as the 'strife of brothers,' and so it was. Here I was to shoot down the boys I had learned almost to love, but duty was plain before me and mine was the righteous cause. "Well, they charged us twice, and twice were they sent back. During the second charge they had almost reached us; some had scaled the ledge of that great rock right in front here and were face to face with us. In desperation, leaping upon this low stone wall, I stood almost touching my old Georgia rival, who led his men. I didn't have the heart to fire, but he did, and I dropped here in this opening between the rocks. "There I lay unnoticed, while my life slowly ebbed. Dark-ness was now upon us, and as I lay there fast reviewing scenes of old, I felt a hand upon my throat. " 'Well, here you are, eh, haven't moved a bit,' sneered a voice close to my face. 'I reckoned to have finished you an hour ago. Roy, it comes hard for one to fall by the hand of a friend, but you know that Mary waits for one of us to return. I intend to be that one!' And as he spoke the hand tightened upon my throat. I merely groaned; that's all I could do, when, as though from heaven, a figure fell across my body. Then the hand left my throat. That is all I remembered that THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 131 night. When I awoke I lay in the hospital tent swathed in bandages. "Slowly I recovered and soon was out. It was my own brother in search of me, who had saved me, but my Georgia 'friend' had escaped back to his ranks. "This was my last fight. After the war, seeking betterment to my broken health, I journeyed South. There, once more fond memory prompting, the old flame burned, and journeying on to my old college town, quietly I sought fulfilment of that hastily made promise. "I found Mary, but alas, no longer free. My rival, thinking full well my end had come, returning brought such as fact, and I, poor, foolish man, was beaten. "That's all, my boy, I can't mention this rivals's name, for he's now prominent in the politics of the Union he once op-posed. Often we meet in open debate, for I represented my State in the same assemblage. 'Tis there only that my re-venge, if any, is granted, but God knows he won a prize far beyond my power to gain. "Alone I have lived since, and you are the first and probably the last to hear this, one incident of an awful strife, a remembrance of this low stone wall." The old man drew out his watch and observing that it was high time to be moving, he arose to go. Not wanting to pre-sume, for I saw him to be deeply affected by a story, the romance of his life, I, insisting, thanked him sincerely, and he left me alone, absorbed in a new-born thought. HABAKKUK. Silence and night—black night: A striving all in vain to reach the light, A rugged watch tower lifts its massive height. Darkness and clouds—despair: And on the lonely watch tower wrestling there, A strong man waits an answer to his prayer. Starlight and peace—deep peace : Upon the tower the awful conflicts cease; The kneeling man through faith has found release. —E. A. P., in The Lesbian Herald. I 32 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. NATURE IN EMERSON'S POETRY.* (Honorable Mention Graeff Prize Essay). J. F. NEWMAN, '02. KALPH W. EMERSON, born in Boston, May 25, 1803, was the son of a minister. His mother, Ruth Haskins, a lady of great dignity, sweetness and piety, although left a widow with five small children, managed to give four of them academic education. After the completion of his course at Harvard Ralph aided in the support of the family by teach-ing for some years, and finally decided to enter the ministry, graduating from Harvard Divinity School in 1826. His ministerial career, however, has little bearing on our sub-ject. Glancing briefly at his early boyhood, when his mind was in its formative state, we find that he frequently visited at the home of the Rev. Dr. Ripley, the "Old Manse," at Concord. In the fields and woods along the Concord River he came into close touch with Nature, and formed the foundation and back-ground of many of his literary productions. Doubtless we may attribute to these visits much of that intense love of Na-ture, which, when disappointment and distress entered his life, caused him instinctively to turn to her, "Who will be all things to all men," for consolation; and probably to the same cause may be attributed his right to be styled a true nature poet. The greatest requisite of any poet is ability to appreciate correctly the two great sources from which his materials must come—man and the external universe. Only a person who is deeply in love with Nature can with propriety sing as Emerson does in "The Park." "Enchanters! Enchantresses! Your gold makes you seem wise ; The morning mist within your grounds More proudly rolls, more softly lies." * Facts relative to Emerson's life are from Edw. W. Emerson's sketch of his life. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 133 "Yet spake you purple mountain, Yet said you ancient wood, That Night or Day, that Love or Crime, Leads all souls to the Good." Or, from his delightful description, how beautiful must a snow storm have seemed to him. "Announced by all the trumpets of the sky Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end—" ****** "Out from an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door." Surely it may truthfully be said that Emerson lived close to Nature's heart and was an appreciative observer of all her manifold phenomena. With equal truth it might also be said that he had genuine pity for those who cannot receive pleasure from Nature for he must have held such in mind when he wrote: "The brook sings on, but sings in vain Wanting an echo in my brain." That his productions may be true nature poetry, the poet must not only be appreciative of Nature, but must also possess the happy facility of describing her vividly and tenderly. As we read these lines from "My Garden"— "In my plot no tulips blow— Snow-loving pines and oaks instead And rank the savage maples grow From Spring's faint flush to Autumn's red." "My garden is a forest ledge Which older forests bound; The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge Then plunge to depths profound''— ! a delightful picture, which shows the delicate and loving touch I 36 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. of a master-spirit, rises in fancy and we see our poet sit in his forest-garden, enjoying its sweet odors and gazing meditatingly to the blue lake beyond. It is almost impossible to select representative descriptions from such poems as "The Adirondacks," "Musketaquid," "Sea-shore" and "May Day," each of which seems to be a portrayal of a different portion of Nature's marvels. "The Adirondacks," is a description of a journey in the mountains, of such vividness that the reader and not the author appears to be the actual participant. How beautiful and realistic is the following homely quotation: "Ten scholars, wonted to lie warm and soft In well-hung chambers daintily bestowed, Lie here in hemlock boughs, like Sacs and Sioux, And greet unanimous the joyful change." ******** "Our foaming ale we drank from hunters' pans, Ale, and a sup of wine. Our steward gave Venison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread ; All ate like abbots, and, if any missed Their wonted convenance, cheerily hid the loss With hunters' appetite and peals of mirth." Musketaquid deals primarily with the farm in the New England valley. The rural description, however, is illustrated with happy word pictures which make this poem one of Emer-son's sweetest, as: "Sparrows far off, and nearer April's bird, Blue-coated—flying from tree to tree, Courageous sing a delicate overture To lead the tardy concert of the year. Onward and nearer rides the sun of May; And wide around, the marriage of the plants Is sweetly solemnized. There flows amain The surge of Summer's beauty; dell and crag, Hollow and lake, hillside and pine arcade, Are touched with genius." Frequently persons intensely fond of woodland beauty receive little pleasure from the ocean; but Emerson appears to have THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 135 had equal adoration for each portion of Nature's handiwork and could sing of the ocean's beauty as sweetly as of his own dear walks and retreats. The following extract is from Seashore: "Behold the sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is a rose in June, Fresh as a trickling rainbow of July." May-day is a brightly colored picture of the awakening of slumbering Nature. The dormant faces are represented as springing into life when "Coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Teaching barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup with cowslips wreaths, Whence a smokeless incense breathes." Does he describe Nature? He does more. He transfers living Nature from the external world to his pages without losing the scent of the flowers, the flutter of birds' wings or the tone of the waterfalls. She was real to him and he has given her to us in her reality. But the living universe was more to Emerson than an enter-tainer of the imagination. She was a teacher of noble truths. A boy he discovered her mysteries; later in life he carried his problems to her for solution. It was with a certainty of his correctness, determined by experience, that he wrote "Chide me not, laborious band, For the idle flowers I bought; Every aster in my hand Goes home loaded with a thought." "There was never mystery But 'tis figured in the flowers; Was never secret history But birds tell it in the bowers." —(The Apology). In his philosophical quest Emerson represents "The Sphinx" as advising him as follows: 136 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. ' 'So take thy quest through nature, It through thousand natures ply : Ask on, thou clothed eternity ; Time is the false reply." "Through a thousand voices Spoke the universal dame; Who telleth one of my meanings, Is master of all I am." However obscure and unsatisfactory his conclusions may have been, we know positively that he believed in some power back of Nature, controlling both her and him. When asked "whence is the Rhodora," he wrote Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being ; Why wert thou there, O rival of the rose ! I never thought to ask, I never knew ; But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you. Emerson's life, we must think, sorrow and his disagreement on ably a not very happy one. Yet ings in fact—there is no trace of piest spirit everywhere exhibited that his loved mistress (Nature) His poem. "Good-bye," seems to thought with its varying shadows of religious questions, was prob-in his poetry—in all his writ-bitterness, but only the hap- May we not, therefore, say lent contentment to his life? be impregnated with this one "And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening stars so holy shine, I laugh at the love and the pride of man, At the sophist schools and the learned clan ; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?" Perhaps the most beautiful feature of our poet's work is the fact that he deals lovingly with every item of Nature's creation, overlooking nothing; and yet it is not in single detail that he THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 137 admires her, but as a connected whole. "Each and all," from which we have chosen some leaves, shows this best. "I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the cedar bough ; I brought him home, in his nest, at even ; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky— He sang to my ear—they sang'to my eye." Milton says that poetry must possess three qualities' if its author would deserve to b$ designated poet—must be simple, sensuous, passionate. Measured by this standard, we believe Emerson deserves the title. His poetry, as a rule, is simple; in some the theme is difficult; but by careful application any person can understand him, and having found the real flavor, will follow it passionately. Enough has already been said to show that it is sensuous. His own passion for Nature is transferred to his pages that we may enjoy her as he did. It was the consciousness of having given something to the world that caused Emerson to enjoy his poetry and send it to us with this mission: "Go speed the stars of thought On to their shining goals— The sower scatters broad his seeds, The wheat thou strew'st be souls." VOICES IN THE QUAD. Happy days have slowly dwindled And we're parting lads, at last; College scenes and college mem'ries Are but dreamings of the past Still our hearts are closely clinging And our thoughts are ever winging To the voices that are singing. Ah ! the voices in the quad. Songs we love and songs we cherish Of the days that never perish, Sing the voices in the quad. -DAN DEVLIN, '02, in the Georgetown College Journal THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY Entered at the Postofflce at Gettysburg' as second-class matter Vol. XI GETTYSBURG, PA., JUNE, 1902 No. 4 Editor-in-chief Assistant Editors Exchange Editor H. S. LEWARS, '03 Miss MARY WILSON, '04 SAM. P. WEAVER, '04 LYMAN A. GUSS, '04 Business Manager E. CARL MUMFORD, '03 Advisory Board PROF. J. A. HIMES, LITT.D. Asst. Business Manager PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M.D. FRED. MASTERS, '04 PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D.D. Published each month, from October to June inclusive, by the joint literary societies of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price, one dollar a year in advance; single copies 15 cents. Notice to discontinue sending the MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Busi-ness Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITORIALS. The Commencement season is at hand. ADIEU, 1902. ~, " . . , . , r . 1 he benior in his cap and gown is a familiar sight. Examinations are over, a few more finishing touches on the oration and all will be done. This is a season both of joy and sadness. Joy because of the happy years gone by. Sad because they will never be reciprocated; sad at the thought to leave one's alma mater and beloved classmates. Friendships ships and acquaintances have been formed, which shall be lasting. There is a peculiar relation existing between classmates. All have one end in view, and that makes work enjoyable; we should be thankful that it is so. All the unpleasant things, all the hard asks will be forgotten, the memory will not take note of them, THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 139 they are so small and it will have so many happy experiences to recall. "When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves in the light of thought, we discover that our life is embosomed in beauty." You look back over from now and they seem pleasant. Years after you will think of them as the happiest period in life. It's a good thing* for men to work shoulder to shoulder, and one of the happy recol-lections shall be of united labors in some college department. Much of the four years' work has been enjoyable; some tasks, too. have been distasteful, but they will be forgotten. Emerson has rightly said, "Behind us, as we go, all things as-sume pleasing forms as clouds do far off." He said that when he was well on in years and knew life, "The soul will know neither deformity or pain," and we should rejoice. The older you grow the more precious will these years seem. Such must be your thoughts, O, Seniors, as you bid us adieu. The alumni and friends of the college will no doubt be glad to know that the Spectrum for this year is in circulation. It is a different publication from any other in the college, and is expository in character. Rob-ert Burns once expressed a heartfelt wish, "O, wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as others see us." When he said that he had no idea that it would ever be ful-filled. He did not know of the Spectrum. If a man wants to see himself from the standpoint of his fellow let him seek that knowl-edge in this publication. The Editor is by no means respon-sible for your bad feelings; he is merely a student of public opinion, and publishes what he sees and hears. It has truth for its foundation, and the members of the staff have a scien-tific mania for fact. Self-knowledge and progress is its aim. Its very existence was caused by a wish such as Burns'. But the managers determined to do what Scotland's Shakes-peare could not or did not, and the Spectrum came forth a new 140 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. creation. Every succeeding class has followed this example and has believed that "It {Spectrum) wad frae monie a blunder free us and foolish notions." It has reached its aim. But, too, it chronicles deeds of bravery and does not waste all its time trying to pull the mote out of its brother's eye. Nineteen three believes in self-knowl-edge, and has carefully arranged all matters pertaining to the institution in their true light. There is no knowledge without light, so get a Spectrum and see. THE END OF WORK. There is a faithful saying—"The end crowns the work," which has been held precious by the laborer since time immemorial. True—but when there is a limit to it, the coronation comes whether you have worked or not. But, oh, what a coronation! The end of our year's work is here, but the kind of end depends on the work during the year. Why this end should be the special delight of so many is hard to understand. Work is surely not such a drudge that we are glad to leave it. Work is a pleasure—it is healthy. The end of one task should only incite to greater conquest. There is no end of work. The man who is looking towards He who looks towards the end The ability to work to-morrow is according to your ability to work to-day. No man has ever become strong or great who has not worked patiently and in-defatigably. The great are the hardest workers and the hum-blest servants. Men are strong because they have worked. Idleness is weakness. Do you wish to know the true man ? See him at work. Then you can measure his power, then you have an insight into his real nature. The fisherman at the shore is made a teacher of men, Elisha at the plow is made the prophet, Saul, the persecutor, is made Paul the Apostle. There is no room for the idle man, only the laborer is promoted. Work is power. There is German saying, ''Arbeit iiber-wiindet alles" Labor only is the key to success. If happiness the end is himself an idler, will never do much work THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 141 is the great good to man he will find it only in work. And, having found his work, let him concentrate his energy and do it and not seek the end. EXCHANGES. A number of our exchanges are somewhat late in making their appearance this month. Most of those that have arrived, however, show an improvement over last month's issue, es-pecially in their exchange columns. Some, nevertheless, fail to recognize the real purpose of this department, and fill the space with general notes of the college world. This evidently is not the purpose of the exchange column, and several editors could greatly improve their journals by giving this department a thorough remodeling. We are very sorry that no exchange column appeared in last month's issue. For it the exchange editor has no apology to offer. The exchanges were reviewed and written up as usual, but, owing to a seemingly unavoidable circumstance, were cast into the printer's waste-basket. We hope, however, that this will not occur again. We are glad to add the Theilensian to our exchange list. The article "The Decline in Candidates for the Ministry" is very good. The exchange column, however, could be greatly improved by using it for the review and criticism of their ex-changes. THE HEART'S LONGING. There's a warm, warm wind comes from the South, With a promise and a song, A song that wells from a rose-lipped mouth In cadence full and strong. It whispers, whispers through the day To the hearts of longing men, That the time is coming down the way When the woods turn green again. —R. B., Free Lance. 142 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Tlie Juniata Echo for May contains an excellent article on "Juniata—Tradition and Spirit." Among other things the writer says: "College spirit is that undefinable, but none the less real fact of enthusiastic devotion, which unconsciously takes hold of the ideal student in course of his growth into and with an institution, and causes him to rejoice over every mark of its superiority." For the High School exchanges of last month we have nothing but praise. Each editor seems to have made a special effort to send out a good paper. Among these the K. H. 5 Myth is the best. The essay "Character is Power" is very fine. It also contains some splendid cuts. The others most worthy of mention are The Argus, The X Ray and The Delphic News. The first issue of the Phoenix for May is not very well bal-anced. Most of the space is taken up with athletic and local news, much to the detriment of the literary department, which does not contain an article worthy of perusal. The May number of the Forum was one of the best ex-changes received during month. It contains an excellent ar-ticle on "The Study of Philosophy-" The editorial on the "Grind" and college sport is very well written. We agree that they are not true college men. Among the other exchanges the best are the Lesbian Herald, The Buff and Blue, The Amulet, The Midland and The Ursinus College Journal. The lamps I light along life's way May throw their rays on meagre space ; The flowers I scatter day by day May brighten but a little space. Yet, if I light to a higher goal One who the upward path would gain, Or cheer some sorrowing, starving soul, I cannot count my labor vain. —E. C. D., The Midland. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 143 BOOK REVIEW. An American at Oxford, By JOHN CORBIN. Boston: Hough-ton, Mifflin & Co., #1.50. In the educational world there is no more widely discussed subject to-day than Oxford University, its methods and life. For many years Americans were not attracted to Oxford and Oxford gave no inducements to Americans. Most graduate students went to Germany. The Oxford scholarships provided for Americans by the will of the late Cecil Rhodes have drawn special attention to this historic school. Strange to say, as Mr. Corbin mentions in his preface, his book, "An American at Oxford," went into press on the day of the publication of Mr. Rhodes' will. The book is therefore specially interesting. We have heard enough of Ox ford from the English, but to get an account of the University from an American, who judges it from an American standpoint, is wholesome. Ask an Englishman why Oxford has the best system of in-struction and he'll do anything but answer your question. Mr. Corbin's book, however, treats of Oxford in all its phazes and in a manner very charming. The social life of the University is first discussed, which is quite different from other universities of Europe, and the author does not fail to call attention to the contrast. The part of the book that will interest college men is Oxford Out of Doors. The author gives detailed accounts of Track and Field Athletics and at the end, of course, contrasts Ameri-can and English sportsmanship. The English student engages in sport of some kind, which the author thinks is very salutary. Alas, in some of our American Universities time is barely given for exercise ! True to Oxford spirit one part of the book is de-voted to the History of the University. The Problems of the American University are ably discussed. The author is not derogatory of other universities in his con-trast between them and Oxford, and has made the book both interesting and instructive. 144 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. As/c you r bookseller to showyou th ese books. Published by Hinds £r» AIobley New York. Songs of All the Colleges - $1.50 Songs of the Eastern Colleges - - 1.26 Songs of the Western Colleges - - 1.25 New Songs for Glee Clubs - .60 3 Minute Declamations for College Men 1.00 8 Minute IteadingB for College Girls - 1.00 New Pieces for Prize Speaking - - 1.26 Proa and Cons (Complete Debates) - 1.60 Commencament Parts,( Orations, Essays, etc) 1.60 Established 1867 by Allen Walton. Allen K. Walton, Pres. and Treas. Robt. J. Walton, Superintendent. 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Issue 62.3 of the Review for Religious, 2003. ; Holiness Religious Life Saintly Mentoring QUARTERLY 62.3 2003 . to God's Universal call tO ,holiness that flow from tbe~cbarisms of Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ° Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 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. ©2003 Review for Religious. Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Adviso~7 Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ QUARTERLY 62.3 2003 contents 230 holiness Be Holy as God Is Holy George A. Maloney SJ reflects on the holiness of God and our own holiness from the evidences of Scripture. 239 Praying with the Body: Not Running Ahead of Grace Rende Nienaber SND describes a number of ways to enter into prayer by involving our bodies. 251 religious life Prophetic Voice in Religious Life Elizabeth A. Dreyer reflects on two aspects of being a prophet--being an agent of change and living a contemplative existence--and issues a challenge to religious life. Review for Religious 269 Charism: Is Marketing Needed? Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR proposes a refinement in a religious congregation's method of research into its charism by examining its own continuing pastoral care and pastoral sensitivity in relation to the founder's. 287 John of the Cross's Message for Today Ernest E. Lark.in OCarm indicates how contemporary forms of contemplative prayer--centering prayer, Christian Meditation, and the Jesus Prayer--fit into John of the Cross's teaching on contemplation. 301 Catherine McAuley's Reliance on Providence Mary Judith O'Brien RSM examines the life of Catherine McAuley, foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, as an example of one who surrenders her whole being in trust to God. epar r en s 228 Prisms 316 Canonical Counsel: Effects of Departure 324 Book Reviews 62.3 2003 prisms A great gift of the four constitu-tions of the Second Vatican Council--on the church (Lumen gentium), on divine revelation (Dei verbum), on the sacred liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium), and on the church in the modern world (Gaudium et spes)--is their readability and their applicability. The matters treated in them can continue to enhance our Catholic life. Whereas the Council of Trent in the 16th cen-tury was needed to put the church's own house in order (the Catholic reformation), Vatican Council II in the 20th century, identified as a pastoral council, looked to revitalizing our faith practice and our mis-sionary effort (Catholic renewal) as we became more fully engaged in the world we live in. We might describe Vatican II as addressing the problem of a distance many Catholics felt from a God in heaven, from Jesus Christ in their awed reverence toward the Blessed Sacrament, from the church in its authority, and from our world itself (b~cause it was "out there"). The church, too, often seemed "out there," embodied in pastors and bishops and encycli-cals that were not exactly us. Vatican II reminded Catholics that they belonged, that baptism made them "the people of God," with rights and responsibilities in the church. God's word in the Bible had sometimes seemed only a Protestant thing, or a Latin thing that priests preached about in English. Catholics were often more touched and uplifted by holy hours honoring the Sacred Heart and evening devotions in honor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help than they were by Mass and the various sacraments. The Mass in Latin had a Revie~ for Religious certain majesty and mystery within our small or large churches, but people attended at a distance, often deliberately towards the rear. Though we in the United States did not generally feel excluded or constrained in our parishes, when we now look back we see ourselves as having lived and learned our faith in a kind of ghetto outside the mainstream of our country. The four constitutions and the decrees of Vatican II changed our ways of thinking and acting. They called on all of us to take responsibility not only for our own adult faith lives, but also for the talent and improvement we can bring to national cultures and values and international ones as well. All our lives long we are being continually formed by the word of God and by God's providence in the events of our lives. In this way we come to know Jesus Christ better, as our Lord and Savior and also as our friend in the joys and difficulties of our lives. Baptized into Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and thus into his priesthood too, we share, with the ordained leadership of our bishops, priests, and deacons, in celebrating the Eucharist and the other sacraments. Our church looks on our world with neither fear nor disdain, but seeks to be involved hopefully and helpfully in its happiness and sorrows. Yes, Vatican II has increased the participation of many in all things Catholic. Now recent Roman documents dealing with liturgy, Eucharist, and devotions like the rosary have been issu-ing a call, recalling for us our human need of reverence in deal-ing with God and the things of God. Family love and friendship, yes, but overfamiliarity has less place in the family of God than in ordinary families. We are being reminded that, as well-loved creatures, we still need awe and reverence towards our Creator, and even towards the people in our lives, nearby and on the other side of the world. We are being called to the Trinitarian roots of our Catholic spirituality--a grand unity in an unfath-omable tension. In our relation to God and one another, we yearn to give and receive loving reverence, reverent love. David L. Fleming SJ 62.3 2003 holiness GEORGE A. MALONEY Be Holy as God Is Holy St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, teaches these new Christians the essence of God's calling in Christ Jesus: Before the world was made, he chose us in Christ to be holy and spotless and to live through love in his pres-ence, determining that we should become his adopted children through Jesus Christ for his own kind pur-poses. (Ep 1:4-5) In all of the Old and New Testaments, we will not find any words to express, as the words holi-ness and holy do, the mystery of the perfection in the Trinitarian community of love and the mys-tery of God's will revealed through Jesus Christ: "to be holy and spodess and to live through love in his presence." It is sad that many Christians have never had a true scriptural meaning of holi-ness and what it means for us to be holy. George A. Ma]oney SJ last wrote for us in May-June 2002. His address is Contemplative Ministries; 13338 Del Monte Drive, #3-K; Seal Beach, California 90740. Revie~ for Religiou~ We need to ask God to show what holiness really means: his holiness first and then our own holiness. God's power can be seen and heard in nature, in lightning and thunder and rushing waters. But in describing God's holi-ness we are, in a way, trying to touch the "insideness" of God, the source of everything good and beautiful that we ever see or hear or feel. God's holiness is God in his per-fection as infinitely loving. Holiness is the totality of God's being moving outward as gift toward the other, toward human beings and angels. We read in the Book of Leviticus: For it is I, Yahweh, who am your God. You have been sanctified and have become holy because I am holy. Yes, it is I, Yahweh, who have brought you out of Egypt to be your God; you, therefore, must be holy because I am holy. (Lv 11:44-45) God Is Holy in Things and Places and Persons Moses fell back before the holiness of Yahweh in the burning bush. That was "holy ground" (Ex 3:4-6). God, who is holy, had chosen to be present to Moses in that place. No human hand was permitted to touch the Ark of the Covenant because God's holy presence was there. The Ark was kept in the Holy of Holies, a special place where God would communicate with his people. Yet, when for their sanctification God's holiness touches angels and human beings, he is present more perfectly to them. He enters upon a self-giving that allows us human beings to be sharers through love in his very own nature. This has always been God's purpose in creating us: "Be holy in all you do, since it is the Holy One who has called you. As ScripUare says: 'Be holy for I am holy'" (1 P 1:15-16). God calls us to receive his holiness and thereby to become holy too, opening ourselves to his outpouring 62.3 2003 Maloney ¯ Be Holy as God Is Holy We have no way of experiencing the fullness of God's holiness except in Jesus Christ. love, to his gift to us of himself and of our neighbor. We are called to be saints--holy people--sanctified by God's holiness (see Rm 1:7; 1 Co 1:2). "We have been called by God to be holy, not to be immoral" (1 Th 4:7). God chose us from the beginning to be holy by the sanctify-ing power of the Holy Spirit (2 Th 2:13) and to "become his adopted children through Jesus Christ" (Ep 1:5). Jesus is holy, and we too are called to be holy. We have no way of experiencing the fullness of God's holi-ness except in Jesus Christ. He teaches us about God's holiness, the actions of a loving Father concerned with all the details of our daily existence. Now we know what God's holiness is like. It is like the holi-ness of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament. Jesus' Holiness and His Growing Holiness The holiness of Jesus consisted first in his having been sanctified by the Holy Spirit. He was the gift of the Father through the Spirit. All that he had Jesus received from his Father. He could not act on his own, but only on what he received from his Father (Jn 5:19, 30; Jn 8:28). It is the Father who sent him into the world and consecrated him, making him holy in order to bring the holiness of God to the world (Jn 10:36). Jesus was sinless because he yielded to God's Holy Spirit within him and struggled against any urge toward self-centered independence (Heb 4:1). From the Synoptic Gospel accounts of Jesus' temptations, we realize, as essential to their meaning, that he had to struggle in his heart to reach the state of loving, humble submission to his Father that eventually would mean his ignominious Review for Religious death on the cross. Jesus would grow in holiness as he fought the Prince of Darkness for dominance, both in his own life and in the lives of those he healed of demonic possession. His struggle would end only on the cross, when he was lifted up and his adversary definitively thrown down from his throne and stripped of his power. From the New Testament we see that Jesus' increas-ing holiness is in accord with the Father's Spirit in him, giving him strength to unmask and defeat the devil. He seeks and confronts the evil one and conquers him. Jesus' Temptations The three temptations of Jesus in the desert empha-size his complete attachment to his Father. Jesus under-goes temptations--much like Eve's, the feminine side of all human beings--to seize the initiative in an aggres-siveness that would deny God's sovereignty over him. Jesus refused to feed himself with anything but God's word. "You must worship the Lord God, and serve him alone" (Dr 6:13, Lk 8). The Gospels present the peak of Jesus' holiness as an exodus experience. As he grew in holiness, he was tempted to hold on to his own life rather than surrender that life on behalf of sinful mankind. Imaging the Father's holiness in his own human development, Jesus grew in each event as he sought not his own but his Father's will. "Here I am! I am coming.to obey your will" (Heb 10:9). Jesus' holiness prompted him to a joyful response to do all that his human consciousness revealed to him as falling within the area of the Father's wish or even, more sensitively, what would please his Father more (Jn 8:29). Jesus suffers his most severe sense of abandonment on the cross when he cries out loudly to his Father: "My God, my God, why have you deserted me?" (Mk 15:34). In spite of his greatest temptation to doubt, in the seem-ing absence of the Father's loving approval, Jesus pushes 62.3 2003 Maloney ¯ Be Holy as God Is Holy himself to new depths of holiness and loving surrender. In such agony Jesus attains in his human condition the holiness of God. This is the crowning in human form of the Trinity's holiness, ultimate self-giving to mankind (through abandonment and death). Holy through the Holy Spirit Jesus at the Last Supper promised that he would pour out the holy and sanctifying Spirit after his death on the cross (Jn 14:16-21). If Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, is glo-rified by the Father and is able to bestow his sanctifying Spirit upon his believers through his final sufferings, it is no less also the Holy Spirit who effects the holiness of Jesus in the days and years of his earlier human development. We can see from the Gospel narrative of his baptism how Jesus, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, was led further toward full holiness by John the Baptist in the Jordan. As Jesus came out of the water, he received a vision of the Spirit as a gentle dove and heard his Father declare from on high: "You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you" (Mk 1:11). Jesus in his humanity is swept up into an ecstatic oneness with the Father. Heaven and earth have been closed by Adam's first sin in the garden. Now God's communicating pres-ence has passed through the barrier of sin, and Jesus, God's holiness, stands within the human family. Brightness and darkness are brought together in Jesus. The presence and sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus begins with Jesus' physical exis-tence. If Paul could appeal to the Corinthians' inner dig-nity because their bodies were holy--"Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Co 6:19)- how much more was this a living experience of Jesus in his body! Jesus was the most free human being that ever existed because the Spirit in him linked him with the Review for Religious Father in myriad ways. Seeing his Father in the materi-ality of his body and in the physical world around him, Jesus enjoyed a serenity and contentment in being there with the Father. Sin sets up a physical, psychical, and spiritual "ner-vousness" in us because it hinders our seeing the loving presence of God in these connections. Instead, sin inclines us to exploit them, as is evident in our abuse of our appetites for food, drink, sex, material and intellec-tual possession, honor--in a word, our pride of life. Finding the Father in All of Creation Jesus was free to find the Father's providential presence in all events and circumstances inasmuch as Jesus was continuously the expressed Word of the Father. In his humanity Jesus had spe-cial gratitude and love by rea-son of his Father's gift to him of intimate friends. He praised God in the gentle love he had for his mother, Mary, for Joseph, John, Mary and Martha, Peter and Andrew, and his other apostles and followers. Yet the freedom brought to him by God's Spirit gave Jesus an inner austerity in all of his human relationships. They were not merely gifts for him to use happily in glorifying the Father; they were diaphanous places in which to find the Father's love and then reciprocate that love by serving everyone he encountered. We cannot understand Jesus in his personal poverty and his preference for the physically, psychically, and spiritually poor people to whom he went and brought healing unless we enter into the conscious relationship Jesus knew that his Father's love for all people everywhere included full awareness of their absolute poverty. 62.3 2003 Maloney ¯ Be Holy as God Is Holy that Jesus entered as the Father's Word on earth. Jesus knew that his Father's love for all people everywhere included full awareness of their absolute poverty. We human beings are radical and ontological nonentities except for God's love poured out in unselfish creation. God is absolute love because he is perfectly holy and self-giving. Jesus' Poverty and Service of Others Jesus lived poorly, by the inner richness of his Father's continued gif~ of himself to him. This poverty can be called humility. Jesus was nothing; the Father was all. Jesus was absolutely poor because no thing possessed him. He was possessed only by his Father, and so he saw created things only as external indications of the inner emptiness of human beings before the Allness of his Father. Jesus served others because that is love in action. He was expressing in human ways the love of God the Father for them. The Father's compassion for his children was the source of Jesus' compassion for them. Jesus burned with desire to actualize the Father's presence in the life of everyone he met (Lk 12:49). He went about doing good, especially by healing all types of sickness and dis-ease. He was never more the perfect image of the heav-enly Father than when he saw the multitudes scattering and fainting like sheep without a shepherd and was moved with mercy and compassion (Mt 9:36). Jesus' Prayer Jesus' holiness is shown also in his prayer life. The Gospels give us much teaching by Jesus on how to pray, but they also give us nuanced pictures of Jesus at prayer. He prays to his Father in the company of his disciples, but also alone. The Evangelists have grasped the intrin-sic relation of Jesus' prayer and his holiness. From their descriptions of Jesus in prayerful communion with his Review for Religious Father, we see that his prayer is always linked with the coming of God's kingdom. Jesus usually prays in solitude, away from his disci-ples, deeply immersed for long periods, even all night. He seeks the face of his Father in praise and thanksgiv-ing, in petitions that follow from his desire that God's kingdom come. In such prayer Jesus touches the holi-ness of the Father and is filled with a like holiness that lives to serve the Father, his Abba. The Holy Spirit fills him with this filial trust in the holiness of his Father, and thus, from his constant experience of the Spirit, Jesus teaches others to pray to the Father in the Spirit, con-vinced that they would be granted everything they needed for their total happiness as the Father's children. Living in the Holy of Holies In awe of God's holiness, we are not to strive to be holy by doing "holy" deeds or works of holiness as though God needs us and our sacrifice. Rather, we are to obey the divine Word, enfleshed for love of us to image for us God's holiness, and to let ourselves be directed by his Holy Spirit within us. To enter into God's holiness, the place to go is our heart. By Jesus' incarnate oneness with us, by his death and resurrection and the gift of his Spirit, we now have the right to approach with boldness "into the sanctuary" by the blood of Jesus, our high priest. We have been saved by Jesus' gift of himself on the cross. Humbled by God's holiness revealed in Jesus Christ, we are enabled to be continually and joyously transformed into holiness as we seek to live lives of Christlike holiness. We are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus "to live the good life as from the begin-ning he meant us to live it" (Ep 2:10). Now we can more easily, and in greater depth, understand how God's holi-ness makes it possible for God to be merciful towards 237 62.3 2003 Maloney * Be Holy as God Is Holy us. In our relationship with God and with others, holi-ness and mercy can never be separated. Father, Son, and Spirit: Holiness and Love Jesus is holy as his Father is holy because, in his dying on our behalf in obedience to his loving Father, his love for God reaches love's peak. He is holy by being one with God's holiness. He becomes God's holy Word in his obedience unto death (Ph 2:8). As Jesus became holy by learning obedience, so we also must do: "Although he was Son, he learned to obey through suffering; but, having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal sal-vation and was acclaimed by God with the title of high priest of the order ofMelchizedek" (Heb 5:8-10). When affliction comes, we are not to be constantly asking whether we accept the inevitable and submit to a will we cannot resist. Our true, loving question must be: Do we choose the will of God to be our chief good--do we delight in Christ's life principle as ours too? "My delight is to do your will, O God." Jesus sanctified himself and us by doing his Father's will constantly, to his life's end. The will of God is also our sanctification. Be holy, as God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--is holy. Summer Transformation August rays insinuate themselves, burrow under epidermal sheath like God's grace, work their transforming till, ripened and marked as sun votary, you preach wordlessly the gospel of repentance for a pale and chilly life. Patricia Schnapp RSM Review for Religious RENI~E NIENABER Praying with the Body: Not Running Ahead of Grace (/~("~'~ on't run ahead of grace." This truth, learned from one of my greatest teachers of prayer, insists that we can find holiness only as God grants. Even though passive prayer has often been considered the higher path, people who are highly sensate might stay in active prayer much of their lives. St. John of the Cross warns against moving too quickly from active prayer. For many, cooperating with this wisdom can involve using our bodies in prayer. Respect for God's Gifts Rationales for prayer with the body can be found in Scripture, theology, and psychology. Respect for the body. We are not pure spirits. Many heresies would have us look with disdain upon the body as the source of temptation. Within this masterpiece, however, the Spirit of God dwells. According to the creeds we profess, our bodies will, like Jesus Christ's, be raised in glory. Fundamental knowledge of God came Ren~e Nienaber SND wrote about lectio divina in our January-February 2002 issue. Her address is St. Mary of the Assumption Parish; 121 West Main Street; Alexandria, Kentucky 41001. 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the Body A through our parents' bodies: a mother's gentle breast-feeding and a father's strong cradling. In many ways we already pray with our bodies: genuflecting, bowing, taking holy water, telling our rosary beads, making the sign of the cross, receiving Communion in our hands. Great people in the Hebrew Scriptures used their bodies in prayer: Miriam praising God with the timbrel, Moses praying with arms outstretched, and David dancing before the ark. The psalms especially show a people entering bodily into prayer: seeking God's face (27:8), thirsting for God (63:1), panting with open mouth (119:131). They also show a God who deals with the bodies of people, literally or metaphorically: leading them beside still waters (23:2), setting them high on a rock (27:5), hiding them under solicitous wings (63:8), making divine words sweet to the taste (119:103). No disdain for the human body in this kind of prayer! Hebrew prayer shows great respect for the human body's goodness, not the disdain espoused by Docetism, Gnosticism, Platonism, and Neoplatonism. Respect for the unity of body/soul/spirit. Such respect stands against dualism and moves us towards integration. Each part of this threefold "companionship" affects the others. Eastern religions teach that what we do with our bodies affects our prayer (for example, sitting straight and breathing attentively). We will pray better or worse, depending on the involvement of our bodies. If this is true, then we cannot find God by escaping the body. Respect for the incarnation and resurrection. Both of these doctrines involve Christ's body. His humanity belongs to the essence of our faith. Jesus prayed with his body: lifting his eyes to heaven and blessing little children. We, like him, will not find God by rejecting the body. Respect for the g~'eat commandment. Based on the Shema of the Hebrew Scriptures, our call is to love God with our Review for Religious whole self, with all of who we are, not just from our eyebrows up. In daily life we show love through our bodies: gestures, gifts, smiles, and so forth. God invites us to do the same in prayer. Respect for ourselves as images of a creative God. Praying with the body helps us to be playful like children. Childlikeness can keep the juices of prayer flowing. With the Spirit's gifts of wonder and awe, a child/adult can be ever ready for the surprises of God in prayer, like finding a treasure in a field. Respect for praying "from where we're at." Catholics are sacramental people. In part this means experiencing God as coming to us through the stuff of this earth. Prayer that begins with the body can penetrate into the inner self. Like osmosis, the senses can lead us from the exterior to the interior, from the touchable to the untouchable: the transcendent reality of God. Thus prayer involving the body can be a bridge from active to passive prayer. These two forms walk hand in hand, not against each other. To pray "from where we're at" also involves praying from "God experiences." Created reality invites us to pray with our bodies, as in John Denver's song about Annie filling up his senses. How often have we praised God with our eyes for an orange-red sunset, with our mouth for our favorite chocolate dessert, with our nose for the evergreen freshness,. With our ears for the ocean roar. God is the original "surround sound." We can get lost in ecstasy through such continuing revelations of the divine. Our call is to love God with our whole self, with all of who we are, not just from our eyebrows up. 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the B~dy Blessings of Body Prayer Besides these six forms of respect, prayer with the body can be an antidote to one of the main complaints about prayer: that it is boring. God wants our prayer to bring us life "to the full" (In 10:10). Prayer helps us dispose ourselves. God is the initiator of prayer and the responder to our desires. We can, however, prepare ourselves for the gift of prayer with our very bodies. For example, with our eyes we can gaze lovingly upon a crucifix, icon, or sunrise. With our hands we can touch bur heart or ears. With our mouth we can smile at God or whisper words of Scripture. Prayer helps us keep attentive. Too ubiquitous is the temptation not to pray because "I'm too distracted" or "Nothing happens." Involving our bodies in prayer can lessen those excuses because the pray-er remains grounded. For example, in praying about Jesus healing the woman with a hemorrhage, we can involve our body in such ways as these: coming before Jesus trembling and hopeful, reaching out to touch his garment, or pleading with our face for the gift of God's healing. Prayer helps us remember blessings. When prayer remains too cerebral, the pray-er can seldom recall the experience of God's grace. Involving the body can help the mind to focus rather than flounder. The experience of prayer is crystallized, thus becoming a memento of God's goodness. Forty Possibilities for Praying with the Body ¯ Hold a rock and remember examples of God's steadfast love. ¯ Hold a rock and consider how God might want to change your heart. ¯ Hold a pearl and feel how precious you are to God. ¯ Hold a pearl and consider how much God is your pearl of great price. ¯ Hold a pearl and be grateful for all the pearls in your life (people, experiences, events). ¯ Hold a pillow to your chest, trying Review for Religious to experience God or Jesus as a nursing mother for yourself, someone in special need, or even an enemy. ¯ Hold two coins tightly, like the widow's mite, representing what you do not want to let go of. When ready, release each coin. ¯ Hold a small seed (like a mustard seed) and ask for growth in faith, confidence, love, etc. ° Hold a seashell and ask to be more aware of God's dwelling in the deepest chamber of your heart. ¯ Hold an apple and know yourself to be the apple of God's eye. ¯ Hold a cactus and flower and ask God to bring life to your dryness. ¯ Hold a "lily of the field" and know how much more valuable you are to God than that. ° Hold a crucifix to feel the gift of Jesus' self-giving love. ¯ Walk slowly, aware that you journey lovingly with God, like Adam in the garden. ¯ Walk, aware that God is at your right hand, so you have nothing to fear. ¯ Walk, aware of the challenge to go the "extra mile" with God or another. ¯ Walk under the stars and moon. Delight in God's greatness and beauty. ¯ Walk slowly, just to restore your inner harmony. ° Sit in a rocking chair or porch swing, and allow yourself to be lulled by God. ¯ Sit with your shoes off, with reverence, like Moses before the burning bush. ¯ Sit near a tree whose roots are partly exposed. Touch the roots and the bark and know your groundedness in God. ¯ Squeeze modeling clay to get in touch with God's desire to fashion you further. ¯ Form modeling clay into some specific image God might be forming you into now. ¯ Form modeling clay into the image you would like to have of God. ° Dance your personal Magnificat or Gloria. ¯ Dance your own DayenuI after writing a list of people and experiences for which you are grateful. ¯ Whistle, skip, or show your delight with God in other ways. ¯ Inhale slowly, realizing that your breath is the very ruah of God flowing through you. ° Inhale what you need from God (peace, forgiveness, etc.). Exhale the opposite (unrest, 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the Body unforgiveness, etc.). ¯ Inhale, letting God speak a word of love. Exhale, returning that word. ¯ Inhale, simply breathing in the goodness of God. ¯ Sit in the breeze. Let it blow through you as the Spirit wills. ¯ Sit in the breeze. Just let it surround you with God's gende presence. ¯ Sit in the breeze or in front of a fan. Feel Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit into you. ¯ Prostrate yourself to get in touch with your littleness, sinfulness, or need for God. ¯ Lie face up, as if paralyzed, accepting your need for God at every moment. ¯ Smile at God and feel God's smile in return. ¯ Look in a mirror and delight in the person God has created, is creating, and will continue to create. ¯ Tighten your fist in confidence against your enemies or fears. ¯ Cup your hands to your ears to emphasize a willingness to listen to God. Be attentive to a storm, and let the reality of God's power penetrate your being. More Suggestions, Involving the Easter Symbols Water ¯ Drink very slowly, using this mantra or a similar one: "Give me to drink." ¯ Sit by flowing waters or running water, and let the sound bring God's calm. ¯ Splash water on yourself to bring God's refreshment. ¯ Sprinkle water freely on your head to experience that God does not give the Spirit "by measure." ¯ Enter into a soft rain. Experience in it God's gentle, abundant presence. ¯ Let rain remind you that God sends "rain on the just and unjust." ¯ Be attentive to a storm, and let the reality of God's power penetrate your being. ¯ Pour water over your feet as if Jesus were ministering to you. White Garment ¯ Be aware of your clothes next to your skin; sense that God touches you even more intimately. ¯ Wrap your hands in strips of cloth, like Review for Religious Lazarus. Let God unbind you. ¯ Place a sheet or blanket over your head to feel your own overshadowing by the Holy Spirit. ¯ Place a sheet or blanket around your shoulders and body to feel the protection of God's "wings." ¯ Move with a blanket around your shoulders and feel that you, too, can fly on eagle's wings. ¯ Touch a bedspread tassel, like touching Jesus' garment, while praying for healing like the woman with the hemorrhage. Light/Fire ¯ Squint and let the rays of a candle penetrate your heart or mind with healing. ¯ Hold a candle near your body to feel the warmth of God within. ¯ Let a flame represent the Spirit of God. Ask for wisdom in a present confusion. ° Let the candle flame open your eyes to see the good in someone whom you do not like right now. ¯ Sit wordlessly before the sunrise or sunset, and use a mantra such as "Fill me with your light." ¯ Walk in midday. As you see the sun peeking through the trees, think of God as winking at you. ¯ Pray in the dark of night with only a vigil light. ¯ Pray one of the biblical stories of a blind person. Do this in the dark or with your eyes tighdy covered. Hands/Oil ¯ Hold your own hand to get in touch with God's strength, comfort, nearness, etc. ¯ Touch your heart or carotid artery. Let every pulse be a prayer of love to God. ¯ Touch with your hands or Bible the parts of your body that need healing (for example, eyes for being judgmental, mouth for talking about others, ears for listening to gossip, etc.). ¯ "Anoint" yourself with oil in areas that need healing. ° Rub in scented lotion to remind yourself that you are to be the aroma of Christ. ¯ Pour oil on your feet, representing the feet of someone you need to forgive. Bread/Wine ¯ Hold a piece of bread or loaf of bread, asking, "Give me (us) this bread always." ¯ Hold different kinds of bread. Break them and get in touch with your brokenness and that of others. ¯ Hold a loaf of bread and 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Pra~in~ with the Bod~ know that God will not give you a stone if you ask for bread. ¯ Take a clear glass of water and add red food coloring, representing the change at Cana and in yourself. ¯ Sip wine very slowly, letting it rest in your mouth. "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." ¯ Sit in a grape arbor to pray the passage of the vine and branches. Two Extended Examples of Praying with the Body Psalm 23. Giv~ yourself plenty of time to enter into this beloved psalm. A day could easily be spent on it. If possible, pray Psalm 23 out of doors. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want; I will never be in need; I lack notbing.--Try to feel how God has faithfully cared for you through people, events, and other blessings. I lie in green grass, verdant pastures, lush meadows.--If you can, lie down outside; otherwise, embrace the verdure in some physical way. For example, hug a leaf to your heart. Stand or sit, if possible, beneath the shade of a large tree. The shepherd leads me beside restful waters, peaceful streams, quiet pools.--If possible, go outside where you can be close to living waters. Otherwise, use a fountain or simply the faucet in your room. Spend time listening to the flow of the waters until you begin to feel calm. The shepherd refreshes my soul, revives my soul, restores my souL--To "help" the shepherd revive you, splash different parts of your body. The shepherd guides me in right paths, in paths of righteousness, in paths of virtue.--Walk slowly and mindfully, trying to feel the presence of the shepherd at your right hand. Even though I walk in a gloomy valley, a dark valley, the darkest valley . . . --Get in touch with any darkness in your life right now. Then close or cover your eyes and continue walking. With his rod and staff the shepherd gives me courage, Review for Religious comfort, security.--Use something to represent the "rod and staff" (like a broom handle or a walking stick). Walk, still in the darkness, with the safety of the walking stick. You could also sit with the handle against your back, trying to feel God's presence and comfort. You spread for me a table, a feast, a banquet.--Eat some of your favorite food. Yearn for the Eucharistic feast and the final banquet in God's reign. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows, runs over, brims oven--Use lotion to "anoint" your head, heart, gut, or any part of you that needs God's abundance. If you lack lotion, pour water on yourself, even on your head. Surely goodness and kindness, goodness and mercy, goodness and love, follow me always.--Con-clude as you began, getting in touch with God's abundance. This could involve returning to some significant ex-perience during this prayer, like listening to the water or pouring water on yourself. If you cannot fully accept this goodness that God promises, let God speak this verse to your heart. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, for my whole life long, for as long as I live.--Again get in touch with the presence of the shepherd in your past. Know that the same shepherd has blessed your life with this psalm in the present. Be assured that you can depend on this faithful shepherd throughout your future. Amen! Walk slowly and mindfully, trying to feel the presence of the shepherd at your right hand. The Song of Songs might be the backdrop for an extended date with Jesus--at least a whole day, perhaps a whole week of retreat. The suggestions that follow are 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the Body geared for an extended length of time. They are intended to give numerous supporting ideas to the text, not specific suggestions on how to pray the Song of Songs itself. The setting. Bring in some favorite flowers and food. Play special love music between prayer times. Burn a fragrant candle or some incense. Anoint yourself with precious lotion. Dress in your favorite clothes. Getting started. Ask that you heart might be ravished. Ask to grow in desire for God; ask to know God's desire for you. Pray while lying on your bed, porch swing, or chaise lounge. Put something under your head to represent the lover's left hand there. During the day. Take a walk "hand in hand" with your Beloved. Sing/dance favorite love songs from your era; let Jesus sing back to you. Draw a mandala2 to express your love. Spend time looking into the eyes of the beloved, while the beloved gazes back at you. Whisper your words of love. Smile to your beloved. Mantra. "You are my Beloved in whom I am well pleased." Experience this mantra in different ways. See it in the beauty of the flowers. Taste it in your special food or drink. Feel it in the warmth of a candle. Smell it in the scent of incense. Touch it in your favorite clothes. Hear it in the music you play or sing. Journaling. Write your favorite names for Jesus and/or his for you. Write your own figures of speech for your beloved; write his for you. Compose a love letter to Jesus. Meal ideas. When you eat, think of being brought into your beloved's banqueting table. Eat slowly and linger after the meal. Eucharistic connection. Ask that your heart may burn within you as Jesus reveals himself in the breaking of the bread. When you receive from the cup, realize that you are drinking the wine of divine love. Fast for an extended period before Eucharist in order to enter more fully into communion, hunger more for God's loving presence, Review for Religious taste the divine goodness, and experience God's abundance. Other Suggestions Some psalms are particularly conducive to body prayer: Psalms 16:5-11; 23; 27; 63:1-8; 91; 131; 139:1-18; 150. Among the best Isaiah readings for prayer with the body are Isaiah 35:1-6; 40:29-31; 43:1-4; 49:14-16; 55:1- 13; 66:10-14a. Other excellent sensate passages from the prophets include Jeremiah 17:7-8; 18:1-6; Ezekiel 36:26- 27; 37:1-14. A sampling of helpful gospel passages: Matthew 5:13- 16; 6:25-34; 7:1-12; 14:22-33; Mark 4:35-41; 5:25-34; 8:22-26; 10:46-52; Luke 1:26-38; 5:3-10; John 2-1-11; 4:7-15; 11:38-44; 13:2-17; 15:1-11; 20:11-18; 20:19-23. The ideas offered here can be useful for running with grace, not ahead of it. They are useful for sensates as well as for intuitives who are developing their sensate function. Depending on the person's disposition, physical condition, and prayer setting, some suggestions will work and others will not. Many ideas listed here, however, have blessed my directees and me for many years. I trust that others who are willing to follow their own creative childlikeness will experience God profoundly in'body prayer. Although the kairos3 of a retreat setting works best, any place or time can be an occasion for the self-revelation of God in our ordinary lives. For centuries St. Paul has called us to use our bodies "for the glory of God" (1 Co 6:20). In our contemporary setting, Tilden Edwards (from the Shalem Institute) says, "Amazing things happen when our bodies join our minds in opening to God." Notes ~ Dayenu is a song from the Jewish Passover service. In it the refrain "that would have been enough" is a response to the abundance of God's 62.3 2003 Nienaber ¯ Praying with the Body blessings (for example, "If you had just fed us with manna from the desert, that would have been enough"). 2 Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning circle or center. It is an ancient symbol of wholeness. Making a mandala (a circular drawing) is a way to come into contact with deeper wisdom from the center within, the unconscious. 3 Kairos is a Greek word meaning the "right time," a time of opportunity. It can suggest fulfillment or the timelessness of eternity, where God's presence abounds. Piet~ Her head is slightly bowed, the gravity of love bending her to him, his death a weight more ponderous than stone. Her hand is stretched out, helpless to account for what the world has come to. What does that open, lifted hand convey? Does it implore the mercy of a hidden God, or beg to know the outcome of a plan incomprehensible to her? Does her hand commend her Son to us and plead for pity, for consideration of his innocence, for justice? I see that hand outstretched for us to take, reminded that her suffering is much like ours: in pain she, too,. is plunged in silence, brokenhearted as she contemplates the loss of all she loves. Kate Martin OSC Review for Religious ELIZABETH A. DREYER Prophetic Voice in Religious Life The desert fathers and mothers had a tradition of going to their abba or amma for a "word" of wisdom. When I was asked to give this 150th-anniversary address, the word prophecy came immediately to mind. Prophecy has been a constant of religious life. Women and men reli-gious, speaking prophetic words, have be-queathed the church and society a legacy of reform and renewal. My interest in prophecy emerged from my reflection on moral courage, which it seemed to me is in rather short supply these days--in society, in business, in education, in politics, and in the church. The road from moral courage to prophecy is not a long one. Who could have predicted even a year or two ago the church's current need of prophetic voices? Numbers of people have seen the prophetic call as central to the charism of Elizabeth A. Dreyer, professor in the Department of Religious Studies of Fairfield University, first presented this paper in September 2002 to inaugurate the 150th year of the Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Petersham, Massachusetts. Her address is Department of Religious Studies; Fairfield University; Fairfield, Connecticut 06430. 62.3 2003 Dreyer * Prophetic Voice in Religious Life religious life.1 Though everyone in the church is called to a prophetic life, institutes of vowed religious have had a distinctive and notable prophetic role down through the ages. It is a challenge to speak of prophecy, for prophecy means spealdng in the name of God. Being a prophet is akin to falling in love: you cannot decide to be a prophet. Nor can you declare that you are one or even be sure that someone else truly is one. The whole business is rife with the dangers of egotism. But there is also danger in refusing to accept the gift of prophecy, in not praying for the courage to be a prophet, and in neglecting to support those around us who are prophets. Timidity and self-protection stem from the knowledge--whether conscious and unconscious--that prophetic activity is dangerous to one's health. And yet the Christian life calls us to learn about and imitate the prophets who have gone before us and on whose shoulders we stand. Our Jewish heritage includes an impressive list of prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Amos, Micah, and others. For Christians, John the Baptist, preparing the way for Jesus, is the prophetic model par excellence. But above all is Jesus, the Jew who fully embodied his tradition of prophetic compassion and courage, dying for his love of the outcast and the stranger, and confronting the religious status quo when it worked against the good of the people. More recently, interest in women's history has awakened us to the lives of prophetic women in the church. Historian Karen L. King notes that in every century women have exercised leadership in Christian communities and that their leadership has been contested. In the first centuries most of the clear cases of women's leadership "based their legitimacy on claims to prophetic experience," but Jo Ann McNamara suggests that, by the mid 3rd century, prophetic voices were overshadowed by Review for Religious clerical organization and leadership? At the Second Vatican Council, when Cardinal Suenens wanted to include in Lumen gentium a section on the share of every baptized person in Christ's prophetic office, Cardinal Ruffini argued that an emphasis on charism could endanger the institutional church.3 Happily today we look not only to John the Baptist and Paul but also to Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Phoebe, Priscilla, and Maximilla; martyrs Agatha, Lucy, Theodora, Perpetua and Felicity, and their 20th-century sisters Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel. Each community has its own list of prophetic figures. The Sisters of the Assumption have founding sisters Leocadie Bourgeois, Julie Heon, Mathilde Leduc, and Hedwige Buisson and later figures such as Alice Mignault and Marguerite Gauthier. More recent prophetic voices of women religious include Margaret Traxler (+2002), Theresa Kane, Mary Luke Tobin, Margaret Brennan, Anita Caspary, Mary Daniel Turner, and Joan Chittister. At this historical moment, how are we to think about the prophetic voice? What are its potentials and pitfalls? Endeavoring to be faithful to the gospel and God's reign on earth, how are we to support prophetic thinking and activity in the 21st century--for the health of each religious community, for religious life as a whole, for the church, society, and the world? As a laywoman I have been inspired by the prophetic lives of women religious. I have learned from your example, and I am privileged to stand with you and for you in your commitment to the life of the people of God. How are we to think about the prophetic voice? What are its potentials and pitfalls ? 62.3 2003 Dreyer * Prophetic Voice in Religious Life The Prophetic Vocation In an article on Hildegard of Bingen, Colman O'Dell describes the prophet's role as one of personal encounter.4 The prophet receives a special summons, an unforgettable experience that God has entrusted to her a message that she must reveal, either in words or by her very life. The prophet is one who yields herself to God as handmaid, witness, or sign. The summons can be to something dramatic and large scale or, for most of us, something ordinary and small scale, to be carried out over a long period of time. Thomas Merton describes the prophet as one who lives in direct submission to the Holy Spirit in order that, by her life, actions, and words, she may be a sign of God in the world. Jean Leclercq speaks of the prophet as a person of neither vague ideas nor ready-made solutions. Rather, prophets are the ones who by the vigor of their concepts and the intensity of their contemplation compel others to act, giving them worthy reason for doing so. Abraham Heschel describes the prophet as one who intensifies responsibility, who is impatient of excuse and contemptuous of pretense and self-pity, who is an exegete "of existence from a divine perspective." The prophet is one who is sensitive to evil and who feels fiercely,s In his classic 1978 work, The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann sees prophecy as being concerned with change and how it comes about. The-prophetic task is to get people to have a perceptive consciousness that will stand against the dehumanizing and death-dealing aspects of our culture.6 Brueggemann describes the enemy of prophetic consciousness as Solomon's royal consciousness in which God's freedom is traded for God's accessibility, an economy of equality is traded for an economy of affluence, and a politics of justice is traded for a politics of oppression. The Solomonic regime silenced criticism through prohibition backed by heavy-handed sanction--or simply ignored it. In such a situation Revieva for Religious the gift of freedom is overtaken by a yearning for order and security.7 As Americans living in the aftermath of 9/11, we know well the seduction of royal consciousness. A prophet is one who understands language and its distinctive power to evoke newness--"fresh from the word.''8 Brueggemann speaks in terms of binary pairs of death and new life: numbness/criticism vs. energy/passion (compassion); death/cross vs. life/resurrection; grief/mourning vs. praise/joy. The prophet calls for an alternative consciousness and an alternative community. Forms of coercion and totalitarianism try to curtail fresh new possibilities and end up diminishing us as human beings. As a remedy, Brueggemann calls for a reappropriation of the biblical prophetic tradition to its full power and authenticity. The Hebrew prophets used poetry to present their vision and inspire listeners to respond. "It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one," Brueggemann says. He reminds us that worship and praise are ways to cut through ideology and recover compassion.9 Jo Ann McNamara concludes her massive treatment on the history of religious life with these words: "In the end, religious life is about worship and the positive benefits that worship brings to the world and its maker.''~° God is the creator of the world; we depend on God's loving compassion and power to make all things new. Praise of God is a wellspring of prophetic living. Discontinuity: Becoming Agents of Change In what follows I explore two particular elements of this prophetic way of living: discontinuity and contemplation. The prophetic voice interrupts "business as usual." It calls attention to, and says no to, the powers 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life The task of prophecy is to encourage people to be involved in the history of their time. of dehumanization wherever they may be. The prophet sees that the present arrangement need not always be so. This vision might apply to the way religious life is lived and structured, ways in which we think about and do ministry, ways that church structures and practice affect the people of God, ways we live as a society and as cifzens of the world. As I have said, the history of religious life reveals a steady stream of visionaries. One thinks of Jane Frances de Chantal, one of the first to question religious enclosure when it inhibited service in the world, and leaders of women's congregations in the mid 20th century who decided that education and worldly awareness would make sisters better teachers and better religious. Richarda Peters, Benedictine prioress in St. Joseph, Minnesota, from 1949 to 1961, encouraged her sisters to create study groups, earn academic degrees, update libraries, and subscribe to the New York Times. Her successor brought in television and encouraged the sisters to read Cardinal Suenens's The Nun in the World2~ The task of prgphecy is to encourage people to be involved in the history of their time. Brueggemann speaks about the visceral experience of waking up to the truth that things are not right. The light bulb goes on, and we wonder why we did not see that before. Pretending that things are fine is no longer an option. This awakening is often followed by feelings of disappointment, grief, and even betrayal. Bringing this hurt to public expression is an important step in dismantling the status quo and permitting a new reality, theological and social, to emerge.~2 Dorothee Soelle says that expressed complaint is the beginning of liberation.13 Review for Religious Prophetic agents of change live as if in a minefield. They may conjure up unwanted feelings of self-doubt: Who am I to demand and expect change? Most of us know that the risks are high. That prophets are not welcome in their own neighborhood is all too true. But, whether we ourselves are prophets or are attuned to those who are, the message can truly be "good news" to people. Even though the price is high, new vision energizes and creates new realities that can be trusted and relied upon. 14 Energy can even come from embracing the inscrutable darkness, trusting that something is on the move, even though I .may not see it.Is Waiting faithfully, with the anticipation of discovering a new way of being church, is prophetic activity. 16 We are also energized by the partisan nature of prophecy. Prophets do not function in the abstract, but always address persons in concrete historical situations. We become aware that God is free and acting for us in this moment, in this very community, in this geographic location. In the last thirty years, the extensive research on specific religious orders of women is gradually correcting past neglect, naming particular people and locations of prophetic activity in the history of religious life. 17 Looking at barriers to prophetic voice, Brueggemann examines the ways that satiation short-circuits passion. He reminds us that satiation--having too much and being full all the time--prevents our noticing that the king has no clothes. It dulls our capacity to be imaginative, caring, and passionate, to suffer, to live and die. We avoid facing up to failure; we shrink from the thought that there is an end to things as they have been. Consumerism tricks us into a false sense that "all is well." "The task of prophetic imagination," Brueggemann says, "is to cut through the numbness, to penetrate the self-deception, so that the God of endings is confessed as Lord." ~8 This is as true of the church as it is of society and the world. 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life The dehumanizing aspects of our consciousness and practice can be mitigated. They have no final claim on us. The despair created by the king leads to hopelessness, infecting those who are excluded and those who have everything. But prophets like Second Isaiah, attesting God's radical freedom, announce genuine novelty to exiled Israel: God could have a change of mind. Ironically, those who know this kind of prophetic dying most painfully are the very persons who can convey hope most vigorously. And, just as grief undoes numbness, amazement confounds despair. Amazement, says Brueggemann, is the ultimate energizer. With the prophet's help, Israel finds that singing is again possible. Song indicates new life. All of us can recall not being able to sing because of depression or anger, satiety or preoccupation--and then discovering that we could sing again. Thus hope is born, and whenever it happens we are amazed.19 Jesus, coming after John the Baptist, is also a prophet. He lives at the margins and interacts with other marginal people who respond with awe---~om the shepherds at the birth to the crowds pursuing him in Mark's Gospel. Jesus' compassion takes many forms: he is not afraid to criticize the old order, he is ready to heal and forgive, he invites people to freedom from their enslavements. Newness brea~ in because "Jesus had the capacity to give voice to the very hurt that had been muted." Suffering made audible and visible produces hope; articulated grief is the gate of newness. The history of Jesus is the history of entering into the pain and giving it voice.2° Standing at the decisive end of royal consciousness is the cross. The Way of Contemplation A second hallmark of prophetic voice is living a contemplative existence. Many theologians, including the well-known German Jesuit Karl Rahner, have made the Review for Religious plea that, if Christians are to survive into the future, they will have to become mystics in the world. I think our experience in the post-Vatican II church and in the postmodern world teaches us that mysticism and prophecy are not clashing symbols but interdependent requirements for gospel living. In antiquity, prophecy was considered a natural role for women, and in the early Corinthian community, for example, prophecy and prayer were closely linked.2~ Thus, we are not called to be mystics or activists but mystics and activists. Sandra Schneiders underlines this truth when she describes religious life as a prophetic life-form characterized by two linked realities--contemplative immediacy to God and social marginality. Indeed, she calls prophetic action the public face of mysticism.22 Genuine prophetic speech and action are grounded inholiness. Prophecy requires that one take time to attend to God's word. It demands singleness of purpose, what we used to call "purity of heart." It requires allowing oneself to be penetrated by the Spirit, thus gaining a certain freedom from external authorities. Authentic solitude and silent presence before God allow us to become "tuned in" to the ways of God and, out of this knowledge, to lament and speak a word of vision and hope to the church and to the poor. Genuine prayer helps us avoid making egregiously wrong projections in God's name, and this can be painful. To begin with, it is not easy to identify subde projections by which we make God into our own image, and when we do discover them it is difficult to let them go. Most of us are comfortable with the God we have experienced and imagined, but, unless we become freer to let God be God, we dare not venture into the world of prophetic utterance. God is the source and wellspring of prophetic life and mission, and only contemplation keeps us intimately attuned to God's voice.23 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life A hallmark of the mystical encounter is a sense of being at one with the world. This is an enjoyable experience and needs to be celebrated when it breaks into our consciousness. But often we do not allow this sense of cosmic unity to lead us to effective community living. How do epiphanies of connectedness lead us to prophetic voice on behalf of human community? The basic answer is that contemplative existence grounds prophetic activity. Generally, one doeg not speak a prophetic word out of the blue, even though prophetic speech has an element of spontaneity, like a "late-breaking news bulletin" from God. But, like a concert pianist's spontaneity and apparent effortlessness, prophecy depends on a life of paying attention to God in prayer. Genuine contemplation does not lead toward withdrawal or removal from the world, but just the opposite. The prophet is one who immerses herself in the joys and especially the sufferings of the world. Prophetic solidarity translates into acknowledging the truth of the present moment, however bleak it may seem. Prophets are "sent to participate humbly and fragilely in the darkness, to experience it as their own, but without losing heart." This faithful perseverance leads one to seek solutions and victory, but not to give up when failure is the outcome. Such a life requires both realism and deep spiritual reserves.24 The prophet identifies and gives voice to the sins of one's culture: consumerism, rampant individualism, fragmentation, and alienation. In her book Woman Strength: Modern Church, Modern Woman, Joan Chittister underlines the need for communal leadership against a rampantly individualistic culture. She calls for a spirituality of contemplative cocreation in which we look at the causes of social brokenness and begin to see the link between the personal and the political. "We need to intervene for one another," she says. "We need a new worldview that puts the old one 'in new light.'''25 Review for Religqous A simple way to enhance contemplation in the service of prophetic solidarity with the poor is to dwell within the words of the Hebrew prophets to see what they mean for us today. We begin by asking: Who were these people? What were the circumstances of their lives? What were their doubts and fears? How did they overcome them? How did they manage to love so much that they risked life and limb to speak the prophetic word? Abraham Heschel asks: "What gave them the strength to 'demythologize' precious certainties, to attack what was holy, to hurl blasphemies at priest and king, to stand up against all in the name of God?" He says they "must have been shattered by some cataclysmic experience in order to be able to shatter others." 26 In a 1997 article Brueggemann describes how the biblical text becomes newly available, how it can erupt into new usage and be seized upon to illuminate the present. This moment can be both personal and communal. He writes: "What has been tradition, hovering in dormancy, becomes available experience . In that utterance, the word does lead reality." In order for the prophetic word to remain ever new, someone has to have imagination and intuition and the courage to assert that texts from the past can and must be "concretely relocated in and specifically readdressed to contemporary contexts." Persons like this "permit the explosion of text whereby the world is transformed.''27 Meditating deeply on the following passages can lead us in such a direction. Listen, I groan under the burden of you, as a wagon creaks under a full load. (Am 2:13) You that turn justice upside down and bring righteousness to the ground, you that hate someone who brings the wrongdoer to court and loathe the one who speaks the whole truth: 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Reh~ious Life for all this, because you levy taxes on the poor. though you have built houses of hewn stone, you shall not live in them. (Am 5:7-11) Spare me the sound of your songs; I cannot endure the music of your lutes. Let justice roll like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Am 5:23-24) Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord. Though your sins are scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they are dyed crimson, they may yet be like wool. (Is 1:18) The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: Light has dawned upon them, dwellers in a land as dark as death. Thou hast increased their joy and given them great gladness; Hey rejoice in your presence as people rejoice at harvest. (Is 9:2-3) These and other prophets past and present inspire us to become more and more convinced that a "new word" and "new light" are possible in every age. We must be the ones to assume the responsibility to remind the church that no one has a corner on God's word and that we dare not put a period, where there should be a comma, when it comes to God's plan for creation. Prophetic voices are needed in a church that "disputes how women can image Christ; restricts rather than promotes women's preaching; rejects dialogue with feminist theology; refuses to discuss women's leadership roles in liturgical assemblies; takes Review for Religious punitive action against women's public speech on controversial issues; considers qualified women ineligible for administrative offices and prohibits gender-inclusive texts in its public prayer."~s The Madeleva Manifesto, issued in 2000 by a group of Catholic theologians, states: "To women in ministry and theological studies, we say: Reimagine what it means to be the whole body of Christ. The way things are now is not the design of God." Past and Future One aspect of celebrating and being grateful for the past involves cocking an eye toward the future. W'e ask how we can honor the memories, the dedication, the love and accomplishments of those who have gone before us. How do we extend their legacy into a new millennium? This is no easy task. The prophetic voice of women religious may be intended primarily for the church, but it extends to the wider faith and civic communities. There are many challenges in the American church, in religious life, and in our culture. But, amidst the plethora of problems, one thing remains clear: The prophet must be attuned to the cause of the poor and suffering and act on their behalf. This is the rock upon which we stand and which must weather the slings and arrows of both ecclesial and social existence. Words of support and challenge are in order. While all baptized Christians are called to find inspiration and truth in the message of the Bible, women religious are eminently equipped to do so. The Spirit must be allowed to empower and embolden you, to give you confidence to The prophet must be attuned to the cause of the poor and suffering and act on their behalf. 62.3 2003 Dreyer * Prophetic Voice in Religious Life interpret the signs of the times in light of the gospel and speak and act on this knowledge. Your lifestyle, your experience, your prayer, your dedication, your commitment to discernment, all this enables and propels you to live and speak and act in Christ's name. It benefits not only your communities, but also the church and the world. Your prophetic voices are needed. Confronting a sinful church begins in humility, in the awareness that the sin I protest resides firmly in the center of my own heart. The church has an ambiguous record on this front. She has always embraced the principle that reform must be a constant dynamic in the church, but has often shied away from embracing this truth in action. The renowned 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich noted that a major Protestant criticism of the Roman church is the "exclusion of the prophetic self-criticism" by an authoritarian system.29 Awareness of the beam in one's own eye prevents making condescending judgments about others. But we cannot stop there. We must love God and the world and the church enough to be willing to cry out against the arrogance, deceit, and secrecy that burden most heavily the poor, the oppressed, the person in the pew. The danger in a time such as ours is to get distracted and deflected from hearing the call to prophecy. It is appropriate to commission studies and to meet and talk about the alarming statistics on religious life--health, membership, age, finances. But these concerns cannot be allowed to turn you in on yourselves, instead of outward to the reform of the church and the alleviation of suffering in the world. And, while we may need time-outs to step back from the fray and regroup, we must not give in to the temptation to withdraw out of legitimate frustration and anger. We need to act as individuals and as a community, embracing the responsibility and the honor of being agents of new vision. We cannot leave it Review for Religious to clerical leaders or to those with stronger, louder, deeper voices. The church needs women religious to resist being co-opted by the clerical culture of power, privilege, and denial. We need you to protest tactics of intimidation and silencing. And we hope and pray that you will have the courage to withstand the suffering of not being welcome in your own country. The Spirit blows where it will (1 Co 12:8-11), and I find that it often blows in the lives of mature, dedicated women religious. We laypersons, who have so often been empowered by you, are called to join you in this much-needed prophetic ecclesial mission. The prophet speaks also to culture. As we move from despising and fleeing culture to a critical embrace of it, we cast a loving, compassionate, contemplative gaze on it and on all cultures. Because we stand within our culture, not outside it, we are both tainted by its sins and enriched by its creations and discoveries. In simplicity and courage we need to protest against arrogance, individualism, and consumer ways. By living and thinking on the margins, we must speak a word of love to the most desperate, despised, and forgotten among us. Since we cannot fight excessive individualism with more individualism, we are cailed to figure out how to act communally, to marshal our resources to witness to the Spirit's plan to make all things new. We are called to take a prophetic stance toward the rampant individualism of our culture by acknowledging our shared vulnerability, respecting and loving our differences and yet inviting others to dwell in community with us. Mary Grey pleads with us to "take the responsibility of becoming the kinds of communities which challenge society and live by a transforming ethic, communities which 'shine like stars' because they are offering the word of life." 30 She locates hope in the witness of the community as prophet. In the face of dwindling resources and aging, this kind of fidelity 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life to the mission, this showing up each and every day to do the Lord's work, is in itself a prophetic act of enormous value and goodness. The prophet is many things. To be open to and touched by this gift is to be honored with an invitation from God. It is also to be burdened with heavy responsibility, to be ripped open and rejected, scorned and ridiculed. For the point of the prophet's life is not primarily her own burdens, but those of a suffering world in desperate need of hope. The prophetic voice both disturbs and gives hope, and this requires keeping close touch with God's purifying presence, seeing oneself as lowly and humbly developing the skills of discernment and surrender. We are grateful for those who have gone before us, and we celebrate our membership in the communion of saints. We are linked by the desire arid the promise to be faithful to living a gospel life in each generation. The witness of our ancestors in the faith calls us to recommit ourselves to be Christians who dare to voice a prophetic word in our time, who dare to offer a word of hope from our experience that God is faithful, and who dare to hear and respond to the gospel invitation: "Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light" (Mr 11:28-30). Notes ' See Sandra Schneiders [HM, Finding the Treasure: Locating Catholic Religious Life in a New Ecclesial and Cultural Context (New YorlotMahwah: Paulist Press, 2000) and Selling All: Commitment, Consecrated Celibacy, and Community in Catholic. Religious Life (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2001); Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996); Nadine Foley, ed., ~ourney in Faith and Fidelity: Women Shaping Religious Life for a Renewed Church (New York: Continuum, 1999); Joan Chittister, The Fire in These Ashes: A Review for Religious Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life (Kansas City: Sheed Ward, 1995) and Woman Strength: Modern Church, Modern Woman (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990); Barbara Fiand, Living the Vision: 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). 2 Karen L. King, "Prophetic Power and Women's Authority: The Case of the Gospel of Mary [Magdalene]," in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 21 and 35. 3 See Mary Catherine Hilkert OP, Speaking with Authority: Catherine of Siena and the Voices of Women Today (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000, p. 43. Colman O'Dell, "Elizabeth of Schonau and Hildegard of Bingen; Prophets of the Lord," in Peace Weavers, ed. J.A. Nichols and L.T. Shank (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1987), pp. 85-102. ~ Cited in Abraham Heschel, The Prophets: An Introduction (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 12ft. 6 Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1976), p. 13. 7 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 36-37. 8 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 9-10. 9 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 45 and 26-27. 10McNamara, Sisters in Arms, p. 637. ~ See With Hearts Expanded: Transformation in the Lives of Benedictine Women, St. Joseph, Minnesota, 1957-2000 by Evin Rademacher, Emmanuel Renner, Olivia Forster, and Carol Berg (St. Cloud: North Star Press, 2002), cited in History of Women Religious News and Notes 15, no. 1 (February 2002): 4. ,2 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 20-21. ,3 Dorothee Soelle, Suffering, trans. Everett R. Kalin (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), pp. 70-76. ,4 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, p. 23. ,s See Constance FitzGerald, "Impasse and the Dark Night," in Women's Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development (2nd ed.), ed. Joann Wolski Conn (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996), pp. 410- 435. 16 Mary C. Grey, "Prophecy and Mysticism: The Heart of the Postmodern Church," Scot-fish Journal of Theology (1997): 53. 17 Recent examples include Dominicans at Home in a Young Nation: 1786-1865 (Chicago: Project OPUS); Women of the Vale: Perthville Josephites 1872-1972 by Marie Crowley (Melbourne: Spectrum Publications, 2000); Beyond the Adobe Wall: 1852-1894 by Patricia Jean 62.3 2003 Dreyer ¯ Prophetic Voice in Religious Life Manion SL (Independence, Missouri: Two Trails Press, 2002); Barbara Misner, The Living Love of Christ among Us: The History of the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, 3 vols. (privately printed by the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, 1999). An excellent listing of new books on religious life can be found in History of Women Religious: News and Notes, ed. Karen M. Kennelly (2311 South Lindbergh Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63131). ,8 Brueggeman, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 47 and 49. ,9 Brueggeman, Prophetic Imagination, pp. 69, 70, and 79 20 Brueggeman, Prophetic Imagination, p. 88. 21 See Antoinette Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). 22 Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, pp. 137 and 150. 23 Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, p. 317. 24 Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, pp. 327 and 334-335. 2s Chittister, Woman Strength, pp. 69-70. z6 Heschel, Prophets, p. 12. 27 Walter Brueggemann, "Texts That Linger, Words That Explode," Theology Today 54, no. 2 (July 1997): 181 and 198. 2~ Hilkert, Speaking with Authority, pp. 2-3. 29 Paul Tillich, The Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper,1957), p. 72. 30 Grey, "Prophecy and Mysticism," pp. 23 and 62. Sadness Today I embrace the air. The embodiment of heart and mind, .flesh and bone are gone. Too soon a (oraithlikefigure replaced reality l~aving only memories. Marcella LaKoske OP Review for Religious NIHAL ABEYASINGHA Charism: Is Marketing Needed? Ubnuti luenvdeer rs eslelsv eitns dfaibffreicr esnotf tneanmer etsh,r oouftgehno uwt iEthu rdoipf-e ferent bottles and different marketing strategies and sometimes even different formulas. Candy maker Mars no longer sells "Mars" bars in the United States; the same product is now called "Snickers Almond," and American "Milky Way" bars (same as ever) are sold in Europe as "Mars" bars. Such is the adaptability of mod-ern marketing. How, then, might one go about market-ing the productmor telling the story--of a religious institute's charismatic accomplishments and endeavors? This article argues that one needs to identify the project the founder launched (pastoral care) by identifying where his heart was (pastoral sensitivity). In particular, it deals with the Redemptorists, a congregation founded in 1732 and approved by the pope in 1749. Today's efforts to rediscover the charism of religious congregations often turn into an intellectual exercise-- doing meticulous historical research and then making the findings available to members through seminars, vis-its to places associated with the founder, and so forth. Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR writes again from the University of Kelaniya; 454/9 Piachaud Gardens; Kandy 20000; Sri Lanka. 1_9.KO~ 62.3 2003 But maybe a question asked by St. Bernard needs to be asked again: "What kind of concept could human beings have of God [in their mind] unless they first had an image of God in their heart?" This implies that people can have almost no idea of God in their mind until they first choose to love God through the image of him they find in their heart. Similarly, today's "bearers of the charism" need to examine whether their hearts are where their founder's heart was. I suggest that this would call for a refinement in the religious congregation's method of research into its charism. A Note on Method The historical method seeks to learn what the founders were thinking when they established their reli-gious institute. One arrives at the origins of that thought and traces its progress and completion. Whatever con-clusions are drawn are shown to have existed in some way in the founder's consciousness. That is a legitimate method of historical research. But, regarding a charism, I suggest that one is deal-ing with where the founder's heart was. The founder first has a commitment in his heart. It is only later that he emphasizes from the Christian memory and tradition what fits in with that commitment. The elements he highlights and puts together are never the total Christian vision. The founder in his insight is an artist, and a cri-terion of good artists is that they highlight some partic-ular thing in such a way that the "universal" shines forth more brightly. The founder did not first create a system of thought (a theory) and then fit his project into it. Rather, he first "fell in love" with the "project" in front of him. How? Why? Because he saw and experienced certain events in the world and their impact on his life as a Christian. He responded and witnessed to them. He invited others to join his project so that the witness could Review for Religious continue. I argue that the priority is the heart. The head follows, making sure that the heart ("Love is blind!") is not chasing after vanity. Rediscovering an historical fact or some perspective of a former era is a valid study in itself and a contribu-tion to knowledge, but, in matters of love and a tradition of love, the issues are different. One needs to keep alive today (in a world that has obviously changed) the story of a particular heartfelt response to events of a former era. Witnessing anew with-out changing the story is what is called for. The successive bearers of the charism do not have a different insight from the founder's. The present bearers of the charism have to love with the same insight. This is not primarily propositional truth or even a crys-tal- clear concept. This love produces a kind of feeling (or instinct or sixth sense) for the insight of the founder. It brings about a virtuous disposition such as "justness" (not justice) and "chasteness" (not chastity) bring to what is just and chaste. Ask any Redemptorist and he will tell you that the aim of the congregation is to preach the gospel to those who are pastorally "most abandoned" or most in need. That is propositional truth. After one or several of such groups are identified, ministry to them is made a prior-ity in each unit of the institute. But the crux of the mat-ter is what "insight" or "virtuous disposition" operates in regard to this target group. Is the agenda for action set by the target group where they actually are, in their iden-tity and reality as Christians, or from the textbooks of theology? In my opinion and that of several close asso- One needs to keep alive today the story of a particular heartfelt response to events of a former era. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingha * Charism ciates, there is something wanting in the textbook approach. It does not seem to have captured the imagi-nation either of the majority in the institute or of the people to whom its ministry is offered. So the question is: How does one identify the original insight, foster a love and feeling for that insight, and then put the "story" into practice in our own day? Alphonsus ahead of and behind His Time Alphonsus in some ways was ahead of his time. He anticipated, for example, the development of doctrine in the church and required the members of the institute to take a vow to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, before it was defined in 1854. But in some ways he was also falling behind, defending positions that do not have theological defend-ers today. Looking at matters in which Alphonsus fell behind may illustrate his "marketing" strategy. It came to me as something of a shock to read his refutation of a work of Dom Leoluca Rolli, a priest of Calabria, titled II Novello Progetto, o sia Dissertazione del buon uso delle Litanie, ed altre preghiere (The New Project, or Dissertation on the Good Use of the Litanies and Other Prayers).~ This was in 1775, and the Redemptorist congregation had been started in 1732. Mphonsus takes up basically three issues against Rolli: (1) the popular belief that house of the Mary was brought by angels to Loretto, (2) some titles used in regard to Mary in the Litany of Loretto, and (3) the singing or recitation of that litany before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. As regards the popular belief about the house of Loretto, Rolli considered it an account that runs like a fable. In his refutation Alphonsus refers to popes who said that the house was taken by the ministry of angels to Loretto. He goes on to say that the denial of this belief Review for Religious is common among Protestant authors, in contrast to Catholic authors. Obviously, in the view of the rational-ists of the time, the argument was weak. Today's theolo-gians would not set much store on Alphonsus's reasoning. Rolli thought the titles Tower of David, Tower of Ivory, and House of Gold used in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin were affectations, using words without adequate meaning. He thought that Mirror of .Justice, Refuge of Sinners, Morning Star, and Gate of Heaven were titles that should refer only to .Jesus. Alphonsus's refutation was simply that people in the church, including priests and religious, saw no problem with using this litany and that popes had approved it. He adds, "They are all [expres-sions] of piety and tenderness towards our holy queen, that we may trust the more in her protection." Rolli considered it an abuse to chant the Litany of the Blessed Virgin before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Alphonsus admits that prayers should be directed to.Jesus our Savior, for he alone is absolutely necessary as a ~neans of salvation. But he goes on to say that others are nec-essary, not by a necessity of means, but by moral neces-sity, to help our confidence the more. "In this light, when we chant the Litany of the Blessed Virgin before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, Mary is asked to present our prayers to Jesus Christ.''2 The Sense of Alphonsus's Arguments Today the views of Rolli are commonly accepted. Should Alphonsus even at that time have seen some value in Rolli's opinions and conceded some probability to them? Why did he reject them without qualification? My short answer is that Alphonsus realized how impor-tant the Catholic sense of identity was at the time. He knew the importance of consciously "being different." His "pastoral care" was rooted in "pastoral sensitivity" for that sense of identity. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ~° Charism Priests, after spending years studying th6ology, tend to apply theological categories to pastoral situations with little sensitivity for the people's felt needs. Pastoral care involves sensitivity to the human situation, the sensitiv-ity of a shepherd leading his flock to pasture. That sen-sitivity raises questions. What instincts and heartfelt feelings of the people should he be careful not to offend, and why? What needs changing, and why? These are delicate questions. In the 18th century, the very things Rolli criticized were popularly held. Even the popes had reflected them in their writings. Rolli wanted to set those beliefs aside in the name of rationality. Alphonsus had a different con-cern. His stand was with the people, the majority. From that standpoint he would consider whether the "logic of reason" was a pastoral basis to eliminate those devotional titles and whether dropping them might leave a gap in the "logic of life." What would take their place? Would people feel at home in their faith without holding on to such devotional patterns? He concluded that eliminat-ing such popular piety would be pastorally harmful. I suggest that questions like these would have arisen as part of the "pastoral sensitivity" of Alphonsus. Such ques-tions are important today as well. In other words, peo-ple, their own perceived identity, and their felt needs--rather than the latest theological opinions-- should influence ministry agendas, especially the min-istries' points of insertion. In Alphonsus's day many people who were devoted to the traditional Litany of Loretto would have been unable to understand the principles of rationalism. Alphonsus probably understood them, or at least had the gifts of mind to understand them. The only ones at that time who rejected the traditional litany and even ridiculed it were Protestants. Alphonsus would have known that for him to reject such devotional formulations would be Review for Religious understood by many as encouraging, at least implicitly, some close rapport with Protestants. Alphonsus's view was that the people (including himself, a highly emo-tional Neapolitan) would not feel at home without the support (emotional and otherwise) of such devotions and prayers. That would confuse ordinary people. He had no adequate substitute to offer. It would have been like advocating email in Asia in the 1980s. Few Asians even knew of email's existence, and the infrastructure for it was not in place. In the 2000s the situation in Asia is dif-ferent. What Alphonsus hoped to achieve by his unquali-fied rejection of Rolli's ideas was a communication of truth (pastoral care) that would be attractive (pastoral sensitivity) to their sense of identity as individual believ-ers and as a community. He wanted to communicate, not pure speculative truth, but existential truth related to them as persons. Alphonsus wanted to touch ordinary people where they happened to be. To be touched in this way could turn out to be a moment of truth for peo-ple. Pastoral sensitivity finds a way to lead people to an encounter with truth. Truth has its way of cutting across the "lie" by which people sometimes try to live. The fol-lowing passage from a novel by Andrew Greeley explains what I mean. "Ellen's worst sin was against Ellen." Ellen is on her knees confessing to a priest named Kevin. Both of them have known each other for many years, and Kevin's family has assisted Ellen financially during a period of need. She says she has been away from the sacraments for ten years, and she lists her many sins. After she finishes, Kevin (who is the novel's narrator) speaks. "I'm still waiting for the real sin, the only sin," I said. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Charism She [Ellen] tilted her head. "I've told every-thing." "You haven't told the one important thing. You were mad at God and mad at the church and pretended for a long time you could get away from both." "I don't want to talk about it," she said. "Then no absolution," I said firmly. She tugged her hand to free it. I wasn't ¯ going to let it go. "Don't you have an ounce of compassion in that ice-cold soul of yours?" "If you want compassion, Ellen, go to your husband or have him recommend a psychia-trist who will listen sympathetically. If you want absolution, don't play games." She stopped tugging. We were quiet for a long time. "That's the only one that does matter, isn't it?" she said. "All right, Kevin, I'll say it, and you'll have to mop up the tears on this hard floor of yours. I blamed the church and God for things that were inside me and my family. I focused on all the ugly things and forgot about Father Conroy and Sister Caroline and first Communion and May crownings and High Club dances and midnight Mass and all those wonderful things that I love so much. I gave them all up because I was angry. I blamed the church for Tim's death. I loved him so much. I couldn't save him, and I thought the church should have saved him. Even when doing it, I knew I was wrong and that someday I'd be kneeling on the floor before you and pleading to be let back in." "And now you have done it," I said . She put her head against my knee and wept. Review for Religious Then she gathered herself together and said, "So Ellen's worst sin was against Ellen.-3 "Ellen's worst sin was against Ellen" is not humanism. A foundational element of Pope John Paul's teaching is that "man is the way of the church." But "man" must be understood in terms of the man, Jesus Christ. Salvation is when the individual lets Jesus Christ judge his life and values ("wanting absolu-tion"). Humanism is when people reformulate Jesus in their own image and like-ness ("playing games"). The former course is an expansion, an openness to the Infinite; the latter is a reduction of Jesus to the measure of one's own finiteness. The former is redemptive; the latter is ratio-nalization and self-justification: narcissism. I suggest that the former is where the charism of a religious institute is centered; the latter is what may be called "pastoral opportunism." Pastoral sensitivity varies according to differences in the charisms of various institutes. ¯ Playing Games or Wanting Absolution? "If you want compassion, go to your husband .I.f. you want absolution, don't play games." How true! How easily the two are confused! "Ellen's worst sin was against Ellen"--that is different. The enumeration of one's sins is an objective matter, but the moment of conversion is existential, the realization that "I have sinned. I will go back to my Father. That is¯ where I am at home; in fact, I have nowhere else to go" (see Lk 15:11-31). Human beings need saving. All creation shares in the salvation of the human. "Creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord, but because of the one who subjected it in hope that creation itself would be set free from slav- 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Charism ery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rm 8:19-20). There is nothing wrong with compassion, but, in the perspective of absolution (existential salvation, redemp-tion today), there has to be more than compassion on the part of the pastor. The link between compassion and salvation is naming the game and discovering one's iden-tity in commitment and relationship to oneself, one's fellow human beings, and God. In the scene quoted above, Ellen has known Kevin for years and has experienced the generosity of his fam-ily. But as pastor he brings her to realize the injustice she is doing to herself. In that discovery and realization, she discovers the church community she has abandoned and God, who is present in that community. She sees that she is always welcome to the church and to the peo-ple and things she admits she loves: Father Conroy, Sister Caroline, May crownings, dances, and so forth. It is the entire mixture of ritual, imagery, and flesh-and-blood community that makes her feel at home. And yet we know that none of these are a hundred percent per-fect. Such is the church. What needs to be preserved for the individual in the church and for the church as a community is this feeling of being at home. In that setting people realize their true human and Christian identity. They do not blame the church and God "for things that were inside me and my family." Feeling at home does not mean complacency. To all--believers and unbelievers--the church must preach faith and conversion (see Sacrosanctum concilium, §9). Permitting people to "play games" and evade their call to conversion is not part of its mission. The Clarification of Pastoral Sensitivity Pastoral sensitivity varies according to differences in the charisms of various institutes. Is a given charism Review for Religious meant to function from the top down or from the bot-tom up? The top-down function is a way of exhibiting some transcendental value. Thus does a contemplative order bear witness to God's transcendence in any envi-ronment. In contrast, a charism that functions from the bottom up takes people where they are and leads them higher. Alphonsus's charism is certainly bottom-up. Redemptorist pastoral sensitivity, therefore, must be alert to where people actually are and concerned with them in their situation. The concrete situation determines the charism's "point of insertion" and the subsequent agenda. Does theology have a role in this agenda, and, if so, what is that role? First, it needs to be said that what unites the Christian community is faith, not theology. Pastoral care, first and foremost, contributes to growth in faith. Pastoral care is an art, discerning how faith func-tions in this person and this situation and then doing with skill whatever contributes to the growth of that faith. Theology, of course, does have a role in pastoral care. Years of formation in the science of theology provide principles for the art of pastoral care. Theology states and clarifies the goal of the Christian journey. Newman says: "Theology begins, as its name denotes, not with any sensible facts, phenomena, or results, not with nature at all, but with the Author of nature--with the one invis-ible, unapproachable Cause and Source of all things. It begins at the other end of knowledge, and is occupied, not with the finite, but the Infinite. It unfolds and sys-tematizes what he himself has told us of himself; of his nature, his attributes, his will, and his acts.''4 In this pro-cess of theology, logic is important, but, as Newman says, "logic does not really prove; it enables us to join issue with others; it suggests ideas; it opens views; it maps out for us the lines of thought; it verifies nega-tively; it determines when differences of opinions are 62.3 2003 Abeyasingha ¯ Charism Pastoral care is not a matter of saying and doing what pleases the majority. hopeless; and when and how far conclusions are proba-ble; but for genuine proof in concrete matter we require an organon more delicate, versatile, and elastic than ver-bal argumentation.''s Theology and pastoral care can enrich each other, but how does that work? In pastoral care the starting point is the finite: this individual, this situation. More than strict logic, there needs to be a "clinical sense." What "symptoms" does one perceive? Are there inter-connections? What is the diagnosis, and what treatments are possible? What treatment seems best? How is faith func-tioning here? What prin-ciples operate, however obscured they may be by seeming illogicality? Pas-toral care, in this perspective, is art and poetry. Artists have "insights" and then present them, using the best subject matter and materials and techniques known to them. In their presentations the artists and their glimpses and visions (all finite) that were the starting point rec-ognize themselves as called to grow towards the Infinite. What Rolli glimpsed in the Litany of Loretto were defects--they were indeed defects in the light of a the-ology influenced by rationalism. His solution was to eliminate them. The consequences of doing so were not his concern. I would suggest that Alphonsus's pastoral insight was that he saw how God operated and how pop-ular piety, defective though it was, was indeed express-ing faith in God. His pastoral sensitivity saw the danger of eliminating without substituting. He saw the possi-bility of initiating growth from "within." Pastoral care is not a matter of saying and doing what pleases the majority. That would be pastoral oppor- Review for Religious tunism. Pastoral care leads to an encounter with truth. Hence it is the pastor's function to uncover the truth that exists in what people do and then lead them beyond it. There is truth even in the fables, myths, and legends of popular piety. As Newman says, "fables are economies or accommodations, being truths and principles cast into that form in which they will be most vividly recognized; ¯. Again, mythical representations, at least in their bet-ter form, may be considered facts or narratives, untrue, but like the truth, intended to bring out the action of some principle, point of character, and the like. For instance, the tradition that St. Ignatius [of Antioch] was the child whom our Lord took in his arms, may be unfounded; but it realizes to us his special relation to Christ and his apostles, with a keenness peculiar to itself. The same remark may be made upon certain narratives of martyrdoms, or of the details of such narratives, or of certain alleged miracles, or heroic acts, or speeches, all of which are the spontaneous produce of religious feel-ing under imperfect knowledge. If the alleged facts did not occur, they ought to have occurred (if I may so speak); they are such as might have occurred, and would have occurred, under circumstances . Many a theory or view of things, on which an institution is founded, or a party held together, is of the same kind.''6 Acknowledging Identity in Affirmation of Difference At no point does Alphonsus say that the truth of the fables of popular piety are truths of faith or that they are the core of Christian faith. Alphonsus was clear in his own theological principles. He asserted that Jesus is the only mediator necessary by necessity of means¯ But he also knew that, in actual day-to-day living, people accepted other mediators as well, and so he speaks of them as a moral necessity. In the sphere of religion, Maryi_9.tLl__ 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Charism is a secondary mediator. That was the situation--as it stood with its imperfect and accommodated knowledge. As pastor he would present a picture of Mary and the saints as mediators on a different level from Jesus. He would insist that her primary function is to lead us to Jesus. On a secondary level she helps us in our imperfect situation by presenting our prayers to Jesus, increasing our confidence, and so forth. Alphonsus recognized that Catholic identity at that time included being different from Protestants and ratio-nalists. At that time Catholics honored Mary in ways that could be assessed rationally as exaggerated and imperfect--and which brought on ridicule from Protestants and rationalists. To seem to condone their ridicule would lessen their identity (their "being differ-ent") and tantamount to joining them. It was part of Catholic identity, of feeling at home, to retain the devo-tion as it was traditionally practiced. Alphonsus therefore rejects the rational and theologically assimilable posi-tions of Rolli. (Today Rolli's views are part of the Catholic tradition and Catholic identity. It was not so in the 18th century, and could not have been.) Alphonsus had to deal with the theological doctrine that acts of devotion performed by one who was not in the state of grace did not avail for salvation. He could not deny this; it was the common doctrine. So he searched at the human level for the benefits of such devotion. He says (with Thomas Aquinas and Robert Bellarmine) that, although such acts of devotion do not in themselves jus-tify, they at least dispose sinners to obtain justification through the merits of Mary and the saints. He points out at least three possible benefits that could accrue to sinners from such devotion: making them accustomed to good works, obtaining for them temporal favors, and disposing them to receive grace. In other words, sinners who practice devotion to Mary have a better chance of Review for Religious cooperating with grace and being justified than sinners who do not have such devotion. Acknowledging Identity and Moving Forward For Alphonsus, acknowledging identity through dif-ference was the beginning, not the end, of pastoral care. He wished to lead people to deeper understanding of their faith, but always worked first on their hearts, their emotions. His Glories of Mary is a com-mentary on the "Hail Holy Queen," a prayer that ratio-nalists ridiculed. That prayer gave him a framework for his pastoral strategy. He was not merely justifying popular devotion to Mary, but also inserting elements that would help the pray-er grow in faith. As Alphonsus saw it, the prayer combined contrasts (queen/mother; life/banished children). It abounded with words that evoke intense emotion. The climax of the prayer is an accurate theological description of what Christian life is: "After this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus." He makes Jesus the final goal of conversion. Until that goal is reached, even the slightest devotion to Mary, if carried through with perse-verance, gives the sinner hope. She becomes his patron, and exalted patronage was a well-known practice. In The Glories of Mary, Alphonsus takes the "Hail, Holy Queen" as it is and plays on the contrasts that are brought together in addressing Mary. "Queen" evokes power, while "mother" evokes love. Mary nurtures "life," even though our lives are precarious because of the ban-ishment caused by sin. These contrasts do not hold For Alphonsus, acknowledging identity through difference was the beginning, not the end, of pastoral care. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba * Charism together in ordinary life. As sinners look to Mary as mother, affections of love, tenderness, and confidence are bound to override those of fear, dread, and punishment associated with "queen." Gradually people, especially the sinful and the desperate, would feel themselves more com-fortable and at home with the softer images (mother, life) rather than the harsher ones (power, banishment). His writing style is not pedantic; it is popular. He persuades, he encourages, he appeals. He repeats and exaggerates. He points out the benefits of simple acts (such as reciting a "Hail, Mary" every day) even for peo-ple who have not broken with their life of sin. He knows that the people he is writing for are an emotional peo-ple. He tries to bring reason to bear on their emotions. He does this by channeling their emotions towards two goals, sorrow and love. After reminding readers that God has done much by giving them Mary to be their mother, he asks what they have done. In various ways they have rejected her, and so they are called to sorrow and repen-tance and to expressing grateful love to God and to his mother, God's gift to them. The argument is not spec-ulative. It is an effort to have right reason (in the form of practical repentance and love) control any exagger-ated emotion in Marian devotion. Alphonsus provides a range of imagery drawn from people's ordinary life: Mary as midwife, shepherdess, and advocate. Such imagery is found even more in his poems, songs, and paintings. People could choose whatever image suited them, but, no matter what they chose, each image was mediatory, with Mary between the people and Jesus. Mary was the bridge. The Vatican's "Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy" (2002) treats devotion to Mary much as Alphonsus did.7 Alphonsus's expression is more laden with emotion. He wanted to lead people on a journey on which they would become attached to Christ in love. In "mar- Review for Religious keting" Alphonsus's insight, in bringing his Catholic charism to people of today, pastoral sensitivity needs to start where they are--start with what they consider their identity--and then, in the exercise of pastoral care, move them beyond it. This would be marketing, under a new and different label and brand name, the same product as Alphonsus "marketed" in his day. Is this "marketing" idea likely to convince the bearers of the Alphonsian charism today and to "work" for the people to whom their min-istry extends? A trial run may be worthwhile. I suggest that this approach is not altogether a "dream." A recent biography of Andrei Sakharov shows his journey from being a scientist who supported the Soviet system to being a spokesman for human rights.8 As a scientist he asked questions about physical nature and tested hypotheses, looking for reliable evidence. As a Russian he "believed that the Soviet state represented a breakthrough into the future." When he saw the deaths caused by the radioactive fallout from the tests he directed in 1955, he began to ask questions about politics the same way he had always asked questions about physical nature. This approach quickly made him a dissident. The rest of his life is too well known for repetition here. It was not a head-on attack on his ideology that changed him. The point of change was his own training, in which he was at home. At that point something new inserted itself: the deaths caused by his own experiments. This is a moral parable of change from within, somebne moving from the laboratory into action in the public arena, experiencing a martyrdom (witnessing and suffering), and "rising again." Can the charism of a religious institute function to effect change from within, meeting people where they are and progressing from there? Perhaps it can. That is the hope implied in being pastorally sensitive (to where people's hearts are) before striving to inculcate deeper and truer propositional knowledge. 62.3 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Charism Notes ' Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Breve rispbsta alla stravagante riforma intentata dall'abbate Rolli contraria alia piet~ dovuta verso la divina Madre (written in 1775). http:// 2 It is interesting that the Congregations for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, "Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines" (9 April 2002), §165, states that, in the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the faithful ought to be "encour-aged to use the Scriptures" and "suitable hymns and prayers" and spend some time in "silent prayer and reflection. Thus they will grad-ually get the idea that they ought not use devotional practices in honor of the Virgin Mary and the saints during exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Given Mary's close relationship with Christ, however, the rosary, with its meditation on the mysteries of the incarnation and redemption, could help give the prayer a Christological orientation." Here I seem to detect that, although praying the rosary during ado-ration of the Blessed Sacrament is not rejected, neither is it considered the ideal. It seems to be considered an accommodation ("pastoral sen-sitivity") to where people are, with a view to leading them beyond it (with "pastoral care"). The burden of this article is to set the charism of an apostolically oriented religious institute in this perspective. 3 Andrew M. Greeley, The Cardinal Sins (New York: Warner Books, 1981), pp. 208-210. 4John Henry Newman, "Christianity and Physical Science," in The ldea of a University (Garden City: Doubleday Image, 1959), p. 395. s John Henry Newman, A Grammar of Assent (Garden City: Doubleday Image, 1955), chap. 8, p. 217. 6 John Henry Newman, "The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine" (Sermon XV, Preached on the Purification, 1843), in Newman's University Sermons: FiJ%en Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford, 1826-43 (London: SPCK, 1970), §35. 7 "Popular devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is an important and universal ecclesial phenomenon. Its expressions are multifarious and its motivation is very profound, deriving as it does from the People of God's faith in, and love for, Christ the Redeemer of the human race and from an awareness of the salvific mission that God entrusted to Mary of Nazareth, because of which she is mother not only of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but also of all people in the order of grace" (§183). 8 Richard Lourie, Sakbarov: A Biography (Hanover, New Hampshire: Brandeis University Press, 2002). Review for Religious ERNEST E. LARKIN John of the Cross's Message for Today The focus of St. John of the Cross is the call to contemplation. Vatican Council ~I left no doubt about the universal call to holiness; the clergy, the laity, and religious are all called to the same high degree of union with God. John of the Cross locates that perfection in contemplation. Vatican II emphasized life in this world. It called Christians out of the ghetto and into the mainstream of worldly existence. Lay people particularly were to work for the betterment of humanity through science, politics, education, economics, and the professions. Such work is part of the Christian vocation; moreover, for Christians the motivation and animation for doing the work is the same in the marketplace and the family as it is in the cloister. The source is a loving relationship with the Trinity. This is the holiness at the heart of every vocation. Call it love, call it contemplation--it is the same Ernest E. Larkin OCarm wrote "Desert Spirituality" for our JuDy-August 2002 issue. His address remains Kino Institute; 1224 East Northern; Phoenix, Arizona 85020. 62.3 2003 biblical reality of "knowing .you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ" (Jn 17:3) or, in another formulation, "knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship in his sufferings" (Ph 3:10). It is loving knowledge, for contemplation is knowledge by way of love. It is what St. Th~r~se called her vocation, to be "love at the heart of the church." In the lapidary formula of St. Paul, contemplation is the excellence of "faith expressing itself through love" (Ga 5:6). Contemplative prayer and contemplation are no longer to be seen as the domain of an elitist group. People in all sectors of church life and lay life are claiming their birthright and practicing contemplative prayer every day. John of the Cross can be their guide. In this paper I want to indicate how contemporary forms of contemplative prayer, specifically centering prayer and Christian Meditation, and the Jesus Prayer, fit into John's synthesis. I will first present a sketch of his teaching on the beginnings of contemplation and then relate this doctrine to the contemporary movements. Contemplation, according to John of the Cross Faith as "the only proximate and proportionate means to union with God" runs like a mantra through the works of John of the Cross. Loving faith, shown in word and deed, is the only road to God. Every act of faith, however small, is a ray of light piercing the darkness in one's consciousness. It is the light of Christ shining through. By acts of faith we let Christ in, we allow the Spirit to form Christ in our very being. Of course, he is always there in the depths of our spirit, in "the innermost chamber of our inner castle, the unscathed center of our being, where only the true God dwells.''~ But he is dormant there until we awaken him through activated faith. Our individual, discrete acts of faith are like the dots of light on a television screen. Multiply them, and the Review for Religious screen is fully illuminated. The soul is like the television screen: on it the dots of faith coalesce to form the image of Christ, fulfilling the words of St. Paul: "I live now, no longer I, Christ lives in me." Thus are we configured to Christ. The rest of the quotation is equally important: "I still have my human life, but it is a life of faith in the Son of God" (Ga 2:20). Our faith life brings purity of heart, the condition for this configuration. We are pure of heart to the extent that we live by faith. Purity of heart is not just chastity; it is all the virtues ordered and integrated in our being, giving us an openness to the indwelling God. In early stages God meets us in our rational minds, in our disparate thoughts and image~ and will acts. These are so many actual graces. When purity of heart is more perfect, we enter more deeply into ourselves at the spirit level where God reveals himself in a certain wholeness--in contemplation. "Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall see God." "Seeing God" occurs in holy thoughts and desires and more fully in contemplation. The metaphor in John of the Cross that corresponds to the television screen is the window pane that lets in the sun. When the window is clean, the sun comes through without any obstruction: the sun and the glass are like one same thing (Ascent 2.5.6). This is a beautiful image of purity of heart, of the entry of God. When all our desires are ordered by faith, we are transparent to God's indwelling. At first God comes to us in images and concepts, facsimiles and metaphors. When the soul is truly pure, that is to say, when it is free and detached and faith-filled, God comes in contemplation as Gracious Mystery, in his inscrutable reality. Our response then is We are pure of heart to the extent that we live by faith. 62.3 2003 Larkin ¯ John of the Cross's Message for Today simply a yes to this gift, resting in the presence, experiencing communion. Communion (koinonia, communio) is being one with God by participation in a unitive, nondualistic experience. Contemplation is the experience of communion. The experience of contemplation is ineffable: it cannot be put into words. We can have feelings about God, and they are sensible consolations or spiritual affections. Feelings are resonances of the experience of God. They are moments of enthusiasm or dis-couragement, joy or sorrow. They are secondary and accidental to the basic contemplative experience of presence and communion, which is incommunicable. The contact with God is the original experience of the theological virtues, whereas the emotional or spiritual resonances are the overflow. Often we have no assurance that we are experiencing the presence of God in contemplation other than blind faith. Feelings are ambiguous and need to be discerned. The act of contemplation is a return to the subject, a turning back on one's self in faith and love. It is moving from the Christ for us, who is objective and out in front of us, so to speak, to the Christ within us, who has become one with us. Thus contemplation is resting in the fruit of one's labor and search; it is the fruition of one's new, transformed self. The whole process is "putting on the Lord Jesus Christ," which begins with one's desires, purifying old ones and developing new ones one by one, and ends in the contemplative act of communion, when two things become one in participatory knowledge and love. This is nondualistic thinking, like the advaita of Eastern religions. God and the soul are united in a oneness that is not pantheistic, but pan-en-theistic. Communion is the common denominator of all the modes of contemplation, whether ordinary or extraordinary, active or passive, acquired or infused. Review for Religious Communion grows gradually as we are transformed in God. The one obstacle to our experiencing our .oneness with God is our unredeemed self, which is our false self or egoic self. Specifically, this bad self is our disordered desires. They are our attachments, an innocuous word better translated in our idiom as addictions and illusions. These are the persons and things and mindsets that control us, distort our thinking, and move us in the wrong direction. We deal with them by the two-pronged attack of getting to know Jesus better (so as to perceive his attractiveness) and letting go of competitive desires. There are two principles here, knowing Jesus and letting go. They are the two directives set down in the strongest language by John of the Cross as the necessary and sufficient program for holiness (Ascent 1.13.3-4). The strategy is to work on habitual, deliberate failings one by one until God negates them all in one sweep by leading a person into the "dark night." At that time one loses the attraction and pleasure in anything other than God. In John of the Cross, the gift of initial infused contemplation is the cause of this state. The budding contemplative is counseled to stop discursive activity, embrace the emptiness, and be present in loving attention to God, who is "infusing" light and love. At first the experience is distressful, because one fears she has lost God and everything else. The infused light and love are too subtle to be recognized. The landmarks of the old spiritual journey are gone: God is no longer available, 6ne cannot pray in the old ways, the excitement of ministry goes dead, and there is a malaise about everything. The only positive quality is an ache for God, which is aggravated by the fear of having lost the Beloved. Eventually one becomes comfortable with this new way of relating to God, and peace and serenity replace the anxiety. 62.3 2003 Larkin ¯ John of the Cross's Message for Today The dark night in general is the whole spiritual journey from beginning to end. Thus in John of the Cross the ascetical efforts that begin the journey to divine union do not complete the task. The dark night is needed for that. Why? Because our devious human nature, one's false self, goes underground into the unconscious and blocks a person's surrender to God in disguised ways. Jungian psychology calls the buried false self the shadow. It is made up of the capital sins, like lust or pride; in pious people these weaknesses take on forms of pseudo-piety that are as destructive as the crass expressions. Centuries before Jung, John was an expert on uncovering the shadow or dark side of human nature. His teaching is that only God can heal the shadow at its roots. God does this, not by "fixing" it, much less removing it, but by helping us confront and accept it and then move on to total surrender to God. One of John's great contributions is this teaching on the dark night. The dark night in general is the whole spiritual journey from beginning to end; the dark night under consideration here is one phase of the purification process, and is called the passive dark night of the senses. The new knowledge and love that are pure gift from God at this point (and called in-fused contemPlation) reconfigure the spiritual life. Inner worldly goods all lose their appeal. One sees them in their truth, and in comparison with God (Ascent 1.4; 3.20.2), and so they recede into irrelevance. At the same time God is no longer available in the cozy relationship of the past. The new knowledge and love of God is camouflaged and not knowledge in the usual Review for Religious sense, since it is apophatic, that is, knowing by unknowing. Nothing is felt by the senses, and the action of God is too subtle to be recognized. The result is ennui and accidie. John of the Cross reassures the beleaguered soul that the new state is an advance. The darkness is from God. John gives signs to authenticate the true grace from counterfeits. They are persistent dryness, the inability to function in the old ways, and the ache for God. Something new is going on. God is present in the scary silence. The person must relax and let God take over. Such is the dark tunnel of beginning infused contemplation. The new way of relating is communion. Instead of 'T' and "Thou" outside one another, the experience is "we" or "us." Mystics revel in this intimacy. It is at-one-ness with God. Such is the experience of this and every other kind of contemplation. It is in contrast to rational thinking about an object out in front. This is the way to just be-ing, participating in one life together, "abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in the person" (see Jn 15:5). Contemplation happens in prayer, in ministry, and in human relationships. It is a fine-tuning of the state of grace. It happens when childish babbling and chatting with God give way to silence. Only silence can handle the new knowledge and love. The silence may disconcert and cause anxiety, because nothing seems to be going on and one fears the emptiness. In fact, a great deal is going on, and the soul is undergoing a deeper purification and illumination. John tells the person to stay quiet, at attention. This blessed state is the proximate objective of the beginner in meditation. In John's view it may take a year or so to reach it.2 In my experience the apprenticeship is longer. It may take several years before one moves beyond discursive meditation into this prayer of silence. 62.3 2003 Larkin * John of the Cross's Message for Today Contemplation Today But something different is happening on the contemplative landscape today. Instead of working for years with discursive meditation and perhaps not entering " the dark night of the senses at all, people in all walks of life are choosing to practice a new kind of contemplative prayer. The contemporary practice is a new category and not the same as the contemplative prayer and contemplation of John of the Cross. For him these two terms are synonymous and always describe the absolutely free gift of infused contemplation. Contemplative prayer today is not discursive meditation, nor is it per se infused contemplation. It is an intermediary between meditation and contemplation. Centering prayer, Christian Meditation, and the Jesus Prayer cultivate silence and presence to God. In John's terminology these forms belong to meditation, since the prayer is active, personally chosen, and self-directed. But they are a kind of contemplation, because they are silent, without words or images or discursive movement from point to point. They are a species of contemplation, because they are communion with the Trinity. Thousands of people are practicing this self-initiated contemplative prayer. They are not forced into this way of relating to God; they choose it. They enter into deliberate and wordless silence. Instead of being busy inquiring, analyzing, and making multiple acts of the affections, they remain present to the divine indwelling in simple awareness and attention to the gift of grace within. This form of prayer is on the growing edge of Christian life. I believe that it is a gift to the church at this point in history. There is a widespread conviction that we do not have to wait until we are forced into the silence. We can choose it and foster it, and a fruitful kind of prayer results. All our other prayer, such as the liturgy and lectio divina, and our apostolic action and for Religious community relationships as well, are affected by this entering within. We come at life from a deeper level. All we need is an "open mind and open heart" to welcome the God hidden in the depths of our souls. This prayer is simply presence, silence, encounter beyond words. The challenge in this kind of prayer is to maintain the silence, to keep focused on the presence of God. The three forms under consideration use a word or a phrase as a way of maintaining attention. Centering prayer uses a holy word like Abba or Jesus to express one's consent to the divine presence and renew one's presence to God; the word is repeated as often as it is needed. Christian Meditation and the Jesus Prayer use the sacred word as a mantra, that is, a phrase repeated throughout the prayer. The usual mantra in Christian Meditation is the Aramaic word "maranatha," which means "Come, Lord." It is a greeting found in the New Testament. The mantra of the Jesus Prayer is the words "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." You will not find these prayer forms in the writings of John of the Cross. The architects of these prayer disciplines do not presume the presence of infused contemplation, though they hope that the practice will lead there. John Main maintained that Christian Meditation was a traditional form of meditation in the medieval church. Actually he was not a stickler about terminology or theological distinctions; he saw meditation, contemplation, and contemplative prayer as synonyms. The method of meditation taught by John of the Cross may well have been along the lines of John Main. Beginners were to "ponder a divine mystery.''3 A common way of doing that in early monasticism was to repeat

Issue 10.2 of the Review for Religious, 1951. ; ~:~ - ~, A.M. D, G., ~ Reiciew for Religious St. Jos~ph;s Patronage . Francis L Filas ' Dominican Spirffuality . .~ Regknald Hughes Ten÷afive Tes¢incj ~ P¢ogram . Sister M. Digna, Peace . : . Winfrld Herbst Why Do They Leave.'! . ; . . . Anonymou,s ~uesfions and Answsrs Book Reviews ¢ Summer Sessions Communications VOLUME X NUMbeR~ 2 RI::VII:W FOR RI::LIGIOUS VOLUME X MARCH,, 1951 NUMBER 2 CONTENTS ST. JOSEPH'S PATRONAGE--Francis L Filas, S.J .5.7 THE FAMILY FOR FAMILIES . 66 THE ASSUMPTION . 66 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . , . 66 DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY--Very Rev. Reginald Hugl~es, O.P. 67 FRANCES SCHERVIER CAUSE ADVANCES .7.4. : TENTATIVE TESTING pROGRAM-~Sister M. Digna, 'O.S.B. 75 PEACE--WINFRID HERBST, S.D.S . 81 WHY DO THEY LEAVE?--Anony.mous . 84 BOOK REVIEWS-- Catholic Social P,rinciples; The Nun~.at her Prie-Dieu; Recruiting for , Christ; .Patrology ; Religious Sisters .~ . ' . 93 BOOK NOTICES . . 101 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . ;.~. . 102 COMMUNICATIONS ° 104 ' QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 7. Term of Office for Local Superior . 8. Obligation to Sick Religious under Temporary Vows . 106 9. Letter to Local Ordinary . 107 I0. General Chapte~ and Change in Constitutions " 108 11. Attwater on Apgstoli ~ndulgence . 108 12. Indulgence for Reeling Rosary . 109 13. Vote on Clerical Religious before Major Orders .109 14. Vows Reserved to the Holy See . 1 I0 SUMMER SESSIONS . 111 REPRINTS : SINGLE SETS . 112 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS,~ March, 1951, Vol. X, No. 2. Published bi-monthly : January, March, May, July, September, and November at the College Press," 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka. Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.I., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: ,Jerome Breunig, S. 3. Copyright, 1951, by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, proyided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a rear. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, pleese consult notice on inside back'cover. S!:. Joseph's Patronage Francis L. Filas, S.J, ST. JOSEPH'S closeness tO Jesus and Mary gives him~a'degree of dignity and holiness which it is hard to understand. 'However, if we consider his position as Patron of the Universal Cl~urch, we can grasp to some extent the exalted rank God has given him. By studying the greatness of the patronage, we learn the greatness of the patron. , Like every pa.,tron saint, 5oseph receives from God a quasi-right to protect his clients. This precise relation of .patron "saint to client is difficult to express in our language, but the" fact is certain. The patron is like a father toward his charge, and a s~rong note of fatherly love characterizes his watchful care. The Communion of Saints is the bond that unites the Church Triumphant with the Church Militant and the Church Suffering. Due to this bond God grants the saints in heaven a special interces-sory power so that.by their prayers they can further the spiritual and temporal interegts of their brethren on earth. They invoke the merits they gained during their tim~ 6f pilgrimage, and by an act of suppli-cation they present to God~'t'bei}~requests for~th~ir clients, In this we rightly discern a manifestation of:the all-eml~ra~ing love which'Chrlst desires to flourish in His Church. ':'* Individual saints can freely be chosen as~patrons by anyone. In the case of some, however, it is fitt,ng that,~ttiey spec,ally watch over particular groups of people or types of~enterprises. Ordinarily, this fitness exists because of a circumstance df the saints' lives or some providential direction of their energies and prayers. Thus, the patrons' interests are more specific.ally those of ,their clients. Papal Pronouncements on Reason for St. Joseph's Patronage In the case of St. Joseph his patronage is the logical extension of his duties on earth. Although he was officially declared Patron of the Universal Church by Plus IX in 1870, Pius did not actually create him as such. The Pope. proclaimed what had already been a reality. St. Joseph's office as Patron of the Ufiiversal Church, a~ well as the dignity belonging to this title, was a corollary of the office and the dignity whichGod bestowed on him in making Joseph the head of the Holy Family. Reoieto for Religio,,s The decree of Pius IX makes this clear. "'Because of this sublime dignity which God conferred on His most faithful servant, the Church has always most highly honored and praised Blessed Joseph next to his spouse, the Virgin Mother of God, and has besought his intercessiob in times of trouble . Plus IX has therefore declared St. J~oseph~ Patron of the Universal Church.''1 The same termi-nology of "declaring" the Saint's patronage occurs in the Pope's decree of 1871.2 Even more detailed is Quamquam Pturies, the encyclical of Leo XIII concerning devotion to St. Joseph. "There are special reasons," Leo says, "why Blessed Joseph should be explicitly named the Patron of the Church, and why the Church in turn should expect much frdm his patronage and, guardianship. For he indeed was the husband of Mary, and the father, as was supposed, of Jesus Christ. From this arise all his dignity, grace, holiness and glory . "The divine h~usehold which Joseph governed as with paternal authority contained the beginnings of the new Church. The Virgin most holy is the mother of all Christians, since she is the mother of Jesus and since she gave birth to them on the mount of Calvary amid the indescribable sufferings of the Redeemer. Jesus is, as it were, the firstborn of Christians, who are His brothers by adoption and redemption. "From these cor~siderations we conclude that the Blessed'Patriarch must regard all the multitude of Christians who constitute the Church as confided to hih care in a certain special manner. This is his numberless family scattered throughout all lands, over which he rules with a sort of.paterr~hl" authority, because he is the husband of Mary and the father of J~sus Christ. Thus, it is conformable to rea- .~on and in every way becoming to Blessed Joseph that as once it was his sacred trust to guard with watchful care the family of Nazareth, no matter what befell, so now by virtue of his heavenly patronage he is in turn to protect and to defend the Church of Christ.''s The Recognition of St. Joseph's Patronage Its Historq This modern concept of Joseph's patronage lay hidden and unnoticed for centuries. Probably the first writer to call attention to it was John Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris. Gerson proposed St. Joseph's. guardianship of the Church in a set-lPius IX, Quemadmodum Deus, ASS 6, 193. ZPius IX, lnclgturn Patriarcbam, ASS 6, 324. SLeo XIII, Quamquam Pluries, ASS 22, 65.' 58 March, 19 51 ST. JOSEPH'S PATRONAGE mon to the. members of the Council of Constance, September 8, I 416. °The sermon had as its purpose the adoption of a feast of the espousal of Joseph and Mary. With deep anxiety the chancellor noted the disastrous results of the great Western Schism of 1378, a wound to the Church which was still unhealed. Gerson asked for al3proval of the feast of the espousal "in order that through the meri~ of Mary and through the intercession of so. great, so powerful, and in h certain way so omnipotent an intercessor with his bride., the Church might be led to her only true and safe lord, the supreme pastor, her spouse in place of Christ.''4 The suggestion made by Gerson was not acted upon, but once it had been put forth, the idea continued to recur to others. What really began to receive marked emphasis was JoSeph's part as guardian of the. Holy Family. This contained in germ the concept of Joseph's further guardianship of Christ's Churqh. It was next elaborated in the Summa of the Gifts of St. Joseph, a Latin book written by a Dominican, Isidore de :Isolani, in 1522. While depicting the exceptional honors he felt sure would be granted the saint, Isidore heralded the future with this prophecy: "For the honor of His name: God has chosen St. Joseph as head and special patron of the Church Militant.'.'~ The theme, of St. Joseph's guidanc~ of the Holy Family and of-the Church continued to run tl~kough the devoii3n~'as it flourished up to the middle of the eighteenth century. H~re, in.common with the temporal fortunes of the Church, it suffered a rela13se; but with the reign of Pius IX, a hundred years later, it. aggin surged forward. During the 1860's, various petitions'from bishops, priests, and the faithful were sent to the'Holy See, *asking for St. Joseph's full glorification in the liturgy and for the declaration of his patronage of the 13niversal Church. Three special, petitions were presented to the Vatican Council i.n 1869-70. ,It seems that these three were the petitions which immediately led Pius IX to make his declaration on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1870.6 St. Joseph as Patriarch ~ Closely related to Joseph's title of Patron of the Universal Church is his title of Patriarch. Ordinarily, the name. "patriarch" is reserved for a man who is the father of numerous descendants. The patriarchs 4John Gerson, Sermon of September 8, 1416, Conclusion; Summa Josephina, 213. 5Isidore de Isolani, Summa de donis S. loseph, III, 8. ~For historical details, cf. Film, The Man Nearest to Christ, oh. 9, 10. 59 FRANCIS L. FILAS Review for Religious of the Old Testament deserve the title not only because of their ven-erable fatherhood, but also (in a spiritual sense) because of the Mes-sias who was to be born of their line. They were literally "patri-archs. in preparation," in view of God's promise of the Savior who was to spring from the Jewish people. St. Joseph was truly the greatest of the patriarchs, understanding the term in this spiritual meaning. Our Lord took human nature of the virginal wife of Joseph, and in this fashion the saint exercised the rights.~of father over Him whose spiritual posterity would embrace all the elect. Leo XIII explains how Joseph's. position as patriarch is linked with his offke as patron. "Conformably with the Church's sacred liturgy," the Pope writes in his encyclical on St. Joseph, "the opinion has been held by not a few Fathers of the Church that the ancient Joseph, son of the Patriarch Jaco.b,foreshadowed both in person and in office our own St. Joseph. By his glory he was a prototype of the grandeur of the future' guardian of the Holy Family. In addition to the circumstances that both men bore the same name--a name by" no means devoid of si~nificance-~'it is well known to you that they resembled each other very closely in other respects as well. "Notable in this regard are the facts that the earlier Joseph re-ceived spec!al favor and b~nevolence from his lord, and that when placed by him as ruler over his houkehold, fortune and prosperity abundantly accrued tO the master's house because of Joseph . Thus, in that ancient patriarch we may recognize the distinct image of St. Joseph. As trio. one was prosperous and successful in the domestic concerns of. his lord, and in an exceptional manner was set forth over his whoIe kingdom, so the other, destined to guard the name of Christ, could well be chosen to defend and to protect the Church, which is truly the house of God and the kingdom of God on earth.''~ ¯ . In the e.arly 1700's the Holy See was considering the re-insertion of Joseph's name into the Litany of the Saints,. from which he seems to have been dropped at some earlier date. In the study of this ques-tion, Cardinal Lambertini (the future Benedict XIV) published a st~orig defe'nce of Joseph's position as patriarch. He wrote, ~ '"That St. Joseph can be called Patriarch is proved from the fact that the patriarchs, according to the holy Fathers and both ancient ~nd more recent writers, were those who were the progenitors of the ;Leo XIII, Quarnquara Pluries. 6O .March, 1951 ST. JOSEPH'S PATRONAGE families of the Chosen People. Since, therefore, St. Joseph was the putati~'e father of Christ our Lord, He who is the head of the pre-destined and the elect, the name of patriarch is for this reason rightly and deservedly attributed to St. Joseph, and by- this very name is he a,ddressed by most writers. "St. Joseph was not the natural father of Christ our~L-ord and did not generate Him, but this alone can prove that he was not the father of the faithful by natural generation, as. were the other patri-archs. It doesnot hinder him from being patriarch in a more perfect and more exalted manner according to the "explanation we have already giyen.''s The Di~nitq and Ef~cacy .'of St. Joseph's Patrohaqe Joseph's dignity both as Patriarch and as Patron of the Church is most exalted, for these two titles recognize in,him ar~ excellence that is absent in other men. The wider the extent of his patronage, so much the wider must be its dignity; and since Joseph's patronage is concerned wiLh the entire Church, he is, reverenced to a degree that is subordinate only to the honor given Mary. The sterling worth of the saint's office is also measured by the perfection on which it is based. Because he ~cted ast the father of Jesus, his patronage is an extension of his office oia earth. Yet, his role as patroh is not based merely on. a certain fittingness, as is the case of other saints. Instead, his God-g!ven titles of husb~and of Mary and father of Jesus directly place ~the interests of Christ's Church close to his heart. All this has b~en solemnly con.firme.d by ,official papal decree. The power of Joseph's intercession appears from his holiness, from his virginal fatherhood, and from his relationship to our Lady-. We know that the effi.cacy of a saint's intercession depends in general on his love of God and on his glory in heaven. The higher a soul exists in glory, by so much is he more acceptable to Ggd. Joseph's holiness and glory are considered second only to the holiness and glory of our Lady. Again with the sole exception of Mary, no one except St. Joseph ever had a quasi-authoritative position over Christ. No other saint shared that intimacy with the blessed Mediatrix of all graces which only Mary's virginal husband possessed. This gives Joseph a tre-mendous intercessory power which the Church has officially reco~- SBenedict XIV, De Beatif. Serv. Dei et Canon, Beat. I. 4, p. 2, c, 20; n. 57. 61 FRANCIS L. FILAS nized. Among other indicative actions it has approved and indul-genced a Memorare in imitation of the same type of prayer addressed to Mary: "Remember O most pure spouse of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, my beloved pat~ron, that never has it been heath that anyone invoked thy patronage and sought thy aid without being comforted. Inspired by this confidence, I come to thee and fervently commend myself to thee. O, despise not my petition, dear foster father of our Redeemer, but accep.t i~. graciously. Amen.''9 The Univ~rsatitg of St. Joseph's Patronage It would appear that Joseph's patronage as understood in its full extent embraces all those who owe their.salvation to the redemptive work of Jesus and to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The reason is clear. Joseph was chbsen to be virginal father and virginal husband in order that the redemptive work of our Lord in co-operation with Mary might be accomplished. Hence, the saint's guardianship (which is the outgrowth of his protection of Jesus and our Lady) logically embraces all who participate in the fruits of the Redemption. Meditative consideration of the full meaning of Joseph's title "reveals still further consequences in another direction. Since the saint is patron of the whole Church, his interests must be more universal than those of othe~ sa.ints. Other patrons concern themselves with one group of persons; Joseph is patron of all. Resultantly,.writers have amplified his title so that they describe him as universal patron because Patron of the Universal Church. In other words, he is the patron of everyone in every class. Because he was a member of an impoverished family of kings, the story of his life heartens all who suffer financial reverses. Earning his livelihood and supporting his holy charges at the carpenter's bench, he fittingly leads all who work for a living. In his actions we discover a guiding principle that can often hold true for every employer. He can look to Joseph, who, while supe-rior in authority, recognized that he was inferior in dignity and used his authority with the utmost moderation and prudence. Thus, while on the one hand St. Joseph inspires employers to provide just wages and healthful working conditions, on the other hand his example reminds employees to return fair and industrious service for °Indulg. 500 days, S. P. Ap., Jan. 20, 1933; Encbirid. Indulg. (1950), n. 472. 62 March, 1951 ST, JoSEPH'S PATRONAGE wages received. , ¯ . . Against the purveyors ofthe false ide.ologies of our day, Joseph stands out as the antithesis of racial prejudice and international ha-tred. Himself a Jew, he suffered because of the political dreams of a monarch '~ho was mad for power at any cost. Welcoming the for-eign Magi and then living in exile in a not too friencl, ly land, he knew the distress caused by prejudice against color and against race, Joseph's pIace as father in the Holy Family shows a11 fathers how steadfastly they must strive to imitate him in cherishing and educating their children. No husband can ever offer his wife a degree of fidelity and self'sacrifice great.er than thatwhich Joseph offered our Lady.' Hence, in him we behold the worthy patron of the Chris, tian family. As head bf Nazareth, the first Christian religious community, he exemplifies' the ideal religious superidr~ the serv'ant of the servants of God. Simultaneously his absolute and unquesti6ning obedience to the messengers of God mark him dut as the mbd~l foe priests and religious.' When ~he end comes to his iS~riod of. service Joseph di~s in the presehce of Jesus and Mary and is made the.gr.and protecto~ at the hour of death--the friend who le~ds departing souls peacefully to their Judge. " ' In our own age st. Joseph's patror;age'of labbr has been particu-larly emphasized~ Closely coupled with thi~ '~mphasis was the new honor grfinted him in 1937 by Plus XI. 'At ~hat tlm~ '£he Pope dec!.ared him the patron of the Church's campaign again.st atheistic communism, for"he ~belgngs to the work~ing-clas~, and he bor~ th~ burdens of i~6verty for himself and the Holy Family, whose tender and vigilant hea'd he was.''~° Universal Patron--Papal Pronouncements ¯ We possess sound Church authority for, claiming St. Joseph as the universal patron of the Church. The encyclical, of.Leo XIII, after tracing the saint's present office to his earlier,vocation on earth, continues, "This is the reason why the faithful of al! places and con-ditions commend and confide themselves to the guardianship of Blessed Joseph. In Joseph fathers of families have an eminent model of patern~l care.and providence. Married couples' find in him the perfec.t image, 6f love., harmony, and conjugal loyalty. Virgins can look to him for their pattern and as the guardian of virginal integ-rity. " " ¯ ~0Pius XI, Dioini Redemptoris, AAS 29, 106. FRANCIS L. FILAS Review for Religious '"With the picture of Joseph set before them, those of noble lineage can learn to preserve their dignity even under adverse circtim-stances. Let the wealt,hy understand what goods they should chiefly seek and earnestly amass, while with no less special right the needy, the In, borers, and all possessed of merely modest means should fly to his protection and learn to imitate him.''11 The Pope's.Briet~ on the Holy Family is entirely devoted to the subject of family life, placing Joseph with Mary and Jesus as a family exemplar.12 In the words of Benedict XV, "Since Joseph (whose death took place in the presence of Jesus and Mary) is justly regarded as the most efficacious protector of the dying, it is our purpose here to lay a special injunction on Our Venerable Brethren that they assist in every possible manner those pious associations.which have been insti-tuted to obtain the intercession of St. Joseph for the dying.''1~ The Litany of St. Joseph The shortest official summary of the Saint's patronage is found in the Litany of St. Joseph, approved by Plus X in 1909. This Litany expands; as it were, Leo XlII's earlier catalogue of.Joseph's clients --"all the faithful of all places and conditions." The action of Plus X in sanctioning the Litany of St. Joseph for use in public services gave Josei~h one of his most exclusive honors. Only four other litanies have been granted this rare and signal approval: the Litanies of the Sacred Heart and of the Holy Name of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin!s Litany of Loreto, and the Litany of the Saints (with its" two' adaptations for Holy Saturday and the Vigil of Pentecost, and for the commendation of a departing soul). The use of a litany as a form of prayer dates from the very earli-est days of the Church. The word itself comes from the Greek term, lissamai, "I pray," Probably Psalm 135 is the prototype on which the first Christians modeled their primitive litanies: "Praise the Lo~rd, for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever." Here, after every statement of the Psalmist, the phrase is repeated, "for His mercy endureth forever." This repetition of the same prayer has passed over into our mod-ern litanies. When addressing God we beg, "Have mercy on us"; when petitioning a saint's intercession, we say, "Pray for us." In. this manner, God or our Lady (and in the present instance, St. Jo-l~- Leo XIII, Quaraquam Pturies. 12Leo XIII, Neminem Fugit, Decr. No. 3777, CSR. l:~Benedict XV, Bonura Sane, AAS 12, 313. 64 Ma~h, 1951 ST. JOsEPH'S PATRONAGE seph) can be honored under different titles but always with the same petition. There is. a very interesting feature about the Litany of St. Jo-seph. Unlike the older litanies which spontaneously grew out of separate and more or less unrelated invocations this Litaoy was com-posed according to a rigid grouping. Seven tides depict the role that Joseph played on earth: Two concern his royal ancestry in preparation for the Messias: "'Illustrio~ts descendant of David"; "'Light of patriarchs"; Two, his relationship to Mary: "'Spouse of the Mother of God"; "'Chaste guardian of the Virgin"; Two, his relationship to Jesus: "'Foster father of the Son of God';; ¯ ' "'Watchful defender of Christ"; and finally, one' title as "'Head of the Hotg Famitg."" In the second group of invocations, six llst Joseph's special vir-tues: justice, chastity, prudence, valour, obedience, and faith. In the final division of eleven titles, four address him as ex-emplar: "'Mirror of patience"; . "'Lover of povert~t"; ~.,. "'Model of workmen"; "'Ornament of familg life"; and seven invoke him as a protecting patron: "'Guardian of Virgins"; "'Safeguard of families"; "'Consolation of the poor"; "'Hope of the sick"; "'Patron of the dgin9"; "'Terror of demons"; and "'Protector of Holg Church." For the final word on the patronage of St. Joseph, probably no tribute to the saint's widespread and powerful friendship will ever surpass the words of St. Teresa of Avila, long become classic: "It seems that to 'other saints our Lord has given power to help 65 FRANCIS L. FILAS:" " us.in only one kind'of: necessity; but this glorious saint, I know by my own experience, assists us in all kinds of necessities . I only request, for the love bf God., that. whoever will not belie~ve me will test the truth of what I say, forhe will see by experience how great a blessing it is to'recommend oneself to this glorious Patriarch and to be devout to him . Whoever wants a rnas~ei to instruct him how to pray, let him chobse tl~is glorious saint for his guide, and he will hot lose his way:''14 " ' THE FAMILY FOR FAMILIES One of the first of.the Catholic pocketbooks (50 centsL to be issued by the Lumen Books (P.O. Box 3386, Chicago 54, I11.) is a reprint of The Family for Families, by Francis L. Filas, S.J. In this behind-the-scenes story of the Holy Fam-ily at home Father F, ilhs, a'Ibioneer in the Cana Conference movement in the De-troit area. shows mode~;n husbands,and ~vives how they can share the happiness.and inspiration of the Nazareth home. Father Filas, also the author of Tbe Man Near-est Christ, is giving a cours,e at .Loyola University, Chica.go, on the theology of St. Joseph (cf.p.age 111)' " ¯ ; THE ASSUMPTION Pope Pius xII, on Octob'e~- 31, 1950, in connection with the formal definition, decreed that the invocation, Qr}een assumed into hedven, ¯should be added to the Litany of Loretto after the iti:cocation "Queen concei~d without original sin." He also approved a new Mass which is to replace the Mass formerly said on the Feast of the Assumption. . , . . ¯ our cONTRIBUTORS REGINALD HUGHES is .pr!or at S't. Peter Martyr Priory, Winona, Minnesota, and professor of philosophy] and religion at the College.of St. Teresa. WINFRID HERBST, author and retrea.t master, is on the faculty of the Salvatorian Seminary, St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. SISYER M. DIGNA is professor"of psychology at the Col-lege of' St. Schq~astica,, Duluth, Minesota. FRANCIS .L. ,FII~A$, the author of The Man Nearest Christ, is teach, lug at Loyola University, Ch!cago. Illinois. ¯ 14T~resa of Avila, Autobiooraphg, c. 6, n. 1 1. 66 Dominican Spirit:u lit:y Reginald Hughes, O.Po, UST beca'use they were men, the Apostles differed in tempera-ment and char.acter, peter was impetuous and quick; Paul, fi~ery and brilliant; John, loving and gentle. More than this, they were entrusted with distinct missions. Hence 'we cannot be 'surprised that the founders of religious orders, those wh6 took the apostolic band as their inspiration, manifested distinctive character-istics. St. Benedict consecrated his sons in a special way to the choral recitation of the Divine Office. The childreh of St. Francis find the secret of their spiritual Father in his seraphic poverty. St. Ignatius instituted a militia which united prudence and versatility to zeal for God's greater glory. St. Dominic was inspired to form an order of preachers and teac~hers, a closely knit organization dedicated to the diffusion of Divine '.Truth. ¯ Our Lord Himself revealed this .fact to St. Catherine of Siena when He told her: '~'Thy Father, Dominic, desired that his brethren have no other thought than the salvation of souls by the light of knowledge. It is this light that ~he wished to make tl~e principal object of his. order, to extirpate the errors existing in his day." Truth, then, contemplated and preached, is the ideal of the Order of St.Dominic. How faithful the early disciples of Dominic were to'this ideal We learn from the Vicars of Christ. In 1216, Pope Honorius III approved them as "champions of. the Faith and l!ghts of the world." POpe Alexander IV recommended them in 1257 as "men steeped in the divine science, powerf.ul preachers." In 1266, Pope Clement IV could laud their order as the "Guardian of T;uth." Not only that, but these decades, penetrated with the spirit of Dominic himself, produced in his order the friar who became the incarnation in his life and w~rks of the idefil which his'spiritual Father had envisaged. "See the glorious Thomas. Wldat a none intelligence, wholly applied to the contemplation of my Truth. There he found supernatural and infused knowledge, and this grace he obtained more by his prayers than by study." It would seem obvious that an investigation of the principles of Dominican life and spirituality would fittingly begin with an inter- 67 REGINALD HUGHES Review/or Religious rogation of the Angelic Doctor and his writings. Therein must be found those cardinal principles which have inspired the spiritual children of Domin'ic Guzman for more than seventy decades; We shall not be disapl~ointed in our search if we turn to the Summa Theologica, Thomas' masterpiece of Christian thinking. As a primary and fundamental principle Thomas would seem to advocate the fullest development of one's natural faculties. God has created us for His honor and glory, and to help us fulfill this mission He has endowed us with wonderful natural powers and properties: a spiritual soul, with an intellect, will, imagination and memory; a b.ody, with the physical ability of achievi.ng our earthly destiny. Each one of these gifts of Almighty God has within itself the capability of being developed to a certain degree of perfection that we call natural. Our duty is to develop all these natural powers, however not of ourselves nor for ourselves, but with God and for God alone. He has given us all that we have of goodness; He alone preserves us in the very existence we enjoy. The realization of this principle is witnessed in a grand phalanx of preachers,.: theologians, scripture scholars, canon lawyers, mystics, ascetics, philosophers, s~ientists, medical doctors, historians, painters, sculptors, miniaturists, architects, artists, engineers, litterateurs, poets, and simple, humble souls who have taken their inspiration from St. Dominic and placedtheir own distinctive mite and talents where they might best serve God's glory. But Thomas would remind us, when we have discovered all that nature in its very perfection can do, we must realize that it is as nothing in comparison, with the life of grace, the supernatural life of the soul, to which life God has raised us. This supernatural order surpasses the powers and exigencies of every created nature---even that of the most perfect angel. God could keep on creating angels more and more.perfect, yet never by their natural powers alone could they attain to the least degree of grace, There is simply no compari-son between created natur.e, actual or possible, and the Divine Na-ture, of which grace is a real and formal participation. By nature God gives us gratuitously to ourselves; by grace He" gives Himself gratuitously to us. Thus nature and grace are as distinct from each other as we are from God--infinitely. The just soul is "a partaker of the Divine Nature" insofar as it has within itself the radical prin-ciple of supernatural life, the life of God. St. Thomas tells us that 68 March, 1951 DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY. the sanctifying grace of a single soul is of more value than all the natural good of the universe, m.'9(~ than all created or possible angelic natures combined. " -:" We can hardly conceive ~( higher idea of the order of grace. Neither can we' admit that thei'e is in us the least germ of this super-natural life. It is absolutely and entirely "the free gift of Almighty God. We have, it is true,, the purely passive capacity of being raised to the supernatural life. .This capacity, however, is no greater in the most perfect angel than in the humblest Christian soul. o And if the latter die with a degree of grace equal to that of the most perfect angel, she will see God as perfectly as that angel does. Such are some of the notions of the Angelic Doctor with regard to the order of grace and the supernatural. Our Faith teaches us that we are destined to this supernatural life. Grace is but the commence-ment of it, the seed of our eternal happiness. The effects of grace, he says, are the healing 6f the soul, wounded by sin, original or actual; the incentive to good desires; the effective operation .of these desires; final perseverance and eternal happiness. Grace unites us to God in charity, supernaturalizes every good action, elevates and perfects us as creatures of an infinitely superior world. The necessity of grace is such that without it we canfiot love God above all things, we cannot fulfill all the precepts of the natural law, we cannot abstain from all mortal sins and we dannot persevere in a good life until death. This teaching of Dominican spirituality thus. emphasizes our complete dependence upon the grace of God~ Are we then reduced to mere machines? No. We have free wills and God saves no man who has not the dksire to be saved. But He does command us to pray, to ask for His. grace and assistance, to beseech Him to bless us with those good gifts which He has determined to bestow only when we ask for them.° By prayer we recognizd God as the sole Author of all good and we realize that we have nothing of ourselves but sin. Thomas used to say that since natural wisdom is the gift of God, man ought not try or hope to acquire it by dint of study without humbly asking for it in prayer. Briefly, these are three'guiding principles of Dominican spir-ituality to be drawn from the Summa Theologica: the development of human nature; the infinite superiority of the life of grace; our complete dependence upon God, with the obligation to pray and labor ceaselessly for His honor and our eternal salvation. 69 REGINALD HUGHES Review for Reli~lious The important place that this spirituality gives to the natural development of our superior faculties has occasioned an accusation of naturalism by some who preferred to consider Thomas more of a philosopher than a theologian. Some have held that the Summa itself savors more of Aristotelian wisdom' than of the Gospel and St. Paul. However, since St. Thomas possessed a very precise notion of the power and purpose of human nature, he comprehended better any, thing that deformed it, all that was unregulated in it. The rooting out and healing of human defects is always considered by him from the point of view of the first cause and the last end, God. He de-clares that true human renovation in our present state is impossible without grace, whose two principal functions are to heal nature an'd elevate it supernaturally. Hence when Thomas speaks of natural perfection and the acquired virtues which constitute it, he is speaking not only as a philosopher, but also as a Christian and a theologian. Dominican spirituality emphasizes as well the infinite superi-ority of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, over the natural knowledge and love of G6d, and also over the natural knowledge of miracles and other signs of revelation. Our infused act of faith is not a natural act clothed over with supernatural mo-dality. It Is essentially supernatural. Its immediate formal motive is none other than Divine revealing Truth. Consequently, it is in-finitely superior to an act of faith made by the devil, founded on the natural evidence of miracles~ even though the devil has infused ideas more perfect than our acquired ones. From this point of view One conceives as well the inestimable value of the least act of charity, the elevation of the infused moral virtues above the acquired moral vir-tues, and the grandeur of the gifts of the Holy Ghost which render us docile to His inspirations. If, as for St. Thomas, fidelity to the Holy Spirit normally leads " one to the living waters of prayer, what should be said of the relation between contemplation and the apostolate? Does the intensity of the first demand the sacrifice of the second, and can the latter hope to be nourished by the warmth and light of the former? Dominican spirituality replies: the teaching of sacred doctrine and preaching ought to be derived from the plenitude of contempla-tion. In the language of St. Thomas these words have a very special significance. Contemplation is not ordained to action as a means subordinate to an end, such as study in view of a lecture, but it pro-duces it as from a superior cause. The culminating point in the life 70 March, 1951 DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY of the apostle is the hour of Unibn with God in prayer. From this union he should return to men filled with the light of life, to speak of God and lead them to Him. Thus St. Thomas considers the active life and the purely con-templative life as means less perfect than the aposiolic life uniting both. As Christ and the twelve, the modern apostle should be a contemplative who gives to others the fruits of his contemplation to sanctify them. "°"'Contempla,re et contemplata aliis tradere," the motto of Dominican spirituality, are the very words of St. Thomas. With the hours of recollectioia which it exacts, contemplation, far from impeding apostolic activity, is its source. Thomas would say: where our contemplation ceases, there ends our apostolate also. Without it, without the desire to prepare one's self for it, inflated with knowledge, the soul radiates light no longer. Practical natural-ism envelops it and can wholly destroy it. Such divine contemplation as is demanded by Dominican spir-ituality makes one forget what flatters or bruises one's personality. It turns one always to God and souls; it suppresses the fever of superficial activity and spiritualizes one, causes him to act pro-foundly, to say much in a few words. ,~ Such a contemplative and apostolic life was lived by Dominic and many saints and blesseds of his religious family who preached and taught with indefatigable zeal and fire of which the Psalmist speaks: "ignitum eloquium tuum vehementer" (Ps. 1 15). That is one reason why Thomas himself is such a model of Dominican spirituality. Everything he did--pray, preach, teach, or write--he did with all the zeal and eagerness his heart could sug-gest. Zeal, he tells us, is nothing other than intense love, and the measure of our love of God is to love Him without measure. It is significant to note that Dominic, his successor, Blessed Jordan of Saxony, Blessed Reginald, Thomas, Pope Innocent V, St. Louis Bertrand--all died comparatively young. St. Catherine of Siena and St. ,Rose of Lima did not live thirty-five years, and the eleven-year old heart of Imelda Lambertini burst from the intensity of her love of God. "I feel and am persuaded," said St. Thomas, "that the chief duty of life, which.I owe to God, is in all my words, as in all my. thoughts, to speak. His praise." It was then the genius of St. Dominic that he placed his order as it were midway between the older monastic groups that had con-templatibn and personal sanctification as their aim, and the later 71 REGINALD HUGHES Review for Religious active orders that followed the Dominican lead in working for souls. Dominic envisioned the salvation of souls as the cherished fruitage of his prayer, his study and his teaching. Thus to the older monastic observances he added intensive study because there can be no opposition between truth discovered by study and contemplated Divine Truth. A Dominican does not contemplate and study pri-marily in order to preach and save souls, but he is filled with the zeal for the apostolate because through prayer and study he has acquired a deep personal knowledge of God. The closer a man is to Christ, the more apostolic he becomes. Dominican spirituality includes as well a liturgy peculiarly its own and" has guarded it carefully since its approbation by Pope Clement IV in 1267. It is essentially a Roman liturgy, and if any single peculiarity about it were to be noted it would be that it en-closes in its ceremonies a note of solemnity imprinted upon it by the antiquity of its customs and chant; that its prayers have a decidedly theological tone. In fact, it is the liturgy that rules the life of the Friar Preacher. Study, work, recreation, even sleep is set aside in favor of choral reci-tation of the Office, as the injunction of one of the early legislative Chapters of the Order notes: "The Office takes precedence of all our activities." It is easy to understand why St. Dominic gave such an impor-tant place to the observance of the liturgy in the life of his children. First of all, because it is divine worship par excellence, aiding one to perfect his duty of glorifying God. It also leads religious to the perfection of their state of life, because it is a simple and sure way to assimilate one's life to that of Christ, the model of religious. One might ask, what is the connection in Dominican life between the liturgy on one side, and study and the importance of the aposto-late ori the other side? The answer is that the liturgy does not take a religious from the essential object of his studies: God. The lit-urgy itself is the depository of Catholic doctrine condensed in pray-ers, in extracts from the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. It has been called living dogma speaking to the heart as well as to the head. T.he Friar Preacher in regularly dividing his time between study and liturgical prayer in no way sacrifices the latter but makes the former more fruitful. Frequent returns to choir keeps study from becoming simply an intellectual work and cold speculation. The danger of intellectualism can hardly menace one who joins 72 March, 1 ~ 51 DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY study and preaching and teaching with the solemn prayers of the Church. The truth which the religious finds in his books, he dis-covers again in living liturgical formulas. Thanks to the liturgy theology can become a science filled with deep contemplation. As St. Vincent Ferrer has phrased it: "Through this interchange of prayer and study you will have a heart more fervent in prayer and a mind mor~ clarified for study." Not the least attractive feature of Dominican liturgical life is the perfect freedom which it affords~ in the matter of personal prayers. In the organization of Dominican daily life, everything conduces to contemplation. St. Dominic n~ver had any idea of limiting prayer to certain determined periods or forms. The earliest Con~stitutions consecrated the entire day to Go~d. When the Dominican is obliged to silence it is that he may bet-ter forget th~ world and himself that he may the better hear God. When he is placed under obedience to study, it is that the soul may be steeped in ~he beauty of the~ divine mysteries. Thus for him, study, liturgical prayer, - and pe.rsonal prayer suppose one another, sustain one another, penetrate ~n~ anothe~r. To violate them, to separate them, and to compare [~hem jealously would be to falsify the economy of Dominican life! In other Words, the Friar studies to pray better and prays that he may study better. If o~ were to seek characteristics of Dominican prayer he would find first that it is disciplined a,nd strong because saturated with the dogmas of ~he Faith; that it is humble, with a humility begotten of contemplation of the Divine M.ajesty: I am that which is; ~ou are that which is not"; and eminently free, because knowledge begets love and nothing is freer than tl~e love of God. Thus we find a marvellous ~ariety among the Dominican saints. Each one keeps his own distinci physiognomy, his personal tenden-cies, his preferred virtues, and b~ings together underthe same domes-tic roof differences of race, environment, and education. Yet they are all marked by the same distinctive note: the zeal for souls through the doctrinal apostolate. Each a[Ids his own personal note: a Vincent Ferrer, Spanish impetuosity a~d indomitableness; a Henry Suso, Teutonic mildngss and melancholy; a Catherine of Siena, Italian ardor ar;d harmony. It was th, le late Archbishop Paschal Robinson, O.F.M., who once said: "Dominican saints are wonderfully natural in their goodness." In order to prove our virtu~ and to increase our merit, God per- 73 REGINALD HUGHES Revieu; for Religious mits the power of death to exist in us. The body weighs down the soul, 'the flesh struggles against the spirit. Sin has broken the har-mony between the powers of the soul and their Creator. To re-establish order and to correspond to appeals' from our Saviour, vig-orous restraint must be imposed. Dominican spirituality does not ignore this, but prescribes the practices necessary to subdue rebellious forces of nature and to employ their liberated energies for the realiza-tion of the supreme design of Dominican life. It has been said that were a text to be chosen which should express Dominican spirituality, nothing could be more appropriate than the words of Our Lord set down by St. John: "The truth shall make you~ free." The children of Dominic have ever aimed at Truth and have. thus achieved freedom. Dominican spirituality has thus been likened to the architecture that flourished when the Order began its course in the thirteenth century--joyous and unrestrained-- springing up from earth as though it were part of the earth, pointing upwards as though it were part of heaven. "The Heavenly Husbandman, the Supreme Author and Protector of the Faith, has planted in the paradise of the Church as a fertile tree the Sacred Order of Preachers to exhilarate it by its beauty, to satiate it by the abundance and the exquisite savor of its fruits. Of superb aspect, filled with vigorous and dulcet strength, steeped in the morning dew of heaven, this tree is a source of life for the weak, of health for the infirm. Hence innumerable Christians, nourished by its salutary fruits, are endeavouring to shed around them its life-giving influence." (Alexander IV-~1257.) FRANCES SCHERVIER CAUSE ADVANCES After the Sacred Congregation of Rites examined the processes conducted by ordinary and apostolic authority relative to the life, virtues and miracles of the Servant of God, Mother France} Schervier (1819-1876), Foundress of the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis (1845), the S.C. of Rites recently decreed the processei valid. Preparations are under way for the next step towards beatification, namely: the judgment on the heroic character of the virtues in particular. In this country the community conducts twenty-eight institutions including General Hospitals, Special Hospitals and Social Service Centers, located in .the Arch-dioceses of Cincinnati, Newark, New York and Indianapolis, also in the Diocese~ of Covington, Columbus, Brooklyn, Springfield in Illinois, Kansas City in Kansas, Charleston, Lansing, Steubenville and Albany. 74 A Tentative Testing Program t:or Religious Lit:e Sister M. Digna, O.S.B. THE interest expressed in the use of psychometrics as one means of evaluating the fitness of aspirants to religious life'~nd as objec-tive guides for the counseling of young religious has motivated the formulation of the following tentative testing program. The primary purpose of the testing program is to screen possibly unfit candidates before admission, or before they have assumed"responsi-bilities that they may be unable to carry¯ Unfitness is one of the indications that an individual has not been called to the life of reli-gion for, as canon 538 states, "Every Catholic who is not debarred by any legitimate impediment . . . and is fit to bear the burdens of the religious life, can be admitted into religion." Father 3osepb Creusen, S.,I., professor of canon law at the Gregorian University, Rome, interprets this further. He says, "But the presence of an obstacle which the subject cannot do away with of his own accord or the lack of aptitude, would suffice to show that this desire is the result of a call to a more perfect life in general, and not of a vocation to the religious life in particular.''1 How does one determine an obstacle or a lack of aptitude? Is it best decided on the basis of subjective opinion? Should scientific methods be employed? Communities now utilize the findings of medical science¯ What about the scientific findings in the field of psychometrics?. True, it is a new.field and one would never wish to rely on the findings of any single test or inventory as the sole deter-minant of fitness for religious life, but these data may implement or supplement other subjective impressions and observation; they may be good clues to hidden motives and personality "kinks" that may be corrected before becoming "set." Any testing program for religious life must necessarily be tenta-tive, for there are no tests, other than intelligence tests, that have been devised in terms applicable to religious life. In establishing a testing program for any community, one must consider such factors as trained or untrained personnel, interpretation of the data, and use of the findings. The ideal prerequisite is that some member of the 1Religious Men and Women in the Code, p. 129. 75 SISTER M. DIGNA Ret~iew for Religious community be trained in the field of psychometrics. As a prelim-inary step, several basic courses in tests and measurements may suffice. In lieu of trained personnel, the services of someone who is sympathet.ic to testing, who will conscientiously adhere to manuals of directions, and who will be extremely careful in interpreting results may be utilized. Much emphasis needs to be placed upon the inter-pretation of the findings, lest an individual be kept from the reli-gious 'life because of hastily drawn conclusions not warranted by the test or inventory itself. The examiner must assemble all types of information. The administrator will then make a careful study of all the data before recommending the admission or rejection of the aspirant. In case the applicant is accepted, the data may. also assist in orienting him to the religious life. A director provided with all the subjective and objective facts about the candidate can help him to a speedier and holier adjustment to religious life. ¯ Use of Intelligence Tests Other things being equal, a director can give better religious guidance according to his knowledge of the subject's degree of intel-ligence. Intelligence tests help one to gain this knowledge. One test, which may be referred to here as an example of the use of. intel-ligence tests, is the California Test of Mental Maturity, advanced series. This test has a number of significant features. .It is both diagnostic and analytical, and the scores may be interpreted in terms of mental ages and intelligence quotients: It includes items dealing with language fadtors, non-language factors, memory, spatial rela-tions, logical .reasoning, numerical reasoning, and vocabulary. The pre-tests are visual acuity, the purpose of which is to discover whether the examinees can see well enough to take the remaining .tests with fairness to themselves; the auditory acuity test, to discover whether individuals hear well enough what is said to them in an ordiliary tone of voice to warrant the giving of the tests; and a third to deter-mine the degree of motor coordinations the examinee possesses. After¯ the tests proper have been¯ administerd, the test results may be interpreted in terms of the language test data, which ale useful in indicating how well the individual understands relationships ex-pressed in words, and the non-language tests data indicating how well the individual ufiderstands relationships among things or ob-jects when language is not involved. The significance of these addi-tional data for guidance, selection, and placement is obvious in that 7,6 March, 1951 TESTING PROGRAM they Will make possible a more appropriate consideration of the real abilities of ti~e person. David .Wecbsler's interpretation of intelli-gence quotients for ages ten to ~ixtyu may be used: 128 and over, very superior; 120-127, superior; 1 I1-I I9, high average; 9i-I10, average; 80-90, low average; 66-79, borderline; and below 65," defective. What are the implications of these figure~ in any psychological testing program? First, the elimination of those unable to grasp the meaning of religious life; and secondly, the utilization of intelligence scores for determining the educational and vocational placement of religious. .In general, the intelligence score of the applicant is one more concrete evidence of the intellectual ability of, the individual. Those who are inferior or very low may need to be re-tested. If the score places the individuals below the low average, it is very doubtful whether they will be useful in religious life, unless the community is willing to assign them to very simple tasks. Then these questions arise: how well will they be able to understand the meamng and implications of religious life? How much benefit will they derive from the novitiate instruction? And will the community be willing to assume responsibility for possible custodial care? Personalitg Tests Intelligence is only one factor. Other factors such as background, personality, aptitudes, and interests should be considered when one applies, for admission into the religious life. Since the personality "from the philosophical point of view is too abstract an approach to give the necessary clues to the'individual's potentialities in getting along with others, the more concrete, approach is considered, here. The social skills which are basic to getting along with others are ski.lls that can be acquired. In community life gra- ¯ ciousness of manner and social skills need to be supernaturalized by stressing the virtue of charity as the- motivating force. What are the potentialities for an individual to get along with others and to sublimate the ups and downs of routine living with diverse temperaments? A personality needs to be free from nervous symptoms and introvertive or anti-social tendencies to adjust to reli-gious life. Even the most conscientious and holy novice master or mistress will succeed only in veneering a personality unless he recog-nizes the basic causes for certain personality defects. True, it may, 2The Measu~'ament of Adult Intelligence, p. 40. 7.7 SISTER M. D[GNA Review fol Religiou~ and likely will; happen that the subject makes a valiant effort to overcome these "faults,~' but if the fight seems continually a losing one, and the pressure of close supericision is removed, there is little doubt that the individual will revert to his innate tendencies. How detect these underlying causes, for maladjustments? No foolproof method of appraising personality has yet been devised. G~nerally, the personality scale takes the form of a rating scale. A definite assumption should motivate the use of any one of several rating scales. Most personality ratings have a number of valid uses if and when they are well administered. Common sense should operate in determining the purposes of the ratings and how they are to be used. Personal'ity tests are not as precise as or as easily interpreted as I.Q. tests; they are indicators rather than measure-ments of personality, and they p'rovide worthwhile leads to work upon for, symptomatic indications of emotional conflicts, maladjust-ments, tensions, anti-socialattitudes, and anxieties. A good person-ality is one that has achieved a balance between self and those around one. The self-adjustment is often indicated in terms of self-reliance, sense of personal worth, sense of belonging, sense of freedom, and freedom from withdrawing and nervousness. The adjustment toward others is interpreted in terms of social standards, social skills, whole-some gregariousness, family and social relationships. Among the several tests suitable for a testing program is the Cali-fornia Test of PerSonality. It includes items that will reveal the presence or absence of desirable or undesirable traits. The test is easy to administer and easy to score and, although the interpretation of the scores is almost self-evident, it is. wise for the one who interprets the test to explore further and probe deeper the other data on the person, particularly the intelligence quotient, the family history, and previous schooling record. In general, letters of recommendation are not too reliable, for tile tendency of.many, flattered by having to recommend an individual, is to put a halo around the person. The expressed purpose of the authors of the California Personality Test is to enable counselors to appraise and to improve thh personality of all ages. This instrument" makes possible a detailed and patterned diagnosis of personality adjustment as a basis for improvement that is possible of realization. Another test, the Bell Adjustment Inventory, attempts to get a reliable measure of an individual's personality in ihe areas of home, health, social, emotional, and occupational adjustments. This inven- 78 March, 1951 A TESTING PROGRAM tory is not more: than thirty minutes in length and it is easy to ad-minister, with simple and clear directions. The time for scoring each' test is not more than three minutes. In utilizing the inventory, the administrator needs to realize that, whereas it is more objective and more penetrating than observation, the results should be used only to implement other data. The Personality Inventory by Bernreuter has four specific areas which are assessed. B1-N is a measure of neurotic tendencies. A person scoring high on this scale tends to be emotionally unstable. Those scoring above the 98~percentile would probably need psychi-atric or medical advice, and certainly one would be hesitant about admitting aspirants to religious life with exceptionally oh'igh scores in this area without further consultation with a medical man. The B2-S is a measure of self-sufficiency.' Persons scoring high on this scale prefer to be alone, rarely ask for sympathy or encourggement, and tend to ignore the advice of others. The low score indicates the type of personality disliking to be alone, and often seeking advice of others. Perhaps scores on this section would in no way debar the aspirant from admission into religious life or from the priesthood, but in directing and guiding the individual, the scores offer clues to innate causes for externaI behavior. Modification of undesirable behavior patterns can best be attained by a.clear understanding of the innate causes. The B3-1 section of the Bernreuter Inventory meas-ures introversion-extroversion, with the high scores indicating intro-version, the low, extroversion. A score above the 98 percentile in this part of the inventory bears a similar significance to a high score on the BI-H section. The B4-D classifies the personality of the individual as either dominant or submissive. Low scores represent the naturally submissive type of individual. The use of the Minnesota Personality Scale and its interpreta~ tion was explained in considerable detail in a previou, s article.8 Unless there are trained individuals for interpreting the results, a community is wise to begin a testing program without attempting the more refined techniques of personality assessment through such projective techniques as the Rorschach Method. The Thematic Apperception Test or the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inven-tory should be administered and interpreted only by individuals trained to do so. As an initial step, it seems wiser to resort to the 8"Practical Application of Psychometrics to Religious Life," by Sister M. Digna, O.S.B., in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, IX, 132-39. 79 SISTER M. DIGNA " Reoieto for Religious simpler tests that can be administered and interpreted by a beginner before attempting to use more penetgating tests. Other Tests To insure better adjustment in religious life, some cognizance might well be taken of the individual interest and occupational pref- .erences. General and occupational interest inventories reveal whether the level, types, and fields of work offered meet the interests and the needs of the individuals. In planning effective community place-ment, an appraisal of the competencies, strengths, and weaknesses of the individual as they relate to a given area of worl~ or a specific task will often insure greater satisfaction on the part of the community as well as th~ individual. Two rather well-known and fairly reliable tests are the Kuder Preference Record, and Strong's Interest Blank. The Kuder Pref- .erence Record determines the types of activities which people prefer. The manual lists typical occupations which may correspond to the :preferred type of activity. Scores are designed to be recorded in the form of a graphic profile showing the percentile rank of the indi-vidual for each type of activity. Form BB gives scores for the fol-lowing activities: mechanical, computational, scientific, persuasive, artistic, literary, musical, social service, and clerical. The test is easy to administer, to, correct, and to interpret. Strong's Vocational In-terest Blank, one for women and one for men, is considered by some authorities more reliable than that of Kuder, but the scoring is very difficult. It is advisable to bare the answer sheets scored by machine, which costs from fifty cents to a dollar for each blank. The under-lying purpose of this appraisal of vocational interest is to indicate how closely the individual's interests correspond, with those of men and women successfully engaged in certain occupations. There are over 35 occupations, six occupational groups and three non-occupa-tional traits for men; for women, over 17 occupations and one non-occupational trait. Since there is a re!ationship between the level of the intelligence quotient and adult occupational adjustment, the following classifica-tion of Bernreuter and Cart4 may be of interest to those who wish to think of future work in terms of measured ability. These au-thorities believe .that the person with superior intelligence (115 and 4"The Interpretation of I.Q.'s on the L-M Stanford-Binet." in Journal of Educa-tional Psychology, XXIX, 312-14. 80 March, 195 l PEACE upward) will be best qualified for professional work requiring college or university training, the individual having a measured normal in-telligence quotient (85-114) will succeed in work requiring high school training, and the low average or dull person with an intelli-gence quotient between 70 and 84, unskilled work. The main rea-sons for using interest tes(s ar,e to isolate, evaluate, and utilize the findings showing aptitudes and interests which are required for the different types of occupations, An adequate testing program for religious communities requires the accumulation of objective, evidence regarding the competencies, weaknesses, and strengths of the candidate. The data should include information regarding the physical, mental, educatio;aal, vocational, and social status of the applicant. The findings need to be integrated as an aid in arriving at the most satisfactory conclusions. The obvious limitations of objective testing devices should be noted, but the failure to use them at all is almost certain to result in great inac-curacies of diagnosis, since personal observation and judgment are not completely reliable. Peace Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. OF ALL the good things the Savior desires for you, one of the .first is peace. "Pax vobis!" Those were His first thrilling words to the Apostles assembled in the Upper Room after His resurrection. You must ever strive to acquire this deep, interior, lasting peace--a calm, spiritual contentment--and it must influence your exterior actions by making them deliberate and quietly, al-though sensibly, precise. Walking in the presence of God and unceasing watchfulness over your tongue are two means of obtaining and preserving peace. They are particularly helpful, even necessary for you. And there are two secret societies which you may join to your great spiritual advantage, namely, the KYMS and the MYOB. Those letters mean Keep Your Mouth Shut andMind Your Own Business. The careful observance of these directives means greater peace of heart than you would at first believe. 81 WINFRID HERBST Review for Religious You have been a religious long enough to know the calm and contentment that comes to one who reposes trustingly in the arms of God. "Thou hast made us for Thyself, 0 God, and our hearts are not at rest until they rest in Thee." How well you have learned to understand and to feel this, even here below. From now on may yours be a lasting Pax in Domino. Remember the days when the thought of the eternal years, even with God, filled your soul With strange and crushing dread? It is a far cry from that day to this, when your soul is filled with peace and repose at the thought that you belong to God. How long it takes before we understand even a little! But, sometimes, after years of effort and meditation, a certain truth will come to life in a flash. In an instant we seem to realize--and the realization endures. Of late you have been much drawn to meditation on God, as He is in Himself, as thus set forth in glowing words by the Vatican Council: "The Catholic Church believes that there is .one true and living God, the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, Almighty, Eternal, Immense, Incomprehensible, Infinite in intellect and will and in all perfection; who, being one, individual, altogether simple and unchangeable Substance, must be asserted to be really and essen-tially distinct from the world, most happy in Himself, and ineffably exalted above everything that exists or can be conceived." And then it came home to you with astonishing light and truth that this great God became also Man for love of you! And you profess your faith in the being and power of ~our God; you profess your hope in His wisdom; and you profess your love for Him as the Supreme Good. You pray to Him that He may ever give you the grace to rest peace-fully in the arms of His Providence--in a word, to be completely happy, satisfied, and content that you belong to God. The closer your union with God, the greater will be your peace of heart. You realize this; and that is why there comes from the very depths of your heart the longing prayer: "0 my God, would that I could attain my ideal in the matter of my daily Mass and Com-munion and Office; my evaluation of my vocation; the perfect ob-servance of the Rule; the most perfect observance of the vows, which make me a religious; the spiritual exercises of every day, all of them, during the whole time prescribed! How happy I would then be! My ideal is ever before me. It is clear and definite, outlined in my "law book," the constitutions. To reach it means sanctity. But strive as I may--and the past years have literally been years of be- 82 Ma~h, 195l PEACE ¯ ginnings--I do not seem to be able to attain the heights. Help me, my Savior, to go forward slowly but surely, in a calm, sensible, de-termined way. Come, Holy Ghost, guide me always through those who speak to me in conferences, sermons, chapter exhortations, con-fessional advice, retreat considerations, spiritu,al books--guide me always; for Thou knowest how much circumstances make it neces-sary for me to be thus guided by Thee. Then will I have that peace of heart which surpasses all understanding." Peace will abound in your spiritual life if you let your reverence for God manifest itself by recollection in prayer. Try every day to pray a little more than is necessary, in order to safeguard what is prescribed. And after reverence for God must come reverence for your superiors, who take God's place in your regard. Show them the utmost loyalty, disregarding their faults. Thereupon must come reverence for equals or inferiors. Be sure to treat them all with the deference and respect due to the chosen friends of God. And in all these things there must be respect for self. Of yoursdf you are indeed nothing; yet you must reverence yourself and have great confidence. You must be a worthy child of your Father in heaven. You must-not be a coward and thus seem to make a failure of Almighty God. Pray to the Savior that you may be thus reg, erent. Peace of heart can be lost by being so engrossed in the Father's business that you neglect your daily prayers and spiritual exercises, or at least perform them in a maze of distractions. That will never do. You must never lose yourself in external activity to the detri-ment of inward recollection and union with God." Never let your-self be permanently overwhelmed with work or business. No; rather your vocal prayers must be said without haste; your mental prayer must be calm and quiet, with a varied method and a generous ad-mixture of vocal ejaculatory prayers. Your meditation may not, week after week, be of that more-dead-than-alive sort. Remember, in a practical way, that one prayer is always good-~"Lord, teach us to pray." Let this be your determined resolution and an oft repeated re-solve, one that means great mortification and corresponding progress in the spiritual life: "No matter when or where, I will perform all my spiritual" exercises, eoert.I day, during the whole time prescribed for them, and with devotion." Failure to do this means dissatisfac-tion with self, letting oneself go, ~nd consequent misery because one is not what one professes to be. It is a hard resolution to keep, but 83 ANONYMOUS Review for Religious the peace of heart it brings--and glory of God--is worth it. Do not grow weary of being good. It may be that some day, for a moment at least, you will feel such a deep, personal, sweet, and de-lightful love for our dear Lord that, thus athrill with joy, you will realize for the first time in your life what heavenly happiness means, what bliss floods the soul when it is united with God. It may be a feeling of being in the arms of God, all enveloped by His love, all filled with a sensation of peace and satisfaction such as you cannot describe. And when yot~ are dying that same feeling just described may come over you, so that, exultant in the thought of going home to 3esus, flooded with spiritual joy, you exclaim, in the heart if not with the lips: "Oh, I did not think it was so sweet to die. I am so happy. I am so glad to go. My soul is enjoying a foretaste of heavenly peace." Why Do They Leave? [AUTHOR'S NOTE. The reflections that follow were partly (not only nor chiefly) prompted by two recent books. Though differing in many respects, both books tend to give an unfavorable impression of the religious life. La Nuit est ma Lu-mitre, by Dr. Etienne de Greeff, is a novel by a Catholic doctor-psychiatrist, who is a professor at Louvain University. Instructive in many respects, it tells some unpleasant truths about religious, but fails to do full justice to the Catholic con-cept of the religious life. It portrays "those terrible vows" as a source of medi-ocrity more often than not and maintains that only exceptionally gifted souls would find in" them the starting point and permanent inspiration for more than human greatness. The second book, I Leap ot~er the Wall, by Monica Baldwin, is more literary but less instructive. The well-known bestseller tells the autobio-graphical story of an ex-nun who left a cloistered convent in England in 1941 after twenty-eight years of religious life and struggles with the problem of re-adapting herself to a world where she feels altogether lost. The Rip van Winkle experience of ie-awakening to the world, and to a world at war, after twenty-eight years "sleep" is rather overdone. The author's references to her past religious life fluctuate between two tones: one of slightly ironical depreciation of the antiquated standstill in which the rules and customs, inherited from the Middle Ages, freeze the nuns: another of a sincere endeavor to give "worldly" people an idea of what religious life really is and of how it is possible to live and be happy in it.~The following reflections are written by one who stayed for twenty-eight years and hopes to stay for many ~EW religious live for long in any order or congregation without seeing some of their fellow religious leave. This happens espe-cially during the years of probation, before first or final vows. It is only natural and normal. Religious in training who find out 84 March, 19~ 1 WHY DO THEY LEAVE "they had no vocation" go back to the world. It also happens, con-siderably more rarely, after the last profession. We may not like to think of these facts, but we cannot help knowing them. Perhaps it is good~ just for once, to face them squarely. Why do these religious leave? We who stay are perhaps compelled to answer this question for ourselves. We may and do sincerely endeavor to give a charitable and supernatural answer. Yet, is it not true that these departures always leave some feeling of uneasiness, at times only slight, at other times, when the persons concerned are closer to us, more painful and persisting? We do not mean to say that every one of them shakes our vocation. The grace of our vocation, thanks be to God, does not stand or fall with what happens around us. But the events we are speaking of do not generally leave Us altogether unaffected. They at least provoke reflection and prayer. They Had No Vocation? Why do they leave? The answer to our que,stion is complex, for natural and supernatural reasons fuse. We must endeavor to put them down as simply and sincerely as we can. The truth, here as elsewhere, will be liberating. Why do they leave? Because, we like to think., they find out they had no vocation. Often, very often perhaps, that may be true. A religious vocation" is a grace, and because grace builds on nature and perfects it, the grace of a religious vocation supposes a certain natural foundation. Without this, nor-mally speaking, it can har'dly be genuine. To have or not to have a vocation means that God calls or does not call one to the religious state. But how do we generally come to know the grace God offers? The signs of a true vocation are normally these three: (1) natural and supernatural aptitude to live the religious life; (2) a right intention, mainly or chiefly (perhaps not exclusively), inspired by supernatural motives: and (3) the desire or will to answer the divine call. "Candidates have the natural aptitude when they are physically, mentally, and morally fit, that is, when they have suffi-cient heal~h, gifts of mind and education, and sufficient strength of character and freedom from habits and inclinations that are not com-patible with a life according to the vows and rules and are not likely to be corrected by the regular training. When at the same time they have a sufficient spirit of piety, self-abnegation, and apostolic aspira-tions, born from and nourished by regular prayer' and the reception of the sacraments, then their aptitude is also supernatural. Let such 85 ANONYMOUS Reoieua for Religious apt candidates intend to join a religious institute, not only nor mainly to find an honorable state of life, but chiefly to work out the salvation of their own souls and to do much good, whether to pray and study, or help the sick, or teach and educate the children, or to go to the missions; or more definitely because they believe, after reflection and prayer and taking advice, that such is God's will for them. Then they have also the right intention. It is then enough for them to conceive the desire to enter the religious state in one of its institutes, according to the guidance of Providenci expressed in the concrete circumstances in which they live: school, home educa-tion, contacts, examples, advice from parents or teachers. Their religious vocation then materializes into actual fact. Those who so join have the vocation. It is officially sanctioned, in the name of the Church and of Christ, when the institute accepts their profession. How then does it happen that some religious, after years of actual experience of the religious life, come to believe and to find out that they had no vocation? Normally that is found out before long. When any of the three mentioned factors of a vocation is lacking in a notable degree so as to arouse serious doubts about the genuineness of the vocation,, the religious in probation or their superiors will generally come to know this in the course of the years of training. That such a previous mistake was possible need not cause any sur-prise. What was an apparent vocation may turn out a failure and ¯ prove a'sbam vocation. True self-knowledge is rare especially in the young who have little experience of life and of men. They may have deceived themselves or have been deceived in good faith about their aptness 'for a kind of life of which they bad but little or only second-hand knowledge. Even spiritual directors may have been misled into believing in a vocation that later proves not to have been genuine. When this discovery takes place during the years of pro-bation, it is not abnormal, for such religious to return to secular llfe. But after years of professed life this discovery can only be excep-tional. If it were not so, it would mean that no one could have a sufficient human guarantee of a religious vocation, in spite of the official sanction of the Church contained in the very acceptance by the institute of the perpetual vows. This would go against the whble Catholic idea of a vocation. It would come to mean that, counter to the very belief of the Church, the approved religious institutes are hardly a safe way to Christian perfection. And so it can only be due to abnormal, personal or extrinsic, circumstances that religious failed 86 March, 1951 ¯ WHY DO THEY LEAVE to test sufficiently, during the years of probation, the genuineness of their vocation. They Lost Their Vocation Apart from such rare and exceptional cases', the reason why pro-fessed religious leave will more often be different. It will rather be because theg lost their vocation. Yes, that is possible. What do we mean by saying so? Nothing else but.that the three signs of a religious vocation mentioned above no longer exist. They may have existed in a remarkable degree. At the time they constituted a guar-antee of perseverance in a genuine vocation. But then a moment came, generally not before more or less conscious and guilty neglect of rather important duties, when a gradual decline of.the physical, mental, and moral fitness made the fidelity to the duties of the reli-gious state harder and harder. Till one day these religious find themselves nearly without desire for their state of life and tired of the many duties and occupations that have become almost mean-ingless to them. When natural and supernatu.ral aptness for the religious life have dwindled close to unfitness, it is hard for men to maintain a right intention in the state of life t6 which they were secretly unfaithful. It is then only one step 'for them to give up the desire of an ideal that is no longer their own. And another step to translate into action a listlessness that is but the reverse.side of a hidden new longing which has taken root in their hearts and driven out the former intention. Such religious leave bechuse they lost their vocation. Does this happen without any fault of their own? In some blatant and rare cases the loss of a vocation certainly involves grievous faults. That is beyond doubt when serious and repeated breaches of the vows, to the scandal of outsiders as well, lead to the 'dismissal. These breaches may be entanglements in money matters, or consist in infidelity to the second vow, or in more or less open revolt against obedience. But it probably may also happen without definitely grievous faults. Regular and protracfed unfaithfulness in relatively small ma~ters of religious observance may gradually lead to a kind of tiredness of the religious state which .becomes an ever growing unfitness. Only if this infidelity be persistent over a long period of time does it thus lead ~o disaster. God's grace is faithful and powerful and may easily prevent the worst. But when grace is resisted habitually and persistently, that infidelity may well strike the death blow to a religious vocation. 87 ANONYMOUS Revieu; for Religious When a vocation is lost before the final profession, there is more likelihood that it could and did happen without grave sin. The idea of temporary vocations which some theologians of the spiritual life are inclined to accept would favor the possibility of such cases. God may in His Providence prepare some people for the role He wishes them to play in the world by granting them the grace of a few years of religious training. There are many cases of men and women who tried the religious life and were led to give it up, but remained forever grateful to God for the years they spent in the cloister. But after the last profession when religious have bound themselves for ever, and when the Church, in Christ's own name, has accepted their self-oblation, the idea of a temporary vocation is well nigh excluded. Not absolutely, it is true, because it is possible, though not probable, that Providence prepares one for a plan of His own by a long religious training. His ways are not ours. Every-human rule is open to exception. In Terms o~: Human Psycboloqq The loss of a religious vocation translates in terms of spiritual theology what on the level of human psychology we hear expressed more bluntly by various reasons such as: they are not happy; theg have enough of it; the[l can no longer. Have we not heard some-thing like that after a fellow religious left? They were not happy in the religious life which did not suit them any longer. They felt themselves like square pegs in round holes, out of place, out of tune with their surroundings, their occupations, their duties. How could they be happy in a state which, they dislike and for which they are unfit? That feeling of unhappiness was not just a passing im-pression or temptation. It had grown into a habitual painful state, an obsession with the idea of out-of-place-ness which left them no rest nor peace. Who will wonder if they came to acknowledge to themselves that "they have had enough of it"? It is possible for men to endure passing interior trials valiantly. Both natural courage and the strength that comes from God's grace enable them to stand the purifying test of interior tedium and moral fatigue. That trial allows hope; sooner or later it passes and leaves deeper and firmer happiness. But when there seems to be no end to the feeling of unhappiness, when natural courage fails, even health at times partly failing as well, and when, because of unfaithfulness to God, grace does not come to give strength to those who refuse it, small wonder that they grow tired, over,tired, of an effort which 88 March, 1951 ~rHY DO THEY LEAVE? seems vain and meaningless, too tired to sustain it any longer. "They can no longer." When these religious con. less to themselves that something has snapped in their spiritual resilience, irretrievably, they are but a hair's breadth from "letting things go." That psychological downfall did not, of course, (ome all of a sudden. Its gradual preparation was slow, spread over many months or years. For quite a time they may hav~ been walking, or staying, just on the edge of the precipice. Had they been faithful to God in p?ayer so as to hear and accept the ¯ warning and the help of His never-failing grace, they would have had the light and the courage to withdraw from that state of danger. But unfaithfulness to regular duty cut them off from that source of strength. Left to themselves in their pitiful condition of weariness and loneliness they came to tell themselves that it really was too much, they could no longer. They dare to make this self-avowal because meanwhile another light dawned in their unhappy minds. They need not be religious to save their souls and serve God. In the world as well they can be good Christians, do their duties, and gain. their heaven. Rather than drag on an impossible life in the cloister, be happy and serve God in the world! Have they not been told: "Better be a good Christian in the world than a bad religious'"? They begin to see they must and will have the courage to face the situation and to change. Rather than cowardly hide to themselves and to others the real state of things and insincerely carry on a hypocritical staging of a religious life, they will have the courage to leave. And so they decided to leave. Disappointment Why then did they leave? If we read through the phrases they tell themselves and others to justify the step they take, their reasons will probably come down, in spite of surface differences, to one and the same: they felt disappointed with the religious life. The real, perhaps ~lmost unique, reason why some religious leave is, in the last instance, their disappointment with the religious life. They dreamed of an ideal life of service of God and of the neighbor: prayer, devotion, self-sacrifice, apostolate. They found a prosaic reality far remote, on the face of it, from the ideal of their dreams. Ordinary duties, long and at times dry prayers, painful and harassing community life, uninteresting and difficult fellow religious to live with, ungrateful and often monotonous work with little interested 89 ANONYMOUS Re~ieu~ for Religious and uninteresting people, and their best efforts and merits often, apparently, unappreciated and unrecognized. Yes, there is a difference between the ideal of the religious life, such as it is seen through the eyes of enthusiastic candidates, and the reality of the ordinary daily duties in the cloister. To young ideal-ists the religious observance looks attractive. When, in the actual practice of that life, religious stop at the surface only, the partly romantic interest soon wears off. Unless they penetrate deeper into the h~dden meaning of it all and discover in a genuine interior life nourished with prayer and silent sacrifice the hidden Treasure for whose sake they sold all their belongings, religious miss the point of their vocation. It was understood, of course, in their youthful dreams too, that a religious vocation implled many a sacrifice. But these very sacrifices wer~ made to look so attractive and interesting that they became just one more thing, somewhat unpleasant yes, which they were to carry off in their magnanimous stride towards the ideal. But in the reality of the life in the cloister once the novelty of the exterior duties has worn off and with it much of their natural charm and interest, what remains standing out above the rest is pre-cisely the painful side of uninteresting, unappreciated, ever recurring little (and at times bigger) sacrifices which these duties mean to self-love, self-esteem, self-satisfactlon. Unless then a deeper and more powerful attractiveness of the service of God and of men has replaced the former superficial charm, and has transformed the unpoetical reality of daily duties and sacrifices into the mysterious communion of divine love, human hearts are apt, if not bound, to feel disap-pointed. It is perhaps the common experience of religious that the reality of their vocation is very different from what they expected it to be. But it can be different in two ways. It is either much more beauti-ful and more worth-while than they ever dare to dream it; though this beauty is generally different than their half-worldly' minds once upon a time liked to fancy it. Or it is much less interesting and much more painful than they formerly imagined. Much better or much worse! Much better, if faithful to the grace of their vocation they succeed in unearthing the hidden greatness and happiness of a life of union with God, an anticipation of what He prepares for them in a measure surpassing all human understanding. Much worse, if unfaithful to the call of daily graces, they do not enter into the deep meaning of their vocation and stop less than half-way on their 90 March, 19 51 WHY DO THEY LEAVE ? march to the ideal. All they .find is the soon uninteresting, painful, boring, and finally unbearable burden of many meaningless duties. Can they feel otherwise than disappointed? Unseen--Unreal? If some religious lose their vocation, lose their fitness for its real life and grow disappointed, it is because they leave out of their lives the very substance of that vocation: the supernatural interior life of grace and of self-sacrifice which is the love of God. The religious life, limited to its superficial aspect only, is unable to satisfy the deepest aspirations of human hearts. For those for whom the unseen reality of the religious vocation is close to unreal, it is hardly possible not to feel deeply disappointed and soon to grow disaffected towards the religious life. Sometimes the disappointed religious unwittingly deceive "them-selves into believing that their disappointment does not lie with the ideal religious life such as it should be, but with the reality they found instead of it. Neither superiors nor fellow religious are found to be as they should. If only the institute were what its constitu-tions and laws claim it to be, they would not have been disappointed. There may be some good faith in this frame of mind. But it lacks realistic sense. Where is the human institution without short-comings? Are not these very deficiencies the matter out of which religious humility and perfection are built up? Had these religious not lacked the interior spirit, they Would have been able to see the great reality hidden under at times defective appearances. They would not have been blind to the great good that, next to the defects, is visible to every eye. That hidden reality does not disappoint. The feeling of disappointment and disaffection need not always be acute. Even when it is only partial but goes together, in rather shallow souls, with the need for a change that has been called the characteristic unsteadfastness of our war and post-war times, it may lead to the same result, the loss of the vocation. This need of a change works all the more effectively when after a considerable num-ber of years in the religious life a certain detachment from human ties has naturally followed on the actual separation from relatives and friends. If meanwhile no new higher attachment has taken the place of the old ones, as is the case in the disappointed and disaffected religious, then some sort of feeling of "being in the air" easily makes the balance of hesitation topple over. Perhaps it is the working 91 ANONYMOUS Reoieta ~:or Religious together of these different psychological factors that is actually the more frequent reason why some religious !leave. Why Do We.Sta~? They leave. We, with God's grace! stay. Perhaps we must conclude the above reflections by briefly answering another question that may have been sleeping at the back 6f our minds from the first and is by now wide awake: Why do u~e stay? We stay, because we believe in the grac! of our vocation. He who chose us knew whom He was choosing and He is faithful. We stay, because, with the help of that grace, we sincerely endeavor to make and to keep ourselves ever more fit, naturally and supernaturally, for the life and the duties to which He called us. We stay, because day by day, with the help of His grace, we work and pray and sacrifice to preserve our vocation. For in spite of passing weakness and for-getfulness, of neglect and of failing, of humbling faults, we know that He reads our hearts and sees the sin.cerity of our desires, even when they are hidden under negligence an'd human frailty. We stay, because we are happy in His service. With the help of His grace He led us to discover something of the hidden Treasure that is His love, His very Self. He helped us see and experience, at times clearly, at times in a hidden manner, through the veil of faith, the great joy and happiness of sacrifice out of love. He helped us discover Him, our Love, on the cross. He let us experience the puri-fying and deepening effects of trial and suffering which He sends in many different ways, but always as the cross-shaped sign of His love. Our love grows greater and stronger and deeper when te.mpered in the crucible of sacrifice. Even the natural joys and the natural hap-piness of the religious life--for there are these as well--are purer and nobler and more thoroughly satisfying when our hearts have shared in Christ's sorrows. Because of this great and unshakable happiness, we shall never, with the assistance of His grace, have enough of it. For unlike merely human happiness and greatness, which always bears the risk of saturation and fatigue, the spiritual joys of the Lord, experience has shown us, sharpen our hunger the more we happen to taste' of them. Even for our share in His sacrifice we shall never say: "It is enough, or too much." His grace helped us experience that the greater our actual share in His cross, the keener our hunger and thirst after justice. With the help of His grace we shall always be able to accept the small and large crosses He chooses for each one of 92 March, 1951 BOOK REVII~W$ us. Never shall we say, "We can no longer" because we know that He never asks for any sacrifice without also giving strength and happiness. We stay, because we are not disappointed with the religious life and we know that, with the help of His grace, we sha.ll never be. The Lord does not disappoint! The human realities of the religious life do and will, no doubt, remain human, that is, imperfect in many ways. We know that only too well, from ourselves to begin with, and much more from ourselves than from our fellow religious around us. But we also know that these very imperfections are not disap-pointing because we see them and at all times wish to see them in the light of His love that transforms them into the precious material out of which He builds true, unseen greatness. We are not disappointed because we love our vocation, such as it is, with the persons and the places° and the duties and the circumstances which His loving Provi-dence chose and chooses 'for ds. In the light and warmth of His love, radiating from His and our cross, we know that "it is good for us to be here." That is why we stay. With the heIp of His grace we shall stay on, and work and pray and sacrifice, till we hear another call of His; when He will invite Hi~ faithful servants into His own home. Meanwhile, in our prayers and sacrifices we shall pray that His mercy accompany the unfortunate ones who left and the more privileged ones who stay.--Quid retribuam? What shall I render in return? Book Reviews CATHOLIC SOCIAL PRINCIPLES. By John F. Cronln, S.S. Pp. xxvlll -~- 803. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1950. $6.00. Appendix~II of this book contains a 37-page annotated reading list. The length of the list is significant. It explains why many of us have experienced an increasing hollow feeling as we looked forward through the years to the day when we might.become well-informed about the social teaching of the Church. Through these same years .we have seen books and articles on the social question follow one another with such rapid succession that we wondered whether we should ever be able even to skim the surface of this literature. Realizing the Church's desire that we know her social teaching, and 93 BOOK REVIEWS yearning to fulfill this desire, yet we had to ask ourselves with a cer-tain helplessness, "What can one do to learn even the essentials?' One thing to do is to read this book. It will counteract the hol-low feeling with at least the wholesome food of accurate general in-formation on "The Social Teaching of the Catholic Church Applied to American Economic Life" (the subtitle). , So many and such comprehensive reviews of Catholic Social Prin-ciples have already appeared that it is unnecessary for me to give a detailed picture of it. The book is divided into three parts that move logically from the general to the particular. Part I gives general principles of Catholic social teaching: explaining the foundation, rejecting unsound theories, and culminhting in an exposition of the ideal social order. Part II considers concrete aspects of the social probiem (capital, labor, wages, unions, property, functions of Church and State) in the light of generai p~inciples. Each chapter of these first two parts begins with a compilation of pertinent au-thoritative statements, espec'ially those made by Po~es and hierar-chies. Part III surveys various attempts by American Catholics to formulate a salutary social program. There are three appendices, as well as an Index of Authorities and a General Index. The method of treatment is both expository and critical. The tone is moderate. "Extremes beget extremes," writes Father Cronin, "whereas modera-tion wins adherents." He should win many adherents. Experts in various phases of Catholic teachin[l might suggest improvements in Father Cronin's book when he touches on their respective fields, but they could hardly question its general excellence. I am content to recommend it without any reservation to religious superiors, teachers, and those engaged in the social apostolate. In fact, I would recommend it to everyone, but I thinkthose I have men-tioned would profit especially by reading it. And I should like to confirm this general recommendation with a number of quotations, but I have only sufficient space to refer to the question of our dealings. with workers. On this subject, which is certainly of great interest to all of us, Father Cronin writes (p. 360): "Problems connected with a living wage and the dignity of labor should be a special concern of priests and religious who are in the position of employers. In the past, our record in this regard has not always been good. Church institutions have at times been no-torious both for low wages and arbitrary practices, such as the dis-charge of workers who have given most of their lives to an institu- 94 March, 1951 BOOK REVIEW8 tion, and who are let out either because of old age or a change of administration. Cynics have remarked that some in our midst apply vows of poverty to workers, even though Canon Law makes no pro-vision for vicarious acceptance of religious vows. Undoubtedly, such situations occur with the best of motives. Church institutions rarely have adequate funds, so that their administrators understand-ably try to economize in the attempt to have the most money for the primary purpose of the venture. This would be especially true for schools, institutions of' charity, and even some parishes. Yet charity should not be served at the expense of justice. We should give good example in regard to the social teaching of the Church as well as in matters of piety. "Many bishops now require that wages and working conditions be considered in letting construction contracts. It would be most desirable that when bids are let, the award go, not to the lowest bidder absolutely, but to the lowest bid from a reputable firm which pays decent wages and treats it workers fairly. Likewise, the Church as employer cannot afford to lag behind in other phases of industrial relations, such as proper hours, working conditions, grievance ma-chinery, seniority provisions, protection from arbitrary discharge, se-curity for old age, and such normal features of reasonable employ-ment. These are usually matters of justice, not works of superero-gation. We should be more reluctant than lay employers to seek excuse from such obligations on the grounds that we cannot afford to meet them."--G. KELLY, S:'J. THE NUN AT HER PRIE-DIEU. By Roberf Nash, S.J. Pp. 298. The New-m~ n Press, Wes÷mlnster, Md., 1950. $3.00. This meditation book for Sisters contains an introductory chap-ter and forty-six meditations. The meditations are constructed along the lines of preludes and points; but the two preludes are called "Setting" and "Fruit," and the points are simply called "parts." Each meditation has three parts; and each begins with a preparatory piayer and ends with a summary of the points and a tersely-stated (sometimes only half-stated) thought called a "tessera.'" There is no colloquy; the nun is left perfectly free to formulate her own Oh's and Ah's at the conclusion of the meditation. The meditations contain too much matter for a single hour of prayer. The author recommends making them in parts, then re-peating; hence the book should furnish food for prayer for approxi- 95 BOOK REVIEWS Reoiew for Religious mately a year. The content is solid; the subjects are diversified; the treatment is sufficiently bright to ward off sleep during the time of preparing points. The book seems particularly apt for those who fol-low the method of "reflective reading" in making their meditation. And for those who prefer other met.boris of prayer to formal medita-tion it should be an excellent spiritual reading book. --G. KELLY, S.d. RECRUITING FOR CHRIST. By Godfrey Poacje, C.P. Pp. viii ~- 193. The Bruce Pu'bllshin9 Company, Milwaukee, 1950. $3.00. I opened this book with genuine enthusiasm. I had heard of Father Poage's splendid work in the promotion of religious and priestly vocations and I had seen his excellent booklets, Follow Me and Follow Him; and I expected something superb. But I closed the book with a feeling of disappointment. There is much wheat; but there is not a little chaff that should have been carefully removed before the book was published. The Introduction describes the tremendous need for more priests, Brothers, and Sisters,. and insists that there are vast numbers of latent vocations to meet this need, but these vocations must be fostered. The author concludes the Introduction by saying that it is already too long. I should say that it is too short. It is the best part of the book, and never once in the succeeding chapters does Father Poage rise to the same height. Subsequent chapters discuss the meaning of vocation to the priesthood and the religious life, the signs of such vocations, and ways of finding them among both boys and girls. There follow chapters offering suggestions to priests, teachers, and religious supe-riors for the successful promoting of vocations. There is an appendix on vocational clubs, an 1 1-page annotated bibliography of vocational literature, and an index. The book is replete with illustrative sto-ries taken from the experience of the author and of other successful promoters of religious and priestly vocations; and its main value consists in the lessons that can be learned from these actual experi-ences, The suggestions for teachers and priests should be very helpful; but I think that much of the chapter entitled "Suggestions for Supe-riors" will hurt or embarrass superiors, especially women. For example, there is the section dealing with the apparel that girls are 96 March, 1951 BOOK REVIEWS told to bring to the postulancy. It was with "bashful, bachelor eyes" that Father Poage (who seemingly had obtained the lists by pretending to be a girl aspirant) scanned these lists; and it is unfor-tunate that bashfulness did not guide his written comments. Concluding the paragraph about ill health as a barrier to a reli-gious vocation, Father Poage states summarily, "Invalids are not wanted." Besides sounding too harsh, this statement seems to need qualification. One purpose for which St. Francis de Sales founded the Visitation Order was to give certain types of invalids an oppor-tunity of serving God in the cloister. I do not have the exact words of the constitutions at hand, but the Catholic Encyclopedia says: "He exl~ressly ordered the reception at the Visitation not only of virgins but also of widows, on condition that they were legitimately freed from the care of their children; the aged, provided they were of right mind; the crippled, provided they were sound in mind and heart; even the sick, except. those who had contagious diseases." This is not the least of the charities for which the Catholic world blesses Francis de Sales. And I,,believe there are other institutes that are willing to waive certain physical disabilities in otherwise acceptable candidates. Regarding illegitimacy, Father Poage writes: "An invalid union makes the child illegitimate. This is an impediment to the priest-hood and religious communities." This is partly an oversimplifica-tion of the canon law on illegitimacy and partly incorrect. A child is legitimate when conceived of either a valid or a putative marriage. Moreover, if one who was born illegitimate makes solemn religious profession, he is by that fact legitimated, "and this would remove the irregularity for receiving Holy Orders without the need of a dispen-sation. As for entrance into religion, canon law does not make illegitimacy an impediment. I believe this should be specially noted, because many religious seem to have an erroneous notion in this mat-ter, When illegitimacy is an impediment to entrance into a certain institute, it is so by reason of the constitutions of that institute and not by reason of the. general law of the Church. And, even when an institute makes illegitimacy an impediment, superiors in the United States can generally obtain a dispensation from the local ordinary. It is understandable that a book which offers almost innumerable practical suggestions wouId offer some that would be open to dis-agreement. Father Poage calls attention to the fact that girls often enter the novitiate with the habit of smoking and he suggests that 97 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious superiors "obligingly set aside a smoking period for those who need it." Perhaps the phrase "for those who need it" places this sugges-tion beyofid controversy; yet I am inclined to think that those who need it would be rare indeed and that they might very obligingly do their "tapering off" before they enter the postulancy. Father Poage and I would practically reverse positions regarding ,association with the opposite sex before entering religion. He believes that aspirants to the priesthood or the religious life should cease associating with the 6pposite sex. And he apparently means not merely regular company-keeping with one individual but even dances and parties that include both boys and girls, for he tells one girl: "This does not mean you are to cut out" all fun and gaiety. Have a good time-~but with the girls and not the boys!" No doubt one could give good arguments to substantiate this view from documents of the Church and from the practice in some countries of having boys in apostolic schools and seminaries from their tender years. The Church encourages this, it is true. Nevertheless, normal social life at home or in a ~boarding academy or college is not the same as life in an apostolic school or seminary. And, at least generally speaking, it is part of the normal life of our high school and college boys and girls to attend parties and dances. A prospective vocation which could not hold out through such normal and wholesome associations would hardly be a true religious vocation, it seems to me. Obviously, I am not saying that there is nothing incompatible between planning to enter religion or a seminary and at the same time continuing an exclusive companionship with an individual of the opposite sex. Nor do I sponsor the advice that a boy or girl who has not heretofore associated with the opposite sex should "have a fling at it" before going to the novitiate or the seminary. But I see no need of discontinuing wholesome and general mixed-group rela-tionships merely because one is thinking of or planning on entering religion. Others may, and very likely do, think differently. The point is worth discussion. A final comment--a"fixed idea" of mine, if one will have it that. Throughout the book and even in his generic explanation of "voca-tion," Father Poage limits the term to a call to the religious life or the priesthood. In doing this he is conforming to a very widespread and popular notion of vocation. Yet I think that this restricted use of the term is both theologically inaccurate and psychologically harm-ful. Theologically, the term should embrace all states of life: and 98 March, 1951 BOOK REVIEWS psychologically it is immensely beneficial to use it as referring not only to the priesthood and the religious life but also to marriage and the single life in the world.--G. KELLY, S.J. PATROLOGY, I: THE BEGINNINGS OF PATRISTIC: LITERATURE. By Johannes Quasten. Pp. xvlii -I- 349. The Newman Press, Westminster, Md., 1950. $S.00. Up to the present, our patrologies have usually been works pub-lished in a foreign language and then translated into English. Now it is a pleasure to welcome a patrology published in English. It is also a pleasure to welcome a patrology which is the last word in sci-entific scholarship, interestingly written, and ~vhich always keeps, to the fore the needs of English-speaki.ng leaders. This first volume covers the beginnings of patristic literature. After an introductory chapter, the author takes up the Apostles' Creed and the Didache, then the Apostolic Fathers, Apocryphal Lit-erature, Christian Poetry, the Acts of the Martyrs, the Greek Apolo-gists, Heretical Literature, 'and Anti-Heretical Literature. The opening chapter is an admirable introduction to patrology and an up-to-the-minute and scholarly guide to research in this field. Besides dealing with the concept and history of patrology, the con-cept of a Church Father, and the language ' of the Fathers, it gives bibliography on the various branches of Ancient Christian Literature and on the doctrine of the Fathers, and lists editions and translations of Patristic texts. Then in each succeeding chapter an outline is given of the respective authors; each individual work'is studied and analyzed; to this is added information dealing, with the text, trans-lations, and studies of the documents; finally the outstanding fea-tures of the theological thought of the documents are discussed. Certain aspects of the work call for special consideration. An outstanding feature is its thoroughness. There is no document, in this early period or no problem concerning these documents for which one has not now a competent guide. A feature that is most welcome is the generous coverage of the theological thought of the authors. Thus--to illustrate--the thought of Irenaeus is presented on the Trinity, Christology, Mariology, Ecclesiology, the Primacy of Rome, the Eucharist, Scripture, Anthropology, Soteriology, and Eschatology. Finally, a new feature (which has long been desired) is seen in the copious excerpts from these ancient writings. The author is not content with telling what a certain writer thought, but 99 Book REviEws Review for Religious he lets him tell us in his own words. This isa feature that partly explains the interest and readability of this volume; it is this that makes the book not merely something which we use to consult, but something which we want to read for the joy found in reading it. It is easy to see how a book of this kind can be of great help to religibus. Those engaged in teaching patrology, dogma, or liturgy have a work that will aid them in research and in preparing their classes. No longer need we despair of having a patrology text that will interest students; no longer need the patrology manual be regarded as something as dry as dust. The religious engaged in teaching college have here a book that will have to be found on their reference shelf, a book "that will be very helpful in answering ques-tions about the Ancient Church. Finally, all religious will find here background for a better understanding of works which all through the ages have been spiritual classics; e.g., the Eetters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the Acts of the Martyrs.--ALFRED C. RUSH, C.SS.R. RELIGIOUS SISTERS. An English translation of Direcfolre des Sup.erl. eures and Les Adaptations de La Vie Religieuse. Compiled by A. .Pie, O.P. Pp. xli -~- 313. The Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland. $3.s0. Superiors, spiritual directors, and retreat masters who have good eyes will welcome this helpful, inspiring work. The book grew out of two symposia to help the religious women of France meet prob-lems created by modern conditions. The papers prepared by diocesan and religious priests werd first printed in La Vie Spirituelle. In the English edition the French article on psychology was replaced by the article by R. E. Havard, an English doctor. The book has five sec-tions: the theology of religious life, the office of the superior, the knowledge required by a Superior, the vocation and training of reli-gious and adaptations in modern religious life. When ~sked what she thought of the book, a religious superior who had read it answered that she had bought three more copies, in-cluding one for her Mother Provincial. She also said: "I found Religious Sisters most helpful, excellent. It is clear, complete, yet concise, and the high spirituality makes it a real inspiration. If I do not do a better job as superior now, I will not have the excuse I had before reading it. I cannot say any of the ideas were entirely new, but the detailed application of the principles and elements of reli-gious life were, in a number of instances, so new that I do not feel I 100 BOOK NOTICE$ have absorbed them in one reading." More readable print is certainly desirable and also a book of the same calibre that grew from American conditions, but in lieu of both, the book is recommended. The benefits derived will compensate for the temporary snow-blindness that results from reading the soft, light print.--J. BREUNIG, S.J. ,~OOK NOTICES OUR CHRISTIAN DIGNITY, by L. Semp~, S.J., adapted from the French by C, Vrithoff, S.J., is a little'work, comprising nine confer-ences in the form of dialogues between a priest and two young men, which could serve as a'highly informative and inspiring introduction to the grandeurs of the supernatural life. In a way that is both popu-lar and theological it presents the principal aspects of the Christian's deification by grace, and at the same time make,~ them so many most potent motives for actu,.ally living up to the sublime dignity that it confers. Thus it would provide spiritual reading of the best kind: full of dogma for the mind and of consequent force and enthusiasm for the. will. (Catholic Press, Ranchi, India, i945. Pp. 98. Rs. i.) THE TWELVE FRUITS, by C. J. Woollen, is no mere theoretical explanation of the fruits of the Holy Ghost, but a concre.te, practical exposition of the effects which these fruits should produce in every Catholic. As a 'result, the book makes interesting and profitable spiritual reading. In dealing with the fruits a writer is faced with a real problem to distinguish patience from longanimitg and mildness or to show how continencg differs from ebastitg, but the author suc-seeds in making plausible distinctions between them. More. emphasis is placed on the fruits as effects to be produced by their possessor than on the benefits which accrue to him .from their, possession, though this second aspect is not entirely neglected. The chapter on patience is particularly well done. (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1950. Pp. viii ÷ 184. $2.50.) GUIDE IN MENTAL PRAYER, written 'by the Very Reverend Jo-seph Simler, fourth superior general of the Society of Mary (Marian-ists), was intended originally for use within that congregation. But others also came to know about it and to find it helpful, and now in this revised English edition it is mad~ available to all. No one 'book on mental prayer is ideal for all the very different mentalities of 101 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS men and women who cultivate that difficult art, but this one, simple, practical, and definite, should, it seems, prove very useful to many. It promises success to all who really have good will. A point that it emphasizes particularly is the importance of faith for growing in the ability to meditate. (A Grail Publication, St. Meinrad, Indiana, 1949. Pp. 167. $2.00.) In J~_SUIT BEGINNINGS IN NEW MEXICO Sister M. Lilliana Owens, in collaboration with two Jesuits, presents the first of a series entitled "Jesuit Studies--Southwest." The book is an ungarnished historical account. A hitherto unpublished diary of the mission of New, Mexico comprises half of the book. [El Paso, Texas: Revista Catolica Press, 1950. Pp. 176. $2:00 (cloth); $1.50 (paper).] A very valuable addition to .the literature on vocation is VOCA-TION TO THE PRIESTHOOD: ITS CANONICAL ~CONCEPT, A Histori-cal Synopsis and a Commentary, by .Aidan Carr, O.F.M.Conv. Dr. Cart investigates his problem from the po!.nts of view of history, theology, and canon law. His conclusions se~m to clarify and syn-thesize what was best in the pri.ncipal p.revio;is works on the subject. Directly or indirectly this study should be a precious aid to the many men and women who teach boys and thus have something to do with fostering and discerning divine calls to the holy priesthood. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1950. Pp. viii + 124. $2.00.) , BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS [For the most part, these notices ate purely descriptive, based on a cursory exam-ination of the books listed.] BOOKMAN ASSOCIATES, New York. Like Clean Winds. By Sister Louise Agnes Morin, C.S.J. An-other convincing contrast to I Leap o~;er the Wall. "The story of a Sister who entered the convent to give herself to God and was not surprised to find what she sought--a life of renunciation." The book is illustrated by Michael Lyn Genung. Pp. 63. $2.25. Savonarola. A verse play in nine scenes by Wallace A. Bacon. This play won the Bishop Sheil Drama Award of the. National Catholic Theater Conference in 1946. Pp. 128. $2.50. CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY PRESS, Washington, D. C. Orestes Brotonson's Approach to the Problem of God. A critical 102 March, 1951 BOOK ANNOUNCHMHNT$ examination in the Light of the Principles of St. Thomas Aquinas. By the Reverend Bertin Farrell, C.P. A dissertation. Pp. xiii ÷ 140. $1.75. THE GRAIL, St. Meinrad, Indiana. The Familg Rosarg for Children. By Urban Paul Martin. A Sister of Charity has significantly illustrated the purpose, history, and method of praying the Rosary, as well as each of the fifteen mysteries. This booklet will help boys and girls understand and pray the Rosary. Pp. 71. $1.00. Watchu~ords of the Saints. A Thought for Each Day of the Year from the Writings 6f the Saints. Collected by Christopher O'Brien. Pp. 73. $1.50. Our .Ladg's Slave. ;The Story. of Saint Louis Mary Grignion De Montfort. By Mary ~abyan Windeatt. Illustrafed by Paul A. Grout. Pp. 201. $2.~. B. HERDER BOOK COMPaNY,'St. Louis, Mo. Art and Beauty. By Maurice De Wulf. Translated by Sister Mary Gonzaga Udell, O.P. In this volume a philosopher of re-nown considers the basic principles of art. Pp. ix q- 213. $3.00. THE NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Maryland. Catechism o~: the "'Summa. Theotogica'" o~: Saint Thomas Aqui-nas. By R. P. Thomas Pegu~s, O.P. Adapted from the French and done into English by Aelred'~q'hitacre, O.P. A condensation of the Summa in catechism form. A reprint of the work first published in England in 1922. Pp. xvi + 315. $2.75.' Shepherd oF Untended Sheep. By Raoul Plus, S.J. Tia.nslated from the French by Sister James Aloysius. and Sister Mary Generosa, Sisters of Divine Providence. This is the first biography in English of a Vincent de Paul of the eighteenth century, John Martin: Moye, priest of the Society of the Foreign Missions of Paris, missionary to China, and founder of the Sisters of Divine Providence. Pp. xv 180. $2.50. ST. FRANCIS BOOK SHOP, Cincinnati 10, Ohio. Walk with the Wise. By Hyacinth Blocker, o.F.M. This book presents forty-eight storles from the live's of the saints in very pal-atable capsule form. The treatment is marked by originality, fresh-ness, and a relevance to the present day that cannot b~ missed. Pp. x + 240. $2.75. 103 COMMUNICATIONS Reuieto for Religious THE SENTINEL PRESS, 194 E. 76th St., New York. People and the Blessed Sacrament. By Martin Dempsey. Our Lord never wanted the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament to stop in the vestibule. Father Dempsey shows how the Eucharist can influ-ence the entire lives of all: the bootblack, the doctor, the housewife, the college student and so forth. Should be good material for Forty Hours talks. Pp. 95. $1.50 [cloth] : 50 cents [paper]. JOSEPH F. WAGNER, INC., New York. Make Way for Mary. By the Rev. Ja'mes J. McNally. With a foreword by the Most Rev. Christopher J. 'WeldOn, D.D. A series of talks deriving from the Gospels of the Sundays of the year and showing the place of Mary in the Catholic's life. Pp. 272. $2.75. Commun{cal:{ons Reverend Fathers: In reply to,y.o.ur note concerning information on the question of vocations from Catholic Colleges which appeared in the November issue Of R]EVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, the following is presented. The statistics are given under the headings suggested in the letter signed "A Teaching Sister" and represent, as requested, the last ten years. ~,, Education Contemplative Social WorE 1941 ~, 4 0 0 1942 6 0 I 1943 5 0 0 1944 , .6 I 0 1945 IO 0 0 1946 13 0 0 1947 9 0 3 1948 4 I I 1949 15 I I 1950 13 I I Total 85 4 7 Left II 4 0 74 0 7 Total to enter religious life 96 Number to leave IS Persevering 81 104 March, 1951 COMMUNICATIONS The facts have been listed for each year because we feel they are significant of changes made in 1940. During that summer, under the direction of our Very Reverend Mother Marie de St. ,lean Mar-tin, O.S.U., Prioress General of the Ursullnes of the Roman Union, a study of the Traditions of the Orderwas made in the light of con-temporary problems. (cf. Ursuline Method or: Education, Marie de Saint Jean Martin, O.S.U., Quinn ~3 Boden Company, Inc. 1946.) It might be well to sthte that these changes were not made all at once but gradually and not without difficulty-. Under the heading of, creating a Catbolic Atmosphere and assuming that we are striving to give a profound intellectual formation, they may be summarized thus: ~ 1. Religion Courses centered in Christ;'a course in Church His- . tory in junior year; a course in the spiritual life in senior year. 2. Liturgy: Missa Cantata and Compline sung daily by those who wish to participate; on Sundays and feast days Vespers and Compline. ~ ~3. Oppqrtunity for daily confession and spiritual direction. Daily meditations are made for those who wish to learn how to meditate; these are followed by special written 'ones and gradually, with help, many students make a daily meditation. 5. Guidance: each student is given or chooses if they wish a spiritual mother. 6. Sodality: limited to those who desire to lime an interior life and to participate in the apostolate. 7. Specialized Catholic Action.: Young Christian S~udents. It is to be noted that the statistics reveal .an increase .in religious vocations with the classes which were the first to graduate under the new policy.--MOTHER MARIE THERESE CHARLES, O.S.U. Reverend Fathers: In response to your invitation to correspondenc.e regarding the article on "The Deafened Religious" in the oNovember issue, I should like to share some good news. There is fenestration surgery now to cure the type of deafness known as otosclerosis. Any otologist can diagnose this mose prevalent kind of deafness. Nearly every large city has a surgeon trained by Doctor Julius Lempert of New York, who perfected the operation some twelve years ago. It consists in making a new window in the inner ear bone to connect with the auditory nerve. Although a most delicate operation requiring some 105 QUESTIONS AND/~NSWERS ' Ret~ie~ for Religious time to recover, it is worth all the misery of accompanying sea sick-ness, due to drilling through the equilibrium center. I was losing my hearing for twenty-three years and wore-a hearing aid for twelve years. Doctor Howard P. House, 1136 West Sixth Street, Los Angeles 14, California, performed such skillful surgery on both my ears in successive summers, that I now have normal hearing. I was able to discard the hearing aid after the first operation. Much of the success would normally be due to the condition of the nerve, hence it is important to have the surgery done as soon as otosclerosis is detected, before the. auditory, nerve begins to atrophy. I find that this operation is comp.aratively unknown, so I should like to broadcast the almost miraculous .results to your readers. I cannot be grateful enough to God, Doctor House and my community for my return to normal communication. It is a new life. --S~STER M. CATHERINE EmEEN. S.H.N. ( ues ions and Answers ~7~ May a local superior who had been appointed for one year to fill out the incomplet.ed term of his predecessor, and who was then reappolnfed local superior for. one three-year term, be now reappointed for another immediate term ~:F three years in.the same house? If not, may he be ap-pointed for an additional two years to make up a' fatal of six years? Canon 505 forbids the same religious to act as local superior of the same community for more than two terms of three years each. The emphasis in the text "term of three years" (triennfum) is not on the word term, but upon the entire phrase--term of three years. The Code does not forbid three terms of two years each, but excludes more than two terms of three years each in the same house, that is, more than six continuous years as local superior on the part of the same religious. In the case mentioned, therefore, the superior may be reappointed to a new term of two years, which will complete the six continuous years allowed him in the same house. 8 If a religious under temporary vows develops bad.health, or becomes a mentalcase, and, as a result, is refused perpetual vows, is the commun- 106 March, 1951 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ity to which he belonged bound to take care of him after sending him away.'? What if his physical or mental condition was doubtful during the novitiate and he was allowed to make his tempo'rary profession as a trial to see how he would make out? Once a novice is allowed to make his profession of~first tempo-racy vows, poor health, whether physical or mental, is no longer a reason for refusing either a renewal of temporary vows or the pro-fession of perpetual vows, much less al reason for dismissal (see can-ons 637 and 647, § 2). Hence superiors may not allow a novice t

Issue 58.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1999. ; fo r relg io iu s, Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living jANUARY-FEBRUARY 1999 ¯ VOLUME 58 ¯ NUMBER 1 Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be inforntative, practical, bistorical,'or inspirational, written from a theological or spt~itual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universi~, 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; \,Vashington, 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. ©1999 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC .Chrfisfian Heritages and Contemporary Lfiv~ng JANUARY-FEBRUARY 199~ * VOLUME 58 ¯ NUMBER 1 contents 6 28 perspective. Apostles and Martyrs: Consecrated Life at the Bishops' Synod for Asia John Mansford Prior SVD presents the challenge of the 1998 Synod for Asia to enter into a threefold dialogue--with religions, cultures, and the marginalized. Catholic Guides in Dialogue with Buddhist Practice Paul Bernadicou SJ reviews the progress of Catholic writers in their efforts to provide a fruitful exchange between Christianity and Buddhism. 35 42 traditions Lithuanian and American Sisters: A Lively Interactive Dance Barbara Valuckas SSND describes some of the similarities and differences in the issues facing women religious in the West and in Lithuania. Serpents and Doves: The Company of St. Ursula Ann White draws our attention to the pioneering Ursuline Marie Guyart (Blessed Marie of the Incarnation) living out the vision and spirit of the foundress, St. Angela Merici, to combine the secular and sacred, the worldly and the religious. spirituality 48 The Art of Discernment: The Aesthetic Dimension Xavier Plissart MAfr explains that a basic and essential quality of disce~:nment is that it should strive to be as common as possible in its insight and process, and as universal as possible in the aim toward action. Review for Religious 61 The Still Point: Contemplation Kathy Dunne RC shares her experience and her insights into the unitive way, a way not isolated in prayer, but intimately connected with the dance between the contemplative and apostolic life. 68 82 .aging Caring for Our Own: Competent, Personal Long-term Care in a Faith Perspective Imelda Maurer CDP pictures how life in long-term care looks for some communities of women religious and the witness that is given to the human values that our faith provides. What Is My Mission in Retirement? Francis Blouin FIC clarifies the call of service especially for those who no longer serve in active ministry. 86 report Scrupulosity: Age-old Problem, Holistic Response Paul Duckro, C. Alex Pollard, and Jason Williams describe a synergistic collaboration between behavioral science and religious faith for finding an effective response to the problem of scrupulosity. departments 4 Prisms 98 Canonical Counsel: Living the Evangelical Counsels 103 Book Reviews Janualy-l.¥brllaty 1999 Many of us are familiar with the late Henri Nouwen's Return of the Prodigal Son--a book in which Nouwen reflects on the Gospel story and Rembrandt's painting of the same title displayed in the Hermitage musuem in Saint Petersburg in Russia. Some years after writing the book, Nouwen died while he was on a journey to Russia to participate in a television fea-ture dealing with the painting and his book. Nouwen's fascination with Rembrandt's painting of the famous Lucan parable makes a special appeal to us all in the year 1999. As we continue to follow the direc-tions of Pope John Paul's apostolic letter "As the Third Millennium Draws Near," we know that the year 1999 is dedicated to seeing things "in the perspective of Christ: in the perspective Of the 'Father who is in heaven'" (§49; Mt 5: 45). Just as the previous two years were dedicated respectively to Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit, so this final year preparatory to the new millennium is focused particul.arly upon God--the One Jesus calls Abba-Father. A dynamic is uniquely associated with this third year of preparation. It is the journey motif. We are to pay special attention to the fact that we human beings are '.'on the journey to the house of the Father." The God we come to know on our journeying is not just a good God but a God of forgiving love, a compassionate God. Following an allusion made by the pope, w.e might iden-tify the year 1999 as the year of the parable of the prodi-gal. Like the prodigal, we all are on the road leading home. Like the prodigal, we may have a mix of feelings about the life choices we have made and the values we Review for Religqous. have lived. Like the prodigal, in the midst of evaluating our life we sometimes find ourselves needing to throw ourselves on God's mercy--and ready to do so. In one way or another, then, we tend to find ourselves on the road with the prodigal, similar in our rue-ful disquiet about past failings and in our modest plans for a fresh start. Most important, though, is our coming to the ever new and deepening understanding of the reality of God's relationship with us--the One who keeps watching for us whenever our approach, the One who hastens to embrace us into the family. Demanding as the actual journeying of our life may be, our attention should be fixed primarily on the journey of our heart. The heart needs to be quiet and hear the questions: Where are we now in our journey? Is life for us Christians lived truly as a pilgrimage--a journey with a direction? How have we come to know God in our adult years? Is God the one we experience as so compassionate to us that we feel the pull to address God with Jesus' intimacy-of-love word Abba? Most commonly, pilgrimage evokes a picturing of a group mov-ing onward together. So, too, in our pilgrimage we are not alone. Our Christian community in all its various forms--family, parish, sodality, religious congregation--makes real that it is a "we" jour-neying together to the Father. The call to a new evangelization summons us, already known in Pauline times as a people of "The Way," to be welcoming to a humanity searching for the way. Pilgrims are known to tell stories as in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and pilgrims are known to sing songs as the psalms so often describe. As we continue our journeying in 1999, we need to tell one another our own parables of a pilgrimage home. Together we sing songs of praise to the Father "who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing'I (Ep 1:3-4). The year 1999 can be a special pilgrimage for us all. David L. Fleming sJ Januao,-Februaty 1999 JOHN MANSFORD PRIOR Apostles and Martyrs: Consecrated Life at the Bishops' Synod for Asia Nowhere else in the world is religious life flourishing-- in both its traditional and more contemporary forms-- as it seems to be in Asia. Thus, unsurprisingly, of the 252 participants at the Synod for Asia (19 April to 14 May 1998), some 90 were members of religious orders or congregations, 36 percent of the total. Among these 90 were 63 of the 188 synodal fathers (including 10 superiors general) and 27 of the 58 auditors and experts (including 8 sisters, 5 priests, and two brothers). These numbers, of course, do not represent the pro-portions of consecrated life in Asia and are not intended to. Eight sisters among 244 men reflects neither the presence nor the role of sisters--let alone other women--in the mission of the Asian churches. It was, after all, a synod of bishops, not a, meeting of religious. The ninety religious were present because religious are active in Asia today at all levels of ecclesial life. But with over a third' of the participants belonging to religious orders and congregations, religious life in Asia was not far from the surface of the synodal discussions. John Mansford.Prior SVD has worked in Indonesia since 1973 and writes from Seminari St. Paulus Ledalero; Maumere 86152, Flores-NT:r; Indonesia. During the Synod for Asia, he was liaison officer for the English-speaking press. His article is being published also in Informationes SCRIS, the in-house publicatio~a of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societie~ of ApoStolic Life. Review for Religious The theme of the synod--"Jesus Christ the Savior and his mission of love and service in Asia 'that they may have life and have it abundantly'"--does not refer directly to consecrated life, but it is central to religious life. Religious are active agents in Jesus' mission of love and service, and so consecrated life was referred to in the context of mission. The evangelical theme of the synod was explained at leng.th in two presynodal documents, the lineamenta (guidelines) published in September 1996 and the instrumentum laboris (working docu-ment) published on the eve of the synod itself (February 1998). I wish to glance briefly at these two documents before looking at the synodal documents themselves. Presynodal Documents While all the lineamenta are of interest to religious as mis-sioners, there are just six explicit observations on consecrated life in this document. Half of these are in chapter 2, on the history of Christianity in Asia. Regarding mission in Asia before the 12th century, we read: "Most of these early missionaries and bishops were monks; others were merchants and ordinary Christians" (§9). The important point here is that Eastern-rite churches have been in Asia since Apostolic times and are not the result of Western colonial expansion since the days of da Gama and Columbus. These churches in the Middle East (from Palestine to Iran) and 'in southern India (Kerala), founded long ago by "monks, merchants, and ordinary Christians," are Asian and are accepted as such amid the dominant local populations, whether Muslim or Hindu. This was emphasized time and again by the patriarchs and bishops of these churches. Unfortunately, the story is. different for other churches in Asia. In the 15th and 16th centuries, missionary activity went hand in hand with the colonial expansion of Portugal and Spain. Even today, five hundred years later and half a century since most Asian countries achieve~l political independence, these Latin-rite churches are still looked upon as Western imports. Although some churches were initiated by laypeople (in Indonesia, for example) or even were founded by laypeople (in Korea, for exam-pie), many of these missi6ners were religious. Thus we read in § 10: "Between 1510 and 1640, Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, Augustinians, Carmelites, and Theatines all established houses in Prior * Apostles and Martyrs Asia." Despite the colonial link, the lineamenta emphasize these orders' pioneering work of inculturation. Clearly, the guidelines are rereading history with the needs of contemporary mission in mind. The small, "half-hidden tradition" of dialogue in the past is about to become the great "major tradition" for dialogue in the future. "Many 'missionary-minded' religious congregations sprang up in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Several of these congregations are still at work in Asia. During t.his same period a number of Asian religious congregations of men and women estab-lished themselves in Asia, particularly in India and the Philippines. During the 19th century, for the first time women ventured out into distant lands in Asia to bear witness to Christ and his gospel and to serve the poor . They also became a very essential part of mission in Asia, especially in the preparation of catechumens and the education of children" (§12). One of the signs of renewal since Vatican Council II is the way in which education, previously domesticating, is now. more and more following a liberating model. Such postconciliar renewal is taken up in the following section on "Lessons Learned from History." Among "Significant Contributions" after Vatican II are "con-tinental structures . for the religious in Asia, such as the Asian Meeting of Religious (AMOR), [which] bring the particular churches in Asia together and help coordinate their missionary and pastoral activities" (§14). Perhaps AMOR has achieved more than any other collegial body in opening up the leaders of religious orders and congregations to the wider social realities in which they live and work. This is surely the vital role that Asia-wide bodies are filling: awareness building and ongoing formation among religious leadership. There will be no new evangelization without a shift in consciousness (one of Longeran's "conversions"). Shifts in consciousness come about when we listen to each other and discover the links between our differing situations. Ond important sign that the local churches are now becoming mission-sending churches instead of being exclusivelj~ or mostly mission-receiving churches is the emergence of new Asian mis-sion societies. In the past "the agents of mission were mostly mem-bers of religious orders, congregations, and missionary institutes. Today the local churches of Asia have a number of Asian mis-sionary institutes" (§ 15). As we shall see, this was later taken up on the floor of the synod. Review for Religious Towards the end of the lineamenta ("Agents of Evangelization," §32), the term "consecrated life" is used for the first time. This is in the context of a mission theology of religious life. "It is a very heartening thing to note that many particular churches in Asia have already established mission institutes to send missioners to other countries, even though they themselves are in need of missioners in their own countries. Asian bishops have a particular responsibility to promote mission institutes and to be generous with their personnel for mission areas. Religious orders, congregations, and mission institutes have played a very remarkable role in the evangelization of Asia from the very beginning. Consecrated life is a very privileged means of evange-lization. Persons consecrated by religious vows can dedicate themselves fully to evan-gelization work because of their radical choice of the evangelical counsels, their total availability, their capacity for origi-nality in mission methods--as the history of mission shows, their spirit of generosity and their easy mobility." In this way the lin-eamenta sum up consecrated life in Asia: its historical contribution, distinctive witness, and recent developments. Responses from Asian episcopal conferences to the lineamenta were numerous, some of which have been widely published. Those of Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and India appeared in the East Asian Pastoral Review (no. 1, 1998). The instrumentnm laboris, or syn-odal working document, is thus a commentary by the preparatory committee upon the lineamenta, taking into account the views of the Asian bishops. Not surprisingly, the instrumentum is very dif-ferent in both tone and accentuation from the initial document. It is closer to Asia. Religious life gets five explicit mefftions, and these are of inter-est: First, in the historical section, it is regretted that the pio-neering work of dialogue with cultures and other Asian religions was discontinued so quicklyi "Even though the missionaries' efforts met with many successes, it is felt that a proper understanding of these elements in the work of evangelization would have led to a greater acceptance of the faith by the people of Asia . The church's rediscovered appreciation of other religions and cultures should find greater expression in her missidnary approach" (§14). There will be no new evangelization without a shift in consciousness. Janumy-Feb~wa~y 1999 Religious today are being called to recapture these creative insights from the past. However, there is a price to pay. In continuing Jesus' mission of love and service through interreligious and inter-cultural dialogue, consecrated life in the Latin rite will have to leave behind its Western heritage and become radically Asian. This latter point was brought up many times on the floor 6f the synod. While no section in the lineamenta was devoted to religious life, the whole of §16 of the instrumentum is. devoted to "Consecrated Witness." Mention is made of the "steady increase in the number of vocations during the past decades," both to "tra-ditional religious congregations and institutes which are Western in origin; in recent years a number of new local religious congre-gations have sprung up in Asia." "In many cases o . . service pro-vided by missioners has led to martyrdom." "Witness in Asia has ¯ . . come from a great many of the church's religious orders and congregations who have made a major contribution to the growth of the local churches in Asia during the last five hundred years of evangelization. Tens of thousands of religious sisters and brothers, by their love and unselfish service to those who suffer from poverty in its many forms, have contributed to nourishing the faith of many in the church in Asia. Some of these have given an invalu-able service to local churches by establishing houses of formation, especially seminaries. They have been able to reveal the compas-sionate, loving, and caring face of Jesus to the peoples of Asia. Religious brothers have given an outstanding service to the cause of general education, vocational training, technical education, and developmental works. Contemplative religious have also made a unique contribution to the Christian mission in Asia by their prayers and their witness of complete dedication to a life of union with God." Missioners are contemplatives in action--this is a favorite saying of John Paul II. The evaluation of Catholic mission history in Asia (920, "Leaven in Society") highlights the work of religious in educating the laity. Not aJfew outstanding national leaders in cultural, eco-nomic, and .political affairs, even in countries where Christians are a tiny minority, are alumni of Catholic schools. Towards the end of the instrumentum are two more refer-ences to consecrated life, neither of which' is found in the initial lineamenta. In 942, "The Word of God and Mission," we read: "Some responses ask for a greater attention to the Sacred Review for Religious Scriptures, the word of God, in all areas of church life, especially by bishops, priests, deacons, those in consecrated life, catechists, and lay missioners. Preachers, especially missioners, should draw from the Bible and lead their hearers to take up the word of God for personal study and inspiration . God's word has an inherent power to touch the hearts of all peoples, both Christians and believers of other faiths." This link between the centrality of the biblical apostolate in mission and the centrality of the word in the life witness of the missioner came up later on the synodal floor. Finally, in "The Service of Dialogue," we read: "The mission of the church takes place in interaction with others of which dia-logue is an important aspect. Some bishops in Asia have placed an emphasis upon what they term a 'dialogue of life and heart.' . ¯ . Cloistered sisters, who lead lives of prayer and love in open friendship with their neighbors of other faiths, have shown them-selves to be among the most effective practitioners of the dialogue of life." This is one of the few references to contemplative life in the presynodal documents. While just two participants in the synod were from contemplative orders, a central part of the synod was the link between contemplation and action. God-experience and authentic life-witness are crucial. Proclamation in Dialogue During the first seven days, 191 interventions were made by the synodal members and auditors. A quick, thematic analysis of these interventions follows. Twenty-three interventions were on °interfaith dialogue, 18 on the local, church as a communion of communities (a participative, collegial church). Sixteen interven-tions were on inculturation, 11 on the church's option to accom-pany the poor and margin.alized, and 10 on the challenge of economic globalization. Another 10 were on Asian spirituality and God-experience, 7 on youth, and another 7 on the church in China. Six focused on the ancient Apostolic churches of the Middle East, 5 on issues concerning women, 5 concerning the laity, 4 con-cerning schools, 4 concerning ecumenism, 4 concerning indigenous peoples, 4 concerning family life, and so on. VVhat picture emerges from this rough breakdown? Seventy-six percent of the intervention~s (146) dealt with four main topics: the Asian churches in diaiogue with other faith traditions (43 inter-ventions), the church becoming Asian by dialoguing with living Janttary-Februat.'y 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs r ¯ ] cultures (41 interventions), the churches learning to dialogue with the poor (33 interventions), and the Asian church as a church of the laity (29 interventions). Thus, for the bishops and observers, the threefold dialogue with other religions, with cultures, and with the marginalized looks to the context, approach, and con-tent of the New Evangelization. In this threefold dialogue Christ will become all in all, "that they have life and have it abundantly." Clearly, members of religious orders and congregations are involved in this threefold dialogue, one way or another. In responding to Jesus' mission through the threefold dialogue, con-secrated life itself is evange.lized. It must be noted that only three interventions took up conse-crated life as its sole subject (§§2"5, 81, and 99), while three supe-riors general included religious life as one of their topics (§§68, 133, and 134). Others touched upon consecrated life as part of their intervention. Ten superiors general spoke of various aspects of mission. Some other interventions are of direct relevance to religious, those on Asian spirituality, for instance, and on the strug-gle of women. I here pinpoint a few major issues culled from these interventions. Women in Church and Society Keeping in mind that the great majority of religious are women and that the majority of missioners in Asia are women also, the few interventions on women are of particular impor-tance. Sister Filomena Hirota MME (Japan), one of the eight sis-ter auditors pres.ent, spoke on women's growing awareness and on women's movements which demand that the fundamental equal-ity and dignity of all women and girls be respected in thought, attitudes, and practices. After referring to statements by the FABC (Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences) over the years, she said: "The church in Asia has a predominantly feminine face. In many countries women constitute 70-80 percent of its member-ship. The presence of women in pastoral ministry, their service to the poor and marginated, their commitment to peace and jus-tice in ecumenical and interreligious relationships, and their sol-idarity actions in promoting the dignity and equality of all women, men, and children have been significant and important." She went. on to say: "A new way of being church in Asia calls for a church in solidarity with the cry of women in a prophetic Review for Religious way." The church is called to "become a credible sign of the dig-nity and freedom of women in society and in the world" (Fourth FABC Assembly). The church has to find a concrete way to respond to the Holy Father's words expressing regret and apology for wrongs and insensitivities toward women in the church: "May this regret be transformed, on the part of the whole church, into a renewed commitment to fidelity to the gospel vision" (Letter to Women, 29 June 1995). She made five proposals: (1) "Members of Mother Church are called to be agents of communion, to create wholesome and equal relationships of compassion and care among humankind and with nature." (2) "Theology from women's perspectives and experiences should be introduced in seminaries and mission formation courses." (3) "It is important, indeed necessary, for male members of Mother Church to discover and grow in 'feminine' insights and attitudes in imita-tion of Jesus (see FABC Assembly 1990) so that their service may be fully and genuinely human and Christian in a society where the logic of domination is destroying both human beings and nature." (4) "Future priests should be formed so as to accept women as equal disciples and companions in their evangelization work." (5) "As a concrete sign of recognition of the fundamental equality of all bap-tized persons (including their dignity and rights) and the church's commitment to uphold women as equal partners, it is urgently rec-ommended: (a) that there be a minimum of 30 percent participa-tion of women in all church organizations and councils; (b) that in the church all women, including religious sisters, be justly com-pensated for their work; (c) that women be given support and opportunities which will enable them to study theology and related subjects; (d) that in each diocese a committee be formed to address injustice, especially against women and children, and to take effec-tive appropriate action in coordination with other local, national, and international organizations; (e) that all language (which sub-consciously influences our conscious attitudes) of church-related writings reflect the equality of men and women. May Mary of the Magnificat accompany us in this jourfiey as we women commit ourselves to Jesus' mission of love and service in Asia!" Appropriate here is the intervention of Pastor Agustina Lumentut, of the Central Sulawesi Christian Church of Indonesia, The church in Asia has a predominantly feminine face. Januat3,-FebruaD, 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs one. of the ecumenical delegates from the Christian Conference of Asia. She noted: "In Asia many countries are afflicted by a mon-etary and economic crisis. Therefore poverty and suffering increase for men, but in particular for women who will be hit most by the rising prices of their basic needs. Often the husbands and the older children of Asian women have gone away to the big cities to find a job and never return. No 'syn-odos,' no 'walking-together' any-more for many Asian women and their families. But there is a 'syn-odos,' a 'walking-together' with women from the same reli-gion, but also from other religions, women who have similar expe-riences. As Asian women theologians have stated: 'These shared experiences can become one of the primary sources for theologi-cal reflection, for rereading the Scripture, for a new interpretation, a new perspective.' As long as Asian women find the courage to tell each other their stories and share their .experiences, they have hope. Women are walking together. But is the church walking with them?" David Fleming SM, superior general of the Marianists (inter-vention no. 68), reflected on the compelling power of feminine images of the holy in Asian religions. In Hindu spirituality female images usually stand for shakti, power, creative energy. In Bengali Hinduism great attention is paid to Durga, a feminine image of the holy that is portrayed, almost like the Woman of the Apocalypse (chap. 12) as conquering the forces of evil, crushing the serpent's or dragon's head. Such feminine images, far from inducing passivity and helpless resignation, point to great social dynamism. The many feminine figures in Asia have arisen in a context of theo-logical reflection and catechesis that-is totally different from ours and surely unacceptable to us as Christians on the level of doctrine. Nevertheless, they enshrine some religious imagery that we Christians naturally find realized in Mary. She is a holy woman of contemplative sensitivity, one who experienced God rather than analyzed God. She is full of compassion and sensitivity to the poor and suffering, in dynamic solidarity with them, sharing their strug-gles as a woman of the people in an oppressed nation. In herself she lives a harmony with God, with her fellow human beings, with nature, and with society. David Fleming ended by saying: "Much of this Asian sensitivity for what we might roughly call the 'feminine' aspects of the holy is in fact integrated into the tender and almost cbnnatural devo-tion to Mary that characterizes so many Asian Christians. I am Review for Religious not talking of an integration of doctrine or of any new theologi-cal assertions about Mary. But I believe that a culture that shows so great a sensitivity to the feminine side of the holy has a great deal to contribute to our Christian experience of Mary, not only in Asia but also in the rest of the world. It helps us see the dynamism and vitality of Mary in the work of salvation and her power to motivate us to a commitment in solidarity with the poor. In this way we can give a greater Asian content to the conviction often expressed by the Holy Father that Mary is the 'Star' enlight-ening and directing the progress of the new evangelization in our era." All this is of interest to religious, both women and men. What images of God have we internalized, which images are we proclaiming by our lifestyle and in our work? God-Experience Time and again, bishops spoke out on the centrality of authen-tic experience of the human and the divine. I take up just one example, the presentation of Bishop John Osta of Patna, India (intervention no. 37). It is, "Bishop John said, "not enough to repeat doctrinal or theoretical formulas; personal witness to a personal experience is called for." Bishop John called for a new contem-plative lifestyle for all in the church. In this "rebirthing" of the church, religious have a pioneering role: live the Christian mystew in an Asian way! Integrating prayer forms from other Asian reli-gions is not syncretism, he maintained, but a demand of our times. The bishop continued by quoting FABC (Hong Kong, 1977): "The decisive new phenomenon for Christianity in Asia will be the emergence of genuine Christian communities in Asia, Asian in their way of thinking, praying, living, communicating their own Christ-experience to others . We should beware of seeing our future mission in categories that belong to the past, when the West shaped the churches' history. If the Asian churches do not dis-cover their own identity, they have no future." David Fleming made an interesting contribution on some aspects of the "dialogue of religious experience." His nine years in Nepal and India informed his presentation. He said: "To speak to the heart of Asian people and enter into a genuine dialogue of religious experience, religious and bishops should give special attention to developing the Christian contemplative life in Asia, as well as to enriching the contemplative dim.ension within all insti- P~o__r_ ¯ ~ostles and Martyrs, tutes of consecrated life, in order to create inculturated forms of living the spirituality of each institute. This is an aspiration widely shared, but not always so well realized, by religious institutes pre-sent in Asia." He continued: "Interreligious dialogue on the level of reli-gious experience involves a giving and a receiving, so that much can be learned from the deep religiosity of people and from their religions. Such dialogue shows us concretely how the Spirit of God has been at work through the centuries in the religious expe-rience of others. We often find that interchanges with seekers of holiness in other religions open up new vistas for Christian life and especially refresh our'memory of elements in our Christian spir~ itual heritage that we have tended to forget and neglect." He gave some examples: "A genuinely inculturated celebra-tion of the Eucharist. Very often, after participating in liturgies that integrated elements from the great variety of Indian cultures-- Hindu, Muslim, animist--Indian Catholics told me how richly these inculturated liturgies moved them, touching something that had perhaps been buried and a bit regretted in their souls during their years of taking part in more Western-style liturgies." A sec-ond example: "The disciplines of yoga direct us to pay greater attention to an approach to the body that disposes us to prayer. Similar teaching exists in our Christian tradition, especially in the hesychasm of Eastern medieval Christianity. But I doubt if we will easily rediscover this neglected dimension of spiritual discipline without the help of interreligious dialogue." Another example: "Attention to the rich oriental teaching .on praying with a mantra has sparked a fruitful renewal of c'ontemplative prayer among Christians in our time, often called 'centering prayer.' A similar approach was inculcated in ancient Christian monasticism, from the Egyptian desert through John Cassian, and in the oriental Christian tradition of the Jesus Prayer. The prayer of the rosary is, in its own way, within the same tradition. But today many Christians, East and West, are rediscovering this contemplative form of prayer through interreligious dialogue." Cardinal Eduardo Martfnez Somalo, prefect of the Congregationfor Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) gave the 81st intervention. The cardinal's eight points emphasized the centrality of t~tal dedication by the consecrated person. The key to mission witness is who she or he is, not what she or he does. Cardinal Martfnez Somalo linked the Revlew for Religious contemplative and mystical dimension of consecrated life to an ascetical lifestyle. This comment is particularly pertinent as Asia suffers a major monetary crisis on top of long-standing systemic poverty and injustice. In simplicity and prayerful silence, religious undergo day by day conversion to the gospel. After the primacy of religious experience, the cardinal emphasized the need for a solid theological formation, particularly necessary as we enter into dia-logue with Asian cultures and other Asian religions. He ended on a note of joy and hope at the many vocations to religious life in Asia. These key issues echoed and strengthened the contributions from Asia itself. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Jesuits, con-trastedthose who work for results with those who live out of love (intervention no. 97). The high-quality institutions run by reli-gious orders do not automatically proclaim the love of God. Our apostolates proclaim love when they are run by people "through whom God's love shines." Similarly with the work of dialogue: we dialogue in love without calculation or ulterior motives. In our apostolates we do not proclaim self but Christ crucified. I was reminded of the saying of John of the Cross: "Where there is no love, put love, and you will reap love." A short comment, one of many during the synod, about the centrality of God-experience, came from Bishop Gratian Mundadan (intervention no. 124) of Bijnor of the Syro-Malabar rite, India: "A Hindu sadhu once told Abhishiktanandaswamy: If you want to touch the heart of Indians, every one of you must become a guru. A guru is one who has deep God-experience. Such a guru does not quote, does not instruct, does not formulate, does not dogmatize. The guru shares personal experience of God, It is not just a question of presenting Jesus Christ as the guru; every Christian needs to become a guru--deep in the experience of God. . Spirit-filled and Spirit-led aposdes began their mission with sur-prisingly great success . "Unfortunately the scenario changed. The communities of the Spirit became institutionalized. When possessions, power, and authority increased, the need to rely on the power of the Spirit decreased. The Holy Spirit remained the forgotten person of the Holy Trinity. The humble, poor servant Christ, who came to serve and not to be served, was forced to assume the status of a power-ful king instead of continuing to be the King of the heart. The church began to rely on competency and human efficiency, doc- Jamtao, oPYbruaO, 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs trinal as well as juridical. If the church's power and authority comes only from competency and human efficiency, then we are facing a crisis in our mission. For such a competency based on knowledge, ideas, administrative skills, and laws will search for its legitimacy in the rational, in the human. The power of the church is reli-gious, spiritual, power from heaven. When the leaders of the church are devoid of such a spiritual power, they'will take shelter in juridical power. "There is an urgent need to change this image. The leadership of the church has to change the style of functioning, to become more spiritual, free from institutional authoritarianism and fully at the service of the gospel and the world. Such a leadership will be able to animate people to God-experience and help them translate this experience into fraternal love. This is to be the original con-tribution of the gospel to Asia, where other religions concentrate on God-experience alone without any effort to serve the brethren. The leadership of the church will have to discern and activate the vari-ous charisms of the whole Christian community: build up commu-nities of love and fellowship as did the Apostles. Such a leadership will seek to strengthen the capacity of the people of God to become true faith communities as against the dichotomy that exists today between faith and life among Christians: make these communities powerful evangelizing communities, empower the faithful and enable them to face the challenges of the present day and of the future with interior power, power from above, and not with worldly wisdom and efficiency. ".Following the way of Christ, the church in Asia has to assume the way of kenosis, of self-emptying, of the cross, of loving and self-giving service. We have to develop a kenosis ecclesiology. We have to shed attitudes of power, domination, influence. Such a church will appeal to the Asian mind . Let the call of the synod to the church of Asia be a return to the sources, to the spirit and style of the early church, where the Spirit of God reigned." Asian Mission Societies Edward Malone (Hong Kong) is the long-serving assistant secretary general of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC). The bishops of south, southeast, and east Asia have belonged to FABC since 1970; they are now to be joined by the churches of central Asia. Father Edward devoted his intervention Review for Religious (no. 99) to Asian mission societies: "Although the number of [Asian] Christians remains small in comparison with Asia's bur-geoning masses (2-3 percent of all Asian peoples), this 'little flock' (Lk 12:32) seeks to share its riches and discovery of Christ with neighboring peoples . They are aware that 85 percent of all the world's non-Christians live in Asia. "Responses to the call of mission and evangelization within Asia have taken a variety of forms. Most international institutes of women and men have a home in Asia. New groups and new forms of religious life, secular institutes, and lay orga-nizations have emerged to respond to the call of world mission. Yet I wish to highlight a unique ~ and essential form of mission response. This charism is that of the missionary society of apos-tolic life. In recent decades, six such societies of men have emerged in Asia: the Missionary Society of the Philippines, the Missionary Society of Saint Thomas the Apostle (India), the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of Korea, the Missionary Society of Thailand, the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society (Philippines), and the Heralds of Good News (India) . These societies of men who are pledged to lifelong commitment to foreign mission bring a unique--and essential-~- contribution to the church's missionary activity. "These mission societies of apostolic life contribute a partic-ular focus to mission. Their contribution is ad genres, ad exteros, and ad vitam. They direct their efforts to evangelization ad genres, to those who have not yet heard the liberating and salvific Good News of Jesus Christ; ad exteros, to peoples outside their own coun-try, cultural milieu, and language group; and ad vitam, through a lifelong commitment to this unique form of mission witness. There are countless local churches in Asia that owe the emergence of their faith and communities to the dedicated labors of such mis~ sion societies of apostolic life founded in other parts of the world. The 'time of the heirs' has come for all local churches of Asia to respond by establishing such mission societies . A local church is not intended to live alone; it is 'not a community in isolation from other communities of the church one and catholic. Rather it seeks communion with all of them' (FABC 1). This is a unique con-tribution that mission societies of apostolic life can bring to the local churches throughout Asia. Such societies can become 'bridges 85 percent of all the world's non-Christians live in Asia. Januaty-Febt'tlat3, 1999 Prior * Apostles and Martyrs of communion' by which the sister local churches of Asia can appreciate and exchange their unique gifts. In this way the gospel is proclaimed, communion is strengthened, the 'dream of catholic-ity' emerges and is concretized . Though not limited to Asia alone, their growth will result in Asians evangelizing Asians, the emergence of authentically missionary local churches, the strength-ening of bonds of communion among the churches of Asia . " Edward Malone then pointed out developments that foster or hinder mission ad genres. First, in an ecclesiology of communion, we need bridges of exchange and communion. Missioners ad genres foster communion among sisters churches. Second, churches that do not experience this exchange (sending/receiving) can become closed ih upon themselves. They could become vulnerable to local ideologies and a closed nati'onalism. Third, if ad genres mission is not promoted, there will remai~ many unreached peoples through-out Asia. Fourth, pastoral care even keenly felt must not be allowed to derail the local-church ad gentes mission effort (this has often happened: working abroad with nationals from the same church of origin does not fulfill the ad genres vocation). Father Malone con-cluded by mentioning two current temptations: (1) the "tempta-tion of success" (to settle down with the visible results of evangelization, hesitating to turn over the parishes, schools, and institutions to the local church and diocese and move out to new frontiers) and (2) the "temptation of pastoral care" (seeking to answer all the pastoral needs of a diocese and so losing the will to reaffirm the original charism, "to g9 and make disciples"). Ours must always be the motto of the apostle Paul: "Christus me misit non baptizare, sed evangelizare" (1 Co 1:17). Edward Malone's informative and provocative contribution drew two responses from superiors general of mission societies that originated in the West. Father Franco Cagnasso, PIME superior general (intervention no. 13 3), welcomed the Asian missioners, that is, those who remain authentically Asian. Their presence is positive for the whole church. They are less institutionalized and live close to the poor. Many have a valuable interiorized approach to the mystery of Christ. People from the other continents have redis-covered their Christian faith through reaching out to Asian spiri-tuality. Father Franco ~lso welcomed the fact that Asian churches were open to receiving cross-cultural missioners from outside Asia. The more the Asian churches become self-sufficient pastorally, the more they can move out to dialogue with others. Review for Religious This contribution was followed by that of Father Raymond Rossignol, superior general of the Missions of Paris (intervention no. 134). He emphasized that each and every church should be open to send and receive cross-cultural missioners. No church should be encapsulated. History has left the Asian churches with a problem: they are perceived by majority communities as being foreign (Western). Also, in the past, Western missioners have tended to dominate local church personnel. One reaction to this is for each church to look after itself without outside "interference." However, we need to find suitable ways to ensure that cross-cultural mis-sioners can be present in all churches--not just in those who are not yet "self-sufficient." Raymond Rossignol concluded by saying: "No church is so poor that it has nothing to offer others; no church is rich enough that it cannot receive from others." Formation of Religious One of the burdens of history is that Western-style churches were planted in Asia during the colonial era. In the words of the president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Sri Lanka, Bishop Oswald Thomas Colman Gomis (intervention no. 141), "the church has remained foreign in its public image and expression, in liturgy, art, architecture, mannerisms, and presentation of doc-trine, and above all in patterns of life, especially those of her reli-gious . Most of my brothers and sisters here, I believe, would agree with me that this image remains very much a block to evan-gelization today. This synod [should] find some formula to erase this scar inherited at birth by many churches in the countries of Asia." One place to start is formation. Bishop Arturo M. Bastes (intervention no. 25) gave a tour de force, finishing his presentation a split second before the micro-phone was cut off. A former SVD provincial, Bishop Arturo of Romblon, Philippines, spoke on formation for religious in the contemporary Asian context. His exposition focused on four important shifts taking place in the Asian churches: a shift from a Eurocentered church to an authentically Asian church, a shift in our understanding of history, a shift in the model of church, a shift in our understanding of spirituality. Each shift has its impact upon formation communities. ¯ According to Bishop Arturo, the church's mission in Asia has been approached from the perspective of a Eurocentered church, Prior ¯ Apostles andMartyrs deeply conditioned by the European colonialism of the times. Formation of religious was or still is monocultural, Western or European. While religious vocations are rapidly decreasing in Europe and the rest of the Western Hemisphere, there is an ever increasing number of religious vocations in Asia. A contextual-ized formation is suited to the mentality of Asians. There should be real insertion in social reality. Asian formators are developing practical methodologies in contrast to Western academic models. Academic study needs to be accompanied by practical method-ologies in the light of Asian realities. The second shift is in our understanding of history. The great world religions Hinduism and Buddhism, whose cradle is Asia, antedate Christianity by thousands of years. Christianity was born in Asia, but has been alienated from Asia by becoming Eurocentered. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines proposed that the synod "explore exhaustively in an open and humble way the revelatory nature" of the religions of Asia and their impact on the church's proclamation of Jesus. There is much that the church can learn from other Asian religions regarding the values of God's reign. Persons beginning religious-life formation need a great feeling of respect for other religious tra-ditions which offer "salvation" even before the coming of Christ. Christian religious should not feel "superior" to people of other traditions. Asian formandi and formandae need to remain Asian even when they join international congregations. The third shift is in church models. When the church embed-ded itself in Europe, a mindset arose that considered Europe Christian and the rest of the world pagan. Unfortunately, they seem to have identified Christianity with whatever is European. Many third-world churches are striving to shift away from a tri-umphalistic model to a church identified with the social condi-tions of the people. Without a sense of the poor, there can be no genuine following of Jesus in Asia. Hence, candidates for the reli-gious life in Asia should be trained to have both an affective and effective commitment to the poor. All religious congregations today emphasize "preferential~ option for the poor." The question is: Do we really mean it? The "passing-over to the poor" is admit-tedly one of the most difficult transitions for a religious congre-gation. The fourth shift highlighted by Bishop Nrmro ~ls in our under-standing of spirituality. Traditionally we have associated spirituality Review for Religious with an institutional way of living. We need to shift our under-standing of spirituality from institutional to incarnational. More basic to each congregational charism is being rooted in the incar-nation of Christ. There is a dynamic and essential relationship between culture and spirituality in a common humanity. The three characteristics of an incarnational spirituality are self-transcen-dence, search for meaning, and the gift of self. These are at the heart of every spirituality, whether Christian or non-Christian. Globalization of the free market is attacking Asia; the prospects of the third millennium are frightening. Religious women and men of Asia should join forces to fight, con-sumerism by living a spiritual life that is accessible to their fellow Asians, whatever their creed. Bishop Arturo concluded by suggesting that religious candidates should seriously study and reflect upon the spirituality of other Asian religions besides the teachings of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The Spirit is present in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and even primal religion. The vocation of Asian religious today is to save Asia, by the wisdom and depth of Asian spirituality with which Asians feel at home, from the onslaught of materialism coming from global market forces. Asian spirituality is not opposed to the teachings of Christ, for it is a true manifestation of God's Spirit working in all peoples. Janet Wang, president of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors of Women of Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei, spoke of dia-logue within the church: only a church in dialogue can dialogue with cultures and other religions. She spoke of mission in the light of the church as communion. The church in Asia needs to grow in dialogue of life and heart so as to be a visible and efficacious sign of communion in the multiracial and multireligious societies in which we live. While we are challenged to intensify interreligious dialogue and dialogue with culture, we cannot ignore the need to improve our capacity to dialogue within the church at the grass-roots level--among priests who work in the same parish, as well as among priests, religious, and laypeople. One of the best forms of The great world religions Hinduism and Buddhism, whose cradle is Asia, antedate Christianity by thousands of years. Prior * Apostles and Martyrs For formation to become Asian, future l rofessors need to do their special studies in Asia rather than in Rome or elsewhere in the West. evangelization in secularized societies like ours is the witness of love and reconciliation, unity in diversity, authority as service. The Spirit is calling us to move away from the image of a cler-ical institution to the building of a participatory church where priests, religious, and laypeople have a common vision of church as communion. The church in Asia will become more alive and efficacious to the extent that the laity and religious are actively involved with their parish priests in pastoral plan-ning and decision making. Sister Janet said, "Our religious communities need to be recognized as Christ-centered basic ecclesial communities within the local church." Changes in attitude, however, do not come automatically. Persons need to be formed in a gradual, experiential way. Sister Janet concluded: "May I strongly recommend, also on behalf of the Conference of Religious Major Superiors of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, (1) that seminarians be formed to a better understanding of consecrated life in the context of the ecclesiology of communion, (2) that pri'ests, religious, and laypeo-pie be formed together towards a new way of being church. With hearts open to the action of the Spirit, we need to listen to the word of God, to pray and reflect together, to search together, and in an atmosphere of dialogue to carry out pastoral planning, pastoral care, and mission outreach together as church, the family of God in Asia." Francis Adeodatus Micallef, apostolic vicar of Kuwait (inter-vention no. 43), also spoke of the spiritual formation of religious. "Spiritual formation of candidates should not suffer as a conse-quence of formation programs . Lifestyle should reflect the deep spiritual formation which these centers are imparting." The key word here is authenticity. Bishop Peter Chun Hon-Ting of Kuching, Malaysia (inter-vention no. 62), spoke on seminary formation; his comments are germane not only to clerical religious. Bishop Peter Chun empha-sized the absolute need for a sound knowledge of the religiocul-tural situation of one's country and a critical knowledge of the ReviewforReligious economic and political conditions that affect people. Many bish-ops emphasized the link between contemplation and involvement, spirituality and politics. Bishop Peter also stressed the dignity and equality of lay and clerical, the Bible as the soul of all theology, and the integration of Asian philosophies and spiritualities into the curriculum. For formation to become Asian, future professors need to do their special studies in Asia rather than in Rome or elsewhere in the West. Not far from the question of formation is that of spiritual direction. Vicente Cajilig OP, secretary to the Office of Education and Student Chaplaincy FABC (Philippines), gave the one inter-vention on spiritual direction. He said: "Spirituality in Asia, as seen by formators, is a form of journey and accompaniment. This journey follows a certain pathway that leads to interiority. The model of all models is Christ, with whom the formandi and for-mandae are configured. The directee arrives eventually at the stature of Christ." He concluded that, above all, a "spiritual pro-gramme that prepares spiritual directors themselves is important. While formation in theology gives candidates a firm foundation in the faith, the handling of the spiritual task requires added know-how on the journey of the Spirit." Schools A continent-wide synod is not the place to look at individual apostolates in any meaningful detail. Where the churches in Asia are small, even insignificant minorities, elite schools have been an important apostolate. As independent governments and majority communities have developed their own, even better, school systems (see intervention no. 125 by Bishop Leo Laba Ladjar of Jayapura, Indonesia), this traditional apostolate is being increasingly ques-tioned. The preferential love for the poor also raises fundamental questions. Alwis Sunanda FMS (Sri Lanka) put it like this: "An educational system, especially at the tertiary level, committed to the service of the values of Jesus and right relationships, orients its curriculum and research towards greater understanding of the social forces at work in exploitative societies such as exist in parts of Asia. It shines light on exploitative and liberative forces in those societies and tries to motivate students and teachers to choose a set of values different from the existing capitalistic, consumerist, wasteful, gender- and ethnically biased values. Its library and social January-February 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs communications would be a help to the poor and the needy, those who are marginalized, and exploited women and men." Brother Alwis, however, went on to suggest that "the social system in the context of Asia tends to ensure that Christian schools serve the interests of more affluent groups in society. How valid, in practice, is the argument that we can influence the future shape of our soci-ety by training the children of the elite in our schools? Are we not, instead, put in a position of maintaining the existing social order, to the extent that our own values and lifestyle are adjusted to continue a system of education that bolsters, if not aggravates, the inequalities? Often a glaring incongruence exists between the gospel we teach and the work we do, between our expressed mes-sage and the lives we live. We ourselves, though, might not notice this by reason of our great dedication to the cause we serve." Brother Alwis concludes, "Today we may have a better chance of being faithful to the call of the gospel by working in programs that foster nonformal education, adult education, values educa-tion, and education through peoples' movements rather than through traditional educational systems." This is just one thoughtful contribution among the many that were made about various apostolates. What is clear is that, fifty years after most Asian countries became independent, religious orders are having to look again at many of their traditional apos-tolates, successful as they superficially look. The Propositions The synod is over and the bishops are back at their posts. Some time in 1999 an apostolic exhortation will be published, based upon the 59 propositions drawn up during the final days of the synod. Two of these propositions, numbers 27 and 28, deal respectively with "consecrated life" and "mission societies of apos-tolic life and other mission societies." I did not receive a copy of the propositions, and the synodal members handed theirs back to the secretariat. From what I heard in the synodal hall, and the notes I made, I can make the following brief cominents. In Proposition 27, religious are looked upon as a reminder of the universal call to holiness who inspire a self-giving love towards everyone, especially the least of their brothers and sisters. The synod calls upon religious to undertake a renewal and revitaliza-tion of their commitment to proclaim the saving message of Jesus Review fo," Religious Christ. Formation should be Christ-centered and contextualized, faithful to the group's charisms, with emphasis upon life witness. Spirituality and lifestyle should be sensitive to the religious her-itage of the people they live with and serve. Proposition 28 acknowledges the continuing contribution made by mission institutes of apostolic life. The recent founding of mission institutes of apostolic life in Asia itself is an expression of the missionary dimension of the churches of Asia. The synod encourages the further establishment of mission societies charac-terized by their commitment to mission ad genres, ad exteros, and ad vitam. Encouraging Words Each and every woman and man dedicated to the consecrated life in Asia has received renewed encouragement from the 1998 synod to .continue the daily witness of risking oneself for Christ's sake. We have been challenged, some thirty-six years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, to take up the language of the threefold dialogue with religions, cultures, and the marginal-ized and to flesh it out in lives of radical witness to the incarnate Word and graceful Spirit. This threefold dialogue is one integral movement of evangelization, the evangelization of the whole of life in all its myriad dimensions. As apostles of the crucified and risen Lord, we promote life in multicultural, multifaith Asia. As martyrs to the truth-giving Spirit, we endeavor to live ascetically with the marginalized. There is no reason for holding back: we have the dream, we know the strategies. We have the documents, we have the official encouragement~ The only real barrier is the narrowness of our minds and the smallness of our hearts. "Have courage, I have conquered the world!" On 16:33). "For God is greater than our hearts" (1 Jn 3:20). Janualy-Februa~y 1999 PAUL BERNADICOU Catholic Guides in Dialogue with Buddhist Practice Ion the latter 1960s Thomas Merton, prophetic here as in many ther areas with fresh religious insight, declared that, "far from being suspicious of the Oriental mystical traditions, Catholic contemplatives since the Second Vatican Council should be in a position to appreciate the wealth of experience that has accumu-lated in those traditions." His 1967 book Mystics and Zen Masters included an earlier essay expressing admiration for the 16th-cen-turyJesuit missionary effort in China, seeing that effort as a pro-logue to contemporary religious understanding. Merton was joined by a bevy of other Catholic scholars eager now to enter into dialogue rather than to proselytize in their mis-sionary outreach. In the words of the council's Declaration on Non-Christian Religions, Catholics were now asking themselves how these Asian and other ways try to pierce "that ultimate and unutterable mystery which engulfs our being, and whence we take our rise, and whither our journey leads us." The council docu-ment not only gave permission to respect the teachings of these other ways, but also invited Catholic scholars to "acknowledge, preserve, and promote the spiritual and moral goods found among them, as well as the values in their society and culture" (§§1, 2). Just before his tragic death in Bangkok at an East/West monas-tic conference, Merton wrote about his deeply moving sight of the Buddha sculptures at Polonnaruwa (Asian Journal, New Paul Bernadicou SJ chairs the University of San Francisco's theology department and is tertian instructor for the California province of the Society of Jesus. His address is 2130 Fulton Street; San Francisco, California 94117. Review for Religious Directions, 1993, pp. 233-236): "I mean, I know and have seen what I. was obscurely looking for. I do not know what else remains, but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and got beyond the shadow and the disguise." He wrote beautifully about these huge, silent figures "questioning nothing, knowing every-thing" with their great yet serene smiles. Another Catholic monastic voice from that period was Aelred Graham's, who in Conversations: Christian and Buddhist Encounters in Japan (Harcourt, Brace, 1968, p. xiv) recounts how he sought to pass from the area of academic study to that of firsthand experi-ence of Buddhism. In his sixtieth year, after long experience as a Benedictine, he had the opportunity to speak with some for whom the Buddha was a role model no less than Jesus was for him. He describes the value of such religious encounter as "not at the peripheral level of Christian ecclesiology, which still preoccupies so many Catholic theologians, but at the basically existential level of who we are and what human life is all about." Jesuit Guides The Jesuit missionary H.M. Enomiya Lassalle, already in Japan before World War II, eventually inculturated his Christian Zen meditational practice into a Zen-style Jesuit retreat center in the countryside at a remove from bustling Tokyo. He published his personal findings regarding the helpfulness of Zen for an enhance-ment of Christian meditation. In Zen Meditation for Christians (German original, 1968; Open Court Publishers, 1974, pp. 151- ¯ 152), he illustrates this conviction with the parable of the prodi-gal son. In the typical way of Christian meditation at the time, you would reflectively think about the youth's family circum-stances, then the effrontery of his demand for his inheritance, then his degradation after wasteful spending, and finally his remorse and return to his father's house. A deeper form of medi-tation would not simply use~ the prodigal son as a symbol, but identify with him as an image of oneself. The person meditating would thus become the prodigal son. It is myself who reveled in our father's house only to estrange myself and now hanker to return in repentance and humility. "When we perform medita-tion in this manner and begin anew each time we practice, our heart is then purified and transformed directly and immediately through meditation--rather than indirectly through intellectual Janua~y-Februa~Ty 1999 Bernadicou ¯ Catholic Guides in Dialogue In Zen the method of purification involves working on koans, but in Christianity the emphasis is on meditation and the importance of Scripture. considerations of the will." This type of meditation is similar to Zen, wherein the Zen practitioner becomes one with a koan (that is, a Zen paradox designed to break through discursive con-sciousness to intuitive insight). ~ Heinrich Dumoulin, a Jesuit colleague of Lassalle at Sophia University in Tokyo, edited in the 1970s a series titled Religious Encounter: East and West which was "intended to promote an understanding of the living unity, diversity, and meeting-ground of reli-gious phenomena, Asian and Occidental." Dumoulin's own first contribution to the series, Christianity Meets Buddhism (Open Court, 1974, p. 198), emphasized that interreli-gious dialogue can contribute uniquely toward opening up a new horizon. Both Christianity and Buddhism involve a search for ulti-mate reality, and a dialogue between the two is "perhaps one of mankind's greatest hopes." A Jesuit of Japanese origin also at Sophia University, Joseph Kadowaki, whose youthful background had been Zen Buddhism and who was later baptized a Christian, came to recognize similarities between Zen monastic training and his own Jesuit novitiate training. In Zen the method of purification involves working on koans, but in Christianity the emphasis is on meditation and the imlSortance of Scripture. After he began to practice Zen, Kadowaki found that he could read the Bible in a new light. His book Zen and the Bible (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977) describes the method used in solving a Zen koan and shows how to appreciate the many para-doxical or obscure koan-like passages in the Bible. William Johnston, the fourth member of this quartet of Jesuit scholars of Zen at Sophia University, recently published his mag-num opus, Mystical Theology (HarperCollins, 1995, reprinted by Orbis, 1998). He has for more than twenty-five years been in the vanguard of the Christian and Zen Buddhist dialogue. He pub-lished Christian Zen: A Way of Meditation in 1971 (Harper and Row; 2nd edition, 1980); it provides explicit guidelines for a way of Christian meditation that incorporates Zen insight. Wordless Review for Religiot,s meditation, a modified lotus position, rhythmical breathing, and the use of koan are explored as Zen practices which can heighten Christian meditation. This interest in meditation led to his scientific investigation into its effects: Silent Music: The Science of Meditation (1974; reprinted, Fordham University Press, 1997). Johnston surveys what scientific research has uncovered about altered states of con-sciousness, brainwaves, and biofeedback. He investigates both Eastern and Western meditation by which one enters deeper lev-els of consciousness. The discovery of such meditation's "passive energy" and of other physiological and psychological benefits show its power to heal and comfort the distressed. And Johnston points out how the "nonattachment" and "knowledge of empa-thy" required in meditation can help people find genuine friend-ships and intimacy in their relationships. Thus he has added insights from modern science into the dialogue between Eastern and Western religious traditions. His Mystical Theology (1995) updates this message for many contemporary laypeople practicing meditation and finding them-selves drawn into mystical states of consciousness. John of the Cross wrote such a theology for the 16th century, and Johnston attempts it for our own century through his ongoing dialogue with modern science and with Buddhism. "Traditional mystical theology was written for monks and nuns . This is the age of the laity. Now married people who live a busy life in factory or classroom or office or laboratory aspire to a life of meditation and mysticism" (p. I0). They look for spiritual guidance as they grap-ple with problems of sexuality, social justice, world peace, and protection of the environment. Trappist Guides Also at the forefront of contemporary Catholic encounter with Asian practice are the adept Trappist advocates of centering prayer Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating, who have taken up where fellow Trappist Thomas Merton left off. In his 1977 Daily We Touch Him (Doubleday Image, 1979) and 1980 Centering Prayer (Doubleday Image, 1982), Pennington explored how to adapt the principles of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Zen to Christian meditation. Daily V~e Touch Him is a simple but helpful guide to finding God's presence in one's own daily experience: "God is pre- January-February 1999 Bernadicou * Catholic Guides in Dialogue sent to us from the very first instant that he calls us into being-- and thenceforth forever he touches us at every point and level of our being. He is present to us. But are we present to him?" (pp. 14- 15). With Centering Prayer the focus is on returning to the roots of early Christian prayer, especially in the Eastern church and the patristic traditions. Centering prayer combines the best features of this Eastern Christian practice in a blend of East and West that inspires personal Christian prayer today. Thomas Keating likewise explores the Eastern Christian roots of his contemplative heritage in Open Mind, Open Heart (Continuum, 1994). The book moves beyond discursive meditation and acts of devotion to the intuiti'~e level of contemplation. Keating surveys the history of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition, and follows with step-by-step direction in the method of centering prayer. He manifests how such an approach opens one's mind and heart to the contemplative dimension of the gospel. His recent Intimacy with God (Crossroad, 1996) builds on his earlier volumes by summarizing material from talks he has given in more recent years to people ranging from advanced prac-titioners of centering prayer to persons just starting out. He con-tinues to provide a Christian alternative to the appeal of Asian practices. His conviction is that our journey into intimacy with God leads us "powerfully outward, toward the bonding that we call the Communion of Saints: the capacity to relate to one another with the unconditional love with which Christ relates to us" (p. 160)~ Keating's prayer instruction parallels the apophatic style of much Buddhist meditation. Christian Theology and Buddhism An outstanding Catholic interlocutor with the Buddhist tra-dition on a more speculative and theological level is the Jesuit Aloysius Pieris, who was the first non-Buddhist to receive the doc-torate in Buddhist studies in his native Sri Lanka. His Love Meets Wisdom: A Christian Experience of Buddhism (Orbis, 1988) consists of a series of essays which explore the social as well as the spiritual side of Buddhism, its political and its religious visions, and issues important to the ongoing Christian-Buddhist dialogue. Pieris thinks that Christians can learn from Buddhism, integrating their own prophetic teaching .of love with the Buddhist mystical appre-ciation of wisdom. If heart-to-heart dialogue is genuinely pur- Review for Religious sued, agapeic Christianity and gnostic Buddhism will be mutually complemented and enriched in an integration of compassionate wisdom that could transform the plight of the oppressed poor and of our threatened environment. Pieris's more recent Fire and VVater: Basic Issues in Asian Buddhism and Christianity (Orbis, 1996) further expands on these liberation themes. Current Contributions Such informed exchange between Catholic and Buddhist monastics continues to proliferate in current publications. Three particularly impressed me when I recently surveyed the literature. 1. The Ground We Share: Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian (Shambala, 1996) is a conversation between Zen roshi Robert Aitken and Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, edited by Nelson Foster. Their dialogue begins with everyday practice rather than with philosophical and theological concepts. The result of their intense and lively conversations was to uncover the com-mon ground of meditational experience that gives hope for fruitful exchanges between Christianity and Buddhism into the future. 2. In The Silent Dialogue: Zen Letters to a Trappist Abbot (Continuum, 1996), David G. Hackett corresponds with sev-eral Trappist monks of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, dur-ing the 1970s, particularly Abbot Thomas Keating. Mter Hackett's conversion to Catholicism, he set out on a two-year stay in Japan, where he experimented with how Zen practice could deepen his Christian prayer and spirituality. Abbot Keating proved himself a knowledgeable and astute guide in his comprehension and inte-gration of Eastern ways to Christian prayer, as we might have sus-pected from his own writings. 3. The Gethsernani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics (Continuum, 1997) captures the voices of some twenty-five Buddhist and twenty-five Christian monks and nuns in a discussion of their contemplative traditions Christians can learn from Buddhism, integrating their own prophetic teaching of love with the Buddhist mystical appreciation of wisdom. Januaty-Febtwa~y 1999 Bernadicou ¯ Catholic Guides in Dialogue at an historic meeting hosted by the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. The Dalai Lama, who first suggested the conference, also recommended that it be held at Gethsemani in memory of Thomas Merton, whom he had met just before Merton's untimely death while attending a similar Buddhist and Christian monastic exchange at Bangkok. Though scholars in the field of spirituality were present, the focus of the convocation was more expressly on the everyday practice of meditation and prayer in the two tradi-tions. What steps help to progress in meditative enlightenment? What does each tradition have to contribute to our profound human yearning for an encounter with ultimate reality? What can we say and how must we respond to the compassionate wisdom with which this encounter enlightens the seeker? Prescience and Continuing Hope Just before his tragic demise in 1968, Thomas Merton stated in the Temple of Understanding meeting in Calcutta: "I think we have reached a stage of [long-overdue] religious maturity at which it may be possible for someone to remain perfectly faithful to a Christian. commitment and yet to learn in depth from, say, a Buddhist or Hindu discipline and experience." Few realized at the time how prescient this provocative comment would sound nearly thirty years later at the 1996 Gethsemani gathering. Review for Religious BARBARA VALUCKAS Lithuanian and American Sisters: A Lively Inter°active Dance Lithuania, the geographical and cultural gateway to east-ern and central Europe, was the first Soviet republic to declare independence from the Soviet Union just as the last decade of this century began. Almost immediately, American sisters of Lithuanian birth or descent, and American sisters from other ethnic backgrounds as well, went to Lithuania to knit bonds of friendship with women who had been cut off from the, world of women religious during five decades of military occupation and brutal repression of the Catholic Church. Going in response to requests from the Lithuanian congregations,. they were sponsored by the Office to Aid Eastern and Central Europe, of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), by the Hilton Fund for Sisters; and by many other organizations including their own congregations. The sisters gave canonical consultation on the adap-tation of constitutions, assisted in the formation of the Lithuanian Conference of Mfijor Superiors, gave pro-grams of theological updating and ongoing formation, and conducted retreats and days of recollection for sis-ters who could barely remember what these were. In Barbara Valuckas SSND wrote "Lithuania: A Return to My Ancestral Home" for our May-June 1995 issue. Her address is Pilgrim Ministries, Inc.; 9 Academy Hill; Watertown, Connecticut 06795. Januao,-l~¥btvtary 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters the early days of this lively dance, the Lithuanian sisters encour-aged their American counterparts to take the lead although their United States partners learned innumerable steps from them. By 1997 the dance was well along, but the partners were begin-ning to shift places. In January 1997, while I was in Lithuania conducting a program evaluation, the president of the Conference of Major Superiors described plans for the first Congress of Lithuanian Sisters, to be held the following August. When I asked her about the main purpose of the congress, she' replied in two simple but profound words, "We exist!" To be able to affirm this after experiencing decades of efforts to exterminate religion and religious persons from Lithuania was a touching testimony to the deep faith and high courage of the Lithuanian sisters. Some months later, those of us who had worked with the sis-ters in Lithuania received invitations to attend the congress as guests. The invitations were addressed to "you, who have walked with us from the beginning." Our joyful response to this invitation brought us to Kaunas, the old capital of Lithuania, to be enthusi-astic onlookers as the Lithuanian sisters celebrated their own dance of survival and hope for the future. The theme of the congress was "the past, the present, and the future." The president of the Conference of Major Superiors, who had herself experienced years of surveillance by the KGB, recounted the sisters' sufferings during the years of occupation. One of her most startling revelations, however, was this: At the beginning of the occupation, there were seven congregations in Lithuania; at the end of the five decades of attempted annihilation, there were twenty-four! Some of this multiplication was due to the success-ful efforts of KGB infiltrators to fragment the existing congrega-tions, but much of it was due to the clandestine formation of new congregations. God provided for the future of the church through the courage of women who received their entire formation in secret. The several hundred sisters who attended the congress included older sisters who had entered established congregations before the occupation, sisters who had entered existing or new congregations secretly during the occupation, and sisters who had entered the various congregations since independence. These three groupings have had very different experiences of religious life, and yet they face together the challenge of bringing religious life in Lithuania into the future. Review for Religions This will mean facing and moving through the problems of the present. The speakers at the congress were very honest in naming these problems. They are not very different from the ones facing women religious in the West, although the historical context and hence the resolutions may be somewhat different. Some of the main issues identified by speakers at the congress were public wit-ness, community life, and just compensation. Public Witness As in the West, the sisters in Lithuania are grappling with the question of what it means to give public witness. At this point, much of this issue is being discussed in terms of the religious habit. Almost all of the sisters attending the congress wore habits even though they had not ordinarily done so. That is, as an American sis-ter of Lithuanian origin pointed out to us, most of the congregations had never worn habits because they had been formed during the occupation, when habits were forbidden. When Pope John Paul II visited Lithuania in 1993, however, the sisters were asked to come to their meeting with him in the cathedral wearing habits. So the sisters created habits on the spot and appeared before the Holy Father wearing them. They wore them again for the congress. The bishops who were present at the congress and some of the sister speakers expressed the wish that the sisters wear their religious dress at all times. It is worth noting that, unlike the sisters in the West, the women religious in occupied Lithuania were forced to give up their habits and their ministries overnight. Their change to sec-ular dress had not come about from reflection on the Vatican II documents and on the relationship of religious life to culture. By forcing the religious to put their habits away, the occupiers made the church virtually invisible overnight. Now the church hopes to regain its visibility, and wearing the habit or not is a central question. It will have to be resolved from within the lived experi-ence of the Lithuanian sisters, although they have been very inter- As in the West, the sisters in Lithuania are grappling with the question of what it means to give public witness. January-February 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters ested in learning from the sisters of the West how the habit issue wasrdealt with and resolved. Community Life o Along with their habits, the various congregations lost their buildings, their communal spaces, overnight. Many religious women were forced out onto the streets and lived there or in fields or barns until they were able to find work and lodging. All through the years of occupation, they lived in little flats with one Or two other sisters or with relatives and friends, wherever they could find a place. Now, although somd of the congregations have begun to get their property back from the government, many are still without a common space. Some of the sisters are afraid to form communities again because they have forgotten how to live com-munity life. Others are eager to try it, but feel the need for help in the skills of building community together. The middle group of sisters--those whose formation was clan-destine-- is numerically the smallest; this leaves the elderly sisters and the newest members trying to negotiate a common life :across the barriers of age and extremely different life experiences, Some of the speakers at the congress referred to these cross-genera-tional tensions and pleaded for patience and more effort to deal with them in the process of building community. A special difficulty faces the sisters who have not received' their property back or who never had common property to begin with. The elderly sisters in these congregations live in tiny flats scattered around the cities and villages. They are often dependent on the younger members for both financial support and physi-cal care. It is not uncommon for young sisters to finish a day's work only to begin visiting the individual elderly sisters, bathing them, shopping for them, and providing for other needs of theirs. These younger members are also expected to contribute their services to the growing ministries of a church that has emerged from the underground and seeks to make its voice heard ~in the culture once again. While these conditions are not directly com-parable to conditions in the West, assuring that younger mem-bers have time and space for their own formation and are not unduly burdened with maintenance issues is a Western concern as well. This situation is related to another issue narried by the Lithuanian sisters. ~ Review for Religious. Just Compensation Now that the church is free to operate in the open, the sisters are expected to give time and energy to parish ministries, catech-esis, and so forth. This is usually in addition to their full-time work in the secular economy, which provides the sustenance they and the elderly members in their care need. Speakers at the congress acknowledged the heavy burden placed on the sisters because, to date, their work for the church has gone largely uncompensated. Some speakers indicated that questions have been raised among church officials about why sisters need salaries or pensions. All of this would be very familiar to sisters from the West. Common Questions, Other Questions, Other Steps Given the similarity of the issues facing women religious in both East and West in spite of their cultural and historical differ-ences, one would assume that the dance that began at the begin-ning of this decade could go on for a long time, growing more unified as it moved into: the future. This, however, may not be the case because other dancers have moved into the space in an effort to change the dance into another kind of movement. Some of this change of step has come into Lithuania in the form of newspapers and magazines that portray women religious and reli-gious life in the West as quite degenerate. Some has come in the form of living persons. In informal conversations at the congress, some of the Lithuanian sisters spoke of making a retreat during the summer at which the retreat master gave considerable time to frightening descriptions of religious life in the West. The Lithuanian sisters heard, for example, that sisters in the West had no prayer life and that they had boyfriends. These insinuations had the effect of sowing doubt and suspicion even in sisters who had had very pos-itive experiences of the American sisters who had worked with them directly. Some of the bishops and sister speakers at the congress were quick to warn the Lithuanian sisters about negative influences from the West, especially about feminism and about failure to adhere to the teachings of the church. That some of these warnings came from the very leaders who had invited the American sisters to attend the congress may be a sign of the confusion and ambivalence toward the West that is Janua~y-Febtvlary 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters In every multicultural dance, there are tensions and always the danger of stepping on one another's cherished values. becoming more prevalent, not only in Lithuania, but in other countries of eastern and central Europe as well. One sister speaker exhorted the Lithuanian sisters to cling to the values of their own religious heritage and not to "turn jewels into stones." Although the majority of the grass-roots Lithuanian sisters begged'us to return to continue sharing experiences with them, seeds of doubt and uncertainty had been sown in their hearts by their own lead-ership. Since the years of occupation and Soviet-style education conditioned most Lithuanians not to trust anyone, these seeds may be falling on soil that is still receptive to doubt and mistrust. An example of this occurred during and after the congress. Speakers represent-ing both the bishops' confer-ence and the superiors' conference stressed the serious need for Lithuanian sisters to be trained in the skills of spir-itual guidance and spiritual formation of others. In fact, the sisters who had attended our workshops in earlier years had, in their evaluations, requested training in these skills. Yet our offer to pro-vide this very kind of assistance with highly trained sisters from the United States was met sometimes with polite silence and some-times with suspicious questions. In such circumstances, it is only natural to wonder about the future direction of the dance. In every multicultural dance, there are tensions and always the danger of stepping on one another's cherished values. It is clear that the Lithuanian sisters need to find their own way, a way that is true to who they are. They need to be able to say "We exist!" not just about their survival through a difficult past, but also about the present and the future. Part of that existence, however, is going to be in an increasingly interde-pendent world. If the "We exist!" is for the future, it may mean enlarging the phrase to "We exist together!" The fact that the Lithuanian con-gregations were able to move from relying on their own congre-gations to creating an intercongregational formation committee is a sign that, given time and trust, they have the inner resources to Review for Religious move to a larger "we." The initiation of this intercongregational committee had, in fact, been inspired by the intercongregational nature of the teams of American sisters who had come to work with them. The Lithuanian sisters quickly saw that a larger "we" was not only possible but very rich in its possibilities for a happy sharing of many various gifts. We sisters from the West, on the other hand, need to keep remembering that our "we" is not the only "we" in the world. We need to be willing to look at the fears and suspicions about us. To the extent that they are justified, we need to allow ourselves to be called to conversion of heart and life. To the extent that they are not, we need to live with integrity and truth and to search patiently and mutually for new dance steps. Perhaps it is in our conversion of heart together that the Spirit will lead us all in a new dance of interdependence. Dispossessed Who believing would not hope? the child asked herself, dismantling in one stroke a holy triad. But stay, time-taught. It always does. Faith came easy. She was born believing unseen worlds. ¯ And lo~? Without it, there'd be chaos. As for hope? That limpid bird fled, sickened with the weight of errant expectation-- until finally the woman lay down and cried and cried and cried and cried-- while faith and love held hands and waited. Maryanne Casey Hannan .Tanaa~y-Febtvtao, 1999 ANN WHITE Serpents and Doves:, The Company of St. Ursula I n Quebec City, high above the St. Lawrence River, some eligious women live behind a cedar fence in a convent, sup-posedly set apart from the world. Yet the world of New France, as it existed nearly four hundred years ago, comes to them every single day in the persons of innumerable Amerindians. Who could possibly tell where these women's religious life leaves off and worldly life begins? We divide life into the sacred and the secular, and have done so since the 16th century, when Reformers who thought and prayed under dull northern skies became 'disengaged from the ideas of Renaissance painters and explorers and princes of Europe's sunlit south. Ever since, we have distinguished the worldly--rev-elers and artists and livers of free lifestyles--from religious peo-ple who go to church, pray, do good works. This division blurs the truth about people in both categories, sacrecl and secular. Consider the Company of St. Ursula, a boldly daring 16th-century Roman Catholic women's community. In the Ursulines' lives, religion and worldly adventure mixed inseparably. But Ursulines do not appear in secular books that tell adventure sto-ries. Ursulines show up in books about religion, written in sober words that mask the daring quality of their thoughts and acts. The Ursulines first caught my attention in Quebec City, where their convent has stood in the Rue Donnacona since the 17th century. As I gazed at the convent's faqade, I wondered why Ann White has a Ph.D. in history and teaches at the Edmund Burke School in Washington. Her address is 5130 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., apt. 203; Washington, D.C. 20008. Review for Religious any woman would give up cultivated, comfortable French life for the frigid wilderness of Quebec. My guidebook said the nuns came to found a girls' school. Everyone knows the name of Samuel de Champlain, the explorer who established the first French settle-ment at Quebec City, but how many know the name of the woman who started the first girls' school in the Nev~ World? She was Marie Guyart, member of the Order of St. Ursula, who arrived in Canada from Tours, France, in 1639. Her name fails to appear in books about explorers' and pioneers' adventures because those are "secular" stories. Yet Marie Guyart was a pioneer. Starting a girls' school anywhere in the 17th century was a pioneering act, and starting a school in the New World for girls of warring Amerindian tribes required a large dollop of pioneering bravery. Not only Marie Guyart's physical bravery impressed me, but also her idea of adventuring in unknown spaces. She had never traveled outside the Touraine region of France, yet as she sat in her convent she pictured herself in what she called the "vastitudes" of New France. "My body was in our monastery, but my spirit was tied to that of Jesus and could not be enclosed," she said. What did she know about Canadian vastitudes? Practically noth-ing. She had never heard the word "Canada" until four years before she departed for its frosty landscape. But being enclosed within four walls of a convent in Tours did not prevent her from imagining herself founding "a -house for Jesus and Mary" in an unknown land across a vast ocean. Marie Guyart acquired her expansive, daring cast of mind from her Ursuline company, who inherited it from their founder, Angela Merici. As much a child of the Italian Renaissance as Christopher Columbus, Angela Merici founded the Ursulines just forty-three years after Columbus's first voyage. Columbus, says one of his biographers, combined Christian faith with an impulse toward expansion. We ignore the faith, concentrate on the expan-sion, and place him in our secular category. Angela Merici pos-sessed the same Renaissance combination of faith and expansiveness as Columbus, but we ignore her expansiveness, con-centrate on her faith, and pop her into our religious pigeonhole. Angela Merici did not found the Ursulines until she was in her sixties. A farmer's daughter from northern Italy, she spent years working with a group of lay Christians to relieve misery brought to Brescia, a city near her birthplace, by the French inva-sion of Italy. She helped to organize orphanages and refuges for January-February 1999 White ¯ Serpents and Doves prostitutes, and she worked in a hospital for incurables, the only hospital that would accept Brescia's increasing numbers of syphil-itics. By the time Angela Merici traveled to the Holy Land around age fifty, her skills at helping the sick and the poor were well known--so well known that, when she stopped in Venice on her way home from Palestine, the city fathers asked her to remain there and organize charitfible works in their city. She said no. Furthermore, she left Venice immediately, so that they could not ask the archbishop to command her to stay. Soon afterwards she went to Rome, where once, again there came a request to borrow her skills. This time the pope himself, Clement vii, who asked her to remain and organize charitable works in his city. Surely this was an offer that Angela Merici could not refuse. Any "religious" woman would say yes to the pope, would she not? Angela Merici said no. Her Renaissance mind fit no pigeon-hole. She went back to Brescia to formulate a vision as expansive in its own way as Columbus's vision. Her company of women, named after a 3rd-century patron of young scholars, would be the first Christian company dedicated to instructing young girls. They would also tend the sick. These female teacher-work(rs would live in the world. No medieval convent walls would constrain them; they would freely walk the streets of north Italian cities from Milan to Venice. This Ursuline plan ignored religious/secular categorizing. Though Angela Merici never met her contemporary Martin Luther, her mind grasped the same idea that his mind grasped, a very old Christian idea, that the church's lay people--worldly, sec~ ular people--hear God's call as clearly as the clergy, the church's religious people. Angela Merici created an institution that blended the religious and the worldly. A young woman joining the Company of St. Ursula would pledge herself to virginity, but she would not live in a convent and she would not wear a habit. She would live at home with her family as she taught girls and tended the sick. Before Angela Merici's time, young women faced a stark, secular-versus-sacred choice: they could marry or they could enter a convent. Angela Merici's Ursuline plan gave them another option: pursuing useful work in the world while maintaining a religious identity. Habits of religious pigeonholing make us see Angela Merici, with her piety and good works, as blandly "religious," while we ignore her extraordinary worldly shrewdness. Not only did she Review f!~r Religious have enough sense of her own purpose to spurn a pope's offer, not only did she single-handedly offer devout European young women a new vocational opportunity, but she also obtained a papal decree permitting members of her company to hold a dowry from their families just as securely as if they were marrying or entering a convent. Moreover, her Testament for the Ursulines' four-woman board of directors shows she understood that her young women would face changing circumstances in the future: "If, according to times and needs, new rules should be made, or any change introduced, do it prudently and with good advice." It was with such worldly sagacity that Angela Merici deployed her Christian faith in 16th-century Italy. She shows us what Jesus meant when he told his disciples they needed to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Angela Merici's "religious" accom-plishment is incomprehensible without an understanding of her "secular" insight. ~ As her Ursulines spread throughout northern Italy and into France over the next half century, people with a pigeonholing men-tality-- churchmen, parents of Ursulines, and Ursulines them-selves-- changed the company's organization into something more recognizably religious. When Marie Guyart became an Ursuline in 1631, less than a hundred years after the first Ursulines signed their names in a book in Brescia, she entered a convent and, she donned a habit. The Company of St. Ursula, contrary to Angela Merici's vision, by Marie Guyart's time had become a religious order like other religious orders. Yet even in a convent Marie Guyart shared Angela Merici's expansive Renaissance spirit as she thought about the danger of dying from hunger and cold or at the hands of Canadian savages. These considerations, she said, made "no change at all in the dis-position of my spirit." "Secular" explorers like Champlain were plainly not the only people in 17th-century France who dreamed great, daring dreams. In New France (whose soil she kissed upon her arrival), Marie Guyart continued to live according to the rule of enclosure. She Angela Merici's Ursuline plan gave another option: pursuing useful work in the world while maintaining a religious identity. Januaty-Febt'uaty 1999 lq/'Isite ¯ Serpents and Doves This mixing of sacred and secular in the Canadian convent yard was part of Marie Guyart's theology. and her fellow Ursulines lived in convent buildings set within a large yard on the promontory overlooking the St. Lawrence River. They stayed within the yard's cedar fence, obeying their religious rule about not going out into the "world." But this enclosure was very different from the Tours convent for Marie Guyart: In New France the woodland world came to her: Algonquins, Montagnais, and Hurons; Abenakis, Nipissings, and Attikamegues; Iroquois girls sent by their mothers to learn the elements of the Christian faith. Twenty to fifty young girls lived in a boarding school that the Ursulines established within their convent walls. Amerindian men also visited the convent, for a meal or for instruction or simply to find out what went on there. Marie Guyart wrote, "I see generous and brave captains on their knees at my feet, begging me to have them pray to God before they eat." Moreover, this mixing of sacred and sec-ular in the Canadian convent yard was part of Marie Guyart's theology. She not only wel-comed inhabitants of Canada's woodland world to her convent, but also saw her savage Christian converts as every bit as religious as those labeled religious, the Ursulines and Jesuits in New France. "A savage confesses just as well as a reli-gious," she said. The Jesuits emphasized how hard it was for Amerindian Christians to behave the way they thought Christians should behave; Marie Guyart saw in them the full capacity for Christianity. The converts' devotion, she said, reminded her of the Christians of the early church. So what do these moments of Ursuline history--the lives of Angela Mericiand Marie Guyart--show us? That enclosure in a convent is bad? That the Ursulines-were more progressive than ,other Catholic groups because at first they spurned convent life? By no means. Ursuline history shows us Christian life without religious/secular categories: Angela Merici taking advantage of Renaissance Italy's expansive spirit to create an effective vehicle .for faith; Marie Guyart joining Christ among the Amerindians while living in a convent. Jesus did not say, be a serpent or a dove, choose between the secular and the sacred. He said, achieve worldly wisdom and reli- Review for Religious gious innocence, both at the same time. The famous figures who lived five hundred years ago, at the birth of the modern age, do not fit our narrow classification scheme of religious versus secular. Emperor Charles v was as much a man of faith as he was an effi-cient 16th-century ruler. Martin Luther was as much poet as priest--so much the poet that, in the judgment of one Reformation historian, if he had lived in another age he would have produced an epic rather than a new church. Michelangelo's art fused his awe of human beauty with his awe of the greatness of God. Nonetheless, we are in the habit of relentlessly classifying these people--the "religious" writer, the "secular" politician, the "sec-ular" artist--missing the breadth of their persons and the com-plexity of their accomplishments. Not so rigidly fixed in our minds as these famous figures, Angela Merici and Marie Guyart will fly right out of their religious pigeonhole if we let them. The two Ursulines were wise enough to take advantage of Renaissance Europe's expansive spirit, faith-ful enough to take big risks for Christ. Their lives overmatch our narrow categories of secular and sacred. Each was worldly and religious, both serpent and dove at the very same time. "But you, who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15) Not in wisdoms Echoed from borrowed minds, Nor in quick phrases Caught and snatched and etched On today's tongues, Not even in the warm whispers Patterned on a mother's speech, A teacher's truth, A prophet's cry. Who do you say that I am When only you are left to form the words? When only I am left to listen? Suzanne Mayer IHM JanuaL'F-FebruaO, 1999 XAVIER PLISSART The Art of Discernment: The Aesthetic Dimension In this paper I discuss what I call the aesthetic dimen-sion of the art of discernment. I want to show that dis-cernment is an attempt to enter into the original divine creative dynamism for the whole of creation. This attempt is itself a creative activity aimed at realizing creation's original harmony. Since the whole of creation shares the same source and is directed towards the same goal, discernment should ideally be a striving towards communality. Consequently, a basic and essential qual-ity of discernment is that it should strive to be as com-mon as possible in its insight and process, and as universal as possible in its aim toward action. Theological Foundation Creation The initial insight for spiritual discernment is that God is active in our world, that creation is dynamic. The original goodness that God imparted to creation is more a life than a state: divine life continues to be breathed into the whole of creation. Essentially, discernment is a matter of seeing more accurately where and how this Xavier Plissart M_Mr has done formation work and taught in various African countries. He is currently attached to the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation Africaine. His address is: Bukavu, R~p. D~m. du Congo; B.P. 333, Cyangugu; Rwanda (Africa). Review for Religious divine "inspiration" is operative. The effort to see this depends upon our having the faith conviction that God's creativity in our regard is a genuine invitation to participate in divine life, an invi-tation that recognizes the full validity of creation's "otherness." The faith insight above applies to the totality of creation. Everything created proclaims in some way the fullness of divine life. But the proclamation acquires a special significance when we turn to. humans beings, for it depends upon their receiving an invitation to proclaim God's life and their conscious responding to it. Created in the image of God (imago Dei), we in turn become creative through our free response. We have the imagination (in Hebrew, yetzer) that makes it possible for us to integrate our actions in the flow of divine creativity, or not. Consequently, it is important for us to discern and decide how we shall orient our life and direct our actions. Context and History Divine dynamism has been at work in creation from the begin-ning, and human consciousness, responding in various ways, has shaped our world until the present day. We must, therefore, be fully conscious of the past. Discernment always implies looking back (if we use visual imagery) or listening (if we use acoustic imagery). God's conversation with the world and with humankind results in what we live and experience today. At the most personal level, St. Ignatius Loyola advises retreatants of the Spiritual Exercises to examine regularly the content and flow of their spir-itual life and life of prayer. Many religious persons and commu-nities today have gained great benefit from what is called "life review" to see God at work in their own history. It is also common practice now to try to "read" the "signs of the times" to see the underlying current. Believers find God at work, but unbelievers alike may discover the dynamism of creative energy with which they want to connect. Believing that God has been and is active in the world, we see, too, that we have the creative potential to go with or against this divine activity. In the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius describes in detail how one can become aware of inner movements that are aligned with the divine plan or that militate against it. This takes place in a context of faith and in an atmosphere of prayer. His analysis of consolations and desolations has served as a guide for many. Recently, however, spiritual writers have felt the need to widen the Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment field of application. When we become more keenly aware of all the areas in which the Spirit of God is at work, it becomes evident that we must try to widen our horizon if we want to obtain a more accu-rate idea of God's action, a wiser discernment. Consolations and Desolations Revisited Ignatius himself implicitly recognizes the need for an inter-personal attentiveness to the Spirit when he advises that discern-ment should take place with the guidance of a spiritual director. Today we would include here the validity and even necessity of discussing the matter with one's spouse (if one is married) or a uniquely close "soul friend." An uneasiness in the friend or spouse might be a sign of desolation, and both persons would do well to become aware of it in the effort to find the will of God. Ignatius speaks of taking into account the position of the church. If with Vatican ~I we see the church as the people of God, our attentiveness to God's presence becomes broader and much more varied. Tensions in a community could well be interpreted as "desolation," or gratuitous excitement as false "consolation." We could and should make use of the well-developed techniques of group dynamics and see how a discerning insight might help us to perceive more clearly whether the movements animating a par-ticular group are from God. The vision we speak of here comes from faith; it can be of advantage only to individuals and groups that genuinely want to follow the Lord. Similarly, in discernment we do well to explore critically the meaning of divisions, resentments, estrangements, and insensi-tivity within ecclesial structures and institutions to see how these "motions" speak to us of God's creative or challenging activity in our world. Can we say that controversies on, say, contraception or feminism have nothing.to tell us about the divine activity in our world and in the hearts and minds of God's own people? I believe that an unwillingness to see the significance of such "movements" would represent a dire lack of a discerning spirit. Jon Sobrino, Enrique Dussel, J.B. Libanio, and others have shown clearly how, as we find ourselves confronted with a theol-ogy of domination, we must take into account the sociopolitical reality in order to make a valid discernment. The option for the poor which theologians of liberation advocate is not just another theological position. It is the result of a careful reading of the core message of Jesus in its relationship with the social reality. Review for Religions As the Quakers tell us, the "light of God" is also present and active beyond the confines of the circle of Christian believers. Indeed, this was also recognized in the documents of Vatican II. So we will have to .learn to discern how God speaks through the political debates of our present age, through intercultural struggles, through the economic and ecological issues of our world, and through people's search for a cosmic spirituality. Would we not say that people's uneasi-ness when faced with news ¯ items depicting poverty can be a sign of "desolation" calling for conversion and a change ¯ of heart? Would we not say that people's fear of an atomic disaster can~ be understood as a sign of "desolation" in a world which gives priority to war over peace? Would we not say that the renewed interest and practice of meditation of all kinds is a sign of "consolation" in a rediscovery of the importance of the inner world? The first, step in this reflection has brought us to the conclu-sion that, if we truly believe that God's Spirit. is indeed active in the world and if our aim is to integrate our decisions and actions as perfectly as possibly into this creative dynamism, then we will have to widen considerably the scope of our attentiveness to the divine presence. Our discerning of God's ~vill seems ~to bring us much further than it used to, well beyond the realm of personal spiritual life. No more can we think of attaining holiness through a private imitation of Christ (see Castillo). What we have examined is the first aspect of discernment, the "listening" element. It corresponds to what is called in Ignatian spirituality the "discernment of spirits" and also, in the Quaker tradition, to the simple prayer meeting. The regular practice of such discernment helps people to be more aware of God's pres-ence in their life. But it should also help friends or groups to a vision of where God is leading them communally. It can give us an insight into God's guidance for the church, for society, and indeed for the whole world. Acquiring such a common insight will be of great advantage in tackling the second aspect of discernment which we examine below. Tensions in a community could well be interpreted as "desolation," or gratuitous excitement as false "consolation." January-FebtvtaD, 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment Anthropological Foundation: How Do We Decide? The Point of Entry Insight into the divine activity is not just an academic exercise. We have already indicated above that it has a very clear purpose. We do not "listen" to the voice of God simply to admire its har-monic quality. We want to add our voice to the symphony. Peters clarifies the distinction between discernment and elec-tion, but goes too far when he says that "the method [of election] is a way of finding the will of God, and has nothing to do with dis-cerning movements" (p. 30). Our insight into God's creative activ-ity inevitably challenges us to a response. Thus we seek not only to hear God's voice, but to discern God's will. This becomes a direct call. The general inspiration which we have discerned ini-tially takes shape gradually and becomes a specific invitation. This is where we move from a "discernment of spirits" to a process of election: we are faced with alternatiyes, and we have to make a choice. What is happening is that we become aware of a krisis, a fork in the road. This requires a diakrisis: deciding which way to go. The process of decision is always situated existentially, and it is good, indeed important, to know the path that has led to it, the approach to the point of entry. Ignatian spirituality has clarified the process itself, but has not specified precisely the scope of what to consider. In the Spiritual Exercises lgnatius's guidance in the pro-cess of election seems to be directed mainly to an individual mak-ing a decision about his or her future state of life. But commentators indicate that the principles are not restricted to such instances. Since Ignatius and his companions use similar prin-ciples for many of their decisions, it would seem that the process of election is applicable to all levels of human decision. This is indeed to be expected if we are fully aware of divine invitations at all levels of human activity. So we have to widen the scope here also. The most obvious level of decision making is that of the con-scious self. It concerns an action for which .one will be directly and personally responsible. But not many decisions, if any, are totally private. So the interpersonal is nearly always present in decision making. It is then a decision that affects those who are involved in a relationship, and we would expect that the process of discernment would implicate all participants. Decisions concern-ing close friendship and marriage are good examples of this, and Review for Religious one can widen the scope to community decisions, family deci-sions, and so forth. The moment of decision, the need for discernment, may not be obvious when persons reflect and discern purely as individuals, but may become obvious on the social level and then brought down to the personal. Good examples of this would be an eco-nomic crisis or a population crisis, each with its repercussions on the life of the community, the family, and the individual. Still wider areas of decision may involve cultural changes, religious or institu-tional sclerosis, or natural disasters. These will require decision-making processes that have a wide place of entry, but do not ignore personal elements (which are never absent). In these areas Ren~ Simon's reflection on the relationship between law and discernment is helpful. The process of election will be very different, but the basic elements will be these: insight based on some interpretative belief, examination of the challenge by means of dialogue, and proiection towards the realm of action for assess-ment and choice. With regard to the charismatic role of discern-ment in relation to institutional sclerosis, Ladislaus Boros makes the following interesting remark: "The charismatic and underiv-able aspect is essential to the church, .for God has never retired, as it were, in favor of the official ecclesial administration. Nor has he abdicated in favor of the guidance of the Holy Spirit given to the higher and highest instances of.the church. God himself is the Spirit [see Jn 3:8] blowing 'where it listeth,' [blowing] alike on children and idiots, the poor and simple, and theologians of all kinds" (p. 78). Clearly we are dealing here with a widening continuum. Division into sections is arbitrary. Yet there appear to be both an inner limit to this continuum and an outer one, limits beyond which we seem to lose control. At the inner limit we enter so deeply into the self that the processes become unconscious. The creative dynamism is still active, but escapes our grasp. Eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) and perhaps certain forms of Christian mysticism situate our connection to the absolute at this level. At the outer limit we grope toward the immensity of the cosmos and fail to grasp it. This time it is the far heavens that are beyond us. Within these two limits we can set the realm and scope The interpersonal is nearly always present in decision making. Januaty-Febrnaty 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment of responsible praxis, the point of application of the process of discernment leading to action. The Question of Universality We are now becoming more aware that any discernment in a process of election has repercussions at all levels. Wherever. the stone may fall, it creates ripples over the whole surface of the lake. Decisions involve the same universal creative dynamism, and they have effects that resound through the whole realm of responsible praxis. This would seem to make the task of discernment abso-lutely daunting: What attitude, then, can we take? Many spiritual writers indicate that discernment does not lead to certainty. This is something we must accept at all stages of the process. We try to examine God's creative and dynamic presencefin our life, in the life of others', in our society and culture, in the world as a whole. But our point of view is inevitably limited. We try to take into account the flow of our own life from the moment of birth, or the flow of history in our communal, eccesial, or social context, but we cannot see the whole picture. Then when a prob-lem occurs, when the moment of decision arises, we try to situate ourselves in this picture, to ga~ther all possible data that might be relevant, but we can see only a few elements and have.,to be con-tent with that. We want to listen to as many people as possible because each one can give us a useful insight into the light of God that illurfiines our search, but there is always more light beyond, which we cannot fathom. We do not want to be biased; we want to be "indifferent" and try to avoid undue influences from our own background, from our s6cial or physical environment, and so forth, but we cannot extract ourselves from our own existence. We may try to see the consequences of a certain decision so as to make a better assessment, but we can see only that far, and no further. Clearly we cannot take everything into account. One rather unsatisfactory way in which this problem has usu-ally been solved, at least at the practical level, was to look at the process simply from its point of entry. For instance, if the issue was to decide about my own vocation, I would simply examine what my decision on this should be in the context of my life, and leave other decisions to be made by others, for example, church offi-cials, parents, civil authority, and so forth. Or, if the issue involved natural science--whether, for example, .to continue to develop nuclear technology--scientists would limit themselves to the sci- Revibw for Religious entific possibility and expediency and leave civil rulers to decide on the social consequences. In a sense there may be a vision of faith in such a position. If each person decides validly within his or her restricted level of insight, can we not trust the original cre-ative dynamism to realize the harmony that is its aim? Perhaps. But I believe that the above position has far too often been interpreted in a minimalist way. I believe that it is defeatist and dangerous. I believe that a true vision of faith will require of us that we try to achieve as wide a scope as possible. Therefore, at the close of this paper I would like to advocate a maximalist inter-pretation of the question I raised in the previous paragraph. The Criterion of Harmony Common Discernment Spiritual discernment and discernment in view of making a decision according to the divine will have always been considered an art. This is an implicit acceptance of the tentative value of the conclusions that are reached. But at the same time it points to the totality of impact of any decision within the whole creative flow. Our attentiveness to God's voice in our life and in the world cannot be restrictive. It must always tend to its widest possible scope. Only then can the full impact of divine creativity be recog-nized and accepted. The search for the divine will in any particular instance, and the attempt to discern which course of action would best coincide with that divine will, must situate the process of examination as widely as possible. I emphasize that it is" in the measure in which this is attempted and achieved that the dis-cernment will be a valid one and that global harmony will be fos-tered. Some examples will show this more in detail. A young woman aware of God's presence in her life, believes she is called to serve God in a special way. She enters a process of discernment to find out whether and how she should respond to such an invitation. Clearly, at least three groups will have to be involved in her discernment process to make it valid. First, she will have to consult with family and friends. The decision would Our attentiveness to God's voice in our life and in the world cannot be restrictive. January-February 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment change not only her life, but also their relationship with her. Second, the new group she wants to join will have to be part of the discernment too, since the decision means that the group will or will not go through the change of integrating her into their circle. Third, the discernment will involve the church in which the com-mitment would be made, since her decision will occur in that con-text. Traditionally, each group of people would make their own dis-cernment and, if no consensus was reached, the final say would be settled through the exercise of authority. Yet it seems evident that a greater harmony could be achieved if each group would in some way participate in a common process of discernment. The young woman can dialogue with family and friends about her pos-sible vocation. She can dialogue with the new group to see how her decision would affect her and them. Members of the group can meet her family and exchange opinions on the project, church officials could speak with representatives of the group about the decision, and so forth. If each participant is genuinely searching for guidance from above, the. decision-making process itself and the outcome of it will foster harmony among these people. Such coop-eration will witness to divine creativity at work. Another example. A local religious community wants to decide whether to continue its insertion into a depressed urban area or take on another responsibility. Traditionally, they go through a process of discernment as a group while their superiors also con-sider the decision. Though the local church community might be implicated in the decision, it might not be consulted. When groups arrive at opinions separately, tension easily arises if and when sep-arately formed opinions do not coincide. Here again a common discernment process--at various levels according to possibilities-- would undoubtedly foster harmony: Let the local religious group and the local Christian community meet and exchange on the pro-ject. Let superiors come and .discuss the issue with the local reli-gious community. Let all persons in the several groups be given a chance to go through their personal discernment process in dia-logue with each other. Let the local church authorities dialogue with the group of religious and with the local Christian commu-nity, and so forth. Let the participants allow, in each of these encounters, the Spirit of God to illumine their hearts and minds through the contributions of others. Thereby they will witness to. God's creation of, respect for, and empowering of people who Review for Religious have wonderful differences among themselves. In doing so they will certainly create harmony. A final example. A number of homeless people have occupied a derelict building and are now threatened with eviction because the area must be transformed into a recreation ground. The home-less people refuse to leave. Some local pastors support them in the name of the gospel. The local politician is under pres-sure because the potential inv

Special Advent Issue of Volume 63 of the Review for Religious, 2004. ; .Sp~rttuality.Revtew, a supplcmcnt.of Rewew for Religious, is looki~g~i~6 facilita , , a~iitib aG oodg,. u:deia.loo~,e. within ~.,~ou"r s"elv aes~; d)ialo~e wi~th i~n:e anotbeg.~ s POpe.Paul~n Said, our ~ay, of beingchurcb # to~y the way qdialo~e. Spirituality Review, a supplement of Review for Religious, is published at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province twice a year during the Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas seasons. Please send all correspondence to: Review for Religious; Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 See inside back cover for information on subscription rates to Review for Religious. Spirituality Review, a supplement of Review for Religious, is an interactive journal. We ask you, our readers, to give us your reactions and your suggestions. Please write to our address given above or fax: 314-977-7362 email us at: review@slu.edu * Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org ©2004 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material contained in this supplement issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, adver-tising, 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. S pi ituality eview Review .for Religious Supplement Editor David L. Fleming SJ Associate Editor Philip C. Fischer SJ Canonical Counsel Elizabeth McDonough OP Scripture Scope Eugene Hensell OSB Editorial Staff Mary Ann Foppe TracT Gramm Judy Sharp Webmaster Clare Boehmer ASC ~amer SM '-Iughes RSCJ Larkin OCarm .amgela Menard ry Steib SVD L~keritis CSJ ADVENT CHRISTMAS 2004 contents tracings reaching out Saint It! D.M. Flynn offers an overview of saints throughout history that challenges us to recognize the saints around us and to model saintliness for others. Reflection 13 expecting in hope l~ Imaging Isaiah David L. Fleming SJ suggests we meet the prophet Isaiah for his guidance through Advent. Prayer and Reflection Questions 17 remembering ~ Dismas's Dying Moments: Reflections on "Palpable Grace" Robert P. Maloney CM employs a type of lectio divina on the Lucan story of the "good thief" in order to offer some reflections on palpable grace. Prayer 23 expanding our world My Associates Robert North SJ enlarges our prayer by his suggestion of including "my associates," and he further explains the extent of this term. Prayer and Reflection Question SpiHt~ality Review ~.~,o mcmaea as a bonus A Spirituality fo: . orary Life:The Jesuit Heritage TodaCyo)n .t.e.m. p_ Prisms for a Christ-Life .@. .$1 Notes on the Spiritual Exercises @ God has imprinted upon all created things his traces, trail, or footsteps, so that the knowledge we have of his divine Majesty through created things seems nothing other than the sight of the feet of God. St. Francis de Sales Asking for help does not come easy for many adults. They mistakenly think that all mature persons (like themselves!) have all the resources they need. At the other extreme, there are peo-ple who are quick to condemn anyone who does not ask for help: "They are trying to be like a god, self-sufficient and not needing others." Yet our Christian understanding is that God, incarnate in Jesus, is one who asks for our help. In the New Testament, we see that Jesus sought out apostles and disciples and shared his mis-sion about the reign of God with them. Jesus was acting in continuity with God working with the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham and Moses and the kings David and Solomon and the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. God is always reaching out and asking for our human help. This familiar thought expresses a deep truth: "God has no tracings Advent/Christntas 2004 Tracings hands but our hands, no other feet but our feet." That is the ordinary way that God reaches out to help others. The Christian belief in the communion of saints is based on our faith that God works with and through us to bring about the reign of God. We all are meant to help one another--those of us living now and those who have preceded us--and that is why we are the "commu-nion of saints." In our daily way of praying, we ask our brothers and sisters--canonized saints (especially our favorite ones) and family members, friends, teachers, and counselors (most of whom will never be officially rec-ognized as saints but helpful to us all the same)--for their support and intercessory aid as we travel our own life pilgrimage. Every Eucharist we celebrate brings home to us how we live as a faith community of sisters and brothers willing to ask for help, to provide help, and to receive the help that is offered. Asking for help is how we grow into being the body of Christ. Asking for help is how we grow in being like God. As editor, I want to thank our readers for helping us to improve this journal, Review for Religious. This Spirituality Review is the last regular supplement issue because it has served its purpose of getting feedback from you, our readers, through postcards and emails, about format and interactive-style changes that we will be including in Review for Religious. In the first issue of 2005, you will notice these adaptations. Spirituality Review facilitated the making of prudent changes in a revered and respected international journal sixty-plus years old. We are grateful for your help, and we hope that you will continue to find the pages of Review for Religious personally and apostolically enriching. David L. Fleming SJ Spirituality Review D.M. FLYNN Saint It! Every family has them. There are stories about the relative dubbed Daddy Fix-It. Without for-mal training he could repair anything from the children's toys to the family washing machine. Anecdotes about Nana are hardly lacking either. A European immigrant, she never mastered the complexities of English, but her family feasts surpassed the efforts of every gourmet chef in town. Then there are the tales of the frugal aunt and uncle who raised ten children. They sold their empty nest to buy an RV (recreational vehi-cle), then spent their wisdom years traveling around the country visiting family and friends. Yes, every family has them: the heroes who have gone on before us while their legends live on. Family members spend many enjoyable hours poring over photo albums and recalling such tales. These stories inspire us and help to shape our family heritage. In our increasingly D.M. Flynn, who wrote about Gregorian chant for us in 1999, may be addressed at 119 Royal Gardens Way; Brockport, New York 14420. reaching out ddvent/Cbristmas 2004 Flynn ¯ Saint I!! mobile society, they not only influence our identities, they impart a sense of unity. Perhaps that explains the popularity of genealogy in recent years. As our kinfolk uproot and transplant themselves, we feel the need to maintain our family tree. We seek roots in every sense of the word. Our Catholic family also has its heroes and their leg-ends: we call them saints. Their stories inspire us and shape our Catholic heritage. These tales testify to the kinds of lives that are appropriate for God's holy peo-ple. Our lineage spans thousands of years, making it impossible to trace all of it--not here, not ever. But the following pages give us a glimpse of our Judeo-Christian family album. Saints: Set Apart To the average Catholic, the word saint refers to deceased persons whom the church has officially canon-ized for their lives of service to God and their neigh-bors. But the canon--or list--of saints could not possibly include everyone who lived a life of virtue. Moreover, the definition of saint has evolved over the centuries. The word translated as saint from both Hebrew and Greek originally referred to gods, beings "set apart." The ancient Israelites viewed God as transcending his creation and therefore worthy of worship. They believed that God alone was "holy, sanctus," set apart ("sanctuar-ied"), distinct, unique. "Holiness" set God apart from the profane, the ordinary: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" (Is 6:3). When God entered into a covenant with the Israelites, they were set apart from the other nations. "You are a people sacred to the Lord, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own" (Dt 7:6). With this Spirituality Review privilege comes a responsibility: "Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy" (Lv 19:2). Now the Israelites are God's chosen ones, a "holy people," or "saints," who are called to imitate the divine attributes. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul refers to the early Christians as saints because, as a community, they were set apart from their nonbelieving neighbors. The Christians were now God's own people, "the holy ones in Christ Jesus" (Ph 1:1). They, too, bear the task of emulating the Divine: "Put on the new self, created in God's way in Can we Use saint , to refer toChristians who lived exemplary lives ' of irtue and simplicity? righteousness and holiness of truth" (Ep 4:24). Eventually the term saint referred to Christians who lived exem-plary lives of virtue and simplicity, whose lifestyles served to inspire others. Christians at the Catacombs A cross-stitch sampler reads, "When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a trea-sure." As we peruse our family albums, we inevitably find the last photo taken of loved ones whose earthly lives are now memories. By visiting their graves and decorating the gravesites, we show that we treasure those memories. The ancient Israelites regarded death as the passage from life to Sheol (she-OHL), a dark place of confine-ment, but not one of punishment. In Sheol one was estranged from God: "Who among the dead remembers you? Who praises you in Sheol?" (Ps 6:6). From the moment of death, there were displays of grief, shown in clothing and in loud laments, wailing, and weeping. Advent/Christmas 2004 Flynn ¯ Saintlt.t Proper burial was required. To leave a body "for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field" (1 S 14:44) was an insult to God's creation. Poor people were buried in common graveyards. The wealthy had vaults dug into the hillsides. The entryway was closed with a circular stone slab. Families might have several interconnected rooms. Bodies were laid on shelves carved out for that purpose. The Jewish Christians also, of course, honored the memory of their loved ones. At first they simply con-tinued their Jewish practices, burying their dead amid laments and dirges. The resurrection of Jesus, however, changed their mourning into joy: "We do not want you to be unaware about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope" (1 Th 4:13). These new Christians, then, regarded the graves of their loved ones as a temporary resting place, not a final one. The word cemetery comes from a Greek word meaning dormitory, sleeping room. Christian burial customs continued to reflect the Jewish emphasis c~f respect for the body as God's cre-ation. To this end, Christians choose modest ground burial in common graveyards. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christians made an effort to identify the graves of martyrs. They viewed death as a birthday: birth of a new life with God, as Jesus had promised. They occa-sionally gathered at these sites on the anniversaries of the martyrs' deaths to rejoice and commemorate their lives. In the 3rd century, Christians were buried in the cat-acombs, which were probably extensions of the hillside vaults of the wealthy. The catacombs were not used as a refuge for Christians during times of persecution. In the 4th cen .tury, however, they too were the site of memorial services. Here they celebrated the Eucharist "in memory Spirituality Review of those athletes who have gone before, and to train and make ready those who are to come hereafter."' Local Calendars and Canonization As we turn the pages in our family album, we come upon photographs of those who sacrificed their lives in the service of others--a widower uncle who refused to place his handicapped child in an institution despite pres-sure from doctors and family; an aunt who renounced marriage and children in order to care for her aging par-ents. They may not have died for their cause, but they laid down their lives nonetheless. To the Jewish community, a martyr was someone who was deeply devoted to God and lived life of exemplary piety and holiness. The martyr, or "witness," testi-fied to the manner of life appropriate for God's cho-sen people. To the new Christians a martyr was one who endured, not for the faith, but because of it. Faith allowed one to be "strengthened with every power, in accord with Mat does it'.mean .to'say a ,matyrr : one who endured; ,not for, the fai h, but ecause:ff it? [God's] glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light" (Col 1:11-12). The Book of Revelation refers to martyrs as those who gave their life for Jesus Christ. In later cen-turies martyrs came to mean those who willingly died for their beliefs. Christians faced persecutions until the peace of Constantine in the early 4th century. Recalling the acts of the martyrs served to inspire the .community in the Advent/Christmas 2004 Flynn ¯ Saint lt.t face of opposition. Each church had its own list of local heroes or saints. As intolerance subsided, martyrdom became uncommon. Christians now looked for new heroes to emulate. People who led extremely virtuous lives, especially those who lived in voluntary poverty, were included in the local calendar of saints. There were no formal criteria for sainthood: the devotion of the community was the sole requirement to set them apart. Over the centuries the lists of saints swelled and abuses occurred. Family legends often become exagger-ated as time passes; the sagas of the saints suffered the same fate. Consequently, the bishops began to set norms for calling people saints within their dioceses. In 1234 Pope Gregory IX declared that the sole route to official sainthood was papal canonization. Formal canonization has seen many changes since then. The most recent revi-sion came in 1983, but the devotion of the community is still an essential element. The lengthy and complex pro-cess begins when one or more persons submit a request to the bishop to examine the life of a deceased hero. All the Saints Sometimes, as we look through our family pho-tographs, we are surprised to discover an uneven repre-sentation of our relatives. Some people appear in almost every picture while others appear only rarely. Vghatever the reason for this, as families grow it becomes increas-ingly difficult to photograph the entire clan. Similarly, as our family of saints grew larger in num-ber than the days in a year, it became impossible to assign a specific day to honor each saint. The obvious solution was to select a day to honor all the saints, known and unknown, who did not have a personal feast day. Various places chose different days for this. November 1, the first day of Celtic winter, was the feast of all the saints in Spirituality Review Ireland. It was not until the 9th century that November 1 became the feast of All Saints for the entire church. While we celebrate the memory of all saints, we adore God alone. We pray to the saints to intercede with God for us. We venerate saints; we worship God alone. The distinction may be subtle, but it is significant. As Lawrence Cunningham observed, the saints "give us the encouragement to be more self-giving, more loving, less inclined to hate, more compelled to love. They invite us, in short, to transcend ourselves.''2 The Solemnity of All Saints is a day to honor those saints whom the Church formally recognizes for their lives of service to God and their neighbors. It is also a day when we can remember our loved ones who have gone before us and left memories to inspire us. It is a day when we can notice the goodness of people still among us, living relatives and friends who challenge us to be the person God calls us to be. At baptism each one of us was set apart for God. We became members of "'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises' of him who called you out of dark-ness into his wonderful light" (1 P 2:9). Through baptism God lays claim to us, enabling us to become divine instru-ments. Whatever our situation in life, we are to imitate the divine attributes, to live virtuous lives, and to bear wit-ness to the way of life appropriate for God's holy people. The following stanza rarely appears in our hymnals despite its powerful imagery: For martyrs, who with rapture-kindled eye saw the bright crown descending from the sky and, seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.3 We, too, must grasp the crown, not necessarily by dying for our faith, but rather by persevering as witnesses who, through faith, live as God's image and likeness. Now it is /ldvent/Cbristmas 2004 Flynn ¯ Saintlt! our turn to be heroes and heroines for others, to "saint it," to act like saints. Our lives will then inspire a future gen-eration of saints and help to shape their Catholic heritage. Notes i From "The Martyrdom of Polycarp," 2rid century. 2 Lawrence S. Cunningham, The Meaning of the Saints (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), p. 162. 3 Marilyn Kay Stulken and Catherine Salika, Hymnal Companion to VVorsbip, 3rd ed. (Chicago: GIA Publications, 1998), p. 416. Reflection Reflect on/share your 'experience of the homespun sampler that says: "When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure." Spirituality Review DAVID L. FLEMING Imaging Isaiah Readings from the book of the prophet Isaiah are used for more than half of all the Advent Masses. The Liturgy of the Hours for this liturgical season, too, depends frequently on a first reading from Isaiah. Who is this man Isaiah? Why has the church chosen him to lead us through Advent? I believe that if we will make use of an imaginative way of praying we will be graced by God to have a richer appreciation of our Christian Advent. Let us ask, then, for an encounter with this prophet of God, one specially chosen to help us "wait." We are on a country road, and Isaiah is walking towards us. He seems to have a face that people say is "typical"-- that is, a typical Judean face. He, an eighth-century man of Judah, appears to be a man of experience--average height and build, seemingly in good health, with the lines of aging already visible around his eyes and across his David L. Fleming SJ is editor of this journal. He may be addressed at 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St, Louis, Missouri 63108. expecting in hope Advent/Christmas 2004 Fleming ¯ Imaging Isaiah forehead. At the same time, his eyes, bright and steady in their gaze, seem younger than his face and body; they are dark and serious,-strong, and unflinching. He has a studious air about him, like a longtime, somewhat rumpled, university professor we can feel at home with. He speaks quietly, but with authority. There is a certain cadence in his speech, a bit like listening to a poet give a dramatic reading of his own poetry. And so he begins to share some of his own story with us. We listen. I am a typical Jewish man, married, with a family. But I know that I am not typical in the way that I experience how God works in my life. Let me say straightway that God is God, there is no Other, and God is the God of my whole life. I am now working with my fourth king here in Judah; kings have come and gone in my forty~year experience, but God always remains. He stays with me, with us, his people. From my very first extraord!nary experience of God reaching into my life, God for me has always been the "Holy One of Israel." Sure, I have felt the warm reality of God's love, the intimacy of his call, that first time almost sounding like a plea, "Whom shall I send?" With the boldness of my youthful faith, I had no hesitation in speaking up and saying, "Here I am, Lord, send me." But, above all, my experience of God is that God is awe-ful, God is holy--really "other" than us. We humans are not very good in letting God be God in our lives. We do not like the awe-ful, the totally Other, the mysterious One. We still prefer making God like ourselves, and we find it very hard to allow God to make us like him. That pretty well sums up what I have had to say to my people and to kings for forty years. I see human pridebour self-indulgence and even our indifference to those in need--writ large in our nation of Judah. Yet Judah is "my people" and Jerusalem is the holy city. So it is hard for me to cry out and condemn, but what Spirituality Review can I do? The words are not mine, but God's word. God could raise up an ass to do as much as I do. Some people call me that anyway, and on my good days I take it as a compliment. You see, God is God, and from a weak and insignificant remnant of a people God will raise up a king from David's line just as he promised. We are called to trust. The Lord is the faithful One--faithful to his promises--and where else but from the Lord will we find a rule of peace and justice and a real family of humankind? I have seen quite a few kings--my hope lies not in them. My hope is always in my God, working with us now and moving with us always to a future that is in his hands. In our good times and in our busy moments, we forget or ignore God. In our hard times, we complain against our God, and we say that we cannot trust him. With all our ups and downs as a people, our moments of pride and then our times of discouragement and destitution, I feel that I must say two things at once. God wants to use me to console, not to punish. Our faith needs to feel strengthened, and not face further trial or reprimand. We need to grow in our trust of God. God says that through me; God also acts this out--for me and for my people, his people. The kingdom of God is at hand, and the poor and the lowly-- just how we feel now--are the very ones who find their home within it. So I image God's word like a two-edged sword. It cuts into our pride, our vanity, and our callous injustice to the poor; but it also heals with its searing blade, and it provides strength and protection. Advent/Christnlas 2004 Fleming ¯ Imaging Isaiah This is my experience of being God's prophet. This is the way that I live my call from God, listening to his word. I am trying to live this vocation faithfully. As I continue to respond to God's word, I feel myself always being challenged to grow in my trust of the Lord. Maybe being God's prophet is really not so extraordinary an experience. We all have to be faithful to our vocations, don't we? And that requires a continuing interplay of listening and responding. Of course, this way of living demands an ever greater trust in God for all .:of us, Living with God is such an advent experience-- always awaiting God's coming, in a spirit of trust. Prayer To continue the conversation with Isaiah and with God, we might open our Bible to Isaiah, chapter 43. Perhaps this passage will call forth in us our own encounter with Isaiah and/or God. Perhaps there will be little conversation, and instead just being with each other and thinking similar thoughts. And then we might remain with whatever phrase or sentence captures our heart, like the refrain of a song that keeps coming backer is it us coming back to it? Who is waiting for whom? Reflection Questions How have we experienced Isaiah providing a doorway for us into our Advent season? Does our listening and responding to God increase out trust in God leading us on in our vocation? Spirituality Review ROBERT P. MALONEY Dismas's Dying Moments: Reflections on "Palpable Grace" All four Gospels paint the same stark picture of Jesus' death: he dies crucified between two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. But, whereas Mark, Matthew, and John say almost nothing about the two criminals, Luke gives them speaking roles in a dramatic episode. In fact, this scene is the longest and most important Lucan difference in the crucifixion story. We usually refer to its main character as "the good thief," though Luke calls him neither "good" nor a "thief." While Mark and Matthew describe both men crucified with Jesus as "bandits," Luke simply refers to them as "wrongdoers," perhaps because, as the evangelist who most emphasizes gentleness, he wants to avoid placing Jesus in violent company at his death. Robert P. Maloney CM, superior general emeritus of the Congregation of the Mission, continues to write from Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma; Italy. remembering Advent/Christmas 2004 Maloney ¯ Dismas's Dying Moments Later tradition gave various names to both wrongdoers 0oathas and Maggatras, Zoatham and Camma, Titus and Dumachus, Dismas and Gestas), Most of these names are forgotten today, but some readers may still recall the good thief as Dismas. Under that name the Roman liturgical calendar assigned him a feast day, 25 March, once regarded as the day of Jesus' crucifixion, but now celebrated as the feast of his incarnation. A charming legend found in an apocryphal gospel relates that, when the Holy Family went down into Egypt, two robbers set upon them. One, however, halted immediately when he saw the tears that welled up in Mary's eyes. It was these same robbers (now caught plying their trade in Jerusalem)--so the story goes--who were crucified with Jesus. The one moved by Mary's tears was the good thief at Jesus' right. But the Gospels are silent about the wrongdoers' past history and personal lives. At first reading, the dialogue in Luke seems simple and direct, but in fact it is filled with subtle undertones. One of the wrongdoers, the evangelist states, joins his voice with those blaspheming Jesus: "Aren't you the Messiah? Then save yourself and us." But the "other wrongdoer" (Luke never calls him anything else) rebukes his companion: "Have you no fear of God, seeing that you are under the same sentence? We deserve it, after all. We are only paying the price for what we have done, but this man has done nothing wrong." Notice that in this Lucan scene the good thief is the witness to Jesus' innocence. Later a second witness, the centurion, will confirm the good thief's judgment, testifying "Surely this was an innocent man" (Lk 23:47). Now the drama heightens as the good thief speaks directly to the crucified Lord: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." "Jesus"! This form of address is stunning in its intimacy. Nowhere else in Spirituality Review the four Gospels does anyone address Jesus simply by his given name without any reverential qualification. Luke's artistic touch conveys the genuineness of the wrongdoer's request. But note the irony too. For Luke, the first person with the confidence to speak so familiarly with the Lord is a convicted criminal--and he is also the last person to speak with him. He phrases his plea as remembrance, a favorite Lucan idea that is also found on ancient Jewish gravestones: "Remember me." Against all ordinary probability, this wrongdoer, hearing Jesus mocked as "king of the Jews" and sensing that an injustice is being done, believes that Jesus really will rule over a kingdom and humbly asks to be remembered. Jesus responds with an "amen saying," the only use of this solemn form in Luke's passion narrative and also its sixth and final use in his Gospel. Here the solemn formula bestows the gift of God's forgiveness. Jesus' assurance goes beyond anything that the wrongdoer (or the reader) might have anticipated: "Amen, I say to you, this day you shall be with me in paradise." Much more is granted than was asked. The response includes not just forgiveness but intimacy: you shall be with me. The good thief will, in Jesus' company, enjoy the fullness of happiness with God. Let me offer two brief reflections on this wonderful Lucan story. 1. We believe that grace is a pure gift. God bestows it freely and abundantly. We do not earn it; we only respond to it. On the deepest level, grace is God's presence, God's offer of personal love and self-communication. The gift is the giver. God touches our hearts and stirs up, even creates, a response within us. But it is important to note that this gift is not merely an unseen reality; it also comes in palpable forms. The Gospels remind us of this again and again. For the good Advent/Christmas 2004 Maloney ¯ Dismas's Dying Moments How understand "Jesus" grace, thief in Luke's story, Jesus is grace. One can almost imagine this "other wrongdoer" studying Jesus and slowly arriving at the conclusion that the man beside him is not only innocent of a capital crime but genuinely good, In fact--this little detail often goes unnoticed-- Luke gives the good thief more time to observe Jesus than any of the other evangelists, for in his Gospel (different from Mark, Matthew, and John) the two wrongdoers walk the entire way of the cross with Jesus before dying with him (Lk 23:32). The goodness he sees in the person of Jesus touches the good thief's heart and evokes a response: "Jesus, remember me." Is that not how grace often works? It enters our lives through the faithful witness of others (like our parents, or a self-giving servant of the poor, or a sick person who bears illness with courageous faith) or through a saint's life or a martyr's death that we read about. The signs of God's love--what we call "grace"--are visible all around us. What is remarkable in the good thief is that he does not turn in on himself in the desperately grim moments when his life was draining away. Instead of sinking into depression or despair, he sees goodness itself in the person of Jesus and utters a hopeful plea: "Jesus, remember me." He sees grace personified and responds. 2. There is something remarkably humble in this "other wrongdoer." Unlike his companion, he recognizes the truth of his own situation. His sober analysis was, I suspect, shocking both for the first wrongdoer and for the bystanders: "We have been condemned jusdy. We are only paying the price for what we have done, but this man has done nothing wrong." Spirituality Review Thomas Merton once wrote, "We make ourselves real by telling the truth." Truth lies at the core of our being, straining to emerge. When we express the truth, we begin to build our true self. So it was for the good thief. Drawn by the innocence and goodness of the Lord, he recognized his own emptiness and, precisely in doing so, was able to see, hear, receive, and be filled. There is a humble and at the same time affectionate ring in the good thief's plea, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus' warm response is another Lucan testimony that the humble are exalted: "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." As Jesus often 'reminded his followers, to the humble all good can come, whereas the proud always remain empty. In a time when there is so much war, so much terrorism, so much hunger, so much disease, and so much senseless death, Luke's account encourages us to see, along with the good thief, the abundant signs of God's gracious love, even in the midst of suffering. Luke urges us to stand before the Lord and before each other with great trut-hfulness and humility. Humility will enable us to see our companions on the journey as grace in our lives, visible signs of God's presence and love. As he approached the place of crucifixion, the good thief must surely have felt that this was his darkest hour. But light shone for him in that darkness because, with the Lord, "darkness itself is not dark anti night shines as the day" (Ps 139:12). Prayer We might enter into Dismas's experience by listening to Advent/Christmas 2004 Maloney ¯ Dismas's Dying Moments the Taiz~ hymn "Jesus remember me," with its repeated refrain: "Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom. Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom." O dying souls, behold your living spring: O dazzled eyes, behold your son of grace; Dull ears, attend what word this word doth bring: Up heavy hearts: with joy your joy embrace. From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs: This life, this light, this word, this joy repairs: Gift better than himself God doth not know: Gift better than his God, no man can see: This gift doth here the giver given bestow: Gift to this gift let each receiver be. God is my gift, himself he freely gave me: God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. --St. Robert So.uthwell Spirituality Review ROBERT NORTH My Associates Spirituality guides propose that to fill blanks or weariness in our prayer we readily have "recourse to familiar ejaculations like "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner," "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening," or "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." These help us to make our prayer legitir~ate!y.~e!.(Tce!3.t~-ed, aiming to make us more Christlike. But a dif-ferent legitimate focus of prayer aims at God's creative and caring concerns more directly than our own. We propose here an ejaculation less simple and familiar but more suited to this focus: "Son of God, help me to do my part in fulfilling your creation plan for myself, my associates, and the whole universe." The invocation "Lord" may mean either God or Jesus, but the equivalent "Son of God" evokes Robert North SJ writes us an article for the first time since 1944, when he wrote "Scripture in the Christmas Liturgy" during this journal's infancy--and only a year after Divino afflante Spiritu. His address is Jesuit Community; 10100 West Bluemound Road; Wauwatosa, Wisconsin 53226. expanding our world Advent/Christmas 2004 North * My Associates our chief doctrines, the Trinity and the incarnation, as the basis of our faith and prayer. But another key term follows: "my associates." It evokes the vastness of God's creative concerns in their relation to me. "My associates"--whether used in silent prayer or expressed publicly--doubtless usually suggests my fam-ily and friends, my business associates, and members of my community or parish or neighborhood. The term "associates" is also likely to include religious authori-ties- the pope, the bishop, other bishops worldwide, the world's Catholics--with the faintest hint of omitting or forgetting other Christians or people of no belief in any God at all. Such a hint is hopefully gradually vanishing in our ecumenical age, as we take cautious steps to share the aim of several world-renowned prayer sessions of Pope John Paul II with other believers in a God even with a different name or attributes. Our progress along these lines is strengthened rather than diminished by the pope's per-sistent promotion of this project in spite of vocal and well-publicized opposition from some top Vatican prelates. God's Own Religious Associatesmand Ours Our church does indeed admit and even sometimes pronounce emphatically that our creating and caring God "willed" (can this mean less than "intended"?) the salvation of all humans, "them" no less than "us." This has been often or generally taken to mean that God wishes all humans to be members of his one church, thus giving a strong urge to missionary activity. In the early years of a developing Bible-based theol-ogy, the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire, then dominating virtually the whole world. Thus there seemed nothing quixotic in hoping and making efforts toward "conversion" of those scarcely known or Spirituality Review suspected fringe tribes outside the Mediterranean world. But the world we know today, still incompletely and pro-gressively, is of course a vastly different story. A great many of today's conversions by the received methods are in the parts of Africa or Asia whose exis-tence had never even been suspected in the Roman world. But other regions, especially those incorporated into Islam, raise a great outcry against "proselytizing," and even forbid it by law as a political maneuver. Partly to escape such laws, but more because of their own growing ecumenical con-victions, some--far from all--of the well-estab-lished Catholic "missions" proclaim firmly that their goal is not conversion but "mutual understandingF."rom Catholic theology and traditions their effort is to recognize with sympathy how the creating and caring God has enabled all peoples to get some inadequate notions of him under different names and attributes oi" even with distressing notions of (human) sacrifice or other religious obligations. Not only Catholics but also prosperous Evangelical missions hope that a dialogue will thus develop, so that each side will see some merit in the other or some lim-ited revelation of himself by God in inscrutable ways he has chosen. From such open-minded dialogue, some few or many may freely and honestly choose Christianity. This hope may be unduly optimistic, especially in view of how Christian success has historically been imposed by warlords, though not to the grim and now soft-pedaled extent of moderate Islam. But frankly proselytizing efforts like "Bibles for (communist) Russia" or "Jews for Advent/Cbrispmas 2004 North * My Associates Jesus" inevitably arouse a self-defeating hostility. Religion must adapt to culture patterns. Slavery is now con-demned, and what was called "usury" is now widespread under various names. Today's goal is ecumenism. God's Associatesmand Oursm in Starving Africa and Asia Prominent among one's associates are those whom one must feed. Not only nursing mothers but also wage earners of large families quite naturally feel a special responsibility to their children and aged relatives who depend entirely on them for keeping alive. Some few of these for various reasons may not even be relatives, though usually they are already "associates." But many of the world's people have only their creat-ing and caring God to save them from starvation, despite the help they may receive from charitable organizations whose members may well regard them as "associates." If in our prayers we think it right to focus on God's interests as equal or even prior to our own, we should include among our own "associates" these starvelings who depend on us (the overaffluent rest of the world). But wait! There is a danger that we may feel that in praying for these "associates" we have discharged our obligation toward them, like the New Testament person who virtuously says to a beggar, "Go in peace; be warmed and filled" (Jm 2:16). We may be reassured that our prayer is not an empty or hypocritical gesture if we also make a regular contribution. But the real-world situa-tion is far more complex. The clamorous problem is that a small percent of the world's population owns most of its resources. They are needlessly rich, while the others are too poor--living below what statisticians of even the richest nations cal-culate and publish as "poverty level." And of course we Spirituality Review all know, even perhaps a bit complacently or thankfully to God, that our own too rich standard of living is at or near the highest in the world. "On the average," we must add, for the thousands of our citizens who must sleep on the cold streets or survive on handouts and soup kitchens make our disproportion even worse. We are not asking whose fault this is. No one's, really. A combination of circumstances over centuries: vast national and individual landholdings, brave pioneers who transformed the untilled territories of aboriginal nomad tribes into richly yielding farms, and "democracy," which with all its merits gets lawmakers to give a higher prior-ity to contenting their constituencies ("pork-barrel" deals, lobbies, sometimes actual graft, and so forth) than to world justice. A sensible redistribution (even if far from equality) would demand that legislators and voters rec-ognize that, for one pan of the scale to go down, the other must be more or less empty. Even our meritorious farm-ers and expensively trained pharmaceutical biochemists must not only tolerate but demand that their excesses be cut to help (even if only slightly) the truly intolerable position of most of the world. This is not to suggest that there be another (rash and counterproductive) political lobby, but rather a reasoning dialogue among holders of power. Something like this should be the object of our prayers for poverty-stricken associates. Such prayers can be honest and effective, not hypocritical (as pilloried in the letter of James), even though we do not consider the situation appropriate or ourselves competent to warrant "meddling in politics." Our "Planet Earth" Associates Though "the whole universe" is a separate focus of God's creative concern,, there is an aspect of it involving AdventlChristntas 2004 North ¯ My Associates "my associates." The Earth is truly "ours," though only a planet of a galaxy so small that it is scarcely noticeable in the vast sky maps shown in the latest telescopes. Yet our own material bodies are constituted of infinitesimal particles whizzing in and out from the farthest star. Of St. Ignatius Loyola a poet wrote, "His vigil was with the stars; his eyes were bright with radiance of them." Long before him Christians and others had gazed at the How do wefeel about the convictions.ofan Earth-centered universe:? stars with a mystic fas-cination, sometimes as the very "heaven" in which God was believed to dwell. Yet through all those centuries the star-studded sky was known only about as much as could be seen on the ceiling of a planetarium, and the Earth was thought to be the center which gave function to all the rest. Ignatius wrote in the "Foundation" of his Exercises that everything that exists is for me. This is not just lib-erality but a challenge and a test: to be used only as things help to the goal of my creation. Technology and inven-tions provide now a far greater and more tempting range of options, and the universe known to science today is vastly greater. Some devout science-minded Christians find this to confirm rather than lessen their faith: "More is better! If the immensity of reality known to antiquity showed forth the greatness and generosity of its Creator, this is now proved a trillion times more firmly." But others feel that Isaiah 45:18 must now be under-stood in an entirely new way: "the creator of the uni-verse., who formed the earth and made it. did not create a chaos, but formed it to be inhabited." Why should God have chosen to produce the sterile varieties Spirituality Review known to astronomy if his real goal was the tiny pin-point of it fit for human habitation? We cannot claim to intuit or know God's intentions: "my ways are not your ways" (Is 55:8). But surely all progress of science and theology too has been due to people reflecting on vari-ous possible intentions of the mysterious data of experi-ence. We can pray that we may do our part in the fulfillment of God's creation plan. Though the conviction of an Earth-centered uni-verse is today derided, we should not sell the idea short. Even the most demythologizing astrophysicists agree that our own Earth is unique in its formation through billions of years by explosions and floods implausible for their gradual releasing, from various locations in the whole universe as much as four million years ago, gaseous and solid elements indispensable for the human life which appeared shortly after. Of course, scientists still earnestly searching may yet find evidence that other stellar bodies by quite different explosions are in process of forming a surface capable of supporting human or humanlike life. But they and the general public are much more arrested by the question of whether human or any true "life" actually exists on another planet. Even before the recent exciting com-munications from Mars, the Vatican Jesuit astronomer Guy Consolmagno wrote that materials from Mars, though not life itself, were microbe combinations of the kind which on our earth eventually hooked up with car-bon to form primitive life-forms. Later he wrote the arti-cle "Could I baptize a Martian?" Our church has in fact been open and keen on whether there could be humanlike life on other planets. With sci-ence she recognizes that evidence for this is at most a remote possibility, but not altogether excluded. These merely possible beings would fall into the class of "asso- Advent/Christmas 2004 North ¯ My Associates ciates" for whom we should pray as objects of God's own creative concern. If indeed they were (evolutively) cre-ated, then they form part of God's desire and intention that they should share in salvation, even if they have not (yet) been baptized members of the Christian church. Union Replacing Divisiveness This widening of the concept of "my associates" has been developed in accord with modern scientific revi-sions of geography, economics, and astronomy. But its true merit for our prayer lies in recognizing the spiritual value of seeking a greater union among the peoples amid whom we live. "No peace among nations without peace among religions," it has been said. Hope of real peace and union among all humans may be realistically unlikely and nevertheless a valid goal--God's own creative caring goal--toward which our prayer may be directed. A Prayer When I think of you, Lord, I cannot say whether I find you more in this place or that place--whether I am contemplating you or whether I am suffering--whether I rue my faults or find union-- whether it is you I love or the whole sum of others. Every affection, every desire, every possession, every light, every depth, every harmony, and every ardor glitters with equal brilliance, at one and the same time, in the inexpressible relationship that is being set up between me and you: Jesus! Pierre Teilhard de Chardin "The Mystical Milieu" Writings in Time of War Reflection Question What has been my experience of praying for others? 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Issue 37.1 of the Review for Religious, 1978. ; pies of Discernment According Jesus of N~zareth Culti~atingthe Cegtering Pr yer REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is edited in collaboration with faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. © 1978 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $8.00 a year; $15.00 for two .years. Other countries: $9.00 a year, $17.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor January, 1978 Volume 37 .Number 1 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gai/en, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Review for Religious Volume 37, 1978 Editorial Offices 539 North Grand Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63103 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Review ]or Religious is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edi-tion of Review ]or Religious is available from University Microfilms Inter-national; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright (~) 1978 by Review ]or Religious. Principles for Discernment According to Jesus of Nazareth Br. Jonathan of God and Br. Carith of the Incarnation Brothers Jonathan and Carith reside in the Elias Desert House of the Zion Carmelite Com-munity; R.R. ~1; Garnet, KS 66032. Our age is one of sincere sign seekers unlike the Pharisees and Sadducees rebuffed by Jesus in Matthew 16:1-4. The Pharisees and Sadducees came along, and as a test asked him to show them some sign in the sky. He gave them this reply: "In the evening you say, red sky at night the day will be fight, but in the morning red sky and gloomy, the day will be stormy. If you know how to interpret the look of the sky, can you not read the signs of the times? An evil, faithless age is eager for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah." With that [the evangelist editorializes rather graphically] he left them abruptly.~ We long, with a deep interior lohging, to know God and to live in his truth. We are the generation that has spawned the Jesus Movement. We have responded, more openly than any previous generation, to the teachings of the Religious East. Titles like Swami, Guru, and Yogi as well as Eastern spiritual practices like Mantra and chanting are becoming well-known in the West. Messianic personalities .have appeared on nearly everyone's spiritual horizon. These wise men from the East speak with persuasion and attract many faithful devotees. All claim to speak the truth and present themselves as ambassadors of God. Religious communities in this climate of sincere aThe New American Bible, (New York: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1970), p. 1089. 3 4 / Review for Religioas, Volume 37, 1978/I spiritual search have many men and women who feel called to a deeper life of prayer. For superiors this current direction has become an administrative problem by having to replace "good workers'" in now-vacated positions. For the religious seeker it has become a time of painful self-examination. Whether we are attempting to discern the words and actions of a particular spiritual teacher or determine if we have in our religious community a prophet or pious pm'anoid, we will do well to look carefully at the principles for discernment given to us by Jesus himself. Jesus gave ten very clear principles for the discernment of a person's spiritual claims. The principles are found in John's Gospel, chapter 5, verses 27-44.~ The verses are easily divided into two categories: 1) Prin-ciples for judging the person discerning: the subjective element that does come to play in every discerning situation. 2) Principles for discetvdng the person in question: the object of discernment. Since discernment of a religious phenomenon is of ultimate and not relative importance, Jesus was not satisfied with presenting a few static principles applicable by the spiritual and technical man alike. Just as a judge may know the law but lack wisdoml a person seeking to discern a spiritual matter needs more than a set of criteria, even if the norms used are the legacy of a great saint. Jesus insists that the "discerner" begin by scrupulous self-examination. The first set of principles, five in number, are for the purpose of self-discernment. Once the judge can assure himself that he does have the "gift" of discernment, he may turn his attention to the religious question to be reviewed. In testing the spirit of the person being considered, the discerner may use Jesus' second set of criteria, also num-bering five. Principles for Self-reflection The Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me. You have been deaf to his voice, blind to the vision of him, and his word is not continually present in your hearts; that is why you will not trast one whom he has sent (Jn 5:37). FIRST PRINCIPLE Men can recognize that one is sent by God if they are attuned to God and. his voice and vision, and if they continually have his word in their hearts. Commentary A group of teenagers from a street gang are not asked to review a new ballet about to open at the civic auditorium. Promoters of rock music do not solicit opinions from senior citizens. ~The Holy Bible, Trans., Ronald Knox. (New York: Sheed and Ward, inc. 1956), pp. 91-92. New Testament section. Principles fi)r Discernment According to Jesus of Nazareth / 5 With no reflection on teenage gangs or the aged, the pollsters are honestly judging the inability of these groups to evaluate the situations validly. According to this principle of Jesus a person must know God in more than an intellectual manner. He must know God and not only know about God. To put it in thi~ eloquent phraseology of the Carmelite hermit, William McNamara, "He must know the God of theology, not just the theology of God." You pour over the scriptures, thinking to find eternal life in them (indeed it is of these I speak as bearing witness to me) but you will not come to me to find life (5:39). SECOND PRINCIPLE Men fail to trust one as coming from God when they interpret scripture in a static way. Or when they subject gcripture to their own mind's inter-pretation. Commentary This is the problem of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism had tripped up many in the time of Jesus: "'The pharisees and scribes approached Jesus with the question: why do your disciples act contrary to the tradition of our ancestors?" Fundamentalism is the problem that has subdivided Chris-tianity. It is a problem we in the Catholic-Christian tradition, flatter our-selves in having overcome. We have become erudite in scriptural exegesis and are long removed, from the narrowness of the Inquisition. But who among'us can say that we look at reality without our limited personal perspective? Who among us is so egoless as to welcome in an unbiased manner God's messengers? I do not mean that I look for honor from men, but that I can see you have no love of God in your, hearts (5:41). THIRD PRINCIPLE Men fail to trust one as coming from God when they have no genuine love of God in their hearts. Commentary Just as "loving" our offspring by insisting that they become doctors may be a subtle form of self-glorification, so a .person's sincere love for the organization or institution can be a real bloc to God's plan of salvation. If the "temples" of our work are to be destroyed by a genuine loving response to a messenger of God, then we must have faith that better structures will be raised up in "three days." The demons that darken our vision in this area are the ones that Jesus suggests can be expelled only by copious prayer and fasting. 6 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 I have come in my Father's name and you give me no welcome, although you will welcome some other if he comes in his own name (5:43). FOURTH PRINCIPLE We welcome men with credentials from other men and fail to recognize a man who comes from God. Commentary When Saint Peter of Alcantra went to the bishop of Avila to seek his approve! for Theresa of Jesus to open a convent with no "fiked income" he. was rebuked and turned away because he was speaking poor economics. Francis of Assisi needed an introductory letter from ,Bishop Guido to see the pope and the intercession of a cardinal to keep him from being dismissed summarily. We are all beginning to realize that an academic degree does not tell us the degree of real knowledge, wisdom, a person has. The amount of technical information to which an individual has been exposed is indicated by a degree. True knowledge cannot be earned or discerned by degrees. How should you learn to believe, you who are content to receive honors from one another, and are not ambitious for the honor which comes from him, who alone is God (5:44). FIFTH PRINCIPLE Men fail to recognize a man from God when they look for honor from men only instead of being anxious for God's honor alone. Commentary This needs little comment. We are all wounded deeply in this area. Human respect is a serious problem. We all relate with the sentiment of Cardinal Wolsey: "IfI had but served my God as faithfully as I have my king, I now would not be naked to my enemies." Principles to Discern the Man from God As the Father has within him the gift of life, so he has granted to the Son that he too should have with him the gift of life (5:26). FIRST PRINCIPLE The man of God gives life like God gives life. Commentary The holy men of the East state it in this way: A flower filled with honey need not wear a sign to attract bees. The type of life referred to here is the kind Principles for Discernment According to Jesus of Nazareth / 7 we have the privilege of witnessing in the life and work of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. We stand in awe of the miracle of her activity but we are believers like Thomas. We have seen so much evidence of God's work in her life. Blessed are they who first commissioned her to respond to her "call within a call" and go live as the poorest of the poor. Many of us might have looked upon her proposal as a bit too idealistic. I cannot do anything on my own authority. I decide as I am bidden to decide and my decision is never unjust because I am consulting the will of him who sent me not my own will (5:30). SECOND PRINCIPLE A man from God does nothing on his own authority, only on God's, thus he is never unjust. Commentary The men and women who refused to cooperate with the "justice" of the Third Reich because of higher laws are the kinds of individuals seen operating under this principle. Acts done as an obedience to God, by interior realization or e.xternai vision, may contradict man's law but not the Law of God. Although Theresa of Avila seemed disobedient to her local superiors the day she opened her first convent of the then incipient Carmelite Reform, she had acquired permission from the pope and local ordinary. Theresa, also, had the support of her ardent admirer, the General of the Order, Fr. Rossi.3 The father., has also granted him the power to execute judgment (5:27). THIRD PRINCIPLE A man from God judges wisely. C6mmentary Wisdom is a gift that transcends technical thinking. Solomon's wisdom befuddled the two women seeking the custody of the child but the intuitive conclusion to which Solomon came did lead to justice. The words of the wise will often confuse those of us lost in our heads. All of life is mystery yet we want to "understand it." The wise person does understand by transcendir~g his thinking, limited and ego-filled, and begins to see reality through the eyes of God. 3The history of the Carmelite Reform of St. Theresa is immensely complex. For further reading see: Journey to Carith, Peter-Thomas Rohrbach, O. C. D. (Garden City, New York: Dou-bleday and Company, Inc., 1966), Chapter V., and The Carmelites, Joachim Smet, O. Carm. (Darien, Illinois: Carmelite Spiritual Center, 1976), Vol. II., Chapter If. I~ / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 lfl t'estify on my own behalf, that testimony of mine is worth nothing; there is another.who testifies to me, and I know well that the testi-mony he bears me is worthy of trust. You yourselves sent a message to John, and he testified to the truth (not that I depend on any human testimony; it is for your own welfare that I say this) (5:31). FOURTH PRINCIPLE A man from God gets testimony from holy men and from God, not from any human testimony. Commentary When it comes to discerning a spiritual person the otherwise hackneyed expression takes on a certain profundity, "it takes one to know one." The example of Peter of Alcantra's witness to the worthiness of Theresa of Avila as described under the commentary of section four of the first, set of principles is applic~.ble here. But the testimony ! have is greater than John's; the actions which my Father has enabled me to achieve, those very actions which I per-form bear me witness that it is the Father who has sent me (5:36). F~F'rn PRINCIPLE A man from God performs actions that are greater than a man can do on his own. Commentary Use Mother Theresa of Calcutta as a present day example of this principle in operation. The growth of her community is precisely the phenomenon that it is because it occurs in an age of vocational depression. Her efforts to sustain the efforts of thousands of Missionaries of Charity from alms alone, refusing any fixed 'income, is an economic miracle. Of simple peasant stock, Mother Theresa has been received as royalty by pontiff, prelates and presidents. Her resources she claims come to her on her knees. Rejecting the benefices of men who wish to tangle her work in red tape, Mother Theresa clings with childlike confidence to the only Benefactor she really trusts. The crowds were divided over the issue of Jesus. Some maintained "he is a good man" and others felt he was misleading the people: They were unable to comprehend how his knowledge surpassed his slight formal religious education. Some went so far as to voice the question: "When the Messiah does come, can he be expected to perform any greater signs than this man?" (Jn 7:31). We believe Jesus did come from God but many of his, and our, contemporarie's did or do not. It is grace that makes us free enough of our own perception of reality to believe that God, who is infinite, Principles for Discernment According to Jesus of Nazareth / 9 manifested himself in toto, in the finite son of Mary. Many of life's givens have been challenged, some taken away. Less of us are certain that those who cry, "the end is near" are mad. Living in a time of technological chaos and intense spiritual confusion, with salvation being offered us in monasteries and marketplace, how do we know who spi~aks with God's authentic voice? A sincere use of the principles given us by the Master will assure u~ of knowing whom he has chosen to represent him and to whom he has entrusted the words of etei'nal life. "Give beauty Retreat's End back., back to God" (G. M. Hopkins) I give you back this pure, full mountain morning, all leaping, blue as robins' eggsr here at Isaac Jogues where giving feeds, feeds the air. I give you back but keep the love, this gentlest affirmation of my need. Each moment as a specially-cared- for now, a nest of robins' eggs that could be eagles-- each one I give you back, but heart-wise I go down this mountain slowly, though light with love, renewed fidelities. I do not look back; the heart has eyes that memorize such mornings. Mary Enda Hughes, S.S.N.D. College of Saint Joseph the Provider Clement Road Rutland, Vermont 05701 Cultivating the Centering Prayer Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. Abbot Keating's article is based on talks given at "Advanced Centering Prayer Workshops" given at his abbey, St. Joseph's, Spencer, MA 01562. A practical method of contemplative prayer based on the Cloud of Un-knowing, developed by Father William Meninger and called "Centering Prayer," has been made available by means of tapes, workshops sponsored by the Religious Life Committee of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, and the increasing number of retreats in different parts of the country designed to communicate this method. An introduction to the Centering Prayer by Father Basil Pennington appeared in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in September, 1976. His book on the same subject, Daily We Touch Him, was published by Doubleday in March, 1977. In any form of prayer, listening, waiting, attending to God have an important place. This article deals with the kinds of thoughts that occur in the silence of listening and gives some indication of how to deal with them. How we cope with unwanted thoughts is of crucial importance since it affects the quality of prayer, its refreshment, and the presence or absence of tension. Considerations proposed in this article in reference to the prac-tice of Centering Prayer, therefore, may be applied, in a manner adapted to it, to one's own preferred form of prayer. Centering Prayer Centering Prayer is a renewal of the traditional prayer of the Church leading to contemplation. It is an attempt to present it in an up-to-date format and to put a certain order and method into it. This prayer is not meant to replace all other kinds of prayer. But it puts all the other kinds into 10 Cultivating the Centering Prayer / 11 a new perspective. It centers one's attention on God's presence within and moves on to discover his presence everywhere else. Thus it is not an end in itself, but a beginning. It is not to be done for the sake of an experience, but for the sake of its fruits in one's life. Here is a parable that points to what is happening in this prayer. There was a little fish who swam up to his mother one day'and said: "Mummy, what is this ocean I hear so much about?" She said to him, "You stupid little fis!! It's all around you and in you. Just swim up onto the be~ch and lie there for a while and you'll find out." Another time, there was a little bear who walked up to his mother one day and said: "Mummy, what is this air I hear so much about?" She said to him, "You stupid, little bear! It's all around you and in you. Just stick your head in a pail of water for a while, and you'll find out." Finally, there was a certfiin beginner in the spiritual life who was having a hard time. One day he went up to his spiritual director and said: "What is this God I hear so much about?" , The spiritual director should not, of course, say to him, "You stupid little novice! He's all around you and in you." But he is supposed to be able to tell him what to do to discover and experience this reality. Centering prayer is one way of doing this. By turning off the ordinary flow of thoughts, which reinforces one's habitual, way of looking at the world, one'.s world begins to change. It is like turning a radio from long wave to short wave. You may be used to a long wave set and the stations it picks up, but if you want to hear stations from far away, you have to turn to the other wave length.' In similar fashion, if you turn off your ordinary thought patterns, you enter into a new world of reality. To do this systematically, take up a position that will enable you to sit still Close your eyes. Half of the world disappears, because we think most of what we see. Then slow down the normal flow of thoughts by thinking just one thought. Choose a sacred word of one or two syllables with which you feel comfortable. It will be the sign of your intention to open yourself interiorly, to the mystery of God's enveloping presence. Keep thinking this sacred word. When you become aware that you are off on some other thought, gently return to this word. As you go to a deeper level of reality, you begin to pick up vibrations that were there all the time but not per-ceived. This broadened perspective gives you a chance to know both your-self and God in a new way. ' Method Our ordinary thoughts are like boats sitting on a river, so closely packed together that we cannot see the river that is holding them up. We are normally aware of one object after another passing across the inner screen 12 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 of consciousness: thoughts, m~mories, feelings, external objects.¯ By slow-ing down that flow for a little while, space begins to appear between the boats. Up comes the reality on which they are floating. The prayer of Centering is a method of directing our attention from the boats to the river on which they are resting, from the particular to the general, from the concrete to the formless. At first you are preoccupied by the boats that are going by. You become interested to see what is on them. You must train yourself to let them all go by. If you catch yourself becoming interested in them, return to the sacred ¯ word you have chosen, which expresses the movement of your whole being toward God who is present within y.ou. A familiar gesture of devotion consists in placing the palms of the hands together with fingers pointing upward. It is meant to express the movement of our body and soul toward God. All our faculties are gathered together and pointed toward God by this gesture. That is what the sacred word is trying to say. It is a pointer. The wofd itself can become vague or disappear. It can be only an impulse of the will. But it points one's whole being to God. Quieting the Mind Various kinds of thoughts may come down the stream of consciousness when one starts to quiet one's mind. The appropriate response is a little different for each. The most obvious are the superficial thoughts that the imagination grinds out because of its natural propensity for perpetual mo-tion. These should be treated like the weather which you just have to accept. The important thing is not to pay any attention to them. They are like the noise in the street which floats through the window of an apartment where two people are carrying on a conversation. Their attention is firmly directed to each other, but they cannot avoid hearing the noise. Sometimes they reach a point where they don't notice it at all. At other times the honking of horns may distract them momentarily. It would be useless to get in the elevator and g6 downstairs and tell the people on the street to shut up. You would have to discontinue the conversation, and you might not be able to take it up again where you left off. The only reasonable attitude is to put up with the noise and pay as little attention to it as possible. In this way you give as much of your undivided attention as circumstances allow to the person with whom you are conversing. The second kind of thought occurs when you get interested in something that is happening in the street. A brawl breaks out and attracts your curiosity. This i~ the kind of thought that calls for some reaction. Here is where returning gently to the sacred word is a means of getting back to the general loving attention you are offering to God. It is important not to be annoyed with yourself if you get involved with these interesting thoughts. That would be a great mistake, because any annoyance or any curiosity that you give in to is another thought, and that takes you farther away from the Cultivating the Centering Prayer interior silence which is the proximate goal of this prayer. Interior silence is always going to be relative. It is important not to reflect on what is happening while doing Centering Prayer. You can do that later. While in this prayer, dedicate the time to interior silence. Silence As we sink into deep peace and then silence, a third kind of thought may arise. Something in our nature--or maybe it is the devil--starts fishing. Brilliant intellectual or theological insights or what seem to be marvelous psychological breakthroughs, like tasty bait, are dangled in front of our minds and we think, "If only I can remember this fantastic insight!" But acquiescence to some beautiful or illuminating thought long enough to remember it afterwards will bring you out of the deep waters of silence. Any thought will bring you out. A very delicate but intimate kind of self-denial is necessary in this prayer. It is not just an experience of rest and refreshment--a sort of spiritual cocktail hour. It involves the denial of what we are most attached to, namely, our own thoughts and feelings---our very selves. This kind of asceticism goes to the very roots of our attachment to our superficial egocentric selves and teaches us to let go. It is the most thorough kind of self-denial, but also a delightful kind. Self-denial does not have to be afflictive to be effective. It is a question of choosing the best kind of self-denial and working at it. This is not the time to think about praying for yourself or somebody else. You can do that at another time. The basic principle for handling thoughts in this prayer is this: whatever thought, feeling or experience attracts your attention, always return to the sacred word. A thought can be anything you notice--inwardly or out-wardly. Even if you should have an overwhelming experience of God, this is not the time to think about it. As you quiet down and go deeper, you may come to a place that is outside time. Time is the measure of motion. With few or no successive thoughts, you may experience the time of prayer passing like the snap of your fingers. "It certainly did not seem like half an hour." As you settle down to deep peace and inner freedom from all thoughts, a great desire to reflect on what is happening may arise. You may think, "At last I am getting some place?' Or, "This feeling of peace is just great." Or, "If only I could make a mental note of how I got here so that I can get back to it whenever I want!" These are good examples of the fourth kind of thought. In deep tranquillity you are offered a choice between reflecting on what 14 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 is going on or letting go in faith. If you let go, you go to deeper silence. If you reflect, you come out and have to start over. There will be a lot of starting over. The presence of God is like the atmosphere we breathe. You can have all you want of it as long as you do not try to take possession of it and hang on to it. Nothing is more delightful than the divine presence. For that very reason we want to carve out a piece of it and hide it in the closet for safe-kee. ping. But that is like trying to grasp a handful of air. As soon as your fingers close over it, it is gone. The presence of God does not respond to greed. It has a different dynamism. It is totally available, but on condition that we freely accept it and do not try to possess it. This prayer is communion with the Spirit of God who is charity, pure gift. The possessive instinct in us wants to hang on to what is good for dear life and the tranquillity is so good and brings such a deep sense of security that the temptation to hang on is very great. But let it go. Accept each period of Centering Prayer as it comes, without asking for anything, having no expectations. In that way its fruits will grow faster. We always want to possess. That is why it is so hard to let go, why we want to reflect on moments of deep peace or union in order to remember how we got there and thus how to get back. But charity is non-possessive. It gives all back to God as fast as it comes. It keeps nothing for itself. The tendency to reflect is one of the hardest things to handle in deep prayer. We want to savor the moment of pure joy, pure experience, pure awareness. But if you can gradually train yourself to let the temptation to reflect go by,just like any thought, you will pass to a new level of freedom, a more refined joy. We are accustomed to think we do not experience something until we express it in a thought. It is difficult to be childlike, to enjoy what is happening and.forget it when it has passed--to savor the immediacy of reality. Reflection is one step back from experience. It is a photograph of reality. As soon as you start to reflect, the experience is over. Reflection on joy is an attempt to possess it. Then it is lost. This method of prayer is a t~-aining in self-surrender. It teaches us by our own experience and mistakes not to be possessive, but to let go. If in this prayer you can get over the inveterate habit of reflecting on what is going onnhave peace and not think about having peace--then you will have learned how to do it. Interior Purification There is a fifth kind of thought which arises in Centering Prayer. Any form of meditation or prayer that transcends thinking sets off the dynamic of interior purification. This dynamic is a kind of divine psycho-therapy. The experience facilitates the coming to consciousness of one's motivation Cultivating the Centering Prayer and evil tendencies, and sometimes enables the organism to release deep rooted tension in the form of thoughts. Generally, thoughts Which are the result of this process arise in the mind when one is most at peace, without one's knowing where they come from or why. They may introduce them-selves wih a certain force or even with an emotional charge. Once again, the best way to handle them is to return to the sacred word. If you can once grasp the fact that thoughts are not only inevitable, but necessary as part of a process of healing and growth initiated by.divine grace, you will be able to take a positive view of them. Instead of looking upon them with negative feelings as distractions, you see them in a broader perspective that includes both silence and thoughts--thoughts that you do not want or accept, but which, for the purpose of inward purification, are just as valuable as moments of profound tranquillity. Conclusion Take everything that happens during the periods of Centering Prayer peacefully and gratefully, without putting a judgment on anything, and just let the thoughts go by. It does not matter where they come from, as long as you let them go by. Don't worry about them. Don't fret about them. Don't judge the prayer on the basis of how many thoughts come. Simply follow the fundamental directive. When you are interested in a thought, either positively or negatively, return to the sacred word--and keep returning to it. This is fulfilling the Gospel precept to watch and pray. It is a waiting game to the nth degree. All through the Prayer of Centering your mind will be in and out of deep silencemlike a balloon floating in the air on a calm day. Just when it seems to be sinking and about to touch the earth, along comes a little zephyr from nowhere and up goes' the balloon. So it is with our consciousness. You should pick up the sacred word at whatever level you find it--a simple impulse of your will may be sufficient. Then you can go back into silence without delay. If you get angry--"O, I wish my mind would keep still!"--then you get thrown out farther. You must be non-judgmental about particular experiences of this prayer. The only way to judge it is by its long-range fruits: whether in daily life you enjoy greater awareness of the presence of God, greater peace, humility, and charity. Having come to deep silence, you see more clearly your capacity to relate to others at the deepest level, to pass beyond superficial appearances like social status, race, nationality, and personal characteristics. To know God in this way is to perceive a new dimension to all reality. The ripe fruit of this prayer !s to bring back into the humdrum routine of ordinary life, not just the thought of God, but the constant awareness of his presence beyond any concept. He Who is--the infinite, incomprehensible, ineffable Onemis the God of faith. In this prayer we are asking, "Who are you?"--and waiting for the answer. We Are No Longer Strangers. Ecumenism, the call of all Christians, is especially the apostolate of the Atonement Fathers who annually prepare special materials for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. along with their many other works. We present here two of the articles thus prepared which we deem of. special interest to religious. Contact: Rev. James J. Gardiner. S.A.; Graymoor Commu-nications: Graymoor/Garrison, NY 10524. Ecumenism- Source of Confusion or Renewal? Kenneth G. Stofft, S.A.* In 1889 a Southern Baptist pastor and editor proposed that "'representative men and competent scholars" from the churches come together to "con-sider the: differences of belief from the Bible standpoint." Thomas Tread-well Eaton was convinced that, even though scholars could not agree on all points, they could at least establish some agreement and clear the field of "much useless and cumbersome rubbish" impeding Christian reunion. This piea was taken up the following year by the Southern Baptist Convi~ntion in Fort Worth, Texas. Approvingly, the convention suggested that othe~ denominations appoint representatives to study together the biblical teaching on those points of doctrine and ecclesial government over which the churches were divided. At least, said the convention delegates, this concerted study could help achieve "a better understanding of the issues involved." In addition to the joint study, it was proposed that the *Father Stofft is Staff Officer in'ihe Office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 16 We Are No Longer Strangers results of such deliberations "'be Widely published in all denominational papers, so that the Christian public may be thoroughly informed" and that "progress may be made toward true Christian union" (see Proceedings of the SBC, 1890, Atlanta, GA: Franklin Printing House, 1890, page 22). Even though the pleas of Eaton and the Southern Baptist Convention of 1890 were generally ignored by the churches and communities, the prin-ciples espoused were continually taken up by lone voices who attempted to keep the evangelical call for Christian unity before the ecclesiastical public--no matter how small that public became. The cali for '~a better understanding of the issues involved" in Christian divisions was reiterated by a small group of missionaries who ushered in the ecumenical movement at the turn of the century. The suggestion by Eaton that "competent scholars, . . consider the differences of belief from the Bible standpoint" Was recognized and officially affirmed by the Roman Catholic Church dur-ing the early part of the Second Vatican Council in 1963. The need to keep the Christian public "thoroughly informed., that progress may be made toward true Christian union" has been one of the major aims of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-25), as well as of the national and international dialogues between the churches and Christian communions. Because of the pioneering vision of men and women like Thomas Treadwell Eaton and the Southern Baptist Convention of 1890, the biblical call for "conversion" through Christian unity is gradually being realized before our eyes in the present decade of human and ecclesial history. But has this perennial call become the source of unwarranted confusion among the churches or a true renewal of mind and heart for the sake of mission? As each Church tradition has reluctantly or enthusiastically entered various stages of renewal (liturgical, scriptural, ministerial), Christians have also entered a period when confusion, rath+r than a clean perception of renewed life and ministry in .the Spirit, seems to have grasped them. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between what is an historical accident or custom of Church life, and what is primary and essential to Christian belief and life. The ecumenical movement began with a di~dication to the scriptural mandate to witness to all nations concerning the saving work of God in Jesus Christ. However, the movement has grown in strength and credibility because, of its critical, historical eye toward the past and present, having firmly placed its precarious future within the will of the Father through prayer, patient study and continued shared ministry for the sake of the Gospel. The 1978 Week of Prayer for. Christian Unity (January 18-25) has for its theme: "We are strangers no longer" (Ep 2:12-22). In this passage from St. Paul's Letter to the Church at Ephesus, the apostle from Tarsus stresses the need for the Church to ground its faith in Christ Jesus, its foundation. Review,for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 Within the Church we are no longer strangers, because we form together the household of God, are saintly citizens, and rise up as the building whose foundation is the Risen One. Since we are no longer strangers to one another, nor to the Lord, we are presumably fellow saints who understand the issues having to do with our household. If this simple fact is not reflective of reality, or even close to our daily lives, then perhaps we are treading on dangerous ground and following the way leading to confusion, rather than renewal. Scholars of our various traditions and communities have attempted to examine both the truths we hold in common as followers of the Lord and the numerous differences in understanding these truths which characterize us as distinct "churches." These same scholars have passed on their research and findings to church officials for examination and dissemination to the wider community of the Church. We are requested to examine the results of these national and international dialogues and ask ourselves: Do these agreed statements re-flect our living faith? The first step toward Christian familiarity has been taken: to consider our differences in light of Scripture. The second step has been attempted: to publicize the progress of these dialogues through denominational media. The third step along the path to an intelligent process of education and renewal has not adequately been taken: to ask, is this our faith? The third step, however, presumes a great deal about church people and churches. It presumes we are familiar with the unique heritage we possess as part of the Church universal, with the inherited gifts we have as churches. Each church or Christian community has its own history but it also shares a common, history with others. Are we familiar-with the development of the Church and churches? Do we appreciate our differences as factors of his-tori~ al development? What binds the Southern Baptist churches to the Roman Catholic Church, for example? What has been the history of our development under the guidance of the Spirit and the pressures of world society? What separates and unites us as part of the household of God, fellow citizens of the saints? An examinatirn of such questions may help to reduce prejudice and confusion and may well achieve in the power of God a renewal, conversion of mind and heart for the sake of mission. A thorough renewal in the light of Scripture and history may aid the people of God in becoming more visibly the Church, in attaining "true Christian union" in close relationship with our. Savior and Lord, who is also our brother and the Son of Man. The historical period we are entering today is critical because it chal-lenges all of us to identify ourselves as "church" in relationship to one another and the Lord. Without educated lay people, religious educators and pastors, the challenge will be a major source of chaos. We must be familiar with our ecclesial history as both the source of our divisions and the oc-casion for our "reunion" in the Spirit for the sake of the Church's identity We Are No Longer Strangers I 19 and mission in the world. Who are we? Why are we who we are? Ecu-menically, we may be able to clear the field of "much useless and cum-bersome rubbish" impeding our "access to the Father" as "fellow citizens of the saints, and members of the household of God." Oo Ecumenical Worship: What Do We Say to the Father? Charles Faul, S.A.* ~n those first "spring-time" days of ecumenical dialogue that followed soon after the Second Vatican Council, I became involved with an interfaith discussion group in my hometown. We knew little about each other and the tone of our discussions, while friendly, was also a good deal defensive. Most of us, in the beginning, felt the need to defend the rituals and doctrines of our particular segment of Christianity. This was natural enough, since we had been raised to believe that our way came closest to what Christ had ordered for his Church. Due no doubt to the breath of God's Spirit;-we gradually came to understand each other better and moved toward the vision of the faith we held in common. Certainly,. some favored a Church centered on sacra-mental life and hierarchical order~ while others favored the primacy of Word and less structure,, but we also learned that words like "Father," "Lord," "Spirit," "Baptism" and "Gospel" had much the same meaning for all of us. Most important, we came to this understanding as we learned to pray with one another. When our lips spoke the words of faith that sprang from our hearts, the commonality of our beliefs became apparent to us all. Ten years or so have passed since that time, and the historians, liturgists and theologians of Western Christianity have Confirmed in their speeches and writings what we discovered in our grass-roots dialogue ~uring the 1960's: the faith that we share as Christians, whatever our denomination, *Brother Faul is a theological student atAtonement Seminary, Washington, DC. 20 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 is monumental. ,Our common bonds reach back to the faith of the Fathers of the early Church and to the New Testament. Our traditions vary, of course, but our willingness to rethink our positions has led to some remarkable convergences. The Roman Catholic Church, forexample, has centered much 6f its renewal on the need to rediscover the importance of the Word for liturgical and doctrinal formulations, while, at the same time, the more evangelical churches have developed an ever-increasing awareness of the importance of sacramental life and, in particular, the centrality of the Lord's Supper in the expression of Christian life and witness. Dialogue between the theo-logians of major church bodies has produced statements affirming one another's ministry and express.ing a common view of eucharist and church order. Truly it has been a remarkable decade, but what does all of this mean for the personal and congregational level? We live', work and celebrate not with theologians or liturgists, but with each other. Each of us is that most enigmatic of figures, "the average Christian." The average Christian, how-ever, is the Church of Christ in miniature. The summation of our faith is the faith of the Church, and our worship, its prayer. How then in our joint worship can we express this valuable new insight? The theme selected for this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is~'No Longer Strangers" (Ep 2: 19). It describes the feeling, mentioned at the beginning, that is experienced by those who have come to know that Christians outside one's own tradition are not competitors, but rather brothers and sisters in the journey of God's Pilgrim People. The question, then, is how might our prayer reflect this point of view? First of all, we must understand that all Christian prayer is ecumenical, since we pray to the one Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, through his Spirit. This is the basis of prayer for all Christians. Thus, whether we pray privately or in a body, with our own congregation or in an ecumenical - setting, we are praying with and for the Church of Christ. We, in fact. come to a deeper sense of the universality of Christ's Church. Second, at those times when we engage in specifically ecumenical wor-ship, that is, when Christians of various traditions come together to pray, we need to recognize the bonds which join us together. We all suffer fiom brokenness and division, not only as a Church, but also as individuals and communities. However, our hope is found in the redemption won for us by Christ, won for all of us, and in the grace of his Spirit poured out freely on each of us. This is the source of any healing that might stem from our common worship. We share the belief that the dying and rising of the Lord is the model of Christian life for each of us. We must die each day to sin, in order to rise, though the grace of God, to a new life. Realizing we need each other's prayer and support in order that God's action in our lives might be fruitful, we come to a deeper sense of the unity of Christ's Church. Ecumenical Worship: What Do We Say to the Father? Finally, when we examine the liturgical heritage of the Christian faith, we can find the practical elements of ecumenical worship. Christians can pray together, not only for eight days in January, but on any and every.day, using the sources common to Christian believers in every age, namely: I) the words of Scripture and the early church writers; 2) prayers of praise, thanksgiving and intercession; 3) the church creeds, especially those com-monly known as Apostle's and Nicene; and finally and most important, 4) The Lord's Prayer which is the model for all Christian prayer. None of these elements is the possession of any one denomination. They are the liturgical inheritance of all Christians. In their usage we come to a deeper Sense of the holiness and apostolic foundations of Christ's Church. In coming together to pray for Christian unity, one group might want to follow the formats suggested for Morning Prayer (Lauds) or Evening Prayer (Vespers) in the revised Roman, Anglican or Lutheran Prayer Books. Another group might wish to use a more flexible structure, such as has developed in the many prayer communities which have sprung up recently. It is not the format that matters, but rather the act of Christians praying together. We must remember that Christ did not organize a discussion group. Heprayed "that all may be one" (Jn 17:21). Mutual dialogue is vital to the future of ecumenism. We must discern, however, that the most important, fruitful dialogue is the exchange between God and the com-munity of believers in Christ Jesus. If we are able to worship together in "Spirit and in Truth" (Jn 4:24), we will have advanced the cause of Chris-tian unity, for we will have come not to lament our divisions, but rather to realize our need for one another as sisters and brothers, "no longer strangers." Integration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation Robert F. Morneau Father Morneau is a frequent contributor to these pages. He resides and teaches at Silver Lake College of the Holy Family; Manitowoc, WI 54220~ Integration is concerned with "putting it all together." This admirable quality is sometimes ascribed to actresses who excel in their art, to pro-fessional athletes who have reached the peak of performance, to persons who live healthy, balanced lives. How common or rare these people are is a matter of dispute. Perhaps most of us could identify, not so much with the integrated universal man of the Renaissance, but rather with the plight of poor Humpty-Dumpty. Like him, all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot quite get us put back together again. The fragmented life of Humpty-Dumpty is a universal image in that all people of every age have had to contend with the realities of division, alienation and anomie. These forces are strangers to no one, though the intensity and longevity of each varies from person to person. Lest we despair in the face of this disinte-grative factor of reality, we must also come to recognize that the process of healing is a significant power in life. The healing process mends and restores persons, relationships and the world. A realistic view of life de-mands that the dialectical nature of division and healing, sin and grace, sickness and health all be fully appreciated for what they are. Despite the fact of disintegration, the Christian vocation has as its goal both individual and communal wholeness: integration in love is God's call to mankind. Our trust and hope is grounded in the Spirit of love who unifies and heals all of life. This love, God's gift of himself to his people, draws us into an intimacy with him that is the core of Christian living. Like a fish in Integration and the Sacrament.of Reconciliation / 2~i water or like a bird in the air, the very existence of the Christian demands the presence of God's love. St. Paul's message to the Ephesians summa-rizes this so well: "To live through love in his Presence." God's love is the source of all integration; living outside that love results in the darkness and estrangement flowing from separation from the source of light and peace. Those who have traveled before us have expressed well the central role of God in human life: the psalmist prayed, "You are my God. My happiness lies in you alone" (Ps 16). Augustine also summarized the nature of true peace: "For thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in thee." The succinct call to integration comes from scripture: This is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God (Mi 6:8). Though we smile at the slight understatement ("only this"), the prophet presents a vision of life that is radically simple. The complexity of intricate theologies, the score of duties and obligations, the multiplicity of laws all seem less threatening when we can summarize God's will in terms of being and becoming a just, loving and faithful person and people. These qualities reveal the interiority of integration. Justice leads to peace and oneness, whereas injustice, by withholding from others their proper due, causes division. Love unifies through affirmation and support, thus providing hope to the weary and discouraged, whereas apathy and indifference isolate and separate person from person. Faith, the intimacy of a personal relationship with Christ, is an integrative power shedding light and warmth on the spirit of man, while faithlessness terminates in the despair of meaninglessness. Justice, love and faith are seen as the ingredients of an integrated existence. . The sacrament of reconciliation aims at fostering the vocation common to all of us: to-be-one with God, with others, with the world and with ourselves. As with all the other sacraments, the sacrament of reconciliation makes present God's love and forgiveness in a special way. Through the encounter with Christ, the penitent is offered the grace of healing which helps to put back together again all the spiritual.humpty-dumpties of his-tory, and we are in that number. God's gracious love hurries to friend the deep split within the person which Paul Tillich describes so well: It is important to remember that we are not merely separated from each other. For we are also separated from ourselves. Man Against Himself is not merely the title of a book, but rather also indicates the rediscovery of an age-old insight. Man is split within himself. But the depth of our s.eparation lies in just the fact that we are not capable of a great and merciful divine love towards ourselves.1 1Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scdbner's Sons, 1948), p. 158. ~4 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 It is in Jesus that this divine and merciful love touches our lives to mak~ us whole once again. Integration: Personal and Communal--The HHH Principle The historical pendulum swings violently fl'om one extreme to the other. One period will stress the uniqueness of the individual withoutgiving prop-er attention to the social nature of the person. The rugged individualism of American history is a case in point. Then the pendulum, having reached its one extreme, swings its reactionary way to the other pole. Collectivism and totalitarian ideologies arise to stress the social whole to, the exclusion of individual rights. The twentieth century's political and social theories of fascism and communism are examples of this one-sided mentality. The truth of the maiter lies in the middle: both the individual and the social facets of human existence must be recognized, protected and fostered. Their interdependence and interrelatedness are principles of in-tegral living. Oneness involves both the individual person and the com-munity. The new rites for celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation carefully protect both dimensions. This fact must be kept in mind through-out the following description of.integration. The themes and principles of ¯ integration applicable to the individual are also, by way of analogy, nec-essary for an understanding of communal integration. On the personal level, there are three major elements seeking integra-tion. Anatomically, each of us has a head, a heart, and hands (HHH). Symbolically, these parts of the human body represent the capacity to ¯ know, to feel and to act. In the field of education, the concern for growth of the whole person is spoken of in terms of developing the cognitive, affective and behavioral domains. On a community level, these elements might be described as common beliefs, common sentiments and a common life-style. In~ofar as there i~ harmony (congruence) among these various . components, there is a sense of integration and peace; when these elements contradict each other or are unrelated, the result will be one of varying degrees of conflict and tension. Looking more ~losely at the personal level, we can discover the inter-relationships among the various elements seeking integration. Through cognitive powers we search out the truth, often at a high cost: ¯. who has given up much that he loved and prized and could have retained, but that he loved honesty better than name, and Truth better than dear friends,2 The consequence of living in the truth, as St. John's gospel points out, is that it leads to freedom: the truth makes us free while ignorance en,slaves and issues in fears. We were born to see reality in its deepest dimensions 2John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1956), p. 1 I. Integration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation / 25 and to act on the knowledge discovered there. Carl Jung in his autobiog-raphy shares a universal principle that deals with the relationship between knowledge and action: It is equally a grave mistake to think that it is enough to gain the understanding of the images and that kn.owledge can here mak.e a halt. Insight into them must be converted ifito an ethical obligation.3 It is through the cognit.ive capacities of reason and intuition that insights emerge, concepts and principles are formulated, conclusions are drawn and life is lived. Our creeds, constitutions, journals and discoi~rses attempt to i-ecord our mental travels. Though our perceptions are always limited and our articulations fail to capture the fullness of the reality, yet the extent of our knowledge is amazingly vast. The affective domain, symbolized by the heart, takes us into a rich though complex area of life. Feelings, emotions,, urges, tendencies, and drives are terms attempting to describe some of the powrrful and ambig-uous movements of our affectivity. Here it is that joy and sorrow, panic and calm, anxiety and peace .are experienced in degrees which only our unique person can narrate. Because literature claims for her own the mat-ters of the heart, it has universal appeal. So often the literary genius speaks of the affective level: When your own heart's been broken it will be time for you to think of talking.4 "1 do not know at all," said Martin. "'i should have to be in your heart to know.''3 The relationship between the cognitive and affective domain is complex. During certain periods of life a dichotomy exists between the two. (One calculation measured the distance from head to heart to be two light years!) How many Christians. know intellectually that God loves them and is al-ways present to them and yet do not experience this truth in their hearts? Possession of an accurate and sound theology does not guarantee an ex-perience of the heart. With integration between intellectual Conviction and personal affectivity, the distance seems to vanish and there is a mutual support and affirmation. Emerson's insight is profound:. "Our intellectual ¯ and active powers increase with our affection.''~ Truth experienced af-fectively and affections experienced in truth enrich life.7 ~C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe. Translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage Book, 1963), pp. 192-193. 4C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1946), p. 97. 5The Best Known Works of Voltaire (New York: The Book Leagu~e, 1940), p. 142. 6"Friendship," Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York: The Book League of America, 1941), p. 65. 7Two comments might be made at this point. Newman's well-known distinction between real and notional knowledge explains the dichotomy in more academic terms. Secondly, in light of the importance of affectivity in human and spiritual living~ our educational institutions must more systematically attempt to educate the affective area of life as well as the intellectual. 26 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 The old line, "Do as I say, not as I do!" draws attention to the third ingredient in personal and communal life, behavior. The question arises: do the words that I speak and the actions I perform truly express what is in my mind and heart? Do I live out my beliefs and values? Disintegration is experienced when a discrepancy exists between what I know to be true intellectually and a life-style that contradicts this truth, or when a dis-crepancy arises between that life-style and what I am feeling at the gut level. Every day life provides examples of such discrepancies: to know that a certain substance (alcohol) is dangerous in certain quantities and yet con-tinue to drink; to prize physical fitness as an important value and yet never take tim~ to exercise; to yearn for intimacyowith a loving God and never take time for prayer. Integration is realized when we channel into behavior our limited time and energy in such a way that this behavior parallels our thinking and feeling. A single stream is formed, a stream that contains truth, beauty and goodness. Integration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation The new rite of the sacrament of reconciliation delineates four basic and essential components: contrition, confession, satisfaction and absolution. These four elements directly foster both personal and communal integra-tion. The sacrament is the means by which the Lord Jesus makes us whole, healing the division within each person and the communal fragmentation resulting from injustice and apathy. The new rite speaks to the head, the heart and the hands, to the whole person. ~ In the new ritual, contrition is described as "a profound change of the whole person by which one begins to consider, judge and arrange his life according to the holiness and love of God" (Ritual, ~6). This is a call to integration, to put our lives together with God's help and to continue to grow in his gracious love. This process of growth implies an openness to God's word which transforms and molds us. It means that, as a pilgrim people, our lives are always in process and stand in need of conversion. Minimal self-knowledge exposes the dark areas of our life where selfishness flourishes and superficial change predominates. The new rite speaks of contrition as something that goes down to the very depth of our person, radically touching our ideas, attitudes and conduct. Integration is only possible at this level. Though conversion is a gradual process involving grace, time and en-ergy, it is not meant to be piecemeal. God calls the whole, person, not just one aspect of life. This realization helps to protect the unity of the person and implies that what affects one area of life will affect, if not immediately at least eventually, every other area. The ritual spells out the process of conversion as it touches upon three components of integration explained earlier: 1) Consideration. We are challenged to use our cognitive abilities to consider how our personal and communal lives measure up to the holiness Integration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation / 27 and love of God. 2) Judgment. After deliberation, we draw conclusions about how to improve our response to God and his will, employing the richness of our affectivity to sustain and give dynamism to that response. 3) Arranging life. Authentic contrition means that our life-style, what we say~and how we say it, the kinds and quality of our relationships, the reaching out to others, must at certain points be adjusted and modified. This broad, panoramic view of contrition challenges both the inner and outer man. The sacrament of reconciliation calls the whole person to turn to the living and true God in hope and fidelity. Confession, the second main component in the new rite, "comes from true knowledge of self before God and from contrition for those sins" (Ritual, ~6). Our sacramental system, concerned as it is with the covenant relationship between God and man, is obviously person-centered. It in-volves our worship of the person of our gracious Father, a deep partic-ipation in the paschal mystery of our Lord Jesus, the giftedness of peace and joy flowing from the Spirit. The trinitarian God is the core of all the sacraments. The challenge is to come to an even deeper knowledge of the living God, and from this perspective, to achieve our true identity. The crucial role of the scriptures becomes obvious in this framework. In God's word we find the revelation of his love and forgiveness; we enter into the rich world of faith. Cognitively we discover the reality of God's love which is the truth that creates freedom. Experiential knowledge of this most central fact necessarily touches the deepest affections of the heart. We are stirred interiorly to respond with our whole lives to this gaze of love. The canticle of Mary is a confession of being loved: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant,a True affective knowledge works its way into the behavioral domain. Our life becomes different; our words and deeds originate from the wellspring of God's mercy and goodness. The confessing of sins will thus involve the whole person: what we know, what we feel, what we have done and will do. Confessing both expresses and promotes integration. Satisfaction or the act of penance is the third important element in the new rite. In a special way satisfaction reaches beyond the notion of per-sonal integration to embrace the larger community. In doing the truth, in correcting injustices, in serving more deepiy, we implicitly call others to witness and experience the newly gained integration of our own lives. The Roman Ritual states: "true conversion is completed by acts of penance or satisfaction for the sins committed, by amendment of conduct, by repara-tion of injury., to restore order"'(Ritual, #6c). Integration implies and aLuke 1:46. 21~ / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 necessitates order. Wholeness exists when things are in place just as frag-mentation is experienced in chaos. In a sense, sin is being "out of place." In Gibson's play The Miracle Worker, Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Helen Keller, speaks to herself in a mirror: '~Don't worry. They'll find you, you're not lost. Only out of place." The "hound of heaven" pursues us when we lose our way in the darkness of sin; in being captured by mercy and love, the Lord relocates us in the plan of the Father. For true satisfaction we must be aware and understand that the proper order of things has been broken (cognitive element); we must interiorly feel and be concerned about the anguish and restlessness caused by sin in our lives and the lives of those we touch (affective element); with God's. grace we must reconstruct the harmony shattered by our infidelity (behavorial element). This whole process of reconciliation is no abstract, nebulous role playing; it touches the core of our lives. It is based on fact and experience. Though somewhat overstated, Carl Jung's reflection that "in religious mat-ters only experience counted" does express the seriousness surrounding the sacrament of reconciliation. Satisfaction, the acting out of heartfelt sorrow in°experience, is a vital integrative force restoring that order that leads to justice and peace. Absolution is the fourth main element in the celebration of God's mercy. The new formula of absolution contains a wealth of theology, deserving in its own right a detailed explication. The minister, representing the Risen Lord and the Church, prays: God, the Father of mercies. through the death and resurrection of his Son,. has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace. And ! absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The wholb person is drawn to respond to this majestic oration. The mind is nourished with the experience of a merciful God, with the marvel of the paschal mystery, with the fact of the instrumentality of the Church, with the knowledge that pardon and peace are gifts from God, with the under-standing that all three persons of the Trinity heal the sickness of the person. These insights liberate us from false fears and narrow slaveries, enlighten the darkness of our minds and enrich our faith, foster wisdom, allowing us to see what is truly essential and worthwhile. Our affectivity is also nour-ished by this prayer of absolution. Our heart is touched by the revelation of God's love and graciousness, by the joy of reconciliation, by the dis-pelling of anxiety and guilt, by the calmness of peace and pardon. The sacrament intends to soften the hardness of heart and to foster the gen-tleness that alone brings life. Full, active and conscious participation in Integration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation / 29 this encounter with the Risen Lord abets a richer, affective life. Integration proves itself in action and the prayer of absolution necessarily includes Christian living; it touches the transformation of our truths and feelings into words and deeds. The absolution formula provides an example of what forgiveness is, thus challenging us to forgive each other as God forgives us. We are called to participate in the death-resurrection of Christ in our daily lives, dying to our selfishness in being for others. Through the gift of the Spirit, we are empowered to enrich the world by sharing the Spirit's love, joy and peace. Our lives are different when we recognize experientially the price of our sins: the cross. The shadow of the cross calls us to repent and to believe. The prayer of absolution is a prayer leading us to authenticity. It provides the vision that harmonizes our visible life of daily conduct with the new mind and heart we have put on in Christ. Integration and the Holy Spirit The possibility of Christian integration is based on the gift of Spirit. The Risen Lord in union with the Father sends their Spirit into the world to complete the work of redemption. Through the sacrament of reconciliation this work of restoration takes on visibility and becomes efficacious in the lives of those who believe. The Spirit directs us in .our struggle toward oneness within ourselves and among all people. Within the framework of the HHH Principle, we can examine the role of the Spirit in the process of integration. The tradition of the Church points out that there are four gifts of the Spirit that aid the intellectual and faith growth of God's people: wisdom, knowledge, counsel and understanding. Through these "cognitive" gifts we contend with the ever-present forces of folly, ignorance, rashness and dullness of mind. God, coming to the aid of our finite minds, supplements our ability to grasp truth through the personal Light of his presence. The heart, often bruised and broken, also stands in need of special gifts. Through the Pentecost event, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord are offered as powerfui nutrients enriching our affectivity. Thus we are enabled to stand firm in the face of fear, to struggle valiantly against hardness of heart and acedia, to deal honestly with the arrogance of pride seeking to remove God from the center of life. In the sacrament of reconciliation, these gifts are available with the coming of the Spirit. But discernment is a difficult task ih life. How do we know whether or not we are growing in the Lord? Are we really allowing the mind and heart of Christ to influence our lives? What are the signs of health and illness in our Christian lives? Through the writings of St. Paul, God has given us an evaluation system to aid us in testing the quality of Christian growth. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul spells out the evidence indicating the spirit of evil and the Spirit of God. If the signs of God's Spirit are present, we have some assurance that we are doing the will of the Father and that the gifts 30 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 of the Spirit are truly effective in our words and deeds. If the opposite signs are present, we are provided with some hard evidence that we are failing in our Christian responsibilities. Paul writes: But when you follow your own wrong inclinations your lives will produce these evil results: impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and crit-icisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group~ and there will be wrong doctrine, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing . But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gen-tleness and self-control? Conclusion The revision of the sacrament of reconciliation provides the contem-porary Church with a process and vision to bring about the oneness we all desire. Unity is something intrinsic to our lives. William Lynch beautifully expresses this need in every.person: What I want first to propose, as a sort of working point of discussion, is that the very deepest need the pe6ple have is the need for closenenss to, union with, things and persons and God. This principle underlies every need of man. It is not a luxury or a gimmick. It is fundamental, primitive; eternal and universal . Everybody knows, when it is put in his language, that real solitude is hell and that unity is peace)° The sacrament of reconciliation deals directly with that aspect of our life which obstructs and prohibits unity: the reality of sin. The great marvel is that God's love and mercy have conquered sin and death and through the sacrament of reconciliation bring us in touch with this victory of God. A schematic summary of this article might appear as follows: A. God's initiative: the call to justice love (lived out fully in the person of Jesus) faith B. Mankind's response: so much injustice / apathy / faithlessness (mystery of sin) C. Jesus came to reconcile all creation to the Father---continues to come in their Spirit to heal the whole person--to bring about integration Truth overcomes falsity Beauty overcomes ugliness Goodness overcomes evil Head Heart Hand Gifts of wisdom, knowledge, counsel understanding Gifts of piety, fortitude, fear of the Lord Signs: love, joy, peace, patience, kind-ness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. D. Result: Oneness with the Father through Christ in the Spirit. Wholeness, union, sanctity,' integration. gGalatians 5:19-23. ~°William F. Lynch, S.J. The Integrating Mind (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962), pp. 134-135. Integration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation / 31 A growing appreciation of the depth and breadth of the sacrament of reconciliation is important if we are to fully enter into this great gift. The revised rite provides us with many advantages: the stress and variety of scripture, the personal touch with the face-to-face option, the emphasis on the communal nature of sin, the demand for authentic conversion, the joyful tone of celebrating God's mercy and love and not getting caught up in oneself. Our challenge is to understand as fully as possible the meaning of the sacrament and to experience its tremendous force in our personal and communal lives. .0 Now Available As A Reprint The "Active-Contemplative" Problem in Religious Life by David M. Knight Price: $.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand St. Louis, Missouri 63103 To Make Good Again: A Selected Bibliography on Reconciliation Mary Colurnba Offerman, P,B.V.M. Sister Mary Columba, a librarian, has contributed other bibliographies to these pages. She resides at 2360 Carter Rd.: Dubuque, IA 52001. The word reconciliation evokes many meanings. Its primary meaning is "to make good again" or "to restore." The need of reconciliation pre-supposes that some harmony has been violated or disrupted. Many times man has broken his bond with G~d. Man must choose to be reconciled completely. God's plan for the return to complete harmony involves God himself, man, his neighbor and his community. When God created the universe everything was good. The psalmist tells us that every-thing existed in harmony, peace. Man misused his power to be steward over God's creation. The way to restore peace and unity with God, our neighbor and our world is through repentance, conversion and reconciliation. There are various levels of reconciliation. There is a reconciliation with God and a reconciliation with one's fellowman. Reconciliation for the Catholic Church entails the relationships of the Church with other churches. Reconciliation Within society is required when we have differ-ences due to race, nation, class, degrees of economic and social devel-opment. Every person's life is filled with numerous calls to reconciliation. Oppor-tunities arise daily when we can reconcile with .brothers, neighbors and those around us. Reconciliation begins at home. By turning towards God, our Father, we can become aware of how little we are without him, we can 32 To Make Good Aga. in: A Selected Bibliography on Reconciliation realize the worth of each individual and our own personal worth in his eyes and create situations that promote cooperation and sharing. We can ob-serve God's goodness in all the events of life. The recent Holy Year of 1975 offers opportunities for reflection on those things and happenings that direct us toward Christ and the eternal reward of heaven. We had many occasions to be more concerned with our interior or spiritual life, rather than with the exterior and materialistic things of life. That year of reconciliation called us to promote works of charity, to do penance and to perform works of piety. The Holy Year theme of renewa[ and reconciliation has been an in-vitation to respond to interior renewal in order to become better instru-ments of reconciliation with God, neighbor and the world. By developing a true spirit of joy, compassion and kindness and by using our creative instincts, our love for life and for our fellowmen will contribute to holier years to come. The Church expects much of the religious man and woman. Religious have been urged to reflect on their way of life as this was asked of them by Vatican Council II. We are reminded to persevere in faithfulness to prayer, becoming more perfect followers of Christ and a radiation of joy in carrying the crosses that cannot be separated from our state in life. On each religious community rests its future destiny. The living out of the vows from day to day frees us to be a sign of reconciliation. The ministries of the religious woman have taken many forms. Some are in education, others turn to .nursing and still others perform one of the ministries of service which has emerged recently. The ministry which is chosen will become a healing ministry if the religious is a person of rec-onciliation, deeply rooted in Christ and proclaims him as her Lord and Master. How do we make our ministry h service of reconciliation? By being a peacemaker among the students, parents' and those with whom we work, by being more prayerful, reflecting on the gospels and on spiritual' reading, by showing enthusiasm, uniting our sufferings to those of Christ, by consoling, developing ,a spirit of forgiveness, "to come away from each new grief without bitterness in continuing service, to see no one as an enemy and everyone as worthy of my service. Such are the realities of reconciliation. And they are reflected in thequiet dignity ofa fai.th-filled valiant woman.''1 In an article on teaching children about reconciliation, Rod Brownfield says, "If they come to appreciate more their own worth as friends of God, loved individually for their own lovable selves, if they come to see all the material world as gifts for their use and for their sharing, if they come to appreciate other human beings, as images of God loved by God; if they learn the spirit of awe and reverence for a generous Father; if they come to qennings, Sister Vivien, O.P., The Valiant Woman (New York: Alba House. 1974), p. 33. 34 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 want to mend what is broken and right what is wrong; if they can pray as they experience the good gifts about them; if they promote peace among themselves, their religion is a reality, reconciliation is going on and the kingdom of God is nearer.''z This could be our goal and we wou~d be striving to "make good again." Our relationship with God would be renewed or strengthened and all would be right with the world and our conscience. The following selected bibliography has been compiled to provide spiritual reading on the topic of "reconciliation." Methods, ideas, exhor-tations, reflections and worthwhile knowledge on "reconciliation" can be acquired from reading these books and periodicals. Thus Pope Paul's ad-monition "to make good again," to reconcile, to renew, will keep the religious woman in touch with her God, in touch with her Church, in touch with her world, her feliowmen and in touch with herself. BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Abbott, Walter, S.J., ed., The Documents of Vatican 11. New York: Herder and Herder, 1966. Bailey. J. Martin, From Wrecks to Reconciliation. New York: Friendship Press, 1969. Paper. Banks, Robert, ed,, Reconciliation and Hope. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974. Barry, David W., Ministry of Reconciliation. New York: Alba House, 1975, Paper. Basset, Bernard, S.J., Guilty. 0 Lord, Yes. 1 Still Go to Confession. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975. Burghardt, Walter, J., S.J., Towards Reconci6ation. Washington, D.C.: United States Bishops Conference. 1974. Paper. Elliott, Ralph H., Reconciliation and the New Age. Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1973. Paper. Farrell, Edward, The Father Is Veo' Fond of Me. Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1975. Chapter 3. Surprised In the Spirit. Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1973. Chapter 2. Foley, Leonard, O.F.M., Your Confession: Using the New Rite. Cincinnati: St. Anthony Press, 1975. Paper. Guzie, Tad, What the Modern Catholic Believes About Confession. Chicago: The Thomas More Press, 1974. Paper. Hanson, Michael. O.M.I., and John Maronic'. O.M.I., The Pilgrim's Prayerbook (Holy Year Edition). Belleville, Illinois: Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, 1974. Pages 25-32; 211-217; 237-287. Haring, Bernard, C.S.S.R., Prayer: The Integration of Faith and Life. Notre Dame, Indiana: Fides Publishers, 1975. Chapter 14. Harkness, Georgia, The Ministry of Reconciliation. New York: Abingdon Press, 1971. Paper. ZBrownfield, Rod. "'The Holy Year That Wasn't,'" The Catechist. IX, No. 3 (November, 1975). 9. To Make Good Again." A Selected Bibliography on Reconciliation / 35 Hellwig, Monika, The Meaning of the Sacraments. Dayton: Pflaum-Standard, 1972. Paper. Hessel, Dieter T., Reconciliation and Conflict: Church Controversy Over Social Involvement. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969. Paper. Hinnebusch, Paul, O.P,.Friendship In the Lord. Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1974. Chapter 6. Praise God! Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, Inc., 1972. Chapter 6; Chapter 23. Hunter, Gordon. When the Walls Come Tumblin' Down. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1974. Jennings, Sister Vivien, O.P., The Valiant Woman. New York: Alba House, 1974. Chapter I; Chapter 4; Chapter 7. Nelson, John, Dare to Reconcile: Seven Settings For Creating Community. New York: Friendship Press, 1969. Paper. Nouwen. Henri, With Open Hands. Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1972. O'Reilly, James, Reconciliation and Renewal. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1974. Powell, John, S.J. He Touched Me. Chicago: Argus Communications, 1974. Paper. Rabalais, Sister Maria, Come Be Reconciled; Youth Penance Resources. Paramus, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1975. Schillebeeckx, Rev. Edward. O.P. Sacramental Reconciliation. (Concilium Series, Volume 6), New York: Seabury Press, 1971. Sisters of the Presentation, Witness to Love. Dubuque, iowa: Mount Loretto. 1977. Page 24. Stuhlmueller, Rev. Carroll, C.P., Reconciliation: A Biblical Call. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1975. Paper. Tibbetts, Orlando L., Reconciling Community. Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969. Torrance, T., Theology In Reconciliation. Westminster, Maryland: Christian Classics, 1975. Van Kaam, Adrian, C.S.Sp., Spirituality and the Gentle Life. Denville, New Jersey: Di-mension Books, 1973. Periodicals Abeyasingha, N., "'Penance and the Holy Spirit." REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1974, 565-573. America, "'1975: Holy Year of Reconciliation," America, January 11, 1975, 2-6. Baumer, Fred, "'An Hour of Reconciliation," Liturgy. August/September, 1975, 227-231. Bernas, Rev. Casmir, O.C.S.O., "' Reconciliation In Paul,'" The Bible Today. December, 1973, 1395-1400. Brungs, Robert A., S.J., "'Reconciliation: Man-the-Maker and Man-the-Made," Theology Digest. Winter, 1974. 324-333. Bryce, Sister Mary Charles, O.S.B., "'Reconciliation Means Change," Modern Liturgy, February, 1977.8-10. Callahan, William R., "'Reconciliation," National Catholic Reporter, May 16, 1975. 7-8. Cranny, Rev. Titus, "'Renewal, Reconciliation and Christian Unity," Onr Sunday Visitor. January 12, 1975. I. Deutsch, Sister B., "Operation Fervor," Today's Catholic Teacher. February, 1975. 40. Du Charme, Jerome and Gall, "Introducing Young Children to the Experience of Recon-ciliation." Modern Liturgy. February, 1977, 12-13. Every, Robert L., O.P., "'Theology of Reconciliation." Emmanuel. October. 1974, 404-41 I. Fitzgerald, Frances, "'Vietnam Reconciliation," The Atlantic.June. 1974, 14-28. Galluzzi, Alessandro. "Reconciliation Is Main Motive For Holy Year," L'Osservatore Romano, June 28, 1973, 2. Hatton, Sister Vianny, "'The Communal Rite of Reconciliation," Folk Mass and Modern Liturgy, January, 1975, 12-14. Jolliffe. P,, "'Prayer and Christ's Reconciliation," The Way, January, 1975, 66-76. Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 Joyce, Sister F., "'Reconciliation and the Teacher," Today's Catholic Teacher. February, 1977, 14, Krol, J. Cardinal, "'Human Rights and Reconciliation," Dimension. Winter, 1974, 148-151. Lynch, J. A. "'Meditation On Reconciliation," Sisters Today, January, 1975, 273-280. Maly, Rev. Eugene H., "'Haggadah,'" The Bible Today. October, 1975, 484-489. Miffletori, Rev. Jack, "'Rites and Lefts of Reconciliation," Folk Mass and Modern Liturgy. January, ~975, 23-26. Mossi, Rev. John P. S.J. "'A Reconciliation Service," Folk Mass and Modern Liturgy, January, 1975, 28-29. "Reconciliation Sevices For Children," Folk Mass and Modern Liturgy. August?September, 1975.25-26, North, Robert, S.J., "Yore Kippur and the Jubilee Year of Reconciliation," Theology Digest, Winter, 1974, 346-59. Notebaart, Rev. James, "'Symbols of Reconciliation." Folk Mass and Modern Liturgy, Janu-ary, 1975, 6-8. Paul VI, "'The Duty of Reconciliation," L'Osservatore Romano. April 18, 1974, I I. __, "Essential Characters of the Holy Year, Central Theme Is Reconciliation." L'Os-servatore Romano. May 17, 1973, 3. __. "'Human Rights and Reconciliation: Statement of Pope Paul VI and the Fathers of the 1974 Synod of Bishops," The Pope Speaks. Winter, 1974, 216-220. __, "'Peace Depends On You, Too," The Pope Speaks. Winter, 1974, 352-354. __, "'Reconciliation With God," L'Osservatore Romano. November 8, 1973, I. __. "'Renewal and Reconciliation," L'Osservatore Romano. June 14, 1973, I. Purdy. William, "'Holy Year and Reconciliation." L'Osservatore Romano. July 26, 1973, 10. Russell, John F., O.Carm., "'Reconciliation a Reflective Expression," Spiritual Lift,. Summer, 1977, 67-72. Saulnier, Rev. William P., "'Reconciliation: Let It Begin With Me," Modern Litargy. February. 1977, 8-10. Schaeffler, Sister Janet, "'Reconciliation Is Growth." The Catechist. November, 1975, 10-11. Schall, James, V., S.J., "'On the Mosl Dangerous Virtue." REVIEW FOR REI,I~OUS, November, 1974, 1301-1308. Seelaus, Vilma, "'Contemplation/Reconciliation/Inner Freedom," Spiritual Life, Summer, 1974.99-105. Senior, Donald, C.P., "'Resurrection and Reconciliation," The Catechist. Winter, 1974, 346-360. Seromik, Gary, "'The Holy Year: Renewal and Reconciliation." The New Covenant, January, 1975, 6-7. Stuhlmueller, Rev. Carroll, C.P., "'Reconciliation With the Old Testament," The Bible Today, October, 1975, 473-484. Wenz, Jack. O.F.M., "'The Cost of Reconciliation: An Interview With Anthony Padovano," St. Anthony Messenger, December, 1974, 14-19. Winiarski, M. "'Reconciliation Assailed, Upheld," National Catholic Reporter, May 13, 1977, 12. Bird With a Broken Wing: Christian Mysticism and Ministry Mar~ Ellen Dougherty, S.S.N.D. Sister Mary Ellen is director of novices for the eastern province of her community, in an interprovincial novitiate in Hinsdale. For this purpose, she is on temporary leave of absence from Notre Dame College in Baltimore where she is associate professor of English. Her present address: 427 S. Clay St.; Hinsdale, IL 60521. In his book A Third Testament, Malcolm Muggeridge says of the con-troversial personality William Blake that he was "sane to the point of sublimity." Blake, considered by some of his contemporaries to be mad and by others to be a mystic, was an early Romhntic English poet and visual artist who reported ea~;y dialogues with the spirits of Socrates, Milton, and Voltaire. At the same time he had the simplicity to urge his readers: To see the Word in a Grain of Sand ¯ And Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Etei:nity in an hour. Indicating Blake's creativity and originality, Muggeridge narrates the following incident: On another occasion, he told a visitor he had a great rarity to show him. This turned out to be "a naked figure with a strong body and a short neck--with burning eyes which long for moisture, and a face worthy of a murderer, holding a bloody cup in its clawed, hands, out of which it ~seems ea~ger to drink." "But what is it?" his visitor asked. "It is a ghost, sir," Blake replied. "The ghost of a flea~a spiritualization the thing!" Whether Blake was mystical or mad (o.r both), debates about him do suggest some of the standard tensions about mysticism. In current society, 37 31~ / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 sanity is one thing, sublimity another. Fleas do not have ghosts. As a result of lived history and the statements of Vatican II to religious, monastic traditions in most apostolic orders have diminished. There has been, concommitantly, an increasing emphasis on service. Many religious orders, at one time known for a single apostolic commitment, now embrace multiple commitments. Dress, daily orders, life-styles are frequently and often wisely subordinated to apostolates. There is a fresh and creative view of the needs of the Church. Ministry is a command. Any simple analysis of apostolic theology would indeed be simplistic. The practical effects are complex, and their reverberations are not totally without irony. For example, while contemplatives sometimes struggle to justify their existence to themselves, members of apostolic orders con-sistently apply for transfer to the cloister. Contemplative groups experi-ment with appropriate ways to expand a ministerial dimension, while apos-tolic religious seek credible ways to circumscribe activity with prayer. In this, there is more than just an intimation of the traditional contempla-tion- action dilemma. There are implicit questions about the authenticity of mysticism in this apostolic age. We return again to fleas and ghosts. Recently in the Chicago Tribune a cartoon entitled "The Now Society" featured a young man and woman seated casually at a cafe table. She is saying to him, "Oh sure, I've felt funny a couple of times, but I can't honestly say I've had a mystical experience." In popular concept, mysti-cism is often characterized by a withdrawal from reality. It is connected with everything from marijuana to sunsets. Even among serious thinkers, it is somewhat suspect as a way of prayer for a Christian, especially for apostolic religious. I have met more than one competent spiritual director who will not encourage directees of apostolic orders to contemplative prayer, even when they are so inclined, on the grounds that it is generally incompatible with their responsibilities. This, it seems to me, is a mis-understanding of contemplative prayer. In his book The Still Point William Johnston, S.J., speaks of Christian mysticism. He says: ¯ . . in the long process which precedes the canonization of a Christian saint, the Church never asks about the profundity of his enlightenment or the depths of his mysticism, but only about his practice of heroic charity; traditionally, mysticism is valued only as a means to something more imporlant--namely, the charity which is the center of the gospel message. When this charity expresses itself in mystical experience (that is, when the love of God becomes so violent that it drives the soul down into its very center in mystical darkness and existential abandonment of thought), then it is inestimably precious. On the other hand, he says, "Granted this . everyone must recognize that deep contemplative prayer is indeed a way (and perhaps the best way) to Christian charity . " The purpose of this article is not to describe the contemplative ex-perience that Father Johnston speaks of. There are numerous experts, Bird With a Broken Wing including Father Johnston, who do this well, namely Thomas Merton, and Evelyn Underhill, as well as more traditional writers like Tanqueray and Poulain, and, of course, saints like Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross. The purpose here is to suggest some of the practical effects of Christian mystical prayer, whether it is occurring in the life of a contemplative or an apostolic religious, to show that it is a way to the active "charity which is the center of the gospel message," to indicate that sanity and sublimity can coexist. Here, then, references to mysticism are meant to apply to the Christian tradition, not to other forms of mystical prayer. Mystical prayer as a way to ministry is verified if we look at the lives of those whose mysticism is judged by history and the Church to be authentic. If we focus not so much on their experiences in prayer as on the fruits of their experiences (their practices of heroic charity), we will see that they are concerned not with looking or sounding like mystics, or even with being mystics, but with acting out of their experiences, in accord with some call to service. St. Theresa of Avila, for example, steadily confirms this. As she grew in mystical graces, she grew in active service to the Church, and to her Order. One has only to read the works of St. Theresa to see that she is an assertive, energetic woman. Throughout her writings she integrates steadily emotional response with idea and daily experience. Unlike her companion mystic, St~ John of the Cross, whose prose is as austere as his message, and whose poetry is charged quietly with passion (and who, in his own life, apparently integrated the two), Theresa is never a writer of academic prose, or a poet. She is a narrator of the spiritual life whose warmth and intelli-gence fuse into an explication of mystical experience that is as loosely personal as it is loosely objective. She says in her autobiography ". sometimes love makes me foolish." In her prose we read of the pain, the joy, the humor of this foolish lover. We read, too, the history of mystical prayer as Theresa knew it, as well as the history of an active woman who believes firmly, as she tells us in the Interior Castle, that "what the Lord desires is works." Theresa's mission was to reform. And so she did. Theresa took the Carmelite habit at the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila at the age of twenty-one. It was approximately twenty years later that she experienced her first visions and locutions (after, as she tells us, going for the first fourteen years as a religious unable to pray without a book). In her early forties, then, she experiences mystical graces with some regu-larity. It is interesting to note that it is at this same time that she first engages in discussion about the reform of her order. It is at the age of forty-seven that she establishes the daring (and some might say devious) foundation of the convent of St. Joseph in Avila, a beginning that was to launch significant reform in religious life in the Church. At the age of fifty she completes the final version of her autobiography (written, as most of her works were, under obedience), and she begins The Way of Perfection. Both of these 40 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 works, especially the second, reflect a woman of deep contemplative prayer, and the recipient of significant, mystical graces. 'They lack, how-ever, the clarity and totality about the mystical life that is evidenced in The Interior Castle. It would seem fair to assume that between the composition of The Way of'Perfection and The Interior Castle Theresa's own experi-ences in prayer matured and expanded, so that clarity and totality were possible. The latter work is a portrait of a mystic Who has experiential knowledge ofeverything from the prayer of quiet to. the spiritual marriage, and who is thus able to order her observations in readable fashion. It is in this~work that she tells us, quite practically, that."perfection consists not in consolations but in the increase of love," and that "love exists not in the extent~of our .happiness but in the firmness of our determination to try to please God." It is here thb.t she. reminds us that "God's will is that no bounds should be set to his works." Theresa, herself, during these years, set no bounds. It was at this time, the interim betwee.n, these written works, that the bulk Of her endeavors for. reform occurs. In The Interior Castle Theresa says, '.'When I think of myself, ! feel like a bird with a broken wing . " Nevertheless, before her death at the age of sixty seven, this bird with the broken wing was responsible for the foundation of more than a dozen Reform convents; she served several terms .as prioress; she acted unofficially as spiritual director for many priests and sisters (for women in those days the role had to be unofficial); she was the author of several solid volumes on the spiritual life. And she was a mystic. One could do a similar, profile of St. John of the Cross, to the same effect. He died at the age of forty-nine, after a full life as a 6ontemplative. A prolific and profound writer, he is better known as mystic than he is as theologian, reformer, spiritual director and confessor, administrator. And yet it was these tasks that consumed his energies, that accounted for his imprisonment, poor health, and untimely death. An"accomplished poet ,whose lyrics reveal the mysterious rhythm of his spirit, he was also a writer 6f practical pros~e. He was capable of mystical poetry that was ap-propriately elusive and at the same time concrete: When the breeze blew from the turret Parting his hair He wounded my neck, With his gentle hand . He was also the author of stark precepts: "Endeavor to be inclined always not to the easiest, but to the most difficult; not to the most .delightful, but to the harshest; not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasan,t; . desire to enter into complete nudity, emptiness, and poverty" . .I.n poetry and precept, he, too, knew that what the Lord desires is works. ¯ St. Ignatius of Loyola, another man of action~ demonstrated, too, the compatibility between mysticism and ministry. Unlike the Carmelites Bird With a Broken Wing / 111 Theresa and John whose actions seemed to flow from their mysticism, Ignatius' mystical experience, it seems to me, emerged from his action. In all three of these saints, there was, nevertheless, a mutuality between prayer and service. On a more contemporary scene we have Thomas Mer-ton who~e last years, and last books, suggest, too, a proportionate growth between contemplation and outward reach. The point seems evident. An authentic mystical experience does not begin and end in itself, nor does it begin and end in self and God. While a genuine encounter of this sort will, as St. Theresa tells us in the sixth mansion of The Interior Castle, create an ambivalence (on the one hand, the soul seeks much solitude; on the other "it would like to plunge right into the heart of the world . ") the final option is usually for service. In the seventh mansion, the ultimate of the mystical life, St. Theresa says of mystics, '~They have now ari unusually strong desire to serve Him . So what they desire.now is not merely not to die [the "delectable pain" of the sixth mansion was accompanied by a desire for death, and thus union] but to live for a great many years and to suffer the severest trials, if by so doing they can become the means whereby the Lord is praised." To "become the means" is perhaps what Christian mysticism is all about. Itis what prayer is all about. Whatever methods God chooses to use in cultivating us as his ~means is not the issue. Whether our prayer is like the songs of Blake on his deathbed ("They're not mine, you know. They're not-mine,''~ he said, implying, again, a current of mystical grace), or whether our prayer is the solid, structured meditation of prelude and point does not matter. Whether we are contemplatives seeking to clarify our service, or apostolic religious trying t.o deepen our action by prayer, perhaps does ri'ot matter either. It seems as erroneoog to say that all mysticism is an evasion of reality as.it is to say that we are all c~alled to be. mystics. Service is no more a contradiction in the life of a Christian mystic than mysticism is in ¯ the life Of an apo.stolic religious. History defies such.myths. It seems clear that while Christian mysticism ~s alw_ays characterized by service, Christian service need not be rooted in mysticism. It seems, clear, too, then, that the most practical of us in. the Church today have nothing to fear from an increase of Christian mysticism. That would mean, in effect, a fear of an ¯ increase of charity. In the contemporary drama "The Belle 6f Amherst," Julie Harris re-cords sensitively the insight of another poet, Emily Dickinson (no less eccentric than Blake)as she listens intently to a.warbler on a bush. Emily asks, "Why are y~ou singing, when there is no one here to listen?" The. warbler replies, "I was born to sing." With this, Ern, ily is affirmed as a poet. Watching the bird in flight, she says, "I, too, was born to sing.'" And so it is with each of us, whether we sing (or pray) as warbler or poet. Ministry in the Church and a Structural Concern for Justice Francis X. Meehan Father Meehan is Associate Professor of Moral Theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary; Overbrook; Philadelphia, PA 19151. Much has been written recently about theologies of social concern. This article is not an effort to review those theologies. Rather it aims simply to point out some very mainstream considerations on social justice as it per-tains to the Church. Its original context was an ecumenical gathering of Church leaders, and this revision attempts to keep a focus on those social insights that are by now practically consensus teaching. In any consideration of the Church and social justice one must start by citing both the clear problem and the challenge. The problem surely is that we have not been as outstanding as we should have been. Barbara Ward in a booklet written for the Vatican Commission Justice and Peace speaks of guests who are invited to the banquet but have other things to do. She then touches upon the key problem for Christians in developed societies; namely, the problem of not being exposed in any concrete way to massive poverty and of therefore not developing a prophetic voice. She says: In this general climate of indifference, the Christian does not yet stand out as prophet or catalyst. All too many of us aresimply relatively fortunate citizens who., are not exposed to the massive, growing miseries at the base of the world society. We are proving, if proof were needed, that it is very difficult for wealthy societies, like families or individuals, to get through the eye of the needle (The Angry Seventies, p. 61). 42 Ministry in the Church and a Structural Concern for Justice The Challenge Barbara Ward as an economist devoted to human life has given an example of single-mindedness. Throughout her wril~ing she remains hope-ful. She knows well the challenge yet she sees no reason why the Christian community cannot be a worldwide "catalyst of energy, devotion and re-form." She articulates the challenge in a way that sets the focus of this paper: ¯ . . if, then, with courage and persistence and the energy of true hope, Christian citizens are ready in season and out of season, to lobby legislators, rally voters, instruct fellow citizens, worry the indifferent, encourage the active and create a new kind of justice and world responsibility in the Church and in the nations, the world may be saved from the evident wrath to come (pp. 62-63). Notice she asks for a new kind of justice and world responsibility in the Church. Thus she speaks not merely of giving food to a hungry man, but of "lobbying legislators" and "rallying voters." If we take a look at official Church teachings over a long range, we can see in this past one hundred .years one broad and obvious evolution. It is a movement that is very well summarized in that key article of the Pastoral Constitution: The Church in the Modern World, that underscored social concern: Profound and rapid changes make it l~articularly urgent that no one, ignoring the trend of events or drugged by laziness, content himself with a merely individualistic mo-rality. It grows increasingly true that the obligations of justice and love are fulfilled only if each person . . . promotes and assists the public and private institutions dedicated to bettering the conditions of human life (n. 30). It is fitting that such words should be in a document concerned with the Church's relation with the world. For here, too, there is an evolution of awareness. The Church's moral concern gradually becomes, in the social documents of the last century, not only a concern over individual salvation, but also over the collec.tive future. She recognizes that certain structures of history are man-made and that Christians therefore must have a respon-sibility not only for individual men, but also for structures of history. The Church must not be worldly, but she is in the world and has a responsibility for the world. Perhaps such an evolution could be understood by pointing to one man's autobiography as a metaphor. I think the life of Thomas Merton capsulizes a whole movement of the Church. This journey of the Church is symbolized so very aptly by Merton's monastic journey. It has often struck me that his own evolution as a monk said something to us about a model of holiness in the Church of our day. A recent thesis by Sister Elena Maltis makes this point more systematically.~ She cites Merton writing, in his early work, Waters of Siloe: ~"Thomas Merton: Symbol and Synthesis of Contemporary Catholicism." Critic, Spring, 1977, pp. 26 ff. 44 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 It [monastic life] takes a man above the terrors and sorrows of modern life as well as above its passing satisfactions. It elevates life to a superhuman level to the peace of the spiritual stratosphere where the storms of human existence become a distant echo and do not disturb the center of the soul--no matter how much they may rage in the senses and the feelings (p. 28). Then she cites the later MertOn who, in his workFaith and Violence, writes with different images of the monastic life: My :own peculiar task in my Church and in my world has been that of the solitary explorer who [instead of jumping on all the latest bandwagons.at once] is bound to search the existential depths of faith in its silences, its ambiguities, and in those certainties which lie deeper than the bottom of anxiety. It is a. kind of submarine life in which faith sometimes mysteriously takes on the aspect of doubt.when, in fact, one has to doubt and reject conventional and superstitious surrogates that have taken the place of faith. (p. 30). Notice holy Mertonno longer conceives of himself as above and beyond the world. He is not in a stratosphere above the terrors and sorrows of modern life, but now, at the bottom of things where the phrase "submarine life" becomes a dominant image. His very spirituality of the 1940's does not cease, but in the 1960's it is a spirituality that takes integrally within itself the role of social criticism. He sums up who we are in the Church today when he says~: That I should have been born in 1915, that I should be the contemporary of Auschwitz; Hiroshima, Viet Nam and the Watts riots, are things about which 1 was not first consulted. Yet they are also events in which, whether I like it or not; I am deeply and personally involved (Contemplation in the World of Action, p. 145). What is central here is not only that a man's spiritual journey should lead him to the welfare of our fellow humans. Indeed this is true of all the saints. But what is central is that now such a spiritual journey leads also to a structural concern for others. Merton is implicated in the world's move-ment. He is, and we are, and the Church is, not only helping others socially in the world as a static theatre, but taking responsibility for the very move-ment of the world itself, for the very milieu of humankind. And the point of this article is that such an hwareness is now flowering in the Church and we ought not to miss it or take it for granted. Perhaps a concrete example will help us see more clearly. In 1830 a French pastor of good will may have courageously preached to factory owners that they must give their wo~kers a living wage. But what he could little understand was what Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman called the "social construc-tion of reality." In other wqrds, reali.ty had been constructed by humans themselves in such a way that ifa converted factory owner did pay a living wage, he would go out of business because of the competition. What was needed was--as we know today--a new construction of reality, namely some empowerment of the workingman through unionization. NotKze that such a new reality had to be created not only to allow workers to achieve . Ministry in the Church and a Structural Concern for Justice / 45 just wages, but also to allow an employer to pay a just wage while remaining competitive. Such an element of structural justice was recognized by Leo XIII when he said in Rerum Novarum that even though someone made an agreement, such an agreement (contract) could be invalid because of the unequal bar-gaining positions. In Leo's teaching we see the beginnings of an awareness in the Church of the meaning of a structural reality in morality. Justice is denied not only by the individually greedy man, but through the inheritance of circumstances embedded in social systems. Application to Ministry In the last eighty years such an insight has developed richly in Church teaching. John XXIII in Mater et Magistra and Paul VI in Populorum Progressio applied the teachings to inequalities inherent in relations with the Third World. There have even been some high points of pastoral ap-plication in the Church. For example it remains the glory of the American Church that she (unlike some of her European sister-Churches) did by and large keep faith with the immigrant workers in her midst. Yet while the insight is old enough to trace to even before Leo, it nevertheless remains a new insight in need of fresh application in many areas of social concern. Most of all it calls for fresh application in the Church's ministry. Ministry must concern itself not only over individual conversion, not only over healing hearts, but also over healing structures. Otherwise the healed heart will be unable to inscribe its fruit of justice on the world itself. In Reinhold Niebuhr's classic terms, "moral man" ~will remain powerless and ineffectual in an "immoral society." The word structure is not always an easy term to understand, It has many meanings in many contexts. A helpful articulation of a meaning sufficient for our purposes here is one given in the statement of the Appa-lachian Bishops. They speak of how the forces of corporate giants become perverted, and destructive growth patterns develop.The principle of ~'max-imization of profit" becomes an idolatrous power. Then they give a clear understanding of what an evil structure does: This power overwhelms the good intentions of noble people, it forces them to com-pete brutally with one another. It pushes people into "conspicuous consumption" and planned obsolescence. It delivers up control to a tiny minority whose values then shape our social structures. Then they point out how difficult it is for good individuals to change things when structures militate against change. We know that there are many sincere business people, zealous reporters, truthful teachers, honest law enforcement officers, dedicated public officials, hard working lawyers and legislators, who try to do a good job. But we know too that, the Way things are set up, it's hard for good people to do a good job. Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 Such an insight by the bishops into structural evil corresponds to con-temporary insights into scriptural understandings of the powers of evil. The simple phrase, ~'. the way things are set up, it's hard for good people to do a good job," is a perfect way to describe what theologians today mean by "'the situation of sin." So the power of evil becomes autonomous and embeds itself into structures. These structures entrap us. They tend not to draw good from us but to draw out our worst--sometimes despite good will to the contrary. We have what some see here as one perspective on the original-sin tradition in the Church. Obviously, then, the work of redemp-tion, in which Jesus has given his Body the Church a certain share, must include a healing of this history of sin. Thus the very baptismal function of induction into a saving community implies a ministerial work to heal struc-tures. The Domain of Gospel Ministry and Arthur Simon's Parable The foregoing ushers into focus a problem, namely, how can work for structures remain a gospel work and not merely become a social-secular work. Arthur Simon, the founder and leader of Bread for the World, a Christian Citizens Movement for world food resources, tells a parable that helps us understand this problem of placing work for structures into min-istry. The parable is basically this: Once there was a farming town that could be reached by a narrow road with a bad curve in it. There were frequent accidents on the road especially at the curve, and the preacher would preach to the people of the town to make sure they were Good Samaritans. And so they were, as they would pick the people up on the road, for this was a religious work. One day someone, suggested they buy an ambulance to get the accident victims to the town hospital more quickly. The preacher preached and the people gave, for this was a religious work. Then one day a councilman suggested that the town authorize building a wider road and taking out the dangerous curve. Now it happened that the mayor had a farm market right at the curve on the ~oad and he was quite against taking out the curve. Someone asked the preacher to say a word to the mayor and the congregation next Sunday about it. But the preacher and most of the people figured they had better stay out of politics; so next Sunday the preacher preached on the Good Samaritan Gospel and en-couraged the people to continue their fine work of picking up the accident victims. The parable illustrates what Paul Ricoeur says about man's new aware-ness, namely an awareness of being in relationship with others in structured ways, i.e. not merely as "neighbor" but as socius. Father Chenu, the French Dominican, calls it the.new way of charity. He says that man has always been social, but he adds: Today, not accidentally but structurally the collective event lends scope and intensity to the social dimension--human love treads these lasting paths, these organizations Ministry in the Church and a Structural Concern for Justice / 47 of distributive justice, and these administrative systems (in G. Cottier et al., eds., Eglise et pauvret~, 1965, p. 174). The problem then is very real. When is ministry for life religious and gospel, and when does it become secular? What work for life is natural and what is supernatural? What is gospel and what is humanism? The questions are age-old. And without presuming that the Church today has completely solved the problem, I do think a good part of the answer is already within the Church's official grasp and official teaching. In official meetings and synods, papal and episcopal teachings have addressed the problem and have given us enough of a theological answer to go on. Let us just cite chosen, illustrative texts from the Catholic context. First, the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World has many comments on the subject. But one celebrated sentence is as follows: While we are warned that it profits a man nothing if he gain the whole world and lose himself, the expectation of a new ean.h must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one . Earthly progress must be carefully distinguished from the growth of Christ's kingdom. Nevertheless, to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the kingdom of God (n. 39). The World Synod of Bishops of 1971 and 1974 both dealt with the problem. The famous statement of 1971 said this: Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation. And in 1974 Pope Paul after citing the danger of losing the religious di-mension of our mission says this: There is no opposition or separation, therefore, but a complementary relationship between evangelization and human progress. While distinct and subordinate one to the other, each calls for the other by reason of their convergence towards the same end: the salvation of man. The continuity of the two Synods is sharply manifested in the Human Rights document of the '74 Synod. There the Bishops used a theology of the Divine Image and taught that the "integral development of persons" makes clearer in man the divine image. Then they say: Hence, she [the Church] believes firmly that the promotion of human rights is required by the gospel and is central to her ministry. Summarizing this brief set of quotes we can say that healing structures of irreverence for life and of injustice is part of the ministry of the Church because such healing is "of vital concern to the kingdom of God" (Gaudium et Spas), "a constitutive dimension of preaching the Gospel" (Synod '71), "required by the gospel arid central to the Church's ministry" (Synod '74). 41~ / Re~iew for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 Why take time to cite these examples of official documentation? First, awareness that such insights are now mainstream official teachings will keep us from being intimidated by those who would accuse us of humanism or of becoming social agencies. ' But more than that: it is to underscore that the concern for structural justice and the concern to place the struggle for structural justice within the mission of the Church is not merely a concern of a Daniel Berrigan, of a Helder Camara, or of a Latin American theologi~an, but rather it is official and central teaching within the Church. Most of all it is a matter of rejoicing that such an insight is found not only in official teaching, but is making its way into the popular religious psyche of our.people. At the Eucharistic Congress, when people struggled to touch Mother Theresa, they were struggling to touch, in this case, not someone known for mystic gifts such as Padre Pio, but someone known for simply picking men up offthe sti'eets of Calcutta. But more than that, the people also welcomed Dom Helder Camara. And those who knew his history, knew that his life has been a different struggle from that of Mother Theresa. Dom Helder symbolizes .not just an enormous interpersonal love for the weak, but also the struggle for justice against systems of dependence and exploitation. Dom Helder in the midst of his talk at the Philadelphia Civic Center walked over, picked up and embraced Mother Theresa. I like to think this embrace was more than a kinship of courageous people. Rather I see a symbol of two forms of ministries-in-the-Church meeting and embracing. And in a way, Dom Hel~ler's emphasis is a struggle that poses the most important challenge to Church leaders. His work is less clear, more risky, more apt to provoke misunderstanding even among one's own people, and yet all the more urgent today. The Problem of .Ambiguiiy Yet this ministry .that attempts to heal structures has a special problem connected with it. I would term it the problem of ambiguity. Many Church leaders can agree that gospel includes work for human life and human rights--even structural work. But they rightly fear choosing certain con-crete options that commit the Church to one economic or political view that may riot be the only valid Christian view. The point of Paul Ramsey'.s work Who Speaks for the Church? was to purify us of easy assumptions that the charism of leadership will lead us to right decisions in the complex area of socio-economic and political affairs. So there is a special need for a humility and tentativeness that, in the words of Paul VI, "will rid action of all inflexibility and sectarianism" (Coming Eightidth n. 48). We do not wish to preach our own ideology, but Christ crucified. So we seek to avoid easy partnership. This is a common caution perhaps needed today. But I would like to accent another side to the issue that sometimes Ministry in the Church and a Structural Concern for Justice goes unaccented. Namely, that not always what appears to be neutral ground is really neutral. And sometimes when the Church refi'ains from taking sides in an issue, for fear of partisanship, she sometimes, willy-nilly, by not taking a side has taken a side. Another way of saying it is simply that sometimes our silence speaks loudly. This may not be an everyday occa-sion, but it does happen that situations become radicalized to the point where there just is not ample neutral ground in which a large institution can find room. Historical examples may be easiest here. In the Germany of th~ 1930's was there a political neutral ground? Can we not at least in hindsight recognize that what looked like neutral ground was not so neutral? There was a personal heroism of many priests, ministers and bishops, yet in the episcopal statements of the German hierarchy (in the words of Gordon Zahn) there was "not even a hint of any question, of whether or not the Hitler war effort met the conditions set for a 'just war' " (cited in Paul Hanley Furfey, The Morality Gap, p. 13). Another example. In the bombings of Hamburg of July-August, 1943, the dead numbered 30,000. The raids on Dresden of February, 1945 killed some 135,000. On March 9 and 10 the raids over a four mile residential district of Tokyo are estimated to have killed 84,000. On August 6 and 9 the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed an estimated 68,000 and 38,000 respectively. My point here is that the killing of noncombatants was even at that time, clearly recognized as evil. Yet one can find no significant corporate criticism of these actions. Moreover, despite Pius XlI's pleas to statesmen for a negotiated peace, no official Catholic spokesmen gave sustained'protest against the allied policy of unconditional surrender--an omission John Courtney Murray called a "classic example" of a failure to apply moral principles. ¯ A third example concerns racism and segregation in this country. It could be summed up in a symbol. The symbol is contained in the words of Leander Perez, political boss of Plaquemines Parish in New Orleans. He was, you may remember, the man excommunicated for his opposition to the integration of the parochial schools (a courageous act .ot~ Archbishop Rum-mel). But Perez' comment was "How come we could have slaves, separate schools and churches for these Negroes for ages and ages and now all of a sudden it's a sin?" (see Paul Hanley Furfey, The Morality Gap). The point in all of these questions is not historical Monday morning quarterbacking. Indeed even at the time of these incidents there were clear teachings already in the mainstream of Catholic thought--teachings that were not applied. The point is that the Church took stances that at the time m. ay have seemed to be stances of moderation or may have seemed to be prudent neutral ground. But now we know they were not, Rather they appear to have been examples of an immigrant Church so anxious to be " established that it became absorbed in the zeitgeist of the times, and so lost its prophetic voice. 50 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/1 The main point is this: we may be right in our anxiety that the Church not be pulled into partisan blocs, in our anxiety not to provoke undue division in the Church by too quickly identifying one social option as the gospel option. But we must be careful not to allow this anxiety to bring us to a silence that really is an unwitting speaking in behalf of the status quo. There is a corollary to this problem. It concerns the matter of com-petefice. Often times it is stated that the Church or a churchman cannot speak on an issue because it is so complex and specialized. Surely we must be careful of easy and abrupt position-taking in the complex areas of so-ciooeconomics and international politics. But the deeper question must always be asked. Namely why is it that at times we choose certain areas in which to be competent, to research care-fully and to locate manpower and resources and other areas in which we do not? We must always ask ourselves what might be our cultural and theo-logical biases that predispose us to give certain questions a priority. Too many good Germans said they could not protest because, after all, they really did not know enough. Dualisms That Lead to Neglect Sometimes a certain idea about ministry can lead a man of good will to neglect a certain gospel reverence for life. For example, I am sure that the chaplains of institutions in which recent press releases have exposed cruel treatment would be men of good will. But if they observed some of the same things newspaper reporters saw, and if they did not complain in any effec-tive way, we must ask how did they conceive their ministry? What kind of dualisms between soul and body, between spiritual and physical, between creation and redemption must have been going on in their understanding of ministry? Has speaking in behalf of ill-treated mental patients, ill-treated children, ill-treated elderly in profit:making nursing homes, ill-treated pris-oners, ill-treated h

Issue 51.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1992. ; Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University, by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048. Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the "Canonical Counsel" department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ 5001 Eastern Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ~,¥ashington, D.C. 20017. I}OSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5.00 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15.00 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28.00 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for subscription information and mailing costs. ©1992 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe David J. Hassel SJ Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Se;in Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MARCH / APRIL1992 ¯ VOLUMES1 ¯ NUMBER2 contents 166 182 191 2O6 217 229 236 ministry and ministries The Spiritual Exercises as a Foundation for Educational Ministry Walter J. Burghardt SJ reflects on the vision and values given to educational ministry when it is permeated by the spirituality of Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. Going the Distance, Sustaining the Gift Melannie Svoboda SND suggests some concrete ways that people can joyfully exercise their ministry over the long haul. Newman's Living the Oratory Charism Halbert G. Weidner CO explains the Oratory foundation of Philip Neri in order to highlight values significant to John Henry Newman's life. theology and spirituality The Resurrection Kernel Dennis Billy CSSR outlines the basic principle of the doctrine of the resurrection in order to show its influence in our way of living. The Fragile Connection between Prayer and Suffering Matthias Neuman OSB speaks from his own experience of how human suffering affects our prayer. To Choose Jesus for My Heaven Donald Macdonald SMM finds Julian of Norwich's insights into the maternal love of Jesus expressed in the Blessed Sacrament. religious life and renewal Seeing in the Dark Janet Ruffing RSM finds light in John of the Cross's description of the Dark Night for understanding the current turmoil in reli-gious life. 162 Review for Religious 249 260 267 Memories of the Future Thomas McKenna CM shows how eschatology as a style of thinking provides understanding for the renewal efforts in reli-gious life. Integrating Postmodernity and Tradition Reid Perkins OP encourages the greater use of narratives in reli-gious life to connect us to the tradition and at the same time to help us overcome the obliviousness of postmodern life. Religious-Life Issues in a Time of Transition John A. Grindel CM and Sean Peters CSJ summarize the results of various studies of U.S. religious life funded by the Lilly Endowment and point to issues still to be dealt with. living religiously 276 Cultivating Uselessness Rose Hoover RC proposes that in the very experience of useless-ness and foolishness lies the gift of religious life to a pragmatic society. 282 Therapy for Religious: The Troublesome Triangle Joyce Harris OSC offers some suggestions for a collaborative rela-tionship among therapist, the individual religious, and the com-munity and its representative. 289 294 Prenovitiate: Theory and Practice Anthony Steel SSG believes a prenovitiate program can help meet the challenges of contemporary cultural attitudes toward religious life and outlines the plan for his community. report U.S. Hispanic Catholics: Trends and Works 1991 Kenneth Davis OFM Conv reviews the various events and writ-ings in the Catholic Hispanic experience. departments 164 Prisms 303 Canonical Counseh Hermits and Virgins 309 Book Reviews March-April 1992 163 prisms Teilhard de Chardin in The Divine Milieu observes that the larger half of our lives is made up of what happens to us. His observation comes home to us each year as we celebrate the great high holy days of Christianity-- Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. Paradoxically Jesus accomplishes the work of redemption, his life's purpose, in what happens to him in his suffering, death, and resurrection. We enter into this paradox by our celebration of these days. We cannot change history, we cannot undo what has happened. Our celebration allows us in our own time to enter into what happened to Jesus and to be with him, to stand alongside, to feel com-passion- as helplessly as we listen to someone tell of being tortured by a totalitarian regime or as we sit at the bedside of a dying loved one. No activity of ours changes the event; compassionate presence is the difficult but precious gift we can give. Of course it is also our privilege to share in some-one's joy and happiness, as we do when we celebrate the res-urrection victory of Jesus. Despite the fact that so many of us are spectator-sports people, whether in the stadium or in front of the TV set, we are not comfortable being spectators of an evil we can-not eliminate and sometimes even of a happiness which lit-tle touches our lives. We may find other people's parties empty of fun for ourselves, and we may dread visiting a neighbor in the hospital.We would rather not drive through derelict inner-city neighborhoods, we would brush past the homeless person sleeping over heating grates in our down-towns, or we would switch TV channels if the images of starving Sudanese children with distended stomachs are too graphic. The problems seem too large for our efforts to make a difference. Our activity and our emotions seem 164 Review for Religious frozen. Even though we are members of the Body of Christ, we often choose not to see and not to hear. When hostages return exuberantly to waiting families, when a comatose girl revives to the joy of her parents, when government agencies extend unemployment benefits for those hurting in a reces-sion economy, how often do we feel a thrill and utter a prayer of thanks to God? Too often we keep ourselves emotionally distant even from the joys of others around us, probably because they just "happen" and leave us personally unaffected. St. Paul could state, by analogy with our human bodies, that if one member suffers all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members share its joy. The Easter events challenge us always in what we do and in what happens to us. If God is truly the God of our life, then we find the opportunity of meeting God both in what we set out to do and in what happens to us. Jesus' crucifixion confronts the activist in each of us to question our judgment about our most valued "work." All of our dyings become not the entropy of exhaustive waste, but graced moments of freedom to embrace another givenness of life from our God of life. When St. Paul challenged death--"Where is your sting?"--he did not close his eyes to the evils and losses which all the forms of dying represent. He trumpeted the Easter message that the Christ-redemption event changes not only our attitude but also our ability to value the whole of our life--its successes and accomplishments, its apparent waste matter of sin and failure. As Gospel models, Mary Magdalene (who may have confused sex and love) and Peter (who has grabbed for success and lied for survival) are the first among the evangelizers of this new creation event. Pope John Paul's appeal for a new evangelization takes form in us by our renewed attempt to integrate the active and passive aspects of our daily life. By living faith-lives as "other Christs" we make a dif-ference in what we do and in what we suffer. The call to a new evan-gelization invites us to explore further the struggles of justice and poverty and human living both at our doorstep and in our larger world. Making a difference often seems like planting seeds and hav-ing to wait for things to happen. Easter faith stirs us up in hope, moves us out in action, and integrates us in a compassionate patience. This Easter may the risen Lord embrace us anew with the grace of his passion for life. David L. Fleming sJ March-April 1992 165 WALTER J. BURGHARDT The Spiritual Exercises as a Foundation for Educational Ministry ministry and ministries To speak of basing an educational ministry on the Spiritual Exercises is something of a paradox, an apparent contra-diction. Two things simply do not seem to fit. Are not the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola an experience of the spirit, a thirty-day or eight-day retreat centered on the movement of the Christian soul to heaven, conducted in solitude, far from hustle and bustle, and preferably in silence? And is not a university or college a citadel of the intellect, where the stress is on knowledge, on books, where minds meet in constant conflict, where ideas clash, where noise is in the air, where silence is reserved for a corner of the library? I am not saying that the Spiritual Exercises and the groves of academe are interchangeable terms, that a col-lege or university is a retreat experience, that the class-room is a chapel, that learning is worship. My thesis is that the Spiritual Exercises can be, indeed should be, an exciting foundation for education Jesuit-style. More specif-ically, I see the Spiritual Exercises as a process of conver-sion which in an educational institution aims at altering in students, faculty, and staff (1) their world of learning, the Walter J. Burghardt SJ is director of the Woodstock Theo-logical Center Project Preaching the ffust Word. This article retains the flavor of its original oral presentation made at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, in April 1991. Father Burghardt's address is Manresa-on-Severn; P.O. Box 9; Annapolis, Maryland 21404. 166 Review for Religious life of the mind; (2) their world of loving, their human and reli-gious imagination and affection; (3) their world of living, the life of social realities. Let me explain what I mean in each of these three cases. First, the Spiritual Exercises should alter your world of learn-ing, that is, the life of your mind. You see, basic to the life of the mind, at the root of a university's existence, is a momentous mono-syllable: Why? Why study art and the arts, physical science or political science, law or business or medicine? Now Ignatius does not ask that question in those terms. But "spiritual exercises" he defines as "every way of preparing and disposing" ourselves to remove "all disordered attachments and, after their removal, of seeking and finding God's will in the way we direct our lives.''1 And there definitely are disordered approaches to the life of the mind, strange reasons why some go to college or university or professional school. I am not thinking of the more superficial reasons--college as a four-year Hammer dance2 interrupted by class. I am thinking of an approach to business education guided by a powerful principle: what makes the world go round is economics, and what makes the economy work is greed, the almighty dollar. I am thinking of gifted music and drama students whose aim is fame, the lust for applause, even the TV laugh machine. I am thinking of political-science students whose primary purpose is political power, the thrill in manipulating other men and women. A heart-rending example in this area is Lee Atwater, the manager of George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign who almost single-handedly turned the tide against Dukakis. Not long before his death at forty from a brain tumor on 29 March, this gifted man~ with an incredible instinct for the jugular made this poignant confession: The '80s were about acquiring--acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know, I acquired more wealth, power and pres-tige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime.3 Not that money, fame, power are immoral in themselves; they are not. Without money a university would have little to offer to anyone. Fame makes it easier for the deprived to know you, to beg for the crumbs that fall from your table. Political power makes March-April 1992 167 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry possible not only a Persian Gulf war but legislated housing for the poor. Ignatius forces on the retreatant that insistent mono-syllable: Why? Even more radically, the Spiritual Exercises can keep you from segregating learning into a pigeonhole of its own, divorced from the thrust of the spirit towards God. I do not mean that all of learning becomes a religious enterprise. Vatican II made that quite clear. With Vatican I, it distinguished "'two orders of knowl-edge' which are distinct," declared that "the Church does not indeed forbid that 'when the human arts and sciences are practiced they use their own principles and their proper method, each in its own domain.'" In consequence, the council "affirms the legiti-mate autonomy of human culture and especially of the sciences.''4 My point is, the life of the mind is perilously impoverished if knowledge does not lead to wonder. Not sheer questioning: I wonder if Israel should continue populating the West Bank. In the grasp of wonder I marvel: I am surprised, amazed, delighted, enraptured. It is MaW pregnant by God's Spirit: "My spirit finds delight in God my Savior" (Lk 1:47). It is Magdalen about to touch her risen Jesus: "Master!" (Jn 20:16). It is doubting Thomas discovering his God in the wounds of Jesus. It is Michelangelo striking his sculptured Moses: "Speak!" It is Alexander Fleming fascinated by the very first antibiotic, America thrilling to the first footsteps on the moon. It is Mother Teresa cradling a naked retarded child in the rubble of West Beirut, a crippled old man in the excrement of Calcutta. It is the wonder of a first kiss. Such, sooner or later, should be your reaction to the life of learning, such the wonder that should permeate the life of your mind. Not a new methodology for biology or psychology; simply awe in the presence of a fascinating four-letter reality: life. The multifaceted, myriad miracle of life. Amazement at what breadths and depths there are to being alive--from the architectural artistry of the ant and the grace of a loping panther, through the blind-ing speed of a white marlin and the majestic flight of the bald eagle, to the beating heart of a unique fetus, the inspired imagery of Shakespeare, the fantastic forty-eight measures of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker," the transforming insight of Einstein. With such wonder you may hope to touch the pinnacle of knowledge. For, as philosopher Jacques Maritain discovered, the height of human knowing is not conceptual; it is experiential. Man or woman feels God. Yes, feels" God. 168 Review for Religious Am I ignoring Ignatius? Have I been distracted from his Spiritual Exercises? Quite the contrary. The Spiritual Exercises are an adventure in experience, in wonder. With all the power of your mental faculties, you enter the kingdom of contemplation--what contemplative William McNamara called % long loving look at the real." The real: all there is--the things of God, the people of God, God's very self. And the high purpose of all this? To be struck, surprised, stunned by the wonder of it all--from the ecstasy of Eden unspoiled, through sin's rape of the earth and earth's dwellers, to the unique love of God-in-our-flesh pinned to a cross, and our rebirth in his rising from the rock. The net effect? Ignatius's final contemplation, the acme of the Exercises: Learning to Love Like God. Here you touch the heart of Ignatius, his awareness of the ceaseless presence of Christ to our earth--now. "Consider," he counsels, "how [Christ] labors for me in all creatures.''s Not a vague, ultrapious generality. Christ behaves like a worker, a laborer, in each and every creature of his creation. How is it that the Rockies still rise in breathtaking splendor, Venus shines brighter than any star, and oil gushes from the fields of Nebraska? Because a risen Christ gives them being. Not once for all; continuously, day after day. How is it that forsythia can herald the approach of spring, corn turn into hot buttered popcorn for your theater, giant red-woods stalk the California sky? Because an imaginative Christ gives them life. How is it that your Irish setter can smell the game beyond your ken, gulls scavenge your ocean, the shad ascend the waters? Because a sensitive Christ gives them senses. How is it that you, this wondrous wedding of molecules and spirit, can shape an idea or send a skyscraper soaring, unveil mystery in a microscope or telescope, join with another--man or woman or God--in deathless oneness? Because Christ labors in you to give you intelligence and love--intelligence that mimics the mind of God, love that stems from a cross on the outskirts of Jerusalem. A thing of beauty and a joy for ever, this life of the mind. But only if the arts and sciences, if professions like law and medicine and business, that legitimately engross you open you to the still richer reality that surrounds you, invades you, transcends you, gives fresh life to the mind you treasure so rightly, the mind you The life of the mind is perilously impoverished if knowledge does not lead to wonder. March-April 1992 169 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry accept so lightly. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises are not the only "way to go." But for openers in two senses--a beginning and an opening--as a basis, a foundation, for the life of the mind, the Spiritual Exercises are an experience difficult to exceed. Second, the Spiritual Exercises should alter your world of loving, that is, your human and religious imagination and affec-tion. Basic to this affirmation is a realization: The life of the human spirit is not circumscribed by reason, by your ability to grasp ideas, to draw conclusions from facts and premises. If your intellectual existence is simply a model of Cartesian clarity, you are limping along on one leg. What is the lamentable lacuna? Imagination. What is this strange creature we call imagination?6 To begin with, what is imagination not? It is not the same thing as fantasy. Fantasy has come to mean the grotesque, the bizarre. That is fan-tastic which is unreal, irrational, wild, unrestrained. We speak of "pure fantasy": It has no connection with reality. It is imagination run wild, on the loose, unbridled, uncontained.7 What is it, then? Imagination is the capacity we have "to make the material an image of the immaterial or spiritual.''8 It is a cre-ative power. You find it in Rembrandt's self-portraits, in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, in the odor of a new rose or the flavor of an old wine. You find it in dramatists like Aeschylus and Shakespeare, in poets from Sappho to Gerard Manley Hopkins, in storytellers like C.S. Lewis and Stephen King. Now, when I say "capacity," I do not mean a "faculty" like intellect or will. I mean rather a posture of my whole person towards my experience.9 It is a way of seeing. It is, as with Castaneda, looking for the holes in the world or listening to the space between sounds. It is a breaking through the obvious, the surface, the superficial, to the reality beneath and beyond. It is the world of wonder and intuition, of amazement and delight, of fes-tivity and play. How does imagination come to expression? Let me focus on specifically religious imagination. I sketch five ways. 1. A vision. I mean "the emergence either in dreams, trance, or ecstasy, of a pattern of images, words, or dreamlike dramas which are experienced then, and upon later reflection, as having revelatory significance." 10 Examples? Isaiah's vision of the Lord in the temple (Is 6); Moses and Elijah appearing to Jesus and the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mt 17:1-9); Joan of Arc's "voices"; St. Margaret Mary's vision of the Sacred Heart. 170 Review for Religious 2. Ritual. The form of ritual is action--public, dramatic, pat-terned. A group enacts the presence of the sacred and partici-pates in that presence, usually through some combination of dance, chant, sacrifice, or sacrament.11 3. Story. I mean a narrative, a constellation of images, that recounts incidents or events. As Sallie TeSelle put it, "We all love a good story because of the basic nar-rative quality of human experience: in a sense any story is about ourselves, and a good story is good precisely because somehow it rings true to human life . We recognize our pilgrimage from here to there in a good story.''12 For the religious imagina-tion, three types of stories are particularly impor-tant: parable, allegory, and myth; the parables of Jesus, Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia," and the Creation myth.13 4. The fine arts. I mean painting and poetry, sculpture and architecture, music, dancing, and dra-matic art. I mean da Vinci and John Donne, the "PietY" and Chartres, Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis," David whirling and skipping before the Ark of the Covenant, the mystery dramas of the Middle Ages. I mean films. 5. Symbol. What symbol means is not easy to say, for even within theology it does not have a univocal sense. Let me define it, with Avery Dulles, as "an externally perceived sign that works mysteriously on the human consciousness so as to suggest more than it can clearly describe or define." 14 Not every sign is a sym-bol. A mere indicator ("This way to the art museum") is not a symbol. "The symbol is a sign pregnant with a depth of meaning which is evoked rather than explicitly stated.''is It might be an artifact, a person, an event, words, a story--parable, allegory, myth. The importance of symbols, of imagination, in a university? I make three points. First, imagination is not at odds with knowl-edge; imagination is a form of cognition. In Whitehead's words, "Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts; it is a way of illuminating the facts.''16 True, it is not a process of reasoning; it is not abstract thought, conceptual analysis, rational demonstra-tion, syllogistic proof. Notre Dame of Paris is not a thesis in the-ology; Lewis's famous trilogy does not demonstrate the origin of evil; Hopkins is not analyzing God's image in us when he sings Imagination is not at odds with knowledge; imagination is a form of cognition. Marcb-April 1992 171 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry that "Christ plays in ten thousand places, / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father through the features of men's faces.''17 And still, imaging and imagining is a work of our intellectual nature; through it our spirit reaches the true, the beautiful, and the good. Second, imagination does not so much teach as evoke; it calls something forth from you. And so it is often ambiguous; the image can be understood in different ways. Do you remember the reporters who asked Martha Graham, "Miss Graham, what does your dance mean?" She replied: "Darlings, if I could tell you, I would not have danced it!" Something is lost when we move from imagining to thinking, from art to conceptual clarity. Not that imagination is arbitrary, that "Swan Lake" or the Infancy Narrative or "Hamlet" or the Transfiguration is whatever anyone wants to make of it, my gut feeling. Hostile to a valid imagina-tion is "the cult of imagination for itself alone; vision, phantasy, ecstasy for their own sakes; creativity, spontaneity on their own, without roots, without tradition, without discipline.''1~ Amos Wilder was right: "Inebriation is no substitute for paideia.''19 And still it is true, the image is more open-ended than the con-cept, less confining, less imprisoning. The image evokes our own imagining. Third, religion itself is a system of symbols. As sociologist Andrew Greeley saw, "religion was symbol and story long before it became theology and philosophy and., the poetry of religion was not inferior to its prose but rather anterior to it and, in terms of the whole human person, in some ways superior to it.''2° Biblical revelation is highly symbolic. Skim the Hebrew Scriptures: a burning bush, the miracles of the Exodus, the theo-phanies of Sinai, the "still small voice" heard by Elijah, the visions of the prophets and seers. Scan the New Testament: the circum-stances surrounding Jesus' conception and birth, the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove, the transfiguration, Calvary, the res-urrection. Take key themes like the kingdom of God, its expres-sion in Jesus' proverbial sayings, in the Lord's Prayer, in the Gospel parables. The kingdom is not a clear concept with a uni-vocal significance. It is a symbol that "can represent or evoke a whole range or series of conceptions or ideas.''21 Turn from Scripture to the Catholic-Protestant problematic. Greeley's research persuades him that "the fundamental differ-ences between Catholicism and Protestantism are not doctrinal or 172 Review for Religious ethical" but "differing sets of symbols.''22 Take the central symbol: God.23 The classical literature of the Catholic tradition assumes a God who is present in the world, disclosing Himself in and through creation. The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be somewhat like God. The Protestant classics, on the other hand, assume a God who is radically absent from the world and who discloses Herself only on rare occasions (especially in Jesus Christ and Him cruci-fied). The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be radically different from God.24 Even more concretely, Greeley insists, their different images of God account for different religious behavior between Catholics and Protestants. In the Protestant imagination God is perceived as distant (father, judge, king, master); in the Catholic imagination God is perceived as present (mother, lover, friend, spouse).2s Another crucial example: two approaches to human society shaped by different imaginative pictures. The Catholic tends to see society as a "sacrament" of God, a set of ordered relationships, governed by both justice and love, that reveal, however imperfectly, the presence of God. Society is "natural" and "good," therefore, for humans and their natural response to God is social. The Protestant, on the other hand, tends to see human society as "God-for-saken" and therefore unnatural and oppressive. The indi-vidual stands over against society and not integrated into it. The human becomes fully human only when he is able to break away from social oppression and relate to the absent God as a completely free individual.26 A final example from Greeley's sociological research: The image that most sharply distinguishes the Catholic tradition from other Christian traditions is Mary the mother of Jesus. No one else has Madonna statues in church. MaW is essen-tial to Catholicism, not perhaps on the level of doctrine but surely on the level of imagination, because she more than any other image blatantly confirms the sacramental instinct: the whole of creation and all its processes, especially its lifegiving and life-nurturing processes, reveal the lurking and passionate love of God.27 Once again, have I been distracted from Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises? Not really. The Exercises, for all their appeal to the Christian intelligence, are not a head trip. They are first and foremost an experience. An experience of Catholic symbols: Adam and Eve and Eden, angels and Satan, hellfire, a virgin and a crib, March-April 1992 173 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry The events of Jesus" earthly existence must be seen as a 'today." Egypt and Jerusalem, the transfiguration, bread and wine, blood and water from the side of Christ, nail marks in risen hands, an ascension into heaven. But the experience is not cold reason. Take the experience of sin's devastating impact on angels and humans, sin's ravishing of God's good earth. When you go through the Spiritual Exercises, you do not simply define sin, recall a traditional definition: any thought, word, or action against God's law. Your senses get into the act: you smell sin's stench. Even more importantly, you see sin's cost, image it, weep over it; for sin's cost is a cross, the pierced hands of a God-man. The God-man. The Exercises are a constant contemplation--contemplation of Christ. Never abstract theology, though theology informs it all. In Bethlehem's cave you are a servant; you not only listen to Mary and Joseph, you "smell the infinite flagrance and taste the infinite sweetness of the divinity.''28 You flee with that unique family into Egypt, feel what it means to be a refugee in the Middle East. In a decisive meditation you not only contrast "two standards," two scenarios for orienting your life. The standards take flesh in two persons: in a Satan who inspires "horror and terror," who makes you lust for riches, for honor, for pride; and in a living Christ who attracts you to poverty, insults, and humil-ity.: 9 It is not only Jesus who is tempted in the wilderness; you wrestle with your personal devils, sweat through the temptations that jolted Jesus: Use your powers, your gifts, your possessions just for your own fantastic self, for the sweet smell of success. Like the sinful woman, you wash our Lord's feet with your tears, feel your sins forgiven because you too have "loved much" (Lk 7:47). And so into Christ's passion, which you no longer study with scholarly detachment, comparing different traditions, reconcil-ing inconsistencies. Ignatius wants you to feel: grief and shame indeed, "because the Lord is going to his suffering for [your] sins,''3° but even, if possible, the kiss that betrayed him, the nails that held him fast. And finally, joy in the risen Christ. Not sim-ply a sense of relief; rather your whole being bursting with new life, his life, as you share his rising with his Mother, try to touch him with Magdalen, munch seafood with him and the Eleven. This is not simply your own picture show, on a level with 174 Review for Religious Kevin Costner "Dancing with !/Volves.''31 Ignatius playing with your capacity to imagine is attempting something terribly signif-icant psychologically and spiritually. This "application of the senses" goes back to a medieval tradition that reached Ignatius through a book he read while convalescing from cannon wounds back at Loyola.32 The unknown Franciscan author had written: If you wish to draw profit from these meditations., make everything that the Lord Jesus said and did present to your-self, just as though you were hearing it with your ears and seeing it with your eyes . And even when it is related in the past tense you should contemplate it all as though pres-ent today. VChy is this highly significant for an intelligent spirituality? Because you are no longer looking at the life of Christ sheerly as history, something that took place in the past. The events of Jesus' earthly existence must be seen as a "today," the historical hap-penings drawn into your own world here and now. That is how you achieve not abstract knowledge but what the medievals called "familiarity with Christ," an understanding that takes hold not only of discursive reasoning but of the whole person. Imagination leads to love--a direct experience of love. Ignatius films in living color what Aquinas phrased in attractive abstraction: There are two ways of desiring knowledge. One way is to desire it as a perfection of one's self; and that is the way philosophers desire it. The other way is to desire it not [merely] as a perfection of one's self but because through this knowledge the one we love becomes present to us; and that is the way saints desire it.34 Third, the Spiritual Exercises should alter your world of liv-ing, that is, the life of social realities. Here three facets call for clarification: social realities, the Exercises, and you. What do I mean by social realities? I mean the life of a soci-ety, the life that moves beyond the individual in isolation to com-munity, people interacting, impacting one on another, human persons depending on one another. How do the Spiritual Exercises touch social realities? After all, did not Ignatius himself describe the Exercises as "every way of preparing and disposing" ourselves to remove "all disordered attachments and, after their removal, of seeking and finding God's will in the way we direct our lives"?3s This sounds rather indi-vidualistic, does it not? Or, at best, quite vague. March-April 1992 175 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry I am aware that in 1975 the 32nd General Congregation of Jesuits declared, "The mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.''36 And it went on to assert a bit later: Every sector of our educational works should be subjected to constant review, so that they will not only continue to form young people and adults able and willing to build a more just social order, but do so ever more effectively. Especially should we help form our Christian students as "men [and women]-for-others" in a mature faith and in per-sonal attachment to Jesus Christ, persons whose lively faith impels them to seek and find Christ in the service of their fellow men [and women]. Thus we shall contribute to form-ing persons who will themselves multiply the work of world-wide education.-~7 But our specific question remains: Granted that our colleges should prepare women and men to construct a more just social order, how do the Spiritual Exercises lay a foundation for the social-justice component of Jesuit education? Almost a half century ago, a young Jesuit who had not yet taken his final vows in the Society was asked by his provincial to direct the annual eight-day retreat for the Jesuit theology stu-dents at Alma in California. In the course of the retreat, director Father George H. Dunne reflected on a number of social issues. Dealing with the Sermon on the Mount, for example, and the two great commandments, he "talked about poverty, peace, war, not in the abstract but in the concrete." He "talked about anti- Semitism, Hitler's holocaust, racial segregation, the rat-infested tenements in New York, the exploitation of migrant farm work-ers, the Spanish Civil War, the anguish of the world's poor . -38 Not long after, he received a letter from the representative of the Jesuit superior general for the American provinces during World War II. Father Zacheus J. Maher charged Father Dunne with substituting for the Spiritual Exercises a series of "brilliant talks on social subjects." "Such subjects," he declared, "have no place in the Spiritual Exercises.''> Let us make an admission: Our neighbor, the wider society, is not explicit in the text of the Exercises.4° Not surprising; for the Exercises "are addressed to individuals, and they seek to enable a person to have the interior freedom to serve God . -41 But if you delve more deeply, you discover how profoundly social, societal, the Exercises are. 176 Review for Religious You see, the Ignatian meditations point you ceaselessly to Christ, to the Christ of the Gospels, in that way to absorb the mind of Christ. And so you focus on the programmatic scene in Nazareth's synagogue, where Jesus makes his own the announce-ment in Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release for pris-oners and sight for the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the Lord's year of favor" (Lk 4:1 8-1 9).42 Through the Exercises that program ceases to be pecu-liarly Jesus'; it becomes your own. What Second Isaiah announced to the people of his day Jesus announces to the poor and impris-oned, the blind and deprived of his day. And this is what Christians in the mold of Ignatius announce to the downtrodden of their day. With Ignatius in the final Contemplation for Learning to Love Like God, you ponder profoundly how Christ "labors for [you] in all creatures on the face of the earth, that is, he behaves like one who labors. In the heav-ens, the elements, the plants, the fruits, the cattle, [man and woman], he gives being, conserves them in existence, confers life and sensation, and so on.''43 And you ask to labor with Christ as he ceaselessly creates, recreates, redeems a fallen world. Last Easter a Catholic professor of history ended his regular column in a diocesan newspaper with two puzzling sentences: "When Jesus rose from the dead, he did not go about lecturing on the social problems of his day. Instead he manifested himself in glory to his disciples in a manner that empowered them to go forth as his courageous emissaries.''44 But neither did the risen Jesus go about celebrating the Eucharist and fingering his rosary. And what did he empower them to go forth to do? To baptize indeed; to preach what he preached. But did he not preach loving your sisters and brothers as Jesus loved you? Does such loving have nothing to do with war on the womb or war in the Middle East? Nothing to do with inhuman poverty or child abuse? Nothing to do with racism or the rape of the earth? What you should experience through the Exercises is that by God's design and initiative human existence is fundamentally social, societal:4s we are "we" before we are "I" and "thou." This By God's design and initiative human existence is fundamentally social, societal. March-April 1992 177 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry is central in Christian revelation and of primary importance for our contemporary culture of individualism, where we think first of self and then how we can join with others in community--as though community did not precede the individual genetically, psychically, socially, and spiritually.46 Even Catholic social teach-ing frequently fails to position this fact front and center, because it lays down as primary in its social ethics the "dignity of the human person, who is made to the image of God." From there the teaching argues to the God-invested rights of the individual which other individuals and institutions must respect. This misses the point of the Genesis story (on which it is often based) that the "Adam" who is given such dignity is not an individual but "the hmnan," our whole race in personification.47 How does all this touch us? Very simply, a university or col-lege ought to be not only the seedbed of learning and imagination; it should be the boot camp of our societal existence. The Jesuit educational ideal is not the intellectual mole who lives almost entirely underground, surfaces occasionally for fresh air and a Big Mac, burrows back down to the earthworms before people can distract him. No. A college is where young men and women who may one day profoundly influence America's way of life touch, some for the first time, the ruptures that sever us from our earth, from our sisters and brothers, from our very selves. Not simply in an antiseptic classroom, for all its high importance for under-standing. Even more importantly, experience of rupture: experi-ence not only of ecology but of an earth irreparably ravaged, not only abstract poverty but the stomach-bloated poor, not only the words "child abuse" but the vacant stare of the child abused, not only a book on racism but the hopelessness or hatred in human hearts. To yearn for such experience, I know no better introduc-tion than experiencing the Christ of the Spiritual Exercises, the conversion consequent on seeing Christ more clearly, loving him more dearly. Can you get a 4.0, be learned, a scholar, without such a con-version? Undoubtedly. Can you make megabucks in business or law, in medicine or government without such a conversion? Undoubtedly. Can you marry well, raise two and a half children, treat them to an Ivy school education without such a conversion? Undoubtedly. Can you be deliriously happy without such a con-version? Undoubtedly. Can you live an integrated human and Christian existence without such a conversion? I doubt it. 178 Review for Religious Notes i Spiritual Exercises 1; translation partially mine. 2 Reference to a type of dancing currently in high favor with the young and involving amazing hyperactivity. 3 Thomas B. Edsall, "GOP Battler Lee Atwater Dies at 40," Washington Post, 30 March 1991, 1 and 7. 4 Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 59. s Spiritual Exercises 236. For Christ as the "creator and Lord" of this contemplation, see Hugo Rahner SJ, Ignatius the Theologian (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968 / San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), p. 134. 6 Here I am drawing largely, but not entirely, on material in nay book Preaching: The Art and the Craft (New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1987), pp. 19-25. 7 I am aware that fantasy does not have to mean the bizarre; I am speaking of a com~non current usage. The development was concisely expressed in l/Vebster's New International Dictionary of the English Language (2nd ed. unabridged; Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1958), p. 918: "From the conception of fantasy as the faculty of mentally reproducing sensible objects, the meaning appears to have developed into: first, false or delu-sive mental creation; and second, any senselike representation in the mind, equivalent to the less strict use of imagination and fancy. Later fan-tasy acquired, also, a somewhat distinctive usage, taking over the sense of whimsical, grotesque, or bizarre image making. This latter sense, however, did not attach itself to the variant phantasy, which is used for visionary or phantasmic imagination." See also Urban T. Hohnes III, Ministry and Imagination (New York: Seabury, 1976), pp. 100-103. ~ Holmes, ibid, pp. 97-98. Here Holmes is a&nittedly borrowing from Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, n.d.). 9 See Holmes, ibid, p. 88. 10 Theodore W. Jennings Jr., Introduction to Theology: An Invitation to Reflection upon the Christian Mythos (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 49. 1~ See ibid, p. 52. 12 Sallie M. TeSelle, cited by Holmes, Ministry and Imagination, p. 166, from the Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42 (1974): 635. ~3 Lest the reader be unduly disturbed, myth is not opposed to fact or to fancy. Its raw material tnay he fact or it may be fancy; in either case it intends "to narrate the fundamental structure of human being in the world. By the concreteness of its imagery, the universality of its intention, its narrative or stoW form, the myth evokes the identification and par-ticipation of those for whom it functions as revelatory" (Jennings, Introduction to Theology, pp. 51-52). ~4 Avery Dulles SJ, "The Symbolic Structure of Revelation," March-April 1992 179 Burghardt ¯ The Exercises for Educational Ministry Theological Studies 41 (1980): 55-56. Dulles studies the five dominant approaches to revelation: the propositional, historical, mystical, dialecti-cal, and symbolic--with greatest stress on the symbolic. He asks how in each theory revelation is mediated and what kind of truth it has. He con-cludes that in Christ the five aspects coalesce in a kind of unity, but insists that the first four are reconciled and held in unity through the symbolic facet. ~s Ibid, p. 56. 16 A. N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1929), p. 139. 17 Gerard Manley Hopkins, "As kingfishers catch fire. ," Poem 57 in W. H. Gardner and N.H. Mackenzie, eds., The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (London: Oxford University, 1970), p. 90. ~ Amos Niven Wilder, Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 57. ~') Ibid, p. 67. ~,0 Andrew M. Greeley, The Catholic Myth: The Behavior and Beliefs of American Catholics (New York: Scribner's, 1990), p. 37. 21 Norman Perrin, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 33. ~2 Greeley, The Catholic ~Vlyth, p. 44. 23 Here Greeley (p. 45) admits his dependence on David Tracy's The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1981). 24 Greeley, The C)ttholic Myth, p. 45. ~5 See ibid, p. 55. 26 Ibid, p. 45. Hcre, too, Greeley is indebted to David Tracy. Note Greeley's warning to his readers that the word "tend" is "used advisedly. Zero-sum relationships do not exist in the world of the preconscious" (ibid). -,7 Ibid, p. 253. See p. 254: "I argue., that the obvious functional role of Mary the mother of Jesus in the Catholic tradition is to reflect the mother love of God." For detailed presentation of the origins and func-tion of the Mary symbol, see Greeley's The Mary Myth (New York: Seabury, 1977). 2~ Spiritual Exercises 124; text from Louis J. Puhl sJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola University, 195 I), p. 55. 29 Spiritual Exercises 140, 146 (Puhl, pp. 60, 62). 30 Spiritual Exercises 193 (Puhl, p. 81). 31 A current fihn that made off with a number of Academy awards. 3~ The book was Meditationes vitae Christi, long attributed to St. Bonaventure but actually composed by an unknown Franciscan of the fourteenth century; see Rahner, Ignatius the Theologian (n. 5 above), pp. 192-193. Quoted from Rahner, ibid, p. 193. 180 Review for Religious 34 1 have not been able as yet to document this text. 3s Spiritual Exercises 1 ; translation partially mine. 36 Documents of the Thirty-second General Congregatio,z of the Society of Jesus, 2 December 1974--7 March 1975 I, 4 (Washington, D.C.: Jesuit Conference, [1975]), p. 17. 37 Ibid, I, 4, pp. 35-36. 38 King's Pawn: The Memoirs of George H. Dunue, s.J. (Chicago: Loyola University, 1990), p. 70. 39 Ibid, pp. 69, 70. q0 See useful material in Dean Brackley SJ, "Downward Mobility: Social Implications of St. Ignatius's Two Standards," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 20, no. 4 (January 1988): 53; also in Thomas E. Clark SJ, "Ignatian Spirituality and Societal Consciousness," ibid, 7, no. 4 (September 1975): 127-150. 4~ Brackley, "Downward Mobility," p. 12. 42 On this episode see Joseph A. Fitzmyer SJ, The Gospel according to Luke (I-IX) (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981), p. 529: "Luke had deliberately put this story [4:16-30] at the beginning of the public min-istry to encapsulate the entire ministry of Jesus and the reaction to it." 43 Spiritual Exercises 236; translation partially mine. 44james Hitchcock in St. Louis Review, 29 March 1991, p. 11. 4s See Clarke (n. 40 above), pp. 128-129, for the advantages of the adjective "societal" over "social" in reference to apostolate and ministry. "Social" efforts "seek immediately and personally to alleviate the misery of those individuals who are deprived." "Societal" activity "concerns itself immediately with the healing and transformation of those human struc-tures, institutions, processes, and environments which draw persons into misery or make it difficult for them to emerge from it." 46 See Matthew Lamb, "The Social and Political Dimensions of Lonergan's Theology," in Vernon Gregson, ed., The Desires of the Human Heart (New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1988), p. 270. 471 owe this paragraph to notes of James L. Connor sJ, director of the Woodstock Theological Center, Washington, D.C., prepared for the inau-gural retreat of my project Preaching the Just Word, an effort to move the preaching of social-justice issues more effectively into the Catholic pul-pits of the United States. March-April 1992 181 MELANNIE SVOBODA Going the Distance, Sustaining the Gift an one of her newspaper columns, Ellen Goodman describes pheno~nenon called "compassion fatigue." This occurs when people who are normally sensitive and generous get "tired of caring." Most Americans, Goodman maintains, are very caring in emergencies. She writes: "We are great at performing the one-night stands for causes. Christmas dinner for the poor, collec-tions for victims of fire or flood or famine." But if the emergency situation becomes chronic, many of us find it difficult to sustain our initial level of concern. When compassion fatigue sets in, says Goodman, "A gift can begin to feel like an obligation, generosity can turn into resentment, and sympathy can turn hard." I think Goodman's article has definite implications for those of us involved in ministry in the church. Let us face it: most of us are in ministry not for a one-night stand. We are in it for years, maybe even for life. The problems we deal with every day--igno-rance, poverty, injustice, sickness, violence--will not go away overnight--or even in a matter of a few years. So the question we have to ask ourselves is: How do we keep our compassion alive over the long haul? How do we fan the flame of enthusiasm for a lifetime of service in the church? Before I suggest some ways of doing this, I would like to say a few words about why. For everything I say is based on the premise Melannie Svoboda SND, with whom our readers are well acquainted, resides at Notre Dame Academy; Route One, Box 197; Middleburg, Virginia 22117. 182 Review for Religious that coinpassion and enthusiasm are essential for ministry in the church. Without them, ministry is at best a mere show and at worst a perversion of the very Gospel we claim to proclaim. To illustrate this fact, I tried to come up with an image of ministry as compassionate, generous, and enthusiastic--and not something performed out of a sense of obligation and even with resentment. The image I came up with may appear an unlikely one: feeding chickens! But let me explain. Feeding Chickens I was born and raised on a small goose farm in Willoughby Hills, Ohio. That rural "initial formation" continues to influence my outlook on life. On our farm we had hundreds of white Emden geese. It was my father and brothers who had the job of feeding them. But we also had a couple dozen chickens, and the task of feeding them usually fell to my mother, my sister, or me. Now what is the connection between feeding chickens and ministering in today's church? Simple. The way I see it, there are three essential elements to proper chicken feeding (and, I might add, to proper church ministry). First, there is the feed itself--the corn, the mash, whatever. The feed is the gift we bring to the chickens. More than that, it is their source of nourishment, of life itself. Without too much of a stretch of the imagination, we can say that the chicken feed is the "good news" we bring each day to our chickens. The second element of chicken feeding involves calling the chickens. We have to get their attention, alert them to the feed we have for them. But a good chicken feeder goes beyond merely calling the chickens. He or she establishes a relationship with them. The feeder talks to the chickens, even thanking them for the fine eggs they have been laying. For a good chicken feeder (like a good church minister) is always aware of being a receiver as well as a giver. The third element of chicken feeding (and of ministry) is the actual broadcasting of the feed. How does an experienced chicken feeder broadcast the feed? Eagerly, generously, unsparingly. Now that is an image of ministry at its best, ministry with compassion and enthusiasm. Ministry at its worst would be the person who sets out to feed the chickens grumbling and mum-bling the whole way to the chicken coop. "I have got to feed those March-April 1992 183 Svoboda ¯ Going the Distance stupid chickens--again. I just fed them yesterday. They're never satisfied. All they do is eat, eat, eat. What good are they, any-way?" Such a feeder might not even call the chickens, thinking: "If I don't call them, maybe they won't come, and then I won't have to feed them." But, of course, the chickens do come, called or uncalled. And how does this kind of feeder broadcast the feed? Perhaps sparingly: "A kernel for you, a kernel for you . " Or angrily, throwing handfuls of feed down on the ground in dis-gust. Or hastily, dumping the whole pail of feed in one spot, just to get the job over with. That is an image of ministry when compassion fatigue has set in. I maintain that ministering in such a way is a contradiction of the Gospel. For we are called to proclaim the good news, not the "ho-hum" news, not the "halfway decent" news. We are called to love the people to whom we minister, not "put up with" them or view them as a nuisance. If we can no longer minister with gen-uine compassion or with vibrant enthusiasm, then maybe we should not be ministering. Years ago I had a Scripture teacher who made this point very clear. He said that on a given day we might wake up crabby, dis-couraged, depressed, mad at the whole world and every human being in it. On such a morning, maybe we should call the office, the school, or the parish and say in all honesty and humility, "I won't be in. I cannot in conscience represent the Gospel today." The suggestion, though perhaps a little extreme, does make a salient point: an anti-sign to the Gospel is probably worse than no sign at all. In other words, if our words, attitude, and whole bear-ing contradict the Good News we represent, then maybe we should not be representing it. Compassion and enthusiasm are requisites for effective min-istry. What, then, are some ways we can "go the distance" and "sustain our gift" of ministering? There are, no doubt, many ways. Here, I suggest four. Retaining the Big Picture The first way is to retain the big picture. Sometimes we lose enthusiasm for our ministry because our perspective becomes too narrow, our vision myopic. We lose sight of the big picture and get enmeshed in the near at hand, the petty, the nitty-gritty. In his book The Art of Choosing, Carlos ~Galles SJ reminds us how impor- 184 Review for Reli~4ous rant it is in life to have a sense of direction. He describes "a lovely little habit" that Ignatius had of stopping himself physically in the middle of a hall and asking himself, "Where am I going? And what for?" That habit was one way Ignatius had of connecting a seemingly insignificant action--going to the dining room to eat, heading for chapel to pray, or walking down the hall to a meet-ing-- with the bigger picture of ministering to God's people. The practice is a good one: regularly and consciously to make ourselves see our daily small actions as part of a greater whole. Recently I watched an artist painting a large mural of a sunrise. I noticed how frequently she stepped back from her work to gain a broader perspective. Then she would step forward, add a few more strokes with the paint roller, and step back again for another look. We must do the same thing in our ministry. Sometimes God seems to provide us with opportunities to do this: after a suc-cessful activity, after an apparent failure, at the time of a transfer or change in ministry, or during a serious illness. But we can also do this more regularly: during an annual retreat or a monthly day of recollection, in the morning before we begin our day, or in the evening before we crawl (or fall) into bed. The habit of ask-ing "Where am I going (or where have I been today) and what for?" will put us in touch with the real zvhat and v:hatfor of our ministry, thus enabling us to catch at least a glimpse of how our "daily chores" fit into the big picture of God's grand design. Seeing Babies A second way of retaining our compassion and enthusiasm I call: seeing babies and not diapers. A priest told me once that a young mother came to him very discouraged and worn out. "I'm sick and tired of changing diapers," she cried. The priest thought for a moment and then gently suggested, "Next time don't change the diaper. Change the baby." He was not being "celibately sar-castic." He was pointing out to her a lesson in perspective. We have to see the tasks we do in relation to the individual human beings for whom we do them. During a retreat another priest told this true stoW. A teenage boy was seriously injured in a car accident. When the parish priest was notified, he immediately went to the hospital to see the boy. When the priest walked in, the boy said, "Father, if you've come here for God's sake, then for God's sake, get out! But if you have March-April 1992 185 Svoboda ¯ Going the Distance come here because you think I am worth it, then please stay." The priest stayed. Maybe for too long we overemphasized "All for the greater honor and glory of God." That phrase certainly encapsulates a marvelous truth, but, like most truths, even that one needs another truth to balance it. In our ministry we do not bypass the human beings we serve. We do not overlook them. We do not use them to win God's favor. We must remember, we minister not to parishes, schools, hospitals, or dioceses. We minister to individ-ual human beings--to Vera, Frank, Carlos, Heather--and each of them is worth it. Getting Support A third way we sustain our gift of ministry is: We get sup-port. The venerable tradition of rugged individualism that helped found this great nation will not "cut it" in ministry. The truth is, we cannot "go it alone." Fortunately, our contemporary times, with its emphasis on support groups, reminds us of this truth. I came to appreciate the importance of support groups when I became a flee-lance writer. Before that I had been a full-time high school teacher for many years. As a teacher I had a built-in support group: the other teachers on the faculty. But when I seri-ously began to write as part of my ministry, I suddenly felt terri-bly isolated and alone. It became difficult for me to sit in front of my typewriter (and later tny computer) for two or three hours a day and write, for I would recall working for hours on a piece only to have it fizzle into nothingness. Or I would send out arti-cles and stories enthusiastically only to have them lost, mutilated, or rejected. Finally I knew I needed support in my ministry--and more than the occasional acceptance letter offers. So I attended some writers' conferences and hooked up with a few other people who write for publication. I rely on these friends for the under-standing and encouragement that only a fellow writer can give. In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes beautifully about the origin of a friendship. He says a friendship originates when two people, often engaged in a common task, disclose some-thing of their inner selves to each other. They turn to each other in amazement and say, "You, too?" We in church ministry need to experience that "you-too?-ness" with others who are engaged in the same or similar ministry. 186 Review for Religious Being More than a Minister A fourth way we can go the distance in our ministry is to be more than a minister. We probably all agree that we are more than we do, and that we are far more valuable than what we pro-duce. But an effective minister does more than give intellectual assent to that truth. He or she makes decisions based on it. He or she takes time to be more than a minister, knowing how pathetic it is if a minister's identity is restricted to a particular job or title. There is always a danger of turning even church work into an end in itself. Workaholism is alive and well in most business organizations and (we have to admit with sadness) also in our church. The problem is, workaholism, though a real addiction, looks a lot like dedication. If a minister in the church is addicted to alcohol or gambling or food or sex, chances are someone (or someones) sooner or later will intervene to help that person. But if a minister is addicted to work~staying up all hours of the night, never taking time for a break or vacation, never socializing with people in a nonwork setting--we sometimes let him or her go on. Or even worse, we praise that person, thus encouraging the addiction. In this regard, we should recall that the primary biblical image of heaven is not an office, not a school, not a parish. It is a party, a banquet. If all we do our whole life is work, work, work, chances are we are going to feel extremely out of place in heaven. We will not know what to do, how to let go, how to have fun. No, we ministers should learn how to be party people while we are still here on earth--even as we minister. We work hard, yes, knowing full well that our ministry cannot always be restricted to certain office hours. But we also know how to get away, how to enjoy people and have fun. The Cross, the Cost So far we have looked at four ways to help prevent compas-sion fatigue in our ministry. But there is one more word I wish to say about compassion fatigue: sometimes it is the cross we bear, the cost we pay. Our fatigue is not always a sign that we are doing something wrong. Sometimes it is a sign that we are doing some-thing right. Our periodic fatigue and occasional discouragement put us in touch with our limits. And experiencing our limits is vital to effective ministry. Otherwise we run the risk of living in March-April 1992 187 Svoboda ¯ Going the Distance illusion, of beginning to think that we are responsible for the good we do or that we are the "good news" we proclaim--and not Jesus. Our ministry, in order to be authentic, must cost us some-thing-- in time, in energy, in love. I am reminded of that seem-ingly insignificant incident in the story of David at the end of the second book of Samuel. David, nearing the end of his life, goes to a man named Araunah and asks to buy his threshing place in order to build an altar there for the Lord. Araunah tells David, "Take it, Your Majesty." And he offers to give several oxen, too, all free of charge. But David refuses to accept Araunah's gifts. He insists on paying for everything, saying, "I will not offer the Lord my God sacrifices that have cost me nothing." At times we all get weary in our ministry. Our fatigue, loneliness, or discouragement are part of the cost of our love and service of others, part of the sacrifice we make regularly to God for the privilege of serving in the church. The Ministry of Jesus How does all of this relate to the person of Jesus? How did he remain loving and alive throughout his ministry? First of all, Jesus had the big picture. He possessed an amazingly expansive view of reality. He looked at a crude fisherman and saw a great leader. He observed the birds in the air and comprehended God's provident care. He beheld a sinful woman and recognized her as a woman who loved much. Jesus was always ready to adjust his perspective, to align it ever more closely with that of the Father. Nowhere is that more clearly seen than in Gethsemane. Jesus' initial reaction to his impending crucifixion was "Please let this pass!" But by let-ting go of his limited perspective, he could say, "Your will be done"; in other words, "I embrace your point of view." Jesus saw babies and not diapers. That is, he focused on indi-vidual people and not on the immense task he had to perform. The Gospels show Jesus speaking to large crowds, of course, but more often they show him relating to individuals: the twelve apos-tles, the man with a withered hand, a centurion, a demoniac, Simon's mother-in-law, a particular deaf man, a grieving widow, an epileptic, Jairus, Nicodemus, Mary and Martha, and so forth. The clear impression is that Jesus ministered to individuals. Even more important, individuals were his legacy. Jesus did not leave 188 Review for Relig4ous behind a spiral notebook on how to run a church. He did not write a curriculum nor even one encyclical. Instead, he left behind people--individuals--whose lives he touched and radically altered. Maybe we have to ask ourselves: How do we measure the effectiveness of our ministry? By the number of reports we fill out? By the neatness of our office? By the thick-ness of our files? Or by the individuals we have ministered to and with--and those we have allowed to minister to us? Jesus liked support groups. In fact, he even started one: the apostles. He also went outside that group for the kind of support that those dozen men could not give him. He seemed to need and appreciate the feminine encouragement of a Mary and a Martha, the unique devotion of a Mary Magdalene. The Gospels show Jesus enioying people. He was not always preaching or teaching or giving workshops. He was relaxing in the company of his friends and colleagues. Even in his darkest hour in Gethsemane, he did not "go it alone." He took part of his support group with him: Peter, James, and John. They disappointed him, yes, as people sometimes disappoint us, too. But Jesus understood their weakness and forgave them, knowing his ultimate support group was the Father and the Spirit. Lastly, Jesus was more than a minister, much more. Van Gogh supposedly said, "If you want to know God, love many things." One reason Jesus was so close to God was because he loved so many things, so many varied aspects of life. Jesus was perhaps a carpenter. What can we deduce from that simple fact? He had a "good eye," a highly developed aesthetic sense. He had a steady hand and knew and appreciated wood. Jesus was a storyteller, too, and a fine one. His "Good Samaritan" and "Prodigal Son" are masterpieces. 0nly a person in touch with the core of life could have spun such magnificent yarns. Jesus was well acquainted with other components of life: bread baking, barbecuing, wine making, and farming, to name but a few. He was keenly aware of the political situation of his times. He was in touch with the prejudices of his day as well as the hopes and dreams of his people. He was something of a naturalist, too, sen-sitive to the changing seasons and to the flora and fauna of his Our ministry, in order to be authentic, must cost us something.- in time, in energy, in love. March-April 1992 189 Svoboda ¯ Going the Distance immediate environment. Little wonder Jesus was so effective as a minister--for he was so much more than one. He was a person fascinated by life, and thus he became a source of fascination--and salvation--for others. Yes, Van Gogh said it: "If you want to know God, love many things." But Jesus lived it, leaving an example for all of us who would follow in his footsteps: "If you want to minister, love many things!" The Long-Distance Runner When I taught high school in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the late 70s, I had a senior girl who was a top-ranking long-dis-tance runner. Julie taught me that there is a world of difference between the sprinter and the long-distance runner. The training and techinques are vastly different. The sprinter's goal is near, often clearly visible. He or she relies on a quick burst of energy to reach that goal within a matter of seconds. Because the dis-tance is so short, the sprinter runs side by side, neck and neck, with other runners who provide an impetus for the sprinter to run hard and fast. Not so with the long-distance runner. This runner's goal is miles away, not even visible. He or she must take steps all along the way to conserve energy for the long haul. Pacing becoInes critical. Although the runners in a marathon start out together, toward the end of the race they often find themselves running alone and forced to rely on deep inner resources and not the near-ness of fellow runners to keep them going to the end. The image of the long-distance runner is an appropriate one for those of us engaged in ministry. For most of us are in ministry for the long haul. We do not want our loving service to deterio-rate into a stoic sense of duty, but to remain a joyful gift. We do not want resentment to contaminate our pool of selfless giving. Instead we want our generosity to be alive and well, our com-passion tender and strong. And we wish to carry our enthusiasm for the Good News all the way to the finish line. Thank God, we do not run alone: God, our God, goes with us--the whole distance. 190 Review for Religious HALBERT WEIDNER Newman's Living the Oratory Charism As the biographical approach to writers and thinkers pro-liferates, so does the controversy over its historical worth. I am taking a biographical approach to John Henry Newman with some trepidation because of the length of his life, his great contributions to thought, and the complexities of the issues. Still I am encouraged in the enterprise by Newman him-self, who insisted on the validity of personal influence in the pur-suit of truth) I intend in this essay first to introduce readers to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, which Newman brought to England, and then to discuss the Oratory as important for understanding certain values in Newman's life. Newman arrived at these values and maintained them at some personal cost. That cost represents for this author, another Oratorian, the personal drama of grace and conversion of a founding father among English-speaking Oratories. The Nature of an Oratory of St. Philip Neri The first thing that should be said about an Oratory is what it is not. It is not a religious order. There are no vows, no oaths, no promises of any kind public or private. There is no Rule. You will see a Rule mentioned in the time of Newman, but actually what you have are constitutions representing the practice of the Roman house in the latter part of the sixteenth century.2 Philip Neri was a reluctant founder who refused to write a Rule or con-stitutions. Halbert Weidner CO sends these reflections from the Spiritual Life Center; 2717 Pamoa Road; Honolulu, Hawaii 96822. March-April 1992 191 This irregular founder lived from 1515 until 1595, coming to Rome as a young Florentine in 1533. He was not ordained until he was thirty-six years old. He had been a student, a hermit and mystic, and a member of a reforming confraternity which served sick pilgrims, that is, the poor who became ill while visit-ing Rome. He lived in a set of apartments with other priests as part of a complex named San Girolamo della Carit~. It was in a prayer room at this church that the crowd who could no longer fit into Philip's rooms began to gather daily at the siesta hour for prayer. It was this afternoon gathering of laity which was the first Oratory.3 Perhaps the best description of St. Philip's intent is given by Newman himself in The Idea of a University: He [Philip Neri] was raised up to do a work ahnost peculiar in the church--not to be a Jerome Savonarola, though Philip had a true devotion towards him and a tender mem-ory of his Florentine house; not to be a St. Charles, though in his beaming countenance Philip had recognized the aure-ole of a saint; not to be a St. Ignatius, wrestling with the foe, though Philip was termed the Society~ bell of call, so many subjects did he send to it; not to be a St. Francis Xavier, though Philip had longed to shed his blood for Christ in India with him; not to be a St. Caietan, or hunter of souls, for Philip preferred, as he expressed it, tranquilly to cast in his net to gain them; he preferred to yield to the stream, and direct the current, which he could not stop, of science, literature, art, and fashion, and to sweeten and to sanctify what God had made very good and man had spoilt.4 Those who gathered around Philip found a mystic, a reformer, and a humanist, but they did not find him in a cloister or in any religious order. They found him in his rooms with the doors wide open to the public and surrounded by laity. This is why the Oratory is first and foremost secular. It was this laity that formed the original gathering for prayer in a place of prayer (that is, an oratory) and these same laypersons who preached, led prayers, sang in the vernacular, and studied together each afternoon under Philip's guidance. The Congregation of the Oratory is a secondary group of secular priests and laity which gathered around Philip as the Oratory became less of a movement and more of an institu-tion. But before this, Philip carried on the ministry of prayer and reflection from 1551 until 1575, more or less activating the laity as the leaders. It was in 1575 that a secondary group of priests and brothers had gathered sufficiently to be formally organized 192 Review for Religious with papal approval. But this Congregation was without any con-stitutions and was still primarily organized for the initial group of laity,s Constitutions for the Congregation were not finished until 1612, seventeen years after Philip's death. Later the institution of the congregation became more clericalized as not only the pri-mary group of laity disappeared, but even the brothers were no longer accepted, leaving a congregation of secular priests who lived together in community. While the Oratory is unique within Roman Catholicism, its values represent a mind-set present among many reformers of the early sixteenth century. This reforming spirit is symbolized by the values St. Jerome came to represent within a church loaded down with religious orders heavy on structure and low in spirit. Erasmus had noted that, in the days of St. Jerome, "the profession of a monk consisted in no more than the practice of the original, free, purely Christian life.''6 The summary of Erasmus's thinking about the ideal religious given us in Eugene Rice's St. Jerome in the Renaissance could also be a description of the spirit animating the early Oratory of St. Philip: Monks then were men who wished only to live with willing friends in liberty of spirit close to the teachings of the Gospel. Their lives were sweetly leisured. No ceremonies or man-made regulations fettered them. No single dress was prescribed. No deference was paid to total abstinence. They studied, they fasted, and sang psalms as the spirit moved them. They took no vows.7 This being said, we can note some positive elements in the Congregation of the Oratory: A. It is a center of prayer by nature. The classical form that this prayer takes dates back to the more intimate group that gath-ered in the evening around Philip. This amounts to about a half hour of silent prayer or meditation concluded with vocal prayers. The two-hour prayer sessions led by and for the laity at the time of St. Philip have been the casualty of time. Likewise the primary group of laity called the Oratory has also passed away except for a remnant often called "the Little Oratory." This name is quite ironic since what has become "little" was in fact the biggest and the first of the founder's works, not to say the very reason behind it all. Except for a directive to somehow maintain the secular or "Little Oratory," the ministry of the Congregation is otherwise unspecified and unspecialized. Each house tends to the work at 21/larch-April992 193 The life of an Oratory is said to be built on a deep regard for "well-known faces.' hand, and assignments tend to reflect the talents of the members. Philip Neri was against centralization and so put on its own every house that wished to follow on his general pattern. He believed that duplication was impossible and that each situation called for its own approach. B. Face-to-face association is essential to the Oratory. In a phrase going back to the community's origins, the life of an Oratory is said to be built on a deep regard for "well-known faces.''8 There were no fears to be engendered in an Oratory over friendships, and such a pol-icy militated against large sizes and the anomaly of "communities" of religious who have to resort to books with mem-bers' pictures for help in identification. C. Relative permanence is an ideal even though there are no vows or any-thing else holding a person to an Oratory. Perseverance is a fundamental aspect of the house spirituality and is often prayed for aloud at community prayer. Note that members cannot be transferred from one house to another and that, if they leave a house to go voluntarily to another that has freely accepted them, they must usually transfer membership as well. This means that problems with and among members must be worked out within the house since, obviously, transference cannot be the solution. Dismissal from a house is a rare and difficult pro-cedure. D. Small numbers, then, are the consequence of Oratorian living. The Constitutions of the Congregation go so far as to say that the power of an Oratory resides in such a small membership. Large numbers would weaken a house, which is supposed to be built on interpersonal relationships. When Newman wrote The Present Position of Catholics in England, he was addressing the men of the secular or Little Oratory. Towards the end, he applies this Oratorian principle of strength despite small numbers when he tells them: Your strength lies in your God and your conscience; there-fore it lies not in your number. It lies not in your number any more than in intrigue, or combination, or worldly wisdom. God saves whether by many or by few; you are to aim at 194 Review for Religious showing forth His light, at diffusing "the sweet odor of His knowledge in every place": numbers would not secure this. On the contrary, the more you grew, the more you might be thrown back into yourselves, by the increased animosity and jealousy of your enemies. You are enabled in some mea-sure to mix with them while you are few; you might be thrown back upon yourselves, when you became many? The Oratory, then, exists to embody the ideal of koinonia, liv-ing together as a fruit of the Holy Spirit and a sign of God's rule. The Oratory is very conscious that only the Spirit can keep it together faithful to the charism and that a life of prayer and open-ness is the only way to persevere with any kind of fruitfulness. Community in this context is not a utility, but an end, the pres-ence of each person's final destiny in the communion of saints somehow present now. E. The Oratory is collegial to a unique degree. All major pol-icy decisions are made by the entire congregation of members who have finished six years. Personnel and financial decisions on a smaller scale are decided by a deputed congregation elected by the membership. The provost is the title of the "superior" who holds the office as first among equals. He is chiefly an adminis-trator and his authority rests in moral persuasion. His only clear power is that of proposal since neither the general congregation nor the smaller deputed congregation can discuss or vote on any-thing without this proposal. Since the provost serves only three years, any provost resisting the majority can only hold out for a certain time. E The Congregation of the Oratory is also juridically pon-tifical. Today each house is now part of a very loose confederation, but each is still a complete pontifical congregation. Each superior is a major superior. In Newman's time there was no confederation at all, and so each house was directly involved with the Roman Curia. This gives each small house a double relationship. They are rooted in their diocese and have a special relationship to the local church and the bishop on one hand, and yet on the other look to the Holy See for the preservation of the charism. We shall see how each of the elements of the Oratory Congregation played a role in the life of Newman. Newman and the Oratory I have chosen five aspects of Newman's life where I believe the March-April 1992 195 Oratorian charism was arrived at and purchased at some cost to him. These are: (1) the elasticity of the Oratory and Newman which was tested in his assumption of the rectorship of the Irish Catholic University, (2) the choice he had between a university apostolate and the Oratory during the Irish Catholic University founding, (3) the promotion of the laity in fields rightly theirs that had been co-opted by clericalism, (4) the resistance to foreign cultural aspects of Roman Catholicism in favor of an indigenous English religious life, (5) fidelity to community life in one place and one people. 1. The Elasticity of the Charism I have said that each Oratory has a great deal of elasticity to it as the congregation has no specific work to which its members are bound. This elasticity is from time to time tested within an individual Oratory, and Newman's assumption of the rectorship of a yet-to-be-founded university in Dublin was a very grave exper-iment in just how flexible an Oratory can be. But the flexibility had a true Oratorian origin. First, it was the result of consultation with both Birmingham and the not-yet-independent London house. Father Faber's letter indicates that the London community thought it good for the congregation that Newman assume the rectorship rather than anything less demand-ing, but less powerful.~° Secondly, it took a papal brief confirm-ing the arrangement before the attempt was made to do the impossible, that is, allow Newman to bilocate as provost in Birmingham and rector in Dublin.11 Thirdly, it was specifically for the purpose of starting a Dublin Oratory, and Newman's build-ing plans indicate he gave priority to the Oratory in that the uni-versity church built there was for the sake of a potential foundation.12 But Newman knew how precarious it was for an Oratorian to be away from his house. In a letter to Ambrose St. John he says, "I trust we shall have an Oratory in Dublin--which is the only thing I can bribe St. Philip with for coming here.''13 That it was a disaster emotionally for Newman and a serious drain on the Birmingham Oratory does not make it any less Oratorian for all that. Because of its lack of structure, it is typical of an Oratory to try to do too much rather than too little. It is easy enough to document other Oratories trying to stretch too thin. Thus we have the Oratory of Goa, India, sending Joseph Vaz to Sri Lanka at a time of persecution and in the clothing of a Hindu 196 Review for Religious holy man. There he labors with other Oratorians scattered around the countryside more like clerks regular than sons of St. Philip.14 My own Oratory in South Carolina had members scattered throughout the state during half of its history and only recently and with great difficulty has been able to return all of the mem-bers to a community life.Is During the time of St. Philip, the Oratory took on dependent missions for a while until St. Philip and the community abruptly called a halt to this development.Is So it is Oratorian to push the Oratory to the extreme and perhaps beyond. It is also Oratorian to eventually return to saner limits and the grace of a life closer to the original charism. 2. The Preference for Obscurity If Newman's acceptance of the rectorship pushed the Oratorian charism beyond limits, his fidelity to an Oratorian voca-tion is demonstrated by his resistance to a classic temptation against the life to which he believed God called him. The asceti-cism of the Oratory is a rigorous egalitarianism. Each member has one vote and all are equal and most aspects of the life are governed by the majority when not regulated by the constitu-tions. It was not uncommon among the best and brightest of St. Philip's followers to leave the Oratory, usually under papal "obe-dience," for higher positions in the church. That St. Philip him-self managed to escape or refuse such offers does not seem to be a grace extended to many of his followers. One of St. Philip's aphorisms was "love to be unknown,''17 but it is a hard saying. And it was a grace extended to Newman. Simply put, when presented with a full-time rectorship of the Irish university, Newman chose the small, obscure Oratory of Birmingham, England.I8 He was consistently resistant to any compromise on this point even though the choice seemed impenetrably obscure to both friends and foes. This disregard for the existence, rights, and potential of the Birmingham Oratory was one of Newman's great crosses. Newman complained, "Me they wish to use--me they wish to detach in every way from my own Fathers.''19 Separating an Oratorian from his community has not always been difficult, and there is evidence to indicate that some of these peo-ple thought they were doing Newman a favor by trying to detach him from the Oratory. Another fear of Newman's was the bad effect an absent provost would have on attracting new members to the Birmingham Oratory. This made the arrangement with the March-April 1992 197 university and Archbishop Cullen finally untenable.2° From inside the Oratory, the sacrifice of an outside position seems to be the heart of a vocation that embraces the asceticism of simply being one among many. 3. Maintaining the Preference for Laity The University episode also exemplifies another Oratorian principle, the importance of laicity to church and Oratory. As I have said, in the nineteenth century much of the lay character of the Oratory was atrophied. Only the little Oratory existed in some places and in some forms. Within some of the Congregations there were lay members or "brothers," for want of a better word, but as in most societies defined as congregations of priests, these brothers had no vote and seniority depended on holy orders first and seminary status second; only third came the brothers, who followed the youngest seminarians. But at a time when brothers in clerical communities of priests were treated as second-class members and even much like servants, Newman wrote to the act-ing superior of Birmingham the following directive: I am somewhat pained, my dear Edward, to hear you speak of us as 'Gentlemen--' We are not Gentlemen in con-tradistinction to the Brothers--they are Gentlemen too, by which 1 mean, not only a Catholic, but a polished refined Catholic. The Brothers are our equals . The Father is above the Brothers sacerdotally--but in the Oratory they are equal2~ This is indeed the spirit of St. Philip, whose esteem for the lay members of the congregation as well as of the religious orders was well known. But making this point about equality is still a struggle today within the congregations. In my opinion, if you ask many Oratorians what the Oratory is, they will simply say that it is a community of priests, without communicating at all the possibility of full lay membership and, since the Second Vatican Council, full voting rights. Newman's second contribution as an Oratorian to laicity was his emphasis on the secular Oratory or the Oratory as a lay move-ment. The revival of the secular or Little Oratory was "more important than anything else," at least in his own eyes. He real-ized that this was not a burning isst.e among the other Oratories, but he himself believed that, if the secular Oratory was not estab-lished, then the Congregation of the Oratory should be consid- 198 Review for Religious ered a faih~re.22 It was, as I said, for the secular Oratory that Newman wrote the lectures now called The Present Position of Catholics, and it is this volume I would call Newman's literary con-tribution to laicity. Perhaps Newman would agree with me, as he believed it in his old age to be his "best written book.''23 It is at any rate, in the opinion of Ian Ker, a popular, even Dickens-like piece of wit and rhetoric introducing the grander themes later developed in his explorations of the nature of a university.24 And, finally, it must be noted that for Newman laity meant men and women. Women had not been his-torically part of the secular Oratory, and so he petitioned Rome for a secular Oratory for women. Even though it did not develop, the rescript obtained estab-lished a new precedent.2s It was this regard for laity as essential to the religious enterprise of the Oratory that informs Newman's Idea of a University, where laicity is central to the educational enterprise. In my reckoning, this is his third contribution to laicity, but probably the best-known outside the Oratory. Newman believed that it was his struggle to appoint a lay vice-rector, to define the university as the province of the laity, and to develop self-moti-vated students with a minimum of authority which led to the ruin of the project.26 It was such "dreadful jealousy of the laity," Newman also believed, which led to the rejection of another planned Oratory at another university, this time no less than Oxford itself.27 Secularity and laicity, principles at the heart of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, made it impossible for Newman to spread the congregation when both such principles were feared and rejected by church officials who felt the church to be under siege. That the ability to act and to be respectful of church author-ity were compatible seems to be exemplified in the life of the very independent personality Philip Neri. But, when Newman wished to prove the principle by anecdote, he very cleverly chose the most authoritarian of religious societies, the Jesuits, to make his point: "Nothing great or living can be done except when men are self governed and independent: this is quite consistent with a full maintenance of ecclesiastical supremacy. St. Francis Xavier wrote Regard for the laity as essential to the religious enterprise of the Oratory informs Newman's Idea of a University. March-April 1992 199 to St. Ignatius on his knees; but who will say that St. Francis was not a real center of action?''-'s 4. Preference for the Local Culture Around an Oratory Besides preserving laicity, Newman desired also to preserve English culture within the Roman Catholic Church. St. Philip Neri's emphasis on autonomous houses or congregations was rooted in his belief that each locale had its own culture and that the needs of the place had to be met through this culture. There could be nothing more contrary to the spirit of the Oratory than for any of the congregations to see themselves as the importers of foreign customs. The Italian devotionalism of such an Oratorian figure as the famous Father Frederick Faber of London was really a misguided attempt to re-create not only another culture but also another time. Ironically, the culture and time chosen by Faber was the Baroque era--when the Oratory was spreading through Europe, but a century later than Philip's own time and work. The extravagances of Faber and some other members of the London Oratory would not have been as effective as they were without the backing of the Dublin Review (seen to be the voice of London's Archbishop Manning)29 and W.G. Ward. When Newman had a chance to defend Roman Catholicism against some charges of his old Anglican friend E.B. Pusey, there was also the possibility of distancing that same Catholicism from the foreign enthusiasm of converts like Manning, Ward, and Faber. Newman could declare: "I prefer English habits of belief and devotion to foreign, from the same causes, and by the same right, which jus-tifies foreigners in preferring their own. In following those of my people, I show less singularity, and create less disturbance than if I made a flourish with what is novel and exotic.''3° "What is novel and exotic" to many English Catholics was for the London Oratory the true renewal of Catholicism and of the Congregation of the Oratory at the same time. Father Bernard Dalgairns left the Birmingham Oratory for the London house with a condemnation of Newman and his fellow members who had adopted a position paper which has been called an "Apologia pro vita sua--Oratoriana." 3~ Newman had insisted earlier that an Oratory is "the representative of no distant or foreign interest, but lives a~nong and is contented with its own people.''~-~ The con-troversy with Dalgairns assisted the Birmingham house in defin-ing itself against the London clai~n to be normative)3 200 Review for Religious Birmingham did not issue a counterclaim as the true measure of Oratorian life, but it did insist that its own very English adap-tation to education and culture in its own time and place was cer-tainly an authentic version of Oratorian life. The Idea of a University, with its marvelous panegyric of St. Philip Neri, is the public version of these private Oratory position papers which were worked on at the same time. In short, the Birmingham com-munity saw the idea of the Oratory and the idea of the university as complementary and consistent with each other. That authority within another Oratory, authority in the English Catholic hier-archy, and authority in Rome saw this as dangerous eventually prevented Newman from a university ministry and the founding of two Oratories, the one in Dublin, the other in Oxford. If he had not been thwarted--we can ask not only what effect this would have had on the Catholic Church's presence in higher education, but also what kind of model the Oratory would have become for that presence. ~. Fidelity to One Place and Community If Newman's devotion to the Oratory as a humanistic Christian community making the best of its own time and place cost him considerable loss of influence, it also explains why Newman was always hoisted between the limitations of the local hierarchy and Roman authority. As small as an Oratory usually is, it is nevertheless a community of pontifical right. But, because the members never move out of this small community, it is inti-mately involved in the local church and becomes specially related to the bishop. This arrangement was meant to allow the Oratory to serve both worlds best, but it also means that the Oratory is vulnerable to the worst of both. And it was the worst that Newman often had to suffer. Suffering at the hands of both local officials and Curial bureaucrats was the fate of the Oratory's founder, St. Philip Neri, but it took Newman some time to realize that such was his own unavoidable fate.34 In 1856 he could be sanguine about Roman love of an English house of St. Philip ("Be sure," he wrote, "that, if we are really doing work, Rome will never be hard on us, even if we are informal, imprudent, or arbitrary").35 By the 1860s he had suffered enough to be afraid of Rome calling him to the Curia for trial of his opinions and judgments. He was so afraid that he considered such a prospect as the threat of death.36 The March-April 1992 201 bishop of Birmingham was of no help in the face of Roman threats. Newinan wrote privately in 1867 that Ullathorne "wishes to be kind to me, but to stand well with people at Rome super-sedes in his mind every other wish. So he is a coward.''37 We can be considerably grateful that the insight into the abuses of church power led him to write in 1877 the great preface to the ¼"a Media in which he developed a theology of abuses in the church. He asks us to contemplate the implications of Matthew 13 and to choose the complexities and shortcomings of a world church rather than the narrow confines and perfection of a sect. That is, for the sake of Catholicity, we must realize that sanctity will not always be an equally prominent mark of the church.3s Conclusion The burden of this short paper has been to indicate some areas where Newman cannot be completely understood without a direct reference to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. I would say several areas have been directly touched on. First, there is the mystery Why Birmingham? Why would such a talented person remain faithful to this city when he had been born in London and had adopted Oxford and its university? If living in Birmingham is of any consequence in understanding the mystery of Newman, then only the Oratory suffices for an explanation. Newman consciously rejected the London option because his absence from Birmingham would have been the death of a community wishing to live around him.39 And it is within the mystery of a providence that settled the Oratory in Birmingham that we have the mystery of Newman's fidelity to St. Philip, a fidelity which certainly shaped the field of Newman's activities which we have now inherited. Secondly, knowing the Oratory helps us understand how Newman was able to function as pastor and theologian. He had no official standing in a seminary or a university, and his membership in the Oratory cut him off from preferments in the diocese. Yet, despite the fragility of the Oratory and Newman's vulnerability to his enemies with real power bases, he was able to accomplish much. As a pastor he was perpetually available to a local people, and as a teacher he could, in the Congregation, exercise his tal-ents and find reinforcement of his values. Thirdly, the prophetic stands which he brought to the Roman 202 Review for Religious Catholic Church found a congenial place within the tradition of Philip Neri and the Oratory. Laicity, education, and culture were not feared in the Oratory, but promoted. Certainly the Oratory could accommodate the interests of such a person as Newman, and this I think says a lot for the Oratory. Finally, the Oratory provided an emotional complementarity for Newman. Newman had written that he had "never liked a large Oratory. Twelve working priests has been the limit of my ambition. One cannot love many at one time; one cannot really have many friends.''4° The rather intimate expression of this is found in the well-known conclusion to the Apologia, but I would beg an indulgence to cite a lesser-known example found in Meriol Trevor's Life. Late in life some parishioners brought Newman a portrait of himself as a gift to the Birmingham Oratory. Newman replied to them in these words: You ask for my blessing and I bless you with all my heart, as I desire to be blessed myself. Each one of us has his own individuality, his separate history, his antecedents and his future, his duties, his responsibilities, his solemn trial, and his eternity. May God's grace, His love, His peace rest on all of you, united as you are in the Oratory of St. Philip, on old and young, on confessors and penitents, on teachers and taught, on living and dead. Apart from that grace, that love, that peace, nothing is stable, all things have an end; but the earth will last its time, and while the earth lasts, Holy Church will last, and while the Church lasts, may the Oratory of Birmingham last also, amid the fortunes of many generations one and the same, faithful to St Philip, strong in the protection of our Lady and all Saints, not losing as time goes on its sympathy with its first fathers, whatever may be the burden and interests of its own day, as we in turn now stretch forth our hands with love and awe towards those, our unborn successors, whom on earth we shall never kFIow.41 From the Oratory of Birmingham, England, Newman gives a blessing because he believed his life as an Oratorian was itself a blessing. For this reason the Oratory might merit a considera-tion when we think of Newman and what it cost him to be a Catholic and what it was like for him to rejoice as an old man after a long time not only in the Catholic Church but in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. March-April 1992 203 Notes ~ NewInan's classical exposition of this is found in University Sermons, vol. 5, pp. 75-98, and elucidated very well by Stephen Dessain in The Spirituality offfobn Henry Newman (Minneapolis, 1977), pp. 31-55. But see this theme repeated in an Oratorian context in Newman's Oratory Paper No. 6 in Placid Murray, Newman the Oratorian (Leominster, England, 1968), pp. 215-216. -' For the documentation of the constitutional development of the Congregation, see Antonius Cistellini CO, Collectanea Vetustorum ac Fundamentalium Documentorum Congregationis Oratorii Sancti Philippi Nerii (Brescia, 1982). ~ The more detailed history of this development can be found in Louis Ponnelle and Louis Border, St. Philip Neri and the Roman Society of His Times (London, 1932), pp. 166-173. 4 Idea, Discourse 9, no. 9. ~ Ponnelle and Bordet, pp. 287-381. 6 Erasmus, Ep. 164, in Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmii Roterodami, ed. P. S. Allen, H.M. Allen, and H.W. Garrod (Oxford, 1906-08), quoted in Eugene Rice Jr., Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1985), p. 133. 7 Rice, p. 133. 8 The 1969 Constitutions of the Congregation read in no. 15: "The Congregation follows the primitive Christian community that its char-acteristic power consists not in the multitude of its members, but rather in mutual knowledge--so that there may be a regard for the well-known faces--and in the true bond of love, by which those of the same family may be bound together through the practice of daily customs." See Newman the Oratorian, p. 329, for Newman's familiarity with the con-cept of well-known faces or countenances. ~ Prepos., p. 388. ~o Autobiographical Vt~ritings (AI/V), p. 281. 11AW, p. 286. ~2 Ian Ker, John Henry Newman (Oxford, 1988), p. 433. 13 Letters and Diaries (LD), vol. 14, p. 377. ~4 See S.G. Perera SJ, Life of the Venerable Father Joseph Uaz, Apostle of Ceylon (Galle, 1953). Newman indicates a long-standing knowledge of this special case in a letter written in 1867. ~s There is no history written of this first of the Oratories in the United States, and the archives of the house are very sketchy. There is no written rationale of the house for the scattering of the members, but some effort was made to rotate them back to Rock Hill if they were some distance away. There is an article describing the Rock Hill house written by Edward YVahl, one of the earlier members, in Oratorium, Ann. III, S.I-N. 1, Ian-Iun. 1972, pp. 23-32. ~' Ponnelle and Bordet, pp. 471-474. 204 Review for Religious 17 E A. Agnelli, The Excellencies of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri (Venice, 1825), translated and abridged by F.A. Antrobus, London 1881, chapter 1, section V. is LD, vol. 18, pp. 478,483. 19 LD, vol. 17, p. 447. '-OLD, vol. 18, pp. 114-115. z1 LD, vol. 16, p. 267. 22 LD, vol. 14, p. 274. ,~3 LD, vol. 26, p. 115. 24 Ker, pp. 365-372. 25 LD, vol. 17, p. 137. See Newman the Oratorian, p. 311, for his appre-ciation of the Oratory and women. 26 A~17~ p. 327. 27 LD, vol. 21, p. 327. 28LD, vol. 21, p. 331. ~'9 Ker, p. 579. 3o DiffT, ii, pp. 20-21. 31 Placid Murphy calls these papers another apologia (Newman the Oratoria~l, p. 299). -~'~ Newman the Oratorian, p. 196. 33 Newman the Oratorian, p. 358. 34 The 1848 paper in Newman the Oratorian lists the persecutions Philip suffered (see p. 163). In 1862 he can compare his troubles to the founder's (see AW, pp. 256-257). 35 LD, vol. 17, p. 151. 36 LD, vol. 20, pp. 445-448. ~7 LD, vol. 23, p. 296. 38 See R. Bergeron, LesAbus de L'~glise d'apr& Newman (Paris, 1971), and the annotated edition of Newman's ~a Media (Oxford, 1990), ed. H.D. Weidner. 39 LD, vol. 13, pp. 51-52. 40 Newman the Oratorian. p. 387. 4~ Meriol Trevor, Newman, Light in I:Vinter (New York, 1962), p. 582. March-April 1992 205 DENNIS J. BILLY The Resurrection Kernel theology and spirituality Is there a fundamental principle of the resurrection? The answer to this question depends on the way in which one understands the relationship of history to the reality of the risen Christ. This relationship, in turn, depends on the stance one takes towards the possibility of a transhistorical event and the type of impact it would have on the continuities and discontinuities of historical change. However understood, the impact itself would have vast ramifications for the whole of theology. Resurrection: Distinguishing Idea from Reality At the outset, it may be helpful to distinguish between resurrection (1) as a particular item in the history of ideas and (2) as the reality experienced among the earliest fol-lowers of Christ. The former may be separated from the viewpoint of faith, compared with other ideas about the nature of the afterlife, and evaluated on a rational basis for its various strengths and weaknesses as a viable expla-nation of the nature of life after death. As a transhistori-cal event with historical consequences, the latter is intricately bound to the faith of the primitive Christian community and cannot be studied in such a detached, ana- Dennis J. Billy CSSR continues his reflections on various cen-tral tenets of our faith and their relationship to the vowed life of religious. His address is Accademia Alfonsiana; Via Merulana, 31; C.P. 2458; 00100 Rome, Italy. 206 Review for Religious lyrical manner. Any effort to formulate a fundamental principle of the resurrection must be careful to take both sides of this dis-tinction into account. The Idea of Resurrection. A well-grounded discussion of an idea should begin with an attempt to identify its most distinctive char-acteristics. With respect to its general mean-ing, one could accurately describe the term "resurrection" as a belief common among Christians that, at some point after death, an individual is transformed by the power of the Divinity on every level of his or her anthro-pological makeup--the corporeal, the psy-chological, the spiritual, and the social--and thus raised to a higher level of human exis-tence in a way that always remains in funda-mental continuity with his or her historical, earthly life. The most distinctive marks in this short yet exact account of the idea of resurrection include: (1) personal life after death, (2) in a The idea of resurrection alone safeguards the inviolate dignity of each human being on every level of existence. transformed state, (3) embracing all the anthropological factors of human existence, and (4) in a way continuous with an individual's concrete, earthly life. Each of these elements is essential to the idea of resurrection as it is used in this essay and as it exists in the major Christian traditions. These characteristics also set the idea of resurrection apart from the related idea of bodily resuscitation (for example, the raising of Lazarus, Jn 11:44), as well as from the other major philosophical and religious explanations of the nature of life in the hereafter (for example, the immortality of the soul, reincar-nation, nirvana). When these are compared, the idea of resur-rection distinguishes itselfi (1) from bodily resuscitation, in its emphasis on a transformed existence in life after death; (2) from the immortality of the soul, in its inclusion of all of humanity's anthropological factors in the nature of that existence; (3) from reincarnation, in its rupture of the cycle of time and its insistence on the fundamental continuity of life in the hereafter with a per-son's earthly existence; and (4) from nirvana, in its avowal that final beatitude does not involve the extinction of individual con-sciousness. The greatest strength of the idea of resurrection is March-April 1992 207 that, of all of the ideas about the nature of life after death, it alone safeguards the inviolate dignity of each human being on every level of his or her existence. That is to say that it alone keeps human nature eternally intact while, at the same time, saving the individual from ultimate personal extinction. Its greatest weak-ness is that, in representing the fulfillment of one of the deepest and most profound hopes of the human heart, it seems almost too good to be true, an attractive but highly unlikely possibility. For this reason, of all the ideas of life in the hereafter, resurrec-tion is the one most difficult to accept on the simple basis of faith. The Reality of the Resurrection. Rooted in the hopes of Jewish apoc-alypticism during the centuries just prior to the appearance of Christ, and promulgated during Jesus' own lifetime by the reli-gious elite known as the Pharisees, the idea of resurrection devel-oped to its present form as a result of theological reflection on the nature of the Christ event, most especially in the primitive Christian community's interpretation of the meaning of the apos-tolic experience of the risen Lord. This reflection is intimately tied to the trust that community placed in the validity of the apos-tolic witness and to the experience of faith upon which it rested. It is also the context within which one may speak of the resur-rection not as an idea, but as a reality and a hope. \Vhat precisely happened on the first Easter morning remains shrouded by the subjective awareness of the earliest followers of Jesus. That awareness probably ran the gamut of several emo-tional states--from depression and fear, to suspicion and isola-tion, to incipient faith and the lingering yearning for the retrieval of lost expectations--and most likely varied in each of the persons involved. That is not to say that the event had no basis outside the experience of Jesus' followers, but only that there is no way to determine what it is with any accuracy. It is for this reason that, down through the centuries, the Easter event remains primarily an experience of faith in the lives of Jesus' followers. A distinction must still be made, however, between the faith of those who witnessed the Easter event personally and those whose faith relies on the testimony of the apostles. The procla-mation of the church rests upon the eyewitness accounts of the apostles, that is, on those who made the startling claim to have experienced for themselves the reality of the risen Lord. Their experience of faith remains qualitatively different from that of 208 Review for Religious the believer in the pew, for they claim to have experienced a real-ity outside of themselves, rooted in the objective order, distinct from their own subjectivity, and identified with the person of their Master, Jesus of Nazareth. Without the unprecedented bold-ness and resiliency of these claims, the Christian project would have nothing distinctive in its message and probably would never have gotten off the ground. These apostolic claims emerge from one of two possibilities: the experience of the risen Christ was with or without a basis in the person of Jesus in the external order. That is to say that the experience of the apostles corresponds to a reality outside of themselves or remains entirely subjective in all respects. If the former is true, then the further question must be asked regarding the nature of this basis in the external order. If the latter be true, then the only conclusion to be drawn is that the apostles suffered from self-delusion, that their testimony is false, as is the religion to which it gave rise. The fact that neither of these possibilities can be proven highlights the underlying quality of faith inherent in the conclusions of both the believer and non-believer alike. Still more can be said about the position of the believer. If the apostolic experience of the risen Christ does have an external basis in the person of Jesus, then this affirmation, when combined with the idea of resurrection developed earlier in this essay, nec-essarily points to an event of singular historical significance. Indeed, this event could be measured by the instruments of his-torical observation only by its effects (for example, a missing body) and, for this reason, must be placed in a category unique to itself and understood as a transhistorical event with historical conse-quences. This is so precisely because the risen Christ, existing in a transformed state but in a way continuous with his earthly life, does not lead "a historical existence" in the way in which the phrase is commonly used. That is to say that space and time no longer set the limits for his physical existence. In his resurrected state, Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, a singular dimension unique unto himself, who recapitulates, both now and forever, all The Easter event remains primarily an experience of faith in the lives of lesus" followers. March-April 1992 209 of creation within himself, into the love of the Father and the joy of their Spirit. The Resurrection Kernel From all that has been said, a sound formulation of the fun-damental principle of the resurrection (the resurrection kernel) would consist in the affirmation of faith that the idea of resur-rection has become a reality in the risen Christ. This reality is rooted in the transhistorical nature of the Christ event, whose historical consequences linger even to this day in the ongoing proclamation of the church. Based on the testimony of its apos-tolic forebears, the church has, in its ministry down through the centuries, kept alive for humanity the fervent hope that the deep-est yearnings of the human heart will one day be fully realized. That is to say that the transformation wrought by God in Christ promises to extend itself to all who are incorporated into his body, the church. In this respect, a sharing in the life of the risen Lord may be looked upon as the ultimate destiny of all of humankind and will be impeded only by a stubborn individual or corporate persistence in the life of sin. Given the above formulation, a number of important obser-vations arise: (1) To affirm that an idea has become a reality is to utilize the well-known philosophical distinction between the internal (that is, subjective) and external (that is, objective) orders. The limitations of this distinction are well known, and care must be taken not to stretch the analogy beyond its avowed usefulness. Indeed, special care must be taken not to project the concerns of the so-called critical problem back to a time before its signifi-cance was entirely known. (2) God the Father is the primary agent in bringing about this realization in Christ. Since idea and reality are intimately connected in the Divinity's vision of itself, the resurrection of Christ may be viewed as a providential movement on the part of the Father to bring the plan of redemption in accord with the working of the Divine Mind, that is, the Logos. In this respect, Christ's resurrection is that event which, touching upon history but transcending time, initiates the ultimate return of all created things back to God. (3) This view of Christ's resurrection also sheds light upon 210 Review for Religious the development in the early church of the doctrine of the incar-nation. If it is true that, in Christ's resurrection, flesh has been divinized and lifted up into the reality of the Word, it follows that, at some point prior to this momentous occasion, the Word itself had descended into the reality of human flesh and had become a human person. Putting aside for the moment the vari-ous intricacies involved in discussing the Christological contro-versies in the early centuries of the church, it seems quite appropriate to say that the doctrines of Christ's incarnation and resurrection form two aspects of a single salvific event which, if one were to borrow the Neoplatonic exitus/reditus structure adopted by Aquinas, represents the recreatio,z of all things going out of (exitus) and going back (reditus) to God. It is in this sense that all things are recapitulated in Christ, the New Adam. (4) As described above, the resurrection is not merely the state of Christ's postmortem existence, but an intricate part of the whole process of redemption. If Christ's exitu} from the Father reaches its furthest extension in his passion and death on the cross (described in the Creed as his descent into hell), his reditus is ush-ered in by the events of Easter morning, and his Spirit is the prin-ciple by which all things continue to be gathered into his body and thus into the presence of the Father. (5) As a transhistorical event with historical consequences, the resurrection of Christ exists outside of but in relation to the realm of historical inquiry. In this regard, it lies beyond the realm of scientific investigation and can be affirmed only through faith in the testimony of those claiming to have actually experienced Jesus after his death. That is not to say that the apostles did not experience outside of themselves in the exter-nal order, but only that the basis for their experience cannot be verified. (6) Indeed, probably the only historical consequence of mea-surable scientific value would have been the disappearance of Jesus' body at the actual moment of his resurrection. Since the precise whereabouts of the body was a point of contention even in the initial aftermath of the Easter proclamation (Mt 28:13), one must conclude that, although its disappearance could have been verified, if not scientifically, then at least through pagan eyewitness accounts, it obviously was not. (7) On all other points, the detached observer would not be able to separate the subjective experience of the apostles from March-April 1992 211 the reality of the risen Christ. There would, in other words, have been no way of determining whether or not they were actually experiencing anything beyond their own intensified inner aware-ness. The singularity of this experience would be expected if a transhistorical event were to occur and be experienced in its his-torical consequences. (8) To the extent that it is not based on direct experience but on the testimony of others, the faith of the church is qualitatively different from the faith of the apostles. Not only does it point to the conviction of those who claimed to have experienced the risen Lord, but, in one respect, it is even a purer experience of faith: "Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe" (Jn 20:29). (9) Belief in the risen Christ keeps alive in people the hope that, after death, their lives will not end, but merely change. Because of Christ's resurrection, they look forward to a trans-formed existence in the hereafter, one in continuity with their own lives on earth. Sustained by a believer's prayerful response to the contetnporary challenges of Christian discipleship, this hope forms the basis upon which life in the resurrection is anticipated even in the present. (10) Through their participation in the ministry and life of the church, people receive a foretaste of this transformed exis-tence, especially when they partake of the sacraments around the table of the Lord. It was at the Eucharist where Jesus' disciples recognized him in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24:30). It is there where Christians, even to this day, gather to do the same. This is especially true for those who dedicate their lives to Christ through the following of the evangelical counsels. Religious and the Resurrection In their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, religious strive to center their lives upon the reality of the risen Christ. They seek to do so by virtue of their firtn conviction that they are called to share in the life of the resurrection by making the idea of the vows a lived reality in their day-to-day existence. Christ, who exhibited both before and after his resurrection a life dedicated to the Father through the eschatological signs of the evangelical counsels, asks religious to do the same. The strength to do so comes from Christ and is mediated by his Spirit through his church and its ministry of the sacraments. While such dedi- 212 Review for Religious cation is never fully realized in the present, religious are called to imitate Christ throughout their entire lives. It is for this reason that, at the end of their earthly lives, they hope to share in the full-ness of his transformed existence. In their vowed life in common, religious pledge to give them-selves over entirely to the life of the risen Lord. In their vow of poverty, they seek both physical and spiritual detachment from material goods, doing so not out of a suspicion about the fundamental good-ness of creation, but from the convic-tion that it too will undergo a transformation in the fullness of Christ's kingdom. In their vow of chastity, they promise to forgo the goods of marriage, children, and sexual pleasure, thereby accepting Christ's Gospel declaration that there will be neither husband nor wife in the life to come (Lk 20:35) and that, even in the realm of relationships, all who abide in him will live a trans-formed existence. In their vow of obe-dience, they promise to accept the will of their superiors as a manifestation of God's plan for their lives, thus hoping to estab-lish within themselves a continual movement of accord between their own wills and that of the their risen Lord. Finally, in their communal existence, they hold each other accountable for the way of life they have chosen and seek to reflect in their mutual relations that dignity and care appropriate to those who are called to be members of Christ's body. By means of their individual and communal dedication to the evangelical counsels, it is clear that religious seek, even in this present life, a deeper share in the life of the resurrection. Through their vowed life in community, religious thus provide a faithful witness for themselves, the rest of the church, and the entire world that the idea of resurrection has not only been made a reality in Christ but that it is striving, at this very moment, to be realized in the lives of those who believe. In this respect, their witness affirms the movement of Christ's Spirit in the life of the church and provides a foretaste of the life to come. That is not to say that religious embody this charismatic dimension of the church better or more faithfully than any of the other vocations within the Belief in the risen Christ keeps alive in people the hope that, after death, their lives will not end, but merely change. March-April 1992 213 church (for example: single, married, priestly states), but only that their way of life is especially suited to it. Of its very nature, the religious life forIns a part of the charismatic dimension of the church. Indeed, to the extent that religious communities do not manifest to both others and themselves the gentle yet challenging presence of the Spirit, they fall short of the explicit nature of their call to center their lives entirely around the reality of the risen Christ. He it was who first imparted the Holy Spirit to his body, the church. He it is who continues to do so even to the present day. Through their faithfulness to the vows, lived in community and in the Spirit, religious seek mainly to nourish their relation-ship with the risen Christ. This personal relationship to the Lord motivates all of their activity for the establishment of God's king-dom; it is also what draws others to follow their particular way of life. Indeed, the care with which they tend this relationship is itself a sign that the reality of Christ's resurrection is meant for all to share and experience in all its fullness. In this respect, reli-gious must be ever conscious that their vowed life in common has little meaning if it is separated from life in the Spirit of the risen Christ and seen as an end in itself. To be sure, there is noth-ing sadder in the life of the church than to see individual reli-gious and, at times, entire communities lose sight of the meaning of their vocation. When people of such great promise and poten-tial compromise themselves and begin to believe that the Spirit is no longer active in their lives and that things will never change for the better, when men and women, who are called to be signs of hope, begin to believe in the voices of hopelessness, then the time is ripe for a prophet to arise within their midst to challenge them to come back to the Lord and to live the life to which they have been called. At the same time, there is nothing more joyful in the life of the church than to see men and women who, out of love for their Lord, renounce the very things for which they most actually strive during their sojourn on earth. To live in poverty, without children or spouse, and without full personal liberty provides oth-ers with the constantly needed reminder that the fullness of riches, family life, and freedom is ultimately found only in one's rela-tionship to him whom the apostles acclaimed to be truly risen. 214 Review for Religious Conclusion This essay has sought to outline the basic, underlying principle of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. It has done so, on the one hand, by describing in as precise detail as possible the mean-ing of the idea of resurrection as under-stood in the church's teaching and, on the other hand, by looking into some of the fundamental presuppositions regarding the resurrection of Christ as experienced by his earliest followers. Bringing these two currents of inquiry together, the funda-mental principle of the resurrection (the resurrection kernel) was described as the affirmation of faith that the idea of resur-rection has become a reality in the risen Christ. Seen as a transhistorical event with historical consequences, the acclaimed res-urrection of Jesus of Nazareth lies, for all practical purposes, beyond the scope of scientific verification and remains inti- Through their faithfulness to the vows, lived in community and in the Spirit, religious seek mainly to nourish their relationship with the risen Christ. mately tied to the internal, subjective event of faith to which it gave life. That is not to say that Jesus' resurrection has no ground in the external order, but only that it ultimately lies beyond the scope of controlled observation. In this respect, the faith experi-ence of those who experienced the risen Lord is qualitatively dif-ferent from that of those whose faith rests upon their testimony. Blessed precisely because they believe without seeing, today's believers share in the hope of their own transformed existence which, through their experience of the Spirit in the church com-munity of the faithful, may be experienced even now in the quiet anticipation of the fullness of a reality yet to come. They bring their hearts' deepest yearning for the fullest presence of the risen Christ to the table of the Lord, where they are blessed with a glimpse of

Issue 49.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1990. ; Religious Life Spirituality The Clericalization of Monasticism =Thomas Merton and the Enneagram Directing the Third Week Volume 49 Number 2 March/April 1990 R~\'u~w~:o~ R~:~.l(mms (ISSN 0034-639X) is published hi-monthly at St. Louis Universily by the Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of Ihe Society of Jesus: Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Blvd. Rrn. 42g: St. Lxmis. MO 6310g-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. b,~uis MO. Single copies $3.50. Subscriptions: United States $15.00 for one year: $28.00 Ibr two years. Other countries: US $20.00 for one year: if airmail. US $35.00 p~r year. For subscription orders or change of address. wrile: Rt~','ll~w I:oR RI~i.IGOUs: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth. MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to R~:\'~:w rot R~:u~;mus; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. ©1990 REview For REI,IGIOUS. David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. 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Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS . The desire for new life, new ideas, new expressions, new insights permeates the everyday existence of us all. Modern day advertising and the consumer economy of first world countries continuously search out the ways to sell products, not in terms of real needs, but in terms of in-duced needs for something new. Consumerism builds upon the human desire for the new, while at the same time offsetting the equally strong human tendency to remain comfortably entrenched in the familiar. The Church seasons of Lent and Easter confront us all with our de-sires for the new and with our equally strong tendency to remain firmly entrenched where we are. The dialogue between Nicodemus and Jesus in the third chapter of St. John's Gospel captures well the continuing ex-change between the Christian and God, clearly focused during these Church seasons. Approaching God out of a certain darkness in our lives, we seek new life and new growth, a new understanding of our faith, or a new sense of relationship with God and with neighbor. But when God starts indicating a dying to some familiar life patterns, when God starts pointing the way to "being born anew," we are tempted to laugh it .off, to claim we are "too old" to need that kind of change. Why not a little "renewal," perhaps a little "restoration," or maybe even an attempt to "recapture" past devotion or past grace (charism)? Any of these words seem to allow ias to keep some measure of control, to retain some-thing of the old and familiar, and yet to pray and give God a place. Rebirth--to be born anew--remains the challenge of Lent and Eas-ter. Rebirth means the dying and rising--the pattern of the paschal mys-tery- which we Christians celebrate in the daily Eucharist. More clearly in these Lenten and Easter seasons we come face-to-face with the most traditional faith concept--that it is the Spirit who brings to birth and who gives life, in our continuing personal growth in our life-in-Christ, in the life of our religious congregations, and in the life of our Church both lo-cal and larger. Our personal response to being born anew is taken up in the articles "Directing the Third Week" by Joseph P. Cassidy, S.J. and "The Theme of Joy in the Spiritual Exercises" by Joan Mueller, O.S.F. We are given new insight into our call and our response to new life in the articles "Will the Real Prodigal Son Please Stand Up?" by Christine Ere-iser, O.S.B. and "Redemption and Romantic Melancholy: Thomas Mer-ton and the Enneagram" by Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. "The Re-demption Kernel" by Dennis J. Billy, C.SS.R., presents a new theologi-cal approach in understanding dying and rising, with special application 161 169 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 to religious life. Robert T. Sears, S.J., in his article "Resurrection Spiri-tuality and Healing the Earth," expands our vision about Jesus' resur-rection affecting the ecology of our whole world andso giving us the re-sponsibility of a new life-healing power. Finally those articles specifically dealing with renewal and transfor-mation in the congregations of women and men religious indicate the ar-eas of present struggle, the history of a sometimes laborious develop-ment, and the proposed costly future of new life. The various authors-- Stephen Tutas, S.M., Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., Anne O'Brien, gsic, and Lora Ann Quinofiez, C.D.Po and Mary Daniel Turner, S.N.D., de N.--invite us into seeing and knowing a life beyond renewal and trans-formation, a birth which only the Spirit can bring about for the future of religious life. May the joy with which the risen Jesus consoles us now become more richly our experience of new life. David L. Fleming, S.J. Resurrection Spirituality and Healing the Earth Robert T. Sears, S.J. Father Robert Sears, S.J., teaches in the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola Uni-versity in Chicago. This article had its origin in a presentation made to the North American Conference for Christianity and Ecology. His address is 5554 S. Wood-lawn Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60637. Those involved in ecology and those involved in a healing ministry are for the most part on two different tracks. The one is focused on a scien-tific study of evolution and the interdependence of creation, the other on individual hurts with little attention to environment. My own healing min-istry, on the other hand, has led me little by little to concern for the en-vironment. I began with attention on the individual, then was led to see family relationships into past generations as grounding present destruc-tive patterns. And only recently have I become aware that the environ-ment itself is affected by these destructive patterns and needs healing. Several experiences have brought me to this conclusion. In the first place, there is evidence that places are affected by what occurs on them. Barbara Shlemon, noted for her healing ministry, has observed the ongoing destructive influence violence can have on certain places. She felt called to build a healing center in Clearwater, Florida but over a year's time could not find a place. With two others she prayed for guidance and one member thought of Native Americans. They looked into the history of that region and found that it was the location of a war with the Seminole Indians where it is estimated that some 10,000 to 15,000 Seminole Indians died as we took their land. They had a service of reconciliation, asking forgiveness of the Indians for what our ances-tors did then. The very next day an ideal piece of land opened up for 163 "164 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 them! It was as though God would not give the land till reparation was made for that violence. I will speak later of an instance in my experi-ence from Chicago. The civil war Camp Douglas lay between Thirty-first and Thirty-third streets and Cottage Grove. Some 6000 Confeder-ate soldiers died there in inhuman conditions, and when we went there to pray for healing, we found that prime property still overgrown and in ruins. Secondly, we have some experimental evidence that plants at least remember. Cleve Backster, an expert on the psychogalvanic skin re-sponse that is basic to the lie detector, decided one day to attach the elec-trodes to a tropical plant in his office. ~ He wondered if the plant would respond to cutting it. It did, but not as much as he expected. He then thought he would burn its leaves, and even at the thought the graph showed a violent response. The plant seemed to be able to anticipate his intended violence. He then set up a situation where plants could "wit-ness" a destructive action. Six people were selected and given numbers. All but one were instructed on their paper to go into the room, look at the plants, and leave. One was instructed to tear up and stamp on one of two plants in the room and then leave. Electrodes were attached to the remaining "witness" plant, and each person again went into the room. Only the plant "knew" who was responsible! There was no re-sponse for the five innocent persons, but when the culprit went into the room the plant responded vigorously, as if in fear. It seems to have re-membered. 2 Finally, Dr. Kenneth McAII, an English psychiatrist noted for his heal-ing ministry with family systems, was traveling by banana boat over the Bermuda Triangle (a place formed by an imaginary line between Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda where for hundreds of years ships and aircraft had gone down without a trace) when the boat was caught in a terrible storm.3 In escaping south, one of the ship's boilers broke leaving them adrift. In his quiet leisure, he heard a droning outside. It wasn't the crew. Researching, he found that this was the place unfit slaves were thrown overboard so their owners could collect insurance money. As Genesis 4 said of Cain's killing Abel "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil," these souls were crying out from the sea. On returning to En-gland, Dr. McAI! got Anglican bishops in various places to celebrate Eucharist for those who lost their lives in an untimely way in that place, and later the Bermuda Anglican bishop did the same. For five years be-tween that celebration (in 1977) and his book (1982), there had been no reported accident in that region. Resurrection Spirituality We are dealing with incidents that are hard to repeat scientifically, but such evidence supports a view of the world as living and responsive to what occurs on it. Much like humans who are God's most developed creatures, the earth seems to be marked by past experience. Can it be healed? What implications might result for the earth if humans under-stood how to assist in this healing? It is my conviction that a deeper un-derstanding of the resurrection of Jesus would help us bring healing not only to humans but also to the earth. I will begin by relating creation-centered spirituality to a focus on resurrection. Resurrection-Centered Spirituality A recent focus on the importance of celebrating creation and joining its creative impulse is the work of Matthew Fox: Creation-centered spiri-tuality (see his Original Blessing: a Primer in Creation SpiritualiO, (Bear & Co. Inc., 1983). Fox sees traditional spirituality (which he terms Fall/ Redemption spirituality as instanced in Augustine, Thomas h Kempis up to Tanqueray) as dualistic, focused on the danger of sensuality and earthiness and on the need for ascetical restraint. He argues for another tradition which he finds in the Yahwist, wisdom writers, lrenaeus, Eck-hart up to Teilhard de Chardin, which is basically positive toward crea-tion. In his view Fall/Redemption spirituality sees little value in science, focuses on original sin and its effects, encourages detachment from the world and moral self-control and awaits the end of the world rather than its transformation. Creation spirituality, on the other hand, welcomes the discoveries of science as revealing the creator, focuses on the blessing of creation and our God-given commission to care for it, moves beyond moralistic negation of human action to a sense of communion with na-ture, and believes in the ultimate goodness and creativity of the cosmos. He wants to move beyond a focus on guilt to a focus on spiritual growth. He presents four stages from the work of Eckhart: befriending creation, befriending darkness, befriending creativity or our inner divinity, and be-friending new creation and universal compassion. I found myself in tune with those goals, but not with Fox's negation of the Fall/Redemption tra-dition. It gradually dawned on me that those very goals are restored to us through the resurrection of Jesus. Let me explain. It was Teilhard who turned our attention first to many of these themes. When he was in the novitiate, he told his director about his de-sire for both spirituality and science, and his wise novice director encour-aged him to pursue both, believing that God would somehow bring them into unity. His focus on evolutign did make theologians suspicious that he was neglecting original sin. In response he wrote an appendix to The 166 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 Phenomenon of Man explaining that evil was discoverable at every level of evolution, even though he chose not to speak of it for the sake of clar-ity, There is the evil of failure and disorder in adjusting and emerging, the evil of decomposition of the present to make room for the new, the evil of solitude and anxiety (especially for humans) in striving for con-sciousness in a dark universe, and the evil of growth itself--the constant struggle to make progress against the inertia and resistance of the pre-sent state. Whether further there is an excess of evil, stemming from an historic tragedy, he declines in that study to say. What he does persua-sively illustrate is that humans emerge as a higher consciousness within an evolving universe filled with seeds of new creation. We must choose, and in choosing we bring creation with us for better or worse. By our choices we develop a human "layer" of evolution, a noosphere, that af-fects everything. We create culture and "history," and we, in turn, are influenced by that history. We need only look at our technological world which drives our days with given hours and our attention with narrowly determined tasks to see how we are formed and informed by our crea-tions. Yes we are faced with new possibilities and creative challenges, but new creation is conditioned by the patterns we have grown accus-tomed to: our compulsion to consume and to live by an ever increasing standard of consumption. What will empower us to change? It is this awareness of historical conditioning that makes me take more seriously than Fox seems to the doctrine of original sin. Granted the doctrine as developed by Augustine needs reconsideration, still its roots are the biblical insight that our evil choices have a history. It is not enough to change our present attitudes because the present is conditioned by the choices made in our past. Our ancestors need healing and the earth affected by our ancestors needs healing. Joy in creation cannot accom-plish the earth's healing alone. We need redemption, yet a redemption that does not separate us from the earth but empowers us to purify the earth and bring it into wholeness. Redemption must be more than per-sonal. It must extend to the whole of creation. The resurrection of Jesus changed his sinful, unreliable disciples into a powerful community of com-passion. Can we expand our view of the resurrection to include its power to restore the earth? Let us see. Stages of Salvation History Both Freud and Jung worked on the assumption that the growth of the individual in a speeded up way goes through the stages of evolution-- from emergence out of water to the unfolding of human physical and psy-chological life. This evolutionary view need not be seen as contrary to Resurrection Spirituality/167 creation, since God's creativity is always required. It simply describes how God creates. What I have found is that human spiritual growth also recapitulates the stages of salvation history, and it is only in light of sal-vation history that the resurrection as its culmination can be fully under-stood. I have found five such stages culminating in the death/resurrec-tion of Jesus as the goal of the process: initial faith (Yahwist), familial faith (Elohist/Deuteronomist), individuating faith (Exilic prophets and Job), communitarian faith (foreseen in Isaiah 53, first lived in Jesus) and mission faith (revealed in Pentecost).4 Let us begin with individuating faith. Ezekiel 18 cites the saying: "You have heard it said that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." It then goes on to say: "That will no longer be said in Israel, for the children are mine as well as the fathers." They had been living by a so-called "conditional covenant" that af-firmed: "if you keep my law, then you will be my people." That cove-nant, Yahweh affirms, they have broken (see also Jr 31:32), and it is ab-rogated. Yet in this breakdown there is a breakthrough of a promised "new covenant" when Yahweh says: "I will put my Spirit within you and make you live by my statutes" (Ez 36:27). lndividuating faith, then, is a breakdown of human effort and a turning of each individual to God's initiative. I experienced this personally through a period of depression while studying theology in Germany. I began studying Freud to get some understanding, but was still depressed. Then one author led me to Isaiah 43:18 (written during the Exile): "remember not the events of the past ¯ . . See I am doing something new." In other words, healing would come from God's present creativity, not from my efforts to re.pair the past. From that central breakthrough (Israel's and my own), I saw that mere keeping the law (familial faith) was no longer enough. In that stage "The sins of the fathers/mothers are handed down to four generations (and more in my experience), the blessings to a thousand" (see Dt 5:9f, Ex 20:5-6 and so forth). In other words the patterns of history are handed down for better or worse till there is a collapse of human efforts and an inbreaking of God's new creation. Even before that concentration on hu-man cooperation through law, there is (in the Yahwist, Gn 2-3, 12:1-5 and others who wrote in the time of David) a focus on trusting Yahweh in order to find life. That universal trust, however, gave rise to intermar-riage and distortion of faith in Yahweh (as it can do whenever we lose the specificity of our faith) and so encountered the prophetic challenge of the Elohist and Deuteronomist. We see the result of even this human "161~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 effort in their Exile. Once we turn to Yahweh's spirit ourselves, we need to find the spirit in others. This we do by the forgiveness of enemies which I believe we find first only in the ministry of Jesus, though it was foreseen and for-gotten in Isaiah 53--the suffering servant. This stage of unconditional forgiveness allows us to remain faithful even to unfaithful partners (as Jesus did with Israel) and so to die that others might live. It forms the basis for the compassionate community that Matthew Fox envisioned. And finally, the actual gift of life in union with God releases a new communal reality through the Pentecostal power of the Spirit. Through the Spirit Jesus' death/resurrection builds a living, self-giving commu-nity that is open to all and to all creation. I contend that it is through this transformation of humanity that ultimately the earth itself will be trans-formed. The ground and goal of this development is God who raised Christ from the dead. The norm of who God is is not creation alone, but the life/death and resurrection of Jesus. "Who sees me sees the Father" (Jn 14:9). God's suffering love surrendered his own Son for us, and through Jesus' response of self-surrender the Spirit of self-giving love is sent and revealed. God is revealed as a community of self-giving love in this world-forming event. This pattern of stages is fully revealed in Jesus, but is lived out cy-clically. Individually or communally we can have a breakthrough to a new stage but then regress to a previous stage. This, I believe, is what happened in the Church. With the failure to convert Israel, the message of Christ went to the gentiles who were not prepared with the solidarity of a thousand year history. The gifts of the Spirit led to factions as we see in the Corinthian community and in the Didache. The central gift of the Spirit of forgiving love that builds the self-giving community was su-perseded by the need for institution and discipline (my "familial stage"). Structure and control replaced healing as focus of attention. As in Jesus' time, I believe we are again emerging from the familial stage of development to recognize again our need for forgiveness and healing. Healing the Human Family In order to understand the healing brought by the resurrection, we need to look at sin in history. The Yahwist, who first wrote of the sin of our original ancestors, did so by first looking at the sin of his day (the time of David). It was a time of domination and exploitation, of loss of faith in Yahweh because of the multiple marriages of kings like Solo-mon, of alienation of families torn by strife. If Yahweh was all good, Resurrection Spirituality 169 how could this happen? The Yahwist concluded (see Gn 2-3) that ~t was due to a freely chosen loss of faith in Yahweh. Humans were the culmi-nation of Yahweh's creation, formed from the earth, given the power to name (and so direct) creation and the commission to subdue the earth and bring it to order. All creation served humans, as humans served God. But they chose their own way and not only did they hide from Yahweh, but they also blamed and were alienated from one another. God gave as pun-ishment that Adam would dominate his wife and the woman would cling to her man, and the earth would be hard to till and not graciously yield crops. The Yahwist was symbolically telling the story of sin. Humans were given care for the earth, but when they turned from God, the source of creativity, they could only use power, dominance, and force. Further, this beginning continued in history. Cain doubted his accept-ability, envied and then killed Abel. Domination and enmity, social and sexual sin were handed down generation to generation to the Yahwist's own day. His solution was a return to trust in Yahweh as Abraham did (Gn 12: 1-5). But as we have seen, Israel proved incapable of such trust. God's Spirit was promised "to make them keep God's Law," but cen-turies passed. A similar envy and hatred of one gifted by God led to Je-sus' death. The heritage of sin exploded around him. The earth quaked and shook the foundations, as though being exorcized from an ancient wound. What began its healing was not a simple trust in God's good-ness. It was Jesus' willingness to forgive and trust God while suffering the effects of human sin. Such generational patterns, we find, change only when they are understood, compassionately borne, and forgiven. This is how we can view Jesus' resurrection. As human he inherited his nation's sinful temptations (see his baptism "to fulfill all justice" (Mt 3: 14-5) and his temptations which were like those of Israel). Yet he re-sponded with a surrendered trust in God. Under God he showed he had "authority" over storm and sea, and over the fig tree. Yet he freely bore the hatred of the Jewish leaders and Romans. His death culminated a life of trust in God, and through his resurrection he "sent" the Spirit to con-tinue this new life with his disciples. What Adam was called to and lost by distrust, Christ restored not on the basis of the old creation, but by the "new creation" through his resurrection. The world is restored to God's favor not by a return to the past (creation), but by a reconciling call from the future--the resurrection. It is important to understand the resurrection as such a restoration in this world. The Resurrection Firstly, the resurrection is an event in this world. It is not uncom- 170 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 mon to imagine the resurrection as Jesus' reward.apart from this world. He has made it and motivates us to try harder. Scripture presents a very different view. Peter's sermon in Acts points to the gift of the Holy Spirit as the sign that Jesus has been made "Lord and Messiah" (Ac 2:36). The resurrection meant that Jesus was made Lord over the whole earth. As Paul put it: "God . . . put all enemies under his feet" so that he in turn can subject all to God "that God may be all in all" (I Co 15:28). This is expressed in the earliest Creed: "Jesus Christ is Lord" (Ph 2:11). Far from separating Jesus from the world, the resurrection unites him to the world in a new sovereign way to bring everything to its intended goal of the kingdom of God. Secondly, the resurrection is a now event. A second misconception is that the resurrection is a past event rewarding Jesus. In the resurrec-tion Jesus returns to God and opens creation to union with God. Since God's Time is an eternal now, the resurrection is also an eternal now. That means it touches all time and all space. It affects the heart of every creature with a deepened and more absolute hope. It is not a particular event that we canlocate in a particular space and time. It is an event that transcends our concept of space and time, and is universally available if we but call upon the Lord. Thirdly, it is not merely spiritual but also bodily. All the apparitions point to bodily aspects: eating fish, touching his side or clinging to him, seeing him though some doubted. The resurrection is, as Teilhard might say, a new phylum in our world, the basis for building all believers into a new Body, a new family that is based not on blood ties or cultural ties, but on faith in Jesus as Lord and on the power of God's Spirit. Since it is a bodily event, it also penetrates the depths of bodiliness and so of the earth. As Colossians says, "It has pleased God to make absolute full-ness reside in him, and by means of him to reconcile everything in his person, both on earth and in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross. "( !: 19-20). Fourthly, therefore, in Jesus' resurrection the whole of creation has a new beginning, a new creation. This is the ultimate ground of spiritual healing. Spiritual healing is not simply a repairing of wounds, like re-parenting because of wounds from one's parents. It is actually creating anew. As Isaiah 43 taughtme: "Do not look at what is behind, behold I make all things new." I realized that healing came from looking at God's ever present creativity, not at one's problems. God's love heals our basic distrust. God's love gives us power to forgive rather than re-bel against our heritage in the familial faith stage. I have come to see Resurrection Spirituality that Jesus' resurrection restores our link to the creativity of God. He is the 'new Adam" (1 Co 15:22), the ground of our new family in God. He is also the one who fulfills God's command to Adam--increase and multiply, subdue the earth and bring it into order. As Lord, Jesus has this power to create anew in right order. It was Teilhard who called our attention to three basic principles of ongoing creation or evolution: differentiation, increasing interiority, and deepened community. Every new stage of evolution--molecules to life to sensation to thought--shows increased complexity or differentiation, increased self-activity or freedom, and all this in a total unity. If resur-rection is the final point of creation, a new creation from God, does it show these principles to the highest degree? It does. The Spirit from God gives each a "different" gift "for the building of the body." Differen-tiation and community are both increased as we see in the free sharing with the community that occurred in response to the Spirit in Acts. And the Spirit frees us to our deepest truth. The resurrection is a life at work in our deepest depths calling us through intimacy with Jesus, the Spirit, and our loving Creator. Finally, it is through sharing in the resurrected life of Jesus that we share Jesus' Lordship and power to heal. The miracles of Jesus (show-ing his power over materiality) are expressions of the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. We are to do "even greater works" (Jn 14:12). Jesus' power over the storm at sea (Mt 14:22-33) and over the fig tree (Mt 21:18-22) are not presented as unique to him. Jesus com-plains about their "little faith" and says if they had faith as a mustard seed they could say to the mountain "go into the sea," and it would obey. "If we die with Christ," Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:11-12, "we shall also live with him; if we hold out to the end we shall also reign with him." Andagain in Romans 5:i7: "If death began its reign through one man because of his offense, much more shall those who receive the overflowing grace and gift of justice [grace from Jesus' resurrection] reign through the one man, Jesus Christ." The disciples are to share Je-sus' rule which extends not only to believers but to the whole world (the whole universe). We share this rule not by our own power but as chan-nels of the Spirit--the resurrected power of Jesus, 'for without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). Thus, in the scriptural view, the gifts that were meant for humans from the beginning of creation--union with God, rule over the earth that would respond fruitfully, partnership between men and women and the power to bless their offspring--were lost through Adam and Eve's sin 179 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 but restored through the death/resurrection of Jesus. We are to live now in the power of the resurrection or new creation, not just by union with world creativity. Resurrection differs from creation in that it is centered in a personal relation to Jesus (whether explicitly confessed or implic-itly lived through love) and has at least the following characteristics: a commitment beyond feeling (as revealed in Jesus' death in fidelity to God), creative community beyond failure (as seen in his disciples' re-newed community), wholeness beyond perceived disintegration (as seen in their power to heal), and the ability to face death through trust in God's indestructible life. All these are qualities of Jesus' resurrection Spirit as seen in Scripture. But the central difference, in my view, is that creation focuses on the beginning, unaffected by historical choices (an "original blessing"), whereas resurrection restores a new beginning by forgiving and healing actual historical choices and their effects. The stages that Matthew Fox finds in spiritual growth (befriending creation, befriending darkness, accepting inner divinity, cocreativity) almost par-allel the historical stages I discovered (trust and familial being creation, individuating faith opening to darkness, communitarian releasing crea-tivity in relationships, and mission caring for all and the earth). Only he omits the historical grounding. What Jesus' resurrection does is make his-torically real those goals. Jesus took our death-bringing choices on him-self, and in God empowered a new beginning for those who believe and receive forgiveness. All creation "waits" for that freedom of the chil-dren of God, Paul says in Romans 8:20. It is consigned to futility (or emp-tiness) for the sake of that hope. This resurr._ection power is already at work in us (Col 3:1 ). How can it help us become instruments of healing the earth? Healing the Earth If we are meant to live by the power of the resurrection to reconcile, order, and heal, we need to know the principles of such a life. Firstly, we need to be oriented to Jesus' victory. The resurrection brings creation into union with God. Jesus became human and since all humans are united with all creation, his death/resurrection brings crea-tion into union with God's own life. This cannot be lost. The universe is fundamentally saved though we cannot be sure how this transforma-tion will actually work itself out. Healing prayer is grounded in this truth, and seeks Jesus' guidance for how to cooperate with the saving of the earth. Secondly, our power to envision and imagine needs to be trans-formed by this vision of God's kingdom. What we believe affects what Resurrection Spirituality / 173 comes to be. Belief is not a surface act of mind alone, but also includes feeling, will, and imagination. Jesus' initial proclamation was "Repent and believe the good news." Repent meant "change your mind, believe the good news." Healing prayer is often unsuccessful because we do not expect and envision the hoped for change. For example, we might pray for a friend to be healed of an illness, yet go on complaining about how he or she suffers. We are attending to the sickness, not envisioning her getting well and thanking God for it. The conversion we most basically need is to trust God's love totally, We are channels of God's creative light, but if our minds are filled with worries and fears, what we are ac-tually believing is that the worst will happen. It is a spiritual law: what we believe is what we cause. We need God to change our faith, to help us believe that God wants and can bring good to the earth, and that we are given the power to pray for this. An example may help. How many times have we not prayed for good weather with little effect? Perhaps we did not have sufficient faith for such a large project. We may have to start smaller--say with our gar-den- in order to be convinced about the power of such prayer. Or per-haps we don't really believe we have such power with the weather. "That's God's domain," we may have been told and believed. Jesus' disciples were shocked when Jesus commanded the storm to be still, but he c6rrected them for their little faith (Mk 4:40). A number of cases show that we do have marvelous power under God. In a talk on healing the earth (given at the annual conference of the Association of Christian Therapists, San Diego, 1982) Barbara Shlemon told of a prayer for just that purpose. She and several others were giving a healing retreat for sev-eral hundred Native Americans in Montana when a tornado was spotted heading directly toward their camp. Not wanting anyone hurt they thought of disbanding, but decided first to pray for guidance. The way they were graced was to ask the Bishop to say a prayer for God to turn aside the tornado and let only a slight rain come to water the ground. Al-though he was not used to this kind of prayer, the Bishop complied, and then went on with the healing Mass. That is exactly what happened. Only a slight rain fell. The incident may not have received notice if a journal-ist had not been present, with the result that the next morning's head-lines read "Tornado divides and misses a healing service and then comes together again." Needless to say, the Bishop was quite impressed (he had said after the Mass "One does need common sense"). Many other examples could be given.5 Thirdly, what heals is God's love. The more we are filled with God's 174 / Review for Religious. March-April 1990 love and forgiveness, the better channels we will be for all sorts of heal-ing, including that of the earth. If we harbor resentment or judgments against others, we block the power of God's healing. Many instances could be given, but the one that comes to mind was given by Fr. Jim Burke, O.P. in a retreat. He was in a retreat where people shared con-version experiences and one sister spoke of getting to like Detroit after harboring a dislike for many years. Fr. Jim felt her words like a knife. Whenever he thought of bad examples of cities, Detroit came first to mind. In the repentance service he asked forgiveness for his condemn-ing attitude toward Detroit and asked for God's view. The result was that in the next few years he had fifty invitations for missions or retreats in Detroit whereas before he had almost none. Forgiving love opened the way for God's love to work. As we pray for the earth, we need to ask for God's forgiveness of those who exploit the earth, and for ourselves who in many ways have hurt the earth unawares. It is not resentment and bitterness that heals, nor discouragement, but forgiving love and faith. Fourthly, we have found that blocks may often be from the past both in individual healing and in healing the earth. As I mentioned earlier, places seem to remember what has happened on them and similar evil seems to continue. A group of us were led to have a Mass said for the civil war dead from Camp Douglas in Chicago, and to pray for the camp grounds. We found through history that some 6,000 Confederate soldiers died there in inhuman conditions, and the place of the actual camp (be-tween Thirty-first and Thirty-third and Cottage Grove in Chicago, a very suitable piece of land for building) was still a waste land after more than 100 years! We felt many of the dead did find release. We wondered what affect it might have on the land, and now three years later we passed by and saw a new housing complex being built there. I mentioned Dr. McAll's prayer for the Bermuda Triangle, and the five year freedom from incidents. He has many similar examples. We have been led to pray for such events as the Alamo (and the enmity between Spanish and Whites affected by that battle), the different sides in the Northern Ire-land dispute, several areas in Chicago with Mafia and Satanic connec-tions, divisions in Livingston, Kentucky, and similar areas. It may well be that the root of a present misuse or exploitation stretches back to an original hurt (like the killing of the Seminole Indians), or to injustice per-petrated by the Church (like the witch trials of the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries). In sum, we have found that the same principles that apply to healing of persons apply also to healing the earth. Psalm 115:116 says: "Heaven Resurrection SpiritualiO, / 175 is the heaven of the Lord, but the earth he has given to the children of men." Nature is also given into our care as well as other persons. The earth is given to us to learn to love. As children teach us our sin by how they are affected by it, so God seems to let the earth be devastated so we will see our own inner devastation that causes it. But Jesus has come to restore to us power through his resurrection and Lordship to pray for its healing. Whether we will choose to restore the earth or exploit it has been given to us to decide. Implications for Us What are some implications for our own care for the earth'? Firstly, true prayer is helped by being informed.6 Agnes Sanford found out about the San Andreas fault in order to pray for it, how the earth must swell to create new land, how a division of the.earth falls along that fault. She prayed not to stop movement (that would have caused problems else-where), but that the tremors would be many and slight so that no destruc-tion would occur. If we want God to heal the earth, it helps to know what to pray for. Should we pray for the leaders of nations to realize the im-portance of their land? For the leaders of firms and their relation to the health of the environment? Ask God for guidance. Secondly, we need to grow in awareness of the power of healing prayer. Each of us will be led differently to experience God's love and forgiveness, and begin to pray for small things. Rest in God's love, en-vision that love and light radiating out into your selected place (a flower, garden, bird, and so forth). Envision with love and gratitude the healed condition you anticipate (a healthy flower, garden, and so forth), and fi-nally thank God. If nothing happens, you can check a number of things: your faith (are you convinced God wants this? that God wants to respond to your prayer?), your attunement to God's plan for this area, its appro-priateness with regard to other things (for example, not to pray for a good day for a picnic when the earth needs rain). God is infinite creative love and Jesus has been given "all power" to bring the earth to order. We are Jesus' instruments, so prayer will be effective if we have learned to become channels. Thirdly, you may expand your concern to some place like a city or church. Agnes Sanford was led by one lady to pray for cities. You may pick out city hall (quite a challenge in Chicago, but we have been try-ing). Visualize God's love bringing peace to that place, reconciling dif-ferences. We can waste our energy complaining because what we attend to is what we cause. We need to develop a constructive attitude of trust in God's Spirit and pray with a vision of peace being given. "176 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 There may be some particular issue that you are led to pray for. One of our group worked at Edison, and found his particular office rife with competition and discord. He did not even want to go to work. As we prayed we were led to pra}, for Thomas Edison himself who had no re-ligious faith and was disillusioned and angered by conflicts and compe-tition around the use of electricity. We prayed for him to be healed and opened to trust in God, to forgive and be forgiven and for the corpora-tion he began to be freed from that attitude. There has been relief in my friend's office, but long term change can require ongoing prayer. Or we may be concerned about the loss of small farms and the ex-ploitative policies of insurance companies that have received the land. We may not know how to.pray for such complicated issues and can best leave them in God's hands, always ready to do what we are led to do. We can pray God's light into these lands, and God's protection. I was asked by some members of the Association of Christian Therapists to go out to their land and bless it, and pray for any traumatic events (Native American or otherwise) that occurred on it. I was more than happy to do that knowing the many instances where such prayer has helped, though in most cases we don't see the results for some time. Conclusion As Psalm 115 says: "Heaven belongs to the Lord alone, but he gave the earth to humans." We have misused it, appropriated it for ourselves, as the parable of the vineyard says, and even killed God's Son, but we have not been left without resources for healing. Through the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' resurrection we can cooperate in God's ongo-ing creative work. We pray daily: 'Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In heaven God rules. On earth we pray that God may also bring life, peace, order and justice, but it cannot be done except through many who make themselves channels of God's love. Agnes Sanford likes to use the example of the light bulb. God is the power source, Jesus the transformer, but there will be no light unless we light bulbs are wired to Jesus and ultimately to our triune God. Further, one light can light a room, but if we want to light a house or a city ,we need many bulbs. God has entrusted the earth to us and given us the en-ergy. We still have to understand how creation works and how it is healed, and we need to become ever more fully united with God's crea-tive power. Resurrection Spirituality / "177 NOTES ~ See Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (N.Y.: Avon Books, 1973), chapter I. -' Ibid, pp. 24-25. Backster admitted the plant could have picked up guilt feelings in the culprit, but since it was for science he likely had none. 3 See his Healing the Famil\' Tree (London: Sheldon Press, 1984), pp. 59-61. 4 See my "Trinitarian Love as Ground of the Church," Theological Studies, vol. 37, no. 4, Dec. 1976, pp. 649-679 where I develop this argument, and "Healing and Family Spiritual/Emotional Systems," Journal of Christian Healing, vol. 5, no. I (1983), pp. 10-23, where I apply the five stages to healing family systems. 5 See Agnes Sanford, Creation Waits (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos International, 1978) for several of her examples. 6 See W. R. Parker and E. St. Johns Dare, Prayer Can Change Your Life (Prentice- Hall Inc., 1957) where they give results from three self-chosen control groups-- prayer only, therapy only, and prayer and therapy--and found that the prayer and therapy group improved by far the most. and prayer alone the least! They concluded that psychology (understanding) was needed to guide the prayer. Bang! Bang! "Yeah!" The miniature cowboy (or was it a cop? Scandalous play, whichever) said to his tiny victim, who wouldn't stay still, "'When you're really dead, you're dead for life." And I thought of a seed in the ground And a stone rolled away in a garden and "Out of the mouths of babes." Clarita Felhoelter 3105 Lexington Road Louisville, KY 40206 The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly Stephen Tutas, S.M. Father Stephen Tutas, S.M., finished his term as President of the Conference of Ma-jor Superiors of Men Religious at the time of the August 1989 national assembly about which he writes. Previously he had served as the Superior General of the So-ciety of Mary (Marianists) in Rome. His address is Marianist Formation Center; 22622 Marianist Way; Cupertino, California 95014, The Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men Religious held a joint national assembly in Lou-isville, Kentucky, August 19-23, 1989. Over one thousand participated in this historic discussion of the future of religious life. What was spe-cial about this meeting was that it was a gathering of leaders of the esti-mated 130,000 women religious and 30,000 men religious at the service of the Church in the USA and beyond. What was also significant was that the discussion of the religious life of the future was placed in the context of our Church and society. It was not an in-house discussion, but a reflection on the future of the world and the Church and the response of religious to these anticipated changes. We viewed the challenging movie "Global Brain" and listened to stimulating presentations and reactions. Besides the women and men re-ligious, Mrs. Donna Hanson spoke from the perspective of a lay person while Archbishops Thomas Kelly and Pio Laghi represented the official local and universal Church. The greatest strength of the assembly, how-ever, was the quality of sharing that took place at the 119 round tables as the participants expressed their thoughts about where they are going-- and where they want to go--as women and men religious at the service of the Church in the USA. 178 The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly / 17'9 Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., described the process well: ". not so much of identifying something new but of grasping firmly the signifi-cant strands that have emerged and are emerging over the past twenty-five years . " Reports of the table discussions were gathered and col-lated, leading up to consensus on ten "transformative elements for re-ligious life in the future." And because the most important part of any meeting is what comes afterwards, the last session of the assembly was devoted to a table-sharing of planned follow-up. As Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S., pointed out ". if we are to be faithful to our tasks in lead-ership, and engage in more than a maintenance ministry, then look into the future we must." The assembly was an inspiring experience of looking back with grati-tude and of looking forward with hope, anticipating changes in the world around us. For me, it was another occasion to thank God for the grace of living at this time in history. As the assembly came to a close and I completed my term of service as President of CMSM, I looked ahead to a new phase in my life. I continue a very active ministry with women and men religious of many communities besides my own Marianist com-munity, and I also pray and reflect with many diocesan clergy and laity in the context of spiritual direction and retreats. Accordingly, my first act after the meeting was, as always, to pray and reflect about what I had seen and heard. Then I decided to offer this summary to others. When the tri-conference commission on religious life and ministry met for the first time this past February, two tasks were determined: the clarification of the identity of religious life and the promotion of collabo-rative ministry. Both objectives were emphasized at the LCWR-CMSM National Assembly. In fact, they seemed to be fused into one in the un-derstanding that religious in the future will be recognized precisely by their commitment to collaborative ministry in the local church. In this regard I found the observation made by Charles Reutemann especially significant: "Of special interest today is the phenomenon of lay partici-pation in founding charism., what seems to be demanded today is that bonding between lay and religious be one of a common spirituality, a ba-sic Christian spirituality of mission modified by the unique focusing of a congregation's special founding charism . . . a shared vision focused on a common ministry." To be ecclesial means to b~ collaborative, to have a sense of belong-ing to a larger community, to recognize that each person brings a unique gift to the group as a whole. Religious life, with the emphasis on spe-cific charisms, is built on the realization that each person is gifted and Review for Religious, March-April 1990 that a dynamic community is one that calls forth the gifts of every mem-ber. What religious try to do in their own communities--recognize and affirm giftedness--is applicable to the larger Christian community. Donna Hanson used the image of a relay "where people work together helping each other toward the community's common goal." Relays "re-quire planning, patience, and practice. Relays demand teamwork . . . could we also discover new ways of supporting our team members in their vocations to marriage, the single state, religious life and ordina-tion?" What will be the specific contribution of religious life to the Church of tomorrow? The LCWR-CMSM assembly gave the strongest endorse-ment to three features: women and men religious will be prophetic, con-templative, with a preferential option for the poor. These are not exclu-sive properties of religious. All the baptized are called to belong to a Church that is prophetic, contemplative, with a preferential option for the poor. Donna Hanson called for a new agenda: "We on the relay team must expand our Church agenda from a preoccupation with A, B, C-- abortion, birth control, and celibacy--to a more comprehensive com-mitment to D, E and F-- debt, environment, and family." This church-in-the-world emphasis is very promising for religious life and for the Church as a whole as we move into the twentieth cen-tury. It was good to hear Archbishop Laghi speak about a Church in the USA that is vibrant and still growing, and to hear him echoing the words of Pope John Paul II about religious life at the heart of the mystery of the Church. He reaffirmed the desire of religious to be on the cutting edge and to be prophetic and also challenged religious to find new mea-sures to meet the needs of ttiese new times. While some focus on the de-cline of numbers and the aging of religious, Archbishop Laghi chose to remind the religious that much more remains to be done. The climate of the meeting was remarkably positive, but not unreal-istic. Recognizing that attitudinal change is always difficult, the partici-pants saw the need for intensified ongoing formation as we move into the twentieth century. They also saw that the most significant changes would take place in communities and in the Church through incultura-tion. Change does take place most dramatically through the incorpora-tion of new members. There is need to reach out more effectively to blacks, native Americans, Hispanics, Asiatics, and also to others who are at present marginalized from church and society. But Robert Schrei-ter also issued a warning: "American Catholics' demand for a partici-patory model of leadership in parishes, coupled with the growth of lay The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly ministries, will result in a great deal of energy expended on intramural strife over issues of power and authority . There is great tension involved in striving to build a Church that calls forth the gifts of every member. Shared responsibility is a marvelous ideal, but not easily realized. But as I reflect on this, I am encouraged by looking at where we have come from and where we are going today. Our hope for the future is always based on our experience of God at work among us in the past. The tri-conference retirement project is a great ex-ample of ecclesial collaboration. The tri-conference commission on re-ligious life and ministry is a promising new structure in the Church. The ongoing collaboration between LCWR and CMSM regionally and nation-ally is an important witness. Looking forward to the year 2010 means that we are dealing with four five-year plans. Only a great belief in the value of religious life and the power of the Spirit at work among us enables religious to accept the mission to be messengers of hope in the Church today. The assembly statement was a commitment: "We will nourish these transformative elements for religious life in the future." They were ten in number, arranged in the order of priorities. The first three are these: 1. Prophetic Witness Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gos-pel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and in society. Living this prophetic witness will include critiquing societal and ecclesial values and structures, calling for systemic change and be-ing converted by the marginalized with whom we serve. 2. Contemplative Attitude Toward Life Religious in the year 2010 will have a contemplative attitude toward all creation. They will be attentive to and motivated by the presence of the sacred in their own inner journeys, in the lives of others, and through-out creation. Recognizing contemplation as a way of life for the whole Church, they will see themselves and their communities as centers of spiri-tuality and the experience of God. 3. Poor and Marginalized Persons as the Focus for Ministry Religious in 2010 will be investing their resources in direct service with and advocacy for structural change on behalf of the poor and margi-nalized. They will minister where others will not go. Their own listen-ing to and learning from the poor and marginalized will shape all aspects of their lives. The other transformative elements, without commentary, are: 4. Spirituality of Wholeness and Global Interconnectedness Review for Religious, March-April 1990 5. Charism and Mission as Sources of Identity 6. Change of the Locus of Power 7. Living with Less 8. Broad-based, Inclusive Communities 9. Understanding Ourselves as Church 10. Developing Interdependence Among People of Diverse Cultures. While all ten are important, the first three received the strongest sup-port from the assembly. Preliminary to being a prophetic witness is the openness to conver-sion. It is interesting that religious are calling themselves to a continu-ous change of attitude. This change will come about as religious reflect on the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel. I found the words of Graciela Volpe, R.S.C.J., very helpful: "By their charismatic and prophetic vocati6n, religious men and women are called to capture and interpret the signs of the times, the demands of God in each historical moment. This requires letting oneself be led by the Spirit, opening to the Spirit of God, an entrance on the road of discernment, a humble and sin-cere search for the call of God in each situation in the complexity of events. ' ' It is also interesting to note the closing words of the first transfor-mative element. People are converted not only by meditating on the gos-pel, but also by associating with the marginalized with whom they serve. In the third transformative element, we are reminded that listening to and learning from the poor and the marginalized will shape all aspects of our lives. Many of us are just beginning to learn what this means. But as any-one learns and shares, others in the community also learn. Perhaps this is the most striking feature of this transformative ele-ment and in fact of all the priorities, namely, that being prophetic is not something peculiar to religious life. The entire Church is called to be pro-phetic. Religious recognize that they are called to contribute their aware-ness of what it means to be prophetic. Their mission is to lead by exam-ple. This is what it means to be on the cutting edge. Religious are called to be outspoken in word and in lifestyle. This call to be prophetic prompts two basic questions: How do we critique societal--and ecclesial--values and structures? How do we call for and facilitate systemic change? Charles Reutemann commented: "As we look at religious life, in its lifestyle and varied ministries, and the spirituality which motivates it, can we say that we need more than ever to be prophetic, to continue to offer a radical criticism of the social and political injustices in our society, in housing, schooling, racism, and so The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly / "11~3 forth, and to bring a contemporary vision of the beatitudes and gospel message that will energize a confused and disheartened people?" Being prophetic goes hand in hand with being contemplative. It is important to note that the contemplative attitude we want to develop as religious communities and as Church is toward all creation. We see the need to step back from contemporary activism even while being intensely apostolic. We need to be attentive to the presence of the sacred first of all in our own journeys, and then in the lives of others. As we see God at work in our own lives, we are able to see God at work in the lives of others. Our awareness of how God is at work among us is the key to both ministry and community. Contemplation is a way of life for the entire Church. But religious, individually and corporately, are called to be centers of spirituality in the Church and to be expert in being able to share the experience of God. Once again we see that religious life in the future is to be characterized not so much by what religious do, as by how religious live. In being prophetic and contemplative, religious are inspired to reach out to the poor and to the marginalized. This will become more and more the focus of ministry. Graciela Volpe reminded us of the assertion of Le-onardo Boff: "A Copernican Revolution has been produced in the Church, whose.significance goes beyond the Latin American ecclesial context, and concerns the universal Church. This option signifies the most important pastoral-theological transformation which has occurred since the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. With it a new socio-historical place is defined, from which the Church wishes to be present in society and construct herself, namely, in the midst of the poor, the new subjects of history." But Graciela also reminded us that ". the option for the poor is being viewed with suspicion, obstacles are be-ing put in its way and sometimes it is condemned. The Christian base communities begin not to be trusted. A surge of neo-conservatism is be-ing felt within our Church." While the Christian community must be concerned about everyone, religious serve to remind the Church not to forget the poor and the margi-nalized. I found it especially challenging to note that religious in the fu-ture will minister where others will not go! Direct service with the poor and advocacy of structural change on behalf of the poor are already be-coming more and more characteristic of contemporary religious life. Again, Graciela Volpe shared her experience in commenting that "this mission of Jesus was eminently concrete. Jesus lived it in a conflic-tual context, fighting against sin and for the human person, especially 11~4 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the poor. To follow Jesus today implies for us the consciousness that we also are supposed to live his mission in concrete historical situations, cer-tainly conflictual ones, 'in an ongoing struggle against sin which mani-fests itself in concrete political, economic, and social structures." While Robert Schreiter challenged us with the observation that "communities now have much rhetoric about the poor, but generally pursue a middle-class lifestyle" Charles Reutemann rightly pointed out that "it would be impossible to have lived religious life for the past twenty years with-out being aware of the intense focusing on the concerns of the poor, the option for the poor." The Church of tomorrow cannot be exclusive or closed. It must be recognized as compassionate and welcoming. The role of religious life is to help build a Church that calls forth the gifts of every member, a Church which recognizes the potential and actual giftedness of every mem-ber, a Church which continually restates the universal call to holiness and mission, a Church which gathers together God's sons and daughters as co-disciples. INCARNATION While sage and sorcerer Sought salvation in words, And high priests strove in blood To reverse man's age-old curse, While from scruples' towers Flagellant and Pharisee Laid siege to Paradise, You remade us from a woman, Formed of her flesh, instead of dust, No longer mere breath and image, But Your very Self at her "Fiat." Kathleen T. Choi 1706 Walanuenue Ave. Hilo, Hawaii 96720 Religious Life Spirituality in the Year 2010 Charles Reutemann, F.S.C. Brother Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., is a de La Salle Brother of the New York prov-ince. He currently serves as a staff member of the Center for Spirituality and Justice in Bronx, New York, as adjunct professor in spirituality and spiritual direction at the Maryknoll School of Theology, and spiritual director at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York. For sixteen years he had been director of the Sangre de Cristo Renewal Center in Sante Fe, New Mexico. His address is St. Joseph's Seminary: Dunwoodie; Yonkers, New York 10704. When first approached to share some reflections on religious life at this year's LCWR/CMSM assembly, the year 2010 was proposed as a con-text for describing what religious life might look like in the foreseeable future. It was an attractive image, 2010, arbitrary but just far enough ahead to make one wonder. The program theme has since been descrip-tively changed to "tradition and transformation in religious life," but I have the feeling that the substance is the same: what will things look like twenty years down the road, as we move through present traditions and experiences? In targeting 2010 we recognize that the changes shall not happen over-night, nor in 2009, but that the future is already germinating and hap-pening now. Would it be correct then to say that since we now seem to be in a settling out, settling down, though still transitional period of re-ligious life, it would be helpful to identify and further describe the main trends and movements ihat are presently pro~,oking and energizing us so that we might embrace them in greater depth and with more enthusiasm? Is it a question then not so much of identifying something new but of graspingfirmly the significant strands that have emerged and are emerg- 185 Review for Religious, March-April 1990 ing over the past twenty-five years, and see if we can continue to weave them integratively into a religious life experience that will support and enhance the evolving Church in its quest for the kingdom? "Spirituality" would seem to be an "in" word today: articles, books, seminars, institutes--all are using the word repeatedly and in a variety of ways. Somehow I have the feeling that underneath its repeated use there are two strong movements: the quest for interiority and the con-tinuing quest for identity. In addition, I find it difficult to locate any one definition of spirituality that applies to all of its uses. Thus, for our pur-poses and partially because of my own bent, I should like to settle for a definition that focuses on the experiential, that is, what it feels like from within, as well as something that is applicable to all situations, re-gardless of different belief systems and religious responses. Hence, I would describe spirituality as a kind of mind-set, or a heart/mind-set, or if you are familiar with the skill of focusing, a body-sense/heart/mind-set that focuses a person's energies as he or she receives, reflects on, judges, and acts out life's responses in light of the transcendent. Spiri-tuality is thus a kind of integrative orientation which penetrates and chan-nels energies, as a person seeks for meaning and lives out life's choices. Except for the totally fragmented person, most of us function out of some spirituality in a good part of our conscious moments, though we may not be actively aware of that. Again, what is said of the individual may be said of the collectivity: groups function out of a spirituality, a heart/mind-set orientation as collectively they seek for meaning and live out life's choices with some awareness of the transcendent. A helpful metaphor for an experienced spirituality would be that of a large cable of many copper strands through which an electrical current flows. For the Christian, and afortiori, for the religious, this electrical current can be identified as the Holy Spirit, or the grace of Jesus, or the grace of God--whichever term one feels most comfortable with. In any case, the electrical current is a power source beyond the self; yet it be-longs to the self in freedom to accede to, impede, or modify the flow of this current. In such a metaphor for spirituality, the electrical current is absolutely indispensable; yet it is the copper cable and its strands that need to occupy our attention as we seek to describe religious life spiritu-ality in the year 2010, for all of us have some responsibility for that. I see the cable as having as many as eight identifiable strands sometimes overlapping through which the current of God's grace is presently form-ing the expression of religious life. I would name them as: founding charism strand, holistic strand, the experience of God strand, dealing Religious Life Spirituality with impasse strand, prophetic strand, conversion strand, feminine prin-ciple strand, and ministry strand. A brief description of each follows. The Founding Charism Strand By now, many initiatives have been taken by each religious group-ing to reappropriate its founding charism. Serious scientific research has uncovered the language, thought-patterns, and experiences of the foun-der and his or her early companions. Based upon this, there has been an attempt to re-say the rule, the constitutions, methods of governance, and mission statement. Through questionnaire, convocation, document, and chapter meeting, practical steps have been taken to involve the total mem-bership in valuing the charism, in recognizing it in its present lived ex-perience, and in re-appropriating it more enthusiastically as an histori-cal ideal for the present and the future. Underneath, of course, there is the strong conviction that it is God's Holy Spirit who has created the charism and who now invites us to a new appropriation. Yet there remains a challenge: we need to continue to demytholo-gize the founding charism by putting it into contemporary thought-form, imagery, and applicability, even as we must recognize that the charism itself has not completed its growth, for it is a living reality that can be ever transmuted while still retaining its original identity. Reli-gious are not meant to be stamped-out copies of an historically-conditioned founder, but possessors of his or her charism that is rooted in an initial gift which flowers in new ways and new relevances. For us, of special interest today is the phenomenon of lay participation in our founding charism. Lay collaboration is being redefined into more than a shared participation in the good works of religious, or a prayerful bond-ing of common aspirations. What is being demanded today is that the bond between lay and religious be rooted in a common spirituality, a ba-sic Christian spirituality of mission modified by that unique focusing of a congregation's special founding charism. Today and into the future we shall speak of creating Lasallian, Franciscan, Marian families; but this will have to be rooted in a mutually shared spirituality of mission with its unique focus flowing from the founder's gift. In lay-religious collabo-ration today there are no firsts and seconds, but a shared vision focused on a common ministry. And so, this founding charism strand needs fur-ther attention as the numbers of religious lessen and lay-religious col-laborators increase. The Holistie Strand Last February, I was part of a group of three hundred who attended "1111~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 a seminar on American Spirituality at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, California. While there, I noticed an announcement on the bulletin board that said there was a resident sister who was available to give a massage, for a fee. I have never had a massage, and regretted that I could not work it into my seminar schedule. But it did seem appropriate: spirituality with massage. Is this what holistic spirituality is all about?--"holistic"-- again, a much-used word, but one that attempts to say that body and spirit need equal attention, that the cultivation of the whole person comes about through an exciting multiplicity of experiences that leads to nature/ person integrity. Personally, I like to say that "holistic" is not just an integrated harmony of body and spirit, but that it includes a felt experi-ence of God, that the experience of self (body-spirit) in a developmental growthful way is also a God-experience, something that happens simul-taneously. Karl Rahner seems to suggest this when he speaks of the uni-versality of religious experiences in ordinary happenings. Should this not incline us to want to grow more holistically?. For then, God would not be thought of as some kind of "adversary," standing over and above the self, calling the individual to some better self, but as a Presence within, calling a self that is desirable (as Sebastian Moore would say) to further growth and development. Becoming one with the self (body/ spirit) is becoming one with God. Spirituality and massage do go to-gether. A fully-embraced holistic strand within spirituality opens the door to a healthy receiving and adapting of psychology in its theories and popu-larized processes. Self-knowledge and self-acceptance are essential to healthy spirituality, and modern psychology offers extraordinary help in becoming the holistic self. A rapid glance at the prospectus of extended renewal programs offered to religious today show such things as: jour-naling, dream analysis, enneagram, focusing, Myers Briggs interpreta-tion, and so forth--all tools for self-knowledge and integration. Added to this are the relational helps: skills for collaboration and community-building, communication skills, and the arts of relating. Then there are the healing arts which use music, massage, color, fiber, and clay. Is all of this not a strand of a spirituality of the present into the future, a mod-erated, integrated cultivation of body-spirit? Tennyson's lines from Ulys-ses might well signal the motivation: I am a part of all that i have met. Yet all experience is an arch where-thro" Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, Religious Life SpiritualiO, / 189 To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho" to breathe were life. The Experience of God Strand (a balance to the holistic strand!) By title, this strand of religious life spirituality may seem to be the most obvious. There can be several differing theologies of what reli-gious life is all about, but there's no arguing with its name: "re-ligious"-- bound back to God. God is the central agenda, God is the enough, and, as the Constitution on the Church insists, the religious is centered on God and "the more." We have heard it many times: serv-ice and doing are essential for religious; but it is the "being," the wit-nessing to the central agenda that God is and that God cares in the immediacy of an exciting and troublesome world--that is what religious are all about. And yet, to achieve that kind of presencing, religious can-not just be, they have to be nourished by a lively, ongoing experience bf God. Here, the key word is "experience": do we really believe that God is extraordinarily near in the ordinary, in the daily, in the moment? If so, where are the happenings, the daily experiences in life where we can say: here! God is affirming, inviting, scolding, caring? If Elizabeth Barrett Browning can say to her beloved "how do I love thee? let me count the ways," should that not also be the language of the religious who is a lover? Let me count the ways, O Lord, that you come to me today and I to you. Our Judaeo-Christian God is a passionate, personal God, who invites to a relationship, but who also exacts a relationship and a passionate response. Obviously, prayer, prayerful awareness, is cen-tral to a "counting of the ways," a deliberate acknowledging of the re-lationship. Prayer is not an end in itself, nor is it a conjuring act, though that belongs, of course. Prayer at its core is "a counting of the ways," a saying "yes" in a fumbling, inadequate way to the intermittently ex-perienced God. In our times, there have been all kinds of development of the prayer response: contemplative centers, prayer workshops, experiments with methodologies, books. Yet, with all of this, it remains important that we be not distracted from the central fact: God is ever near, wiping away the tear, suffering with us, helping us to taste and see in the immediacy of our lives. Cultivating an awareness of God's presence is our chief re-sponse. That, too, is the central girl that spiritual directors can be for oth-ers: a hungry awareness of this passionate God. Very much part of the "experience of God" strand, though it could be given separate treatment, is our focus on the human Jesus. I have al-ways felt that one of the most significant statements in that remarkable 190 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 book, Shaping the Coming Age of Religious L(fe, by Cada, Fitz, and oth-ers, is this: "One of the major prerequisites for the movement of a re-ligious community from a time of search and darkness to that of creat-ing a transformed community is the personal transformation among a significant number of people in the community . The most striking feature of this metanoia is a new (in the sense of deep, broader, and so forth) relationship to the person of Jesus and the gospel message of the kingdom." Experiencing Jesus in his humanity has a special attraction for our era which values the human and seeks to minister to its broken-ness. Today, Christology has fed into this contemporary longing with many remarkable studies: and belief in a resurrected human Jesus, who has gone before us and who is now let loose in our world as a healing, ministering presence, is for many a source of great hope. I would think that an ideal spirituality of 2010 would include a lively love affair with the person of Jesus in which through the concrete instances of his his-torical life we would penetrate his mind and heart and thus stretch back into the heart, mind, and feelings of our very God. God may be inex-haustible mystery, but divinity does not have to be mysterious--there is Jesus. The Dealing with Impasse Strand We do not have to have lived long to be convinced that life is filled with impasse situations: rejections, oppression, exploitation, and suffer-ing bear a multitude of names and disguises. Spiritual directors hear from their directees an endless litany of these darkness experiences, and the pain and confusion which they cause. Also, if our social critics and art-ists are any gauge, what happens to the individual is happening on the worldwide stage of society where drugs, local wars, forced deportation, the funneling of natural resources for weapons of destruction, the stran-gulation of initiative by business conglomerates, are creating societal im-passe in the social, political, and economic spheres. Just as "figuring a way out" is no longer an option for the individual in impasse, rational planning by societies seems less and less feasible. Social institutions are becoming paralyzed by never-ending impasse situations. What kind of spirituality is best able to deal with impasse? Once again, we probably know the answers, but it may be helpful to spell them out and thus fashion another strand of a wholesome religious life spiri-tuality. Earlier this summer, while Pope John Paul was visiting Norway, a country which has one of the highest p~r capita incomes in the world, one 28-year old student was interviewed as saying: "We have every-thing, yet something is missing in our lives, something spiritual. So Religious Life Spirituality many things happen that you cannot explain. We often talk about this at our university." Impasse. The Holy Father himself made this com-ment: "Science and technology, like the economic life they generate, cannot of themselves explain, much less eliminate, evil, suffering, and death." Impasse. The reality is that material self-sufficiency and politi-cal planning, so terribly necessary for all, cannot of themselves resolve deep personal and societal impasse--something which even liberation theologians are coming more and more to realize. Here in America, we have experimented extensively with the self-help techniques of psychology as being able to bring a person or a group through impasse. Gail Sheehy writes of the victorious personality, the survivor who by self-trust, flexibility, and the assistance of a mentor is able to overcome the cataclysmic effects of being a boat-person, a sur-vivor of the holocaust, a castaway from a disintegrated family. Yet even here, psychology does not seem to be enough--another level has to be touched to resolve impasse. Witness the Cambodian refugee, whom Miss Sheehy cites as a victorious personality, who says: "I started thinking, 'maybe God has a plan for me.' If I didn't think that way I would have given up so many times." Are self-help insights and techniques enough to confront impasse? What then? Allowing for the need of economic and political plan-ning, as well as the need for psychological self-awareness, would it not be true to say that the day-to-day impasse situations of our lives can only be met by Christian reflection: "Maybe God has a plan for me"? Here we touch upon experienced faith in a contemplative mode. This is not so much a belief system as it is a simple awareness that "God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise and what is weak in the world to shame the strong" (! Co 1:27). God has a plan for me. Such an awareness rests in the paradox of nothingness and its seeming im-passe. In such awareness of darkness before the Lord, individuals and groups, moved by faith, can quietly exclaim: "I am crucified with Christ--but I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me" (Ga 2:20). Maybe God has a plan for me, as I rest in the crucified Christ. A spirituality of the present into the future needs very much to make creative space for contemplative moments where impasse is accepted and reflected on-- gone through contemplatively. Only then can there be a flowering of hope that will nourish a utopian praxis in the very face of such impasse. The Prophetic Strand Although history tells us that there have always been prophets, we seem to be needing them more today than in our remembered past. Is it 199 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 because of the extraordinary changes and the accelerated rate of change that we find we need someone to tell us what this means and where it is all going? Is it also because, as never before, the media is able to re-veal to us the tragedies and unending travail of so many of the world's inhabitants? Planet earth,, though spectacularly beautiful from a distant moon walk, is pock-marked and diseased when looked at closely--the media has shown us this. We can no longer afford to "bring on the clowns" to help us forget; rather, we find we need prophets, truth-tellers, to remind us that many on planet earth can never be fully human, fully alive; we need truth-tellers, prophets, to help us mourn injustice, and to show us by lifestyle and ministry how to offer the poor some uto-pian hope and an alternative vision. We religious: are we meant to be prophets in our own culture? We are accustomed to describe ourselves as being on the cutting edge, as be-ing in the world but not of it, belonging but not entrapped, always strug-gling for justice and the better way. Certainly, scriptural prophets were on the cutting edge of their cultures, belonging to the scene but refusing to be corrupted by it. Certainly, too, our founders and foundresses and early associates were on the cutting edge, prophets in their culture. Is it part of our vocation then to be prophetic in a special way, and will it become even more evident and necessary as we reappropriate in depth our founding charism? Will it be a clear mark of the refounded religious group that, in both lifestyle and ministries, there will be significant mourn-ing and denouncing of injustice in the marginalized as well as the offer-ing of clear alternatives for social betterment? It is remarkable how Walter Brueggemann's book on The Prophetic Imagination has captured the thinking of many who today are writing about religious life! I join them as I add these thoughts. Brueggemann points out that anyone who uses power, particularly in bureaucratic re-ligion and religious life, tends to develop "a royal consciousness," that is, a fixated omniscient view that power-holders are automatically the cus-todians of God's power, and hence know best how to control structures and limit dissent. A royal consciousness mentality loves law and order, and exalts the status quo. A royal consciousness mentality is forced to stifle creativity, encourage passivity, and consequently fosters fear and mistrust. But, Brueggemann says, the oppression goes just so far; his-tory reveals that when the very stones are crying out, God breaks through and overthrows the control by raising up prophets. Andthe prophets play two roles: they radically criticize existing inequities, not so much as a social crusade or in strident indignation but in grief and lament, a thren- Religious Life Spirituality ody of woe. And secondly, the prophets provide alternative visions that penetrate the numbness of despair and give energy for opening up new paths. Does Brueggemann's insight speak to religious life today? By life-style and ministries are we being called to a more visible prophetic spiri-tuality that will enable us to offer radical criticism in housing, school-ing, job opportunities, religious expression, medical care, and a host of other social and political structures, and continue to bring a contempo-rary vision of the beatitudes and gospel message that can truly energize a confused and disheartened people? The ways and means of prophetic expression will vary: we may be serving as individual catalysts rather than as groups, we may be creating communities rather than living in com-munity, and so on; but prophecy must certainly be part of religious life spirituality in 2010. The Conversion Strand In 2 Corinthians Paul writes: "All of us gazing on the Lord's glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image by the Lord who is Spirit." For the Christian, the process of transformation or conversion entails a lifelong focusing on the face of Christ and an active surrender to the Lord who is Spirit. Conversion is one of those strands of spirituality that everyone recognizes as essen-tial. Mohandas Gandhi rues that he is still unconverted: "It is an unbro-ken torture to me," he says, "that I am still so far from him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am." Thomas Merton, on what was to be the last day of his Asian jour-ney exclaims: "What is essential . . . is not embedded in buildings, is not embedded in clothing, is not necessarily embedded even in a rule. It is somewhere along the line of something deeper than a rule. It is con-cerned with this business of total inner transformation." Conversion. The parameters of Merton's 1968 perceptions of religious life may have changed, but the business of total inner transformation remains a formi-dable goal for all religious. Property can be bought and sold, garb can undergo many modifications, rules can be simplified and redirected; but that firm decision with its appropriate means whereby we place ourselves on the path of Jesus remains the never-ending challenge. Conversion of individuals, of small communities, and of the total grouping remains a basic project in religious life. Two observations about conversion and spirituality. First, there is de-veloping a new kind of leader in the Church. Inasmuch as social con-cern about armaments, the economics of structural poverty, refugees, ecol- 194 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 ogy, the homeless, and so forth, have high priority in the consciences of Church and society, people are looking to leaders who can deal ef-fectively with such concerns. And, more often than not, the Church lead-ers who are rising up to work with them are indiscriminately sister, priest, brother, lay person, bishop; but what is common to them all is that each has undergone a personal conversion, a conversion provoked by some kind of renewal experience--a program, charismatic prayer, an AA experience, some social justice involvement that helpfully trauma-tized-- and through this experience or series of events each has found an-swers to very real and very personal questions about their lives and their ministry to others. "What they have in common," Kevin O'Rourke says in a Commonweal article, "is not ideological; it is experiential, an ex-perience of conversion and commitment. And, they are becoming the lead-ers in the American Church; they are spearheading the move to involve the Church in (struggling) with nuclear disarmament, capitalism, and third world issues." Is the religious of the future being invited to a lead-ership in a variety of ministries, a leadership that demands a spirituality of radical conversion? My second observation about conversion is that it seems it must be an across-the-board experience. Bernard Lonergan, James Fowler, a host of writers in recent issues of The Way magazine, all insist that conver-sion goes well beyond our moral responses. Conversion must affect the integration of our emotions and feelings, the rectitude of our thinking, the purifying of our images of God, the maturity and depth of our reli-gious enthusiasms--and all of this accompanied by that inner critical sense, discernment if you will, by which we pay attention to the subtle movements of our desires, attitudes, indecisions. A spirituality of the fu-ture geared towards total inner transformation must be accompanied by Buddhist awareness, or what Hemingway crudely called "a built-in crap detector." Only then will pure passionate energy be released and sim-plicity achieved. The Feminine Principle Strand Of the eight strands, the one about which I feel the least secure is what I am calling "the feminine principle strand." My insecurity comes not from a.lack of conviction about the importance of this strand--far from that. Rather, it is rooted in my own limited.knowledge and my be-lief that only a woman can adequately speak to the subject. Neverthe-less, something must be said. It would be impossible to have lived religious life for the past twenty years without being aware of the intense focusing on the concerns of the Religious Life Spirituality poor, the option for the poor. Likewise it would be impossible to have lived religious life in the same span of time without being aware of a simi-lar intense awareness of the feminine in Church and society, especially as that touches upon the demands of justice for women. These two con-cerns have marched along together, principally because the claims of jus-tice are common to each, but also, I think, because women, and relig-ious women in particular, have been in the forefront of succoring the poor through individual and group initiative. The claims of justice un-derlie every enterprise of religious life ministry. But it is the feminine and justice--an understanding of, respect for, and espousal of--that I feel must color our spiritual vision in the future. Once again, allow me to reduce my observations to two specific ar-eas. Most of us now accept the anima-animus duality of Jungian analy-sis and recognize that both operate within us. Likewise, most of us are probably still struggling to work out the implications of this distinction as we strive for wholeness. For example, speaking for myself, I sub-scribe to the theory that each man needs to go from his socialized mas-culine self, to his feminine self, and then to his deep masculine self, if he is to complete the journey of personal integrity. The same would ob-tain for woman: from the socialized feminine self, to the masculine self, to the deep feminine self, and thus to integrity. But, in a world that is patriarchal in language, symbol, and structure, much has to be overcome; the feminine needs to be underscored, both for the man and the woman. The gifts and qualities of the feminine are the ones that need to be ap-preciated and actively endorsed. We know those feminine qualities well: the ability to tap into and relate experience, the ability to be in touch with feelings and to articulate them in detail, the gift of making friendships that mature, the gift of a special bonding with the earth, for holding it sacred and walking on it gently. All these are specifically feminine quali-ties and gifts, and I would see our cultivating them as a consciously-chosen goal in a spirituality of the future. My second observation would have to come under the heading of "woman and justice"--a vast topic, but one that pertains to every di-mension of society and church. Simply put, the goal may best be ex-pressed in the words of Carolyn Osiek in her book Beyond Anger where she writes: "What we need is a transformation of patriarchy into a dis-cipleship of equals." A discipleship of equals; yes, that's it, and it would involve an ongoing conversion of attitude and action that must affect lan-guage, symbol, structure, and relationship. As part of a spirituality, this would mean an alert conscientization, a willful desire for justice in a spe- Review for Religious, March-April 1990 cific realm. A spirituality of the future must include a feminine princi-ple strand that addresses at least these two specific areas. The Ministry Strand "Go out to all the world and tell the good news." That is the com-mand. At the beginning ofevery religious congregation there was always some human need that cried out for relief, some opportunity for bring-ing the gospel message and Jesus to the marginalized. Founding groups and we their followers continue to believe that we are called by the Holy Spirit to be involved in the cause of Jesus through love of neighbor and a concern for justice. Of all the strands of religious life spirituality this has to be the most central and dominative: ministry rooted in faith and love that seeks justice. For me, the best contemporary expression of this goal was spoken by Pope John Paul II to a gathering of religious superiors: "The central conviction for meaningful renewal of a religious group lies in a deep-seated sense of mission for each individual and within the group. More than contemporary abstract social and psychological models, your for-mation programs for new members and for old, your community struc-tures of government and lifestyle will be well-ordered and sharpened when they are infused by a contemporary understanding and feeling for the group's historically-derived mission . Mission fires the idealism of the young and old alike. Mission calls us to pay the price, to bear the burden, to suffer pain, loneliness, and loss. Mission remains at the heart of the active apostolic vocation." If this be so, as we look into the future, we may want to define and evaluate our spirituality of mission according to three factors which have special meaning for today. First, the works of ministry. To what extent are the present works of our congregations the legitimate offspring of the founding charism? As a guide to this evaluation, it may be more impor-tant to gauge the religious zeal with which the ministries are being pur-sued, rather than their specific nature. Paul's words in 2 Timothy seem appropriate: "I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God bestowed when my hands were laid on you. The Spirit that God has given us is no cowardly spirit but rather one that makes us strong, loving, and wise" (2 Tm 1:6-7). Genuine ministry will always have a driven quality about it. Secondly, although all works of justice attract Christian ministry, our present technological society calls us to give special attention to struc-tural justice. Our socio-political-economic institutions and systems fre-quently oppress in a nameless, faceless way. We will not be able to con- Religious Life Spirituality / "197 front this unless our vision sees three and not just two dimensions to hu-man existence: the individual, the inter-personal and the public or so-cietal. How often, for example, in working for change through minis-try, have we focused on structures: personal, community, business, neigh-borhood, and asked: are these structures oppressive or life-giving? am I contributing to their power? A spirituality for ministry today must in-corporate a much clearer and more sensitive awareness of structures and their power if justice is to be achieved. Thirdly, our world has gotten smaller and more cohesive. United na-tions, one world, global village, planet earth are the terms we use, and our ministry responsibility needs to reflect that. Consequently, I would see that the ministry strand of religious life spirituality would have a global and ecological orientation that would make us concerned citizens that can pass beyond geographical boundary and language as we bring Christian outreach to all people and to the earth itself. Will "missionar-ies" be a special category in religious congregations of the future, or will all of us be part of that? A Final Word Where can we go with this? If I myself were reading this presenta-tion and found myself agreeing with some of it, and wanted to take some action, I think I would first sift the word "spirituality": is it a signifi-cant operative reality, and if so, what is its power and function within religious life? Depending on the answer to that, there is the matter of defi-nition: what is religious life spirituality and is there a generic understand-ing that cuts across congregational differences? Next, there is the image of the cable and its strands: are there identi-fiable patterns, movements, elements that we are being called to live out as religious today and into the future? If so, is it helpful to tick them off in some form of completeness/incompleteness, and can we then match these with our own congregational documentation (rules, mission state-ment, and so forth) and major endeavors (ministries, lifestyle, and other creative involvement), so that we might see where we are on the living chart of contemporary religious life? In other words, are we ready for some kind of self-evaluation as we move towards 2010? Following that, I should think a number of possibilities would de-velop: As a first (1) possibility, after a careful critique of our congrega-tional group, there might be cause to have a major celebration, a convo-cation or something similar, where the message would be: "We are on the right track; let us continue, though we might want to give some spe-cial consideration to such and such a strand. A second (2) possibility "191~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 might be the recognition that, although our congregational group has an intellectual or "documentary" grasp of these major strands, we, the rank and file, do not own them sufficiently in our lived experience, and we need to devise further strategies to address that. A third (3) pos-sibility, though I doubt it exists, is that our congregational group has not yet adequately come to an intellectual awareness of the import of these strands in religious life today. And so, we come back to our starting point: what will religious life spirituality look like in the year 2010, and what can we do about it now? Canticle To I Am The splendor of Your love is dazzling winter sunlight upon drifts of snow frozen by the frosts. At other times, it has the deep roar of immense waves crashing against red granite rocks which have patiently withstood the continuous onslaught of the sea. Also, it has the tranquillity of a street puddle made by the rain. Such a place can catch countless reflections of skyscrapers, the intense blue of a child's inquisitive.eyes. Your love is the song of a red cardinal telling the world that spring has come. Brother Richard Heatley, F.S.C. De La Salle Centre 45 Oaklands Avenue Toronto, Ontario M4V 2E4, Canada From CMSW to LCWR: A Story of Birth and Transformation Lora Ann Quihonez, C.D.P. and Mary Daniel Turner, S.N.D. de N. Sister Lora Ann Quifionez, C.D.P., is a former executive director of the Leader-ship Conference of Women Religious. She served as a member of the general coun-cil of the Sisters of Divine Providence of San Antonio, Texas. Sister Mary Daniel Turner, S.N,D. de N., is also a former executive director of the LCWR. She served as president of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. They are currently co-authoring a book on the renewal of religious life in the United States. They may be addressed at 1319 Floral Street, N.W.: Washington, D.C. 20012. This article is based primarily on sources in the archives of the Dominican Sis-ters, Adrian, Michigan; of the Sisters of Loretto, Nerinx, Kentucky: and of the Lead-ership Conference of Women Religious. The authors have constructed chronologi-cal sequences and the details of events from correspondence, minutes, proceedings of assemblies, internal reports, and a few in-house publications of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (Conference of Major Superiors of Women). The dates of the papers consulted fall within the years cited in the article. That the last twenty-five years have witnessed marked changes in Ameri-can Catholicism and that women religious have been prominent actors in the change process are evident. From children and daughters of the Church to women and partners in the mission of the Church, from ob-servers of to active participants in church-world affairs, and from insti-tutional church workers to initiators of and collaborators in multiple serv-ices, women religious of the United States, setting out from a stable and precisely-defined state of consecration, have journeyed to a less secure, and more expanded life of mission. There are many lenses through which we could examine this journey. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)--founded as the Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW)--however, offers a unique lens through which to view 199 200 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the coming-of-age of American women religious. ~ Composed of the chief officers of congregations of women religious, the conference is a juridically-recognized body in the Church, having of-ficial status with the Vatican and the American hierarchy. The major su-periors, as the designated leaders of their congregations, give priority to their communities, and issues of meaning and ultimate direction engage their energies. Joining with their peers in the conference, they are in a privileged position to probe and analyze issues. Moreover, since their roles encourage the promotion of change consonant with the mission of the Church and their respective charisms, they possess a certain degree of moral authority to consider common responses to the claims of church and world on their resources. Two events--the founding of the conference in 1956 and its verita-ble refounding in 1971--illuminate the transformation which occurred among the leaders of congregations of women religious within a span of twelve years, a metamorphosis not unlike the one among the sisters of the United States. These events reveal women of their times who carried out their responsibilities from very differing worldviews. This difference, graphically captured in their contrasting perceptions of religious life, is clearly evident in the records of the founding and the refounding of the conference. For the founders of the conference, consecration to God, the pursuit of personal holiness, and separation from the world were the essential elements of religious life. They understood their vocation as a call to a "state of perfection," whose legitimacy came from ecclesiastical author-ity. Religious were "religious" first and foremost; apostolic works were secondary, mere "nets" for saving souls. Corporate institutional ser-vices, however, ensured their collective and public identity. Stability, cer-titude, and order marked this way of life; regular observance distin-guished the "good sister." The place and the role of religious in church and world were secure and privileged. The statutes drafted at the time of the founding of CMSW simply reflected this theological perspective and mirrored the corporate self-understanding of the major superiors in the 1950s. Many of the major superiors of the late ! 960s and early i 970s, how-ever, imaged religious life not so much as a state within a "perfect so-ciety" but as a reality rooted in the Gospel, organized around and for the mission of the Church and shaped in history through the Spirit-inspired insights of persons living it. The work on the conference bylaws at the time of reorganization made apparent that leaders of women's con- From CMSW to LCWR / 201 gregations were refashioning their religious identity and reordering their place in the Church. Appreciating the universal call to holiness of all bap-tized persons espoused by Vatican II, these women searched for a cor-porate self-definition that would simultaneously speak to the commonly-shared vocation of all Christians and describe religious life as a distinct, but not more perfect, response to the Gospel. For a significant number of these leaders, personal holiness and the transformation of society were inextricably related. They no longer judged the world as alien territory; it was a locus of the holy. No longer secondary, works were constitutive of an apostolic life. They were not to be determined by a priori definitions of appropriate "religious" ac-tivities nor confined solely to corporate institutional commitments. World realities attested to needs and services were to be responsive to them. The mission of the Church, not regular observance, was the or-ganic principle of an apostolic religious life. In contrasting the members' work on the CMSW statutes and on the LCWR bylaws, we see that these differences determined the purpose and character of the conference. Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW) 1. Genesis The story of the founding is an account of a church movement with its beginnings in post-World War II Europe and its inspiration in the call of Pius XII for "aggiornamento" in and collaboration among religious institutes. The movement, deriving its direction from Vatican officials, gaining momentum through the international congresses and national meetings of religious held in the fifties, ultimately became institutional-ized because of the persuasive moral power of Vatican officials and the allegiance of American women religious to church authorities. 2. Organizing the Conference. In 1952 Valerio Cardinal Valeri, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Religious (SCR), appointed a committee of seven women to help plan the first national congress of religious of the United States. In April, 1958, he asked this same body to organize, in consultation with the ma-jor superiors of men, a national conference of religious in the United States. Writing to Mother Gerald Barry, O.P., superior general of the Dominicans (Adrian, Michigan), chair of the organizing committee, Val-eri states that the purpose of national conferences "is precisely to en-able those who understand most intimately the particular needs and con-ditions of their own country or area to provide for those needs by means 902 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 best adapted to their situation" (Oct. 9, 1958). These women, however, saw no need for a conference because organizations like the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the National Catholic Education Associa-tion, and the Catholic Hospital Association were ably serving com-munities in matters related to apostolic works. Besides, the need for "ag-giornamento" was not a felt-experience in the United States, where works were thriving, vocations abounded, and religious life seemed sta-ble. Nevertheless, if the Holy Father wanted such an organization, these women could be counted on to help realize his dream. They knew that the major superiors of the United States, "obedient children" and daugh-ters of the Church, would obey the wishes of the Sovereign Pontiff. Within six months (April--November, 1956) the Committee had drafted statutes, secured SCR approval for their work, orchestrated a na-tional assembly of major superiors, and set in motion a process for es-tablishing a conference. In doing their task, they relied heavily on the statutes of the newly-formed Canadian Religious Conference, which included both women and men; they also took quite seriously the directive of Valeri to structure national conferences according to local needs. Thus, although the SCR assumed that there would be a single conference for women and men, the Sisters' Committee took the view that the needs and problems of relig-ious women and religious priests were quite different. They saw a sepa-rate conference for women as a practical necessity: women must orga-nize and act on their own behalf. (No references were made to religious brothers in these early discussions!) Convinced as they were that other national organizations compe-tently advised women religious in matters pertaining to health, educa-tion, welfare, and "foreign missions," the organizing committee at-tached less importance to establishing a national office than did their male counterparts, also drafting statutes for a national conference. And so the women decided that a national executive committee would serve as a kind of "national sec?etariat" for the CMSW. Authority within the conference would be entrusted to the executive committee, and its mem-bers alone would elect national officers. The executive members would make decisions, direct programs, and transmit the mind of the Church to major superiors. While the conference membership would gather na-tionally every five years, the organizing committee did not envision mo-bilizing their power for corporate action. The national executive com-mittee would determine what, if any, activities were appropriate for a re-ligious conference. From CMSW to LCWR / 903 The organizing committee did, however, attach great significance to regional organization and activity. Local and regional diversity, so much valued in the United States, demanded this emphasis. The regions, there-fore, would constitute the strength of the conference and serve as forums for education and gathering places for major superiors to study together issues and topics relating to religious life. Work on the statutes made evident the relative certainty of the found-ing women about the nature and purpose of the Church and religious life. They accepted the official definitions and the practices of ecclesiastical authority as well as the canonical prescriptions about religious life. This certainty guided their deliberations and left its mark on the statutes, which clearly identified CMSW as an ecclesiastical moral person, depend-ent on church officials for its being. Submission to church authorities within the limits of canon law was to be the hallmark of the new organi-zation. Determining the criterion for membership was also no problem: only major superiors as defined by church law qualified. Similarly, the pur-pose of the conference was precisely specified: the spiritual welfare of religious and matters that were properly spiritual would engage the re-sources and energies of the conference. In summary, the statutes of CMSW structured a conference accord-ing to a hierarchic-elitist worldview, shaped in harmony with the domi-nant classical theology of religious life as a state of perfection and a life of consecration. Conference programs, activities, and relationships would take their direction from this worldview and theology. 3. The Founding Assured that the SCR endorsed their preparatory work, the organiz-ing committee planned a national meeting for November 24, 1956. Fol-lowing Vatican directives, they invited only major superiors of pontifi-cal congregations. Although the more than 235 in attendance unani-mously approved the proposed statutes, some raised the possibility of experimenting with a national conference for one year before making a final decision. The participants easily and quickly disposed of the ques-tion: what the Holy Father wanted, United States women religious wanted. Experimentation was unnecessary. And thus, the CMSW was founded. As originally envisioned, it was to be simply and only a conference: a forum for the spiritual benefit of major superiors as well as for the revitalization of religious life and an organ for communicating and promoting the mind of the Church. The months between November, 1956, and July, 1957, were devoted 204 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 to organizing the six regions, in particular, to electing regional officers who would serve as the eighteen-member national executive committee of the conference. A report given by Mother Alcuin McCarthy, O.S.F.--first National Chairman (sic)--at the Second International Congress of the States of Per-fection (December, 1957) reviews the founding activities of the confer-ence. Her account, simply and directly told, makes clear that, within the context of the Roman initiative, the organizing women took full charge of the process of founding and did so according to their understanding of the needs of religious life in the United States. It likewise records a story marked by the absence of conflict. Whatever the reservations of the founding women about the need for a national conference and about cer-tain organizational features, their steady reliance on church authorities and, in turn, the confidence of Roman officials in them worked together to bring about a stable, well-defined organization. The SCR officially recognized the conference in 1959 and approved the statutes in 1962. As a pontifically approved organization of major su-periors, the CMSW was well on its way to becoming a nationally and internationally recognized presence in the Church. Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) In contrast to the record of the founding of CMSW, the account of its reorganization is a story of women religious profoundly affected by Vatican II, influenced by the movement of Catholics into mainstream America, unsettled by the politics and cultural revolution of the sixties, challenged by the liberation theology of Latin America, and somewhat conflicted about their own identity and purpose. The decision to reor-ganize emerged from within the conference, engaging the members in an intensive review of the statutes and generating a transformation of con-sciousness about the purpose and organizational components of the con-ference. In fact, the implementation of that decision brought about the refounding of the CMSW. The Work of Reorganization The journey toward the refounding of CMSW was initiated and di-rected from within the conference. Responding to a request from Mary Luke Tobin, S.L. (then CMSW National Chairman) to ascertain the readi-ness of American congregations of women religious to implement Vati-can II, the National Executive Committee (NEC) appointed, in 1965, a research committee to direct this task. The committee launched the Sis-ters' Survey, a questionnaire of some 645 items, answered by 139,000 From CMSW to LCWR / 205 women religious in the United States. Since responses to the Survey made it clear that the sisters were eager to participate in decision-making, the research committee recommended to the 1967 assembly of the CMSW a study of conference structures. The NEC engaged the mem-bership in a study of the statutes that developed into a full-blown educa-tional program, calling for the active involvement of all the members. In many ways the process paralleled the special general chapters then un-derway in individual communities. In revising the statutes, CMSW members probed radical questions about the nature and purpose of religious life and necessarily about the nature and purpose of the conference. Conversations made evident that some leaders of women's congregations understood and experienced ap-ostolic religious life as something other than a "state of perfection" and a life of "separation from the world." The reports from regional meet-ings show that the appropriate relationship of religious to the world was a dominant issue in the discussion. The clear-cut distinction of classical theology between the sacred and the secular and between the "strictly spiritual" and apostolic works no longer held sway. It could not be as-sumed that traditional formulae about religious life, its purpose and mean-ing, claimed general allegiance among conference members. To some members it seemed that a spirit of secularism was finding its way into the conference. The records of this study also show the major superiors grappling with questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and debating the issue of mem-bership eligibility. What was the appropriate relationship between a pon-tifically approved organization (the conference) and church authorities? What was the legitimate and necessary autonomy of the conference within the church system? They questioned, too, criteria for membership. A proposal to include associates evoked fear among some members: they believed that to admit major superiors who did not fit canonical defini-tions and leaders of groups who did not have canonical approval would surely undermine the identity of the conference. Minutes of regional discussions also point up that a few members ex-pressed seriousconcern about the relationship between the national and the regional levels. Disturbed by what they perceived as the "sociologi-cal" character of the Sisters' Survey and its propagandizing intent, some members believed the influence of the NEC, who commissioned the study, needed curbing. Even the egalitarian principles shaping the orga-nizational character of the conference did not wholly dispel mistrust of the power of the NEC. 906 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 The proposed revisions of the bylaws drastically altered the purpose and role of the national meeting as well as the constituency and function of the governing body. Now conference members were to gather annu-ally and as a national assembly determine directions, establish goals, and specify priorities. A national board constituted by the chairs of the newly structured fifteen regions, five officers, and the executive director would govern according to the directions determined by annual assemblies and be accountable to the membership for its decisions and actions. The proposed bylaws provided for an expanded national office. This restructuring also caused anxiety among some members. As directors and coordinators of programs, research, development, communications, and fiscal procedures, the staff would, some thought, be in a position to ex-ercise too much power in the conference. Assurances from conference officers about the ecclesial character of the conference, the proposed restructuring of the regions, the move to universal suffrage for the election of the national officers, the function of the national assembly as a decision-making body, the board's account-ability to the membership, and the supervision of the staff by the board did not totally eliminate tensions within the conference. These tensions remained throughout the process of revision and after its completion. The revised statutes--now called "bylaws' '--adopted by the mem-bership in 1971 represented the dominant position, if not the unanimous view, of the membership. The bylaws clearly identified the conference as an ecclesial body, sophisticated as an organization. The members were unequivocally "women" in the Church, equal among themselves and partners with church officials in carrying out its mission. While they were clear that the bylaws of the conference existed to serve the leaders of congregations precisely as leaders, the purpose and objectives of the conference were broadly conceived, allowing for great diffusion of en-ergies and wide-ranging agendas. Not only were the Church and the world legitimate forums for concern and action, the conference was chal-lenged to be a transforming agent in both spheres. Strikingly, the lan-guage of the bylaws manifests a dynamic, evolutionary worldview, and the objectives mandate the development of a theology of religious life consonant with that worldview. Re founding Without prior consultation with or endorsement from the SCR, the national board presented the proposed bylaws for a final vote during the 1971 assembly. This was not, however, the first opportunity for a total conference discussion of the revised statutes: A special assembly had From CMSW to LCWR / 207 been held in February, 1970, to provide full membership debate on the purpose, role, and objectives of the conference. They had endorsed the restructuring of the conference from six to fifteen regions and adopted universal suffrage for the election of national officers. At the 1971 As-sembly the members approved the revised statutes and a new title, Lead-ership Conference of Women Religious. The newly-adopted bylaws and title signaled a transformed under-standing and appreciation of the raison d'etre of the conference: not only was it to be a forum for enabling leadership, it was also to become a cor-porate force for systemic change in Church and society. LCWR was born and with it an organization committed to constructive, creative use of power and influence in Church and world. No longer simply a forum for sharing, it now became an agent for change. The assembly, the national board, and executive committee as well as the secretariat and national committees consolidated the corporate power of the conference to coor-dinate regional and national levels and promote collaboration with Church and civic organizations. Following the 1971 Assembly the board directed the staff to initiate whatever actions were necessary to have the new name legally recog-nized. The former name CMSW, they agreed, communicated a negative image to the public: its militaristic and hierarchic connotations needed dispelling. This action and the adoption of the bylaws by the assembly without prior approval of SCR caused consternation not only among some conference members but also in some members of SCR. Presented with the newly adopted bylaws in November, the SCR raised questions about the lack of explicit jurisdictional lines between the conference and Church authorities and the meaning of the new title. Amendments to the bylaws worked out by the national board stilled, for a time, the concerns of SCR about jurisdictional issues. Provisions were incorporated to acknowledge the "authority of the Holy See and of the bishops," the relationship of the conference to SCR, and its re-sponsibility to the Apostolic Delegate in "its more important activities." As a result, the SCR granted definitive approval of the bylaws in 1972. Agreement about the title, however, did not come until 1974. For some SCR authorities the appropriation of the term "leadership" by the United States major superiors appeared arrogant. Besides, they charged, the language evoked the negative images associated with terms like "Fuh-rer" and "II Duce." After much dialogue between conference officers and members of the SCR and the addition of a statement in the bylaws clarifying the meaning of "leadership," SCR officials finally endorsed 201] "1 Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the title. The CMSW, according to one observer, had taken "a sharp new turn." The work of producing bylaws gave evidence of a growing ap-preciation of United States culture by the major superiors. And though probably unconscious of their kinship with feminists, the CMSW mem-bers of the late 1960s demonstrated commitment to becoming a self-determining conference, not isolated from Church officials but interact-ing with them. Concluding Reflections I. Transitions: Times, Events, Movements Between the call of Pius XII in the 1950s for "aggiornamento" and the challenge of John XXIII for renewal, the United States had experi-enced rapid and radical change. The flight from the cities to suburbia, the volatile confrontations of the civil rights movement, the assassina-tions of John F. and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the ex-cruciating agonies and divisions over United States involvement in Vi-etnam, the farm-workers' struggle for justice, the anti-Communist para-noia, the Bay of Pigs debacle, and the development of a vocal feminist minority threw the country into a national paroxysm. Self-doubt, dissent, and protest became a way of life. Moreover, the nation was not untouched by liberation movements in Third World countries. The presence of Peace Corps volunteers and of United States religious in Latin American countries awakened social re-sponsibility and global sensitivities, and, at the same time, called into question the role of the United States in international inequities. The United States was a world power. Was it a force for international jus-tice? The response of Catholics in the United States to Humanae Vitae was a powerful symbol and experience of intense ferment in the Church, evok-ing as it did a storm of protest. Public dissent was no longer confined to civic matters. The American Church, consciously becoming a "local church," was loosening its ties to Rome as Catholics moved into main-stream America, became better educated, and delighted in the experience of a Catholic president. Catholics were at home in America. They had assimilated well ~pecifically American values: the sharing of power, the right to dissent, participation in decisions that affect one's life, dialogue, respect for differences, and due process. The political upheavals, in ad-dition, evoked a new awareness of and commitment to these values. For many Catholics, however, these values were not simply or only From CMSW to LCWR / 209 cultural: they were consonant with the Gospel. They could, and should, find their way into Church life and structures. As renewal efforts within religious congregations demonstrate, women religious were not immune to these developments. They were profoundly affected by them. Movements directly related to religious life also influenced religious women. The expansion of education and theological competence brought about by Sister Formation (SF) activities in the 1950s and early 1960s insured that "new" ideas concerning both Church and society circulated in communities. Newer members, in particular, as well as congregational leaders and formation directors sensed that some structures and practices within religious institutes were not workable nor productive of healthy people and groups. Neither were they compatible with a developing sense of apostolic religious life. In many ways, the SF movement had prepared religious to respond boldly to the societal and ecclesial chal-lenges of the 1960s. In particular, the Vatican II mandate for renewal, its acknowledg-ment of the vital connection between Church and world, and its charac-terization of the Church as People of God and as Pilgrim People found receptive minds among a significant number of women religious. These ideas, validating the developing consciousness of many religious concern-ing the meaning of apostolic religious life, opened the way for its re-imagination. The depth of the response of United States religious to Vatican II was probably enlarged by the presence of Mary Luke Tobin, S.L., as an of-ficial observer at the Council. Her work on the commission which de-veloped The Church in the Modern World uniquely prepared her to be-come an ambassador of the Council. Traveling extensively throughout the country, she challenged women religious to take an active role in the world: they were to be bold advocates for justice and peace. As the presi-dent of CMSW (1964-67), she was in a privileged position to dissemi-nate the "good news" of Vatican II among major superiors. Her influ-ence was especially felt in the program planning of the national as-semblies from 1965-1967, assemblies that proved powerful corporate and formative ex

Issue 38.1 of the Review for Religious, 1979. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X) is edited in collaboration with faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. © 1979 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A.: $8.00 a year; $15,00 for two years. Other countries: $9.00 a year, $17.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor January, 1979 Volume 38 Number 1 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REVIEW Fort R~LICIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gailen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Review for Religious Volume 38, 1979 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108" Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, SJ. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1979 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Stewardship, Justice and the Religious Purpose in Education William J. Byron, S.J. Father Byron is President'of Scranton Univergity; Scranton, PA 18510. ere are three ideas°ar'ound which I would like toor, ganize this essay. The first two., stewardship and justice, will be relat~ ely brief. The tfiird notion concerns ou~" religious purpose in edu'cation. I holSe to develop it'in~ a way that will make a case for the educ~itional apostolate as'an +xercise of stewardship arid an instrument of justice. Stewardship It has been interesting to obser~ve in the 15as! several°years a renewed' interest in the notion of s~eWardshil5°in the Catholic 'community. We are discove'ring (or rediscoverifig) that"riOt ~0nly is stewardship a simple term, it is also an uncbmplicated~solutioh to significant portions "of some major s~ciai prolSlems. In practice, stewardship is an instrument of social justice. Reflo~ztiOn°ofi'ste~a~dghil~ might begin with the first verse of the Twdfity-fourth Ps~l~a: '"The earth is the Lord's iind"the fulhess thereof." All of material 6reation, as Well as all wealth flowing from it, b~longs to God. Wealth possessed ~r~produced by human persons is owne~ by' God. We own nothing abs0iut~ly; all We have we hold in trust. Thi~ is the ffiith foundation of th6 stewardship perspective. As composites c~f body and soul, we include our intellectual and spiritual resources as part, of the basic endowment which belongs ~to the Lord: Our use of both ~nateri~l and immaterial r~sources is intended to be an exercise of ste,.wafdshio.~ , .~ 4 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 All we have we hold in trust for other~for those who inhabit this planet with us.now, and for those who will live here in the future. Stewardship has inescapable societal obligations. Why do I say all we have is held in trust for others? Why not owned by God and held by me for my personal use? Why the social dimension? Possession of a particular share of created resources may be private, but that private share cannot be used without regard for others. There are two considerations here: one of equity, the other of responsibility. On the equity side I have to ask, "Is my share a fair one relative to the needs and claims of others?" Put another way, does my share represent an unfair gain taken at the expense of others?" The equity issue quite obvi-ously relates more immediately to the possession and use of material re-sources rather than to those that are spiritual and intellectual. It is not necessary for someone to .know less mathematics so that I might know more. My food supply, however, may be held at the expense of someone less fortunate than I. Broadening the equity consideration from the individhal person to a larger group (as, for instance, one's race or nation) one can ask the equity question this way: does my group's share represent an unfair gain taken at the expense of other groups-? The responsibility consideration looks to the future. Are resources being used now in a way that will provide for future generations a secure basis for their existence? Again, this is easier to see with respect to material re-sources. If we depli~e our oil supplies, will they have an alternative source of-energy? If we pollute our lakes and streams, will they have ffater to drink? If we fail to sustain our soil, will they have bread to sustain their lives? What we refer to as "our" resources are also theirs, for they, like us, are sons and daughters of the sole owner, the Lord, who has entrusted his creation to our care and for our use. We are stewards. We own nothing absolutely. All we have we hold in trust. As inhabitants of this earth at this time, we religious educators, like our feilow~ on this planet, have stewardship responsibilities. As members of a religious community, moreover, we possess a tradition, a history, a style, some physical assets and an impressive array of spiritual and intellectual resources. We own none of these absolutely; all of these we hold in trust. We are stewards of this collective religious-community endowment. We face, therefore, considerations of equity and responsibility as we manage our collective endowment. The equity donsideration relates directly to justice and will be discussed in the next part of this article when we have to ask ourselves whether our share of these resources represents an unfair gain taken ai the expense of others. The responsibility consideration looks, as I suggested earlier, to the future. Are we using our resources, particularly our intellec.tual and spir-itual resources, in a way that is likely to enrich the lives of future inhabitants Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education of this planet?°The steward is in charge ofla household he does not.own. Is that ho, usehold being maintained by us in a state of apostolic readiness for effective service now and in the future? The story in ,Luke 16:1-8 of the "unjust steward" or "dishonest manager" serqi~s as a reminder that we can miSlase or misapply our heri-tage; we can indeed violate the trust that is ours. Failure to meet our responsibilities as stewards would mean failure to preserve a heritage that the Lord, the dominus, the owner of the householdmay well intend to have available for the service of future generations. To take my own Jesuit household as an example, I would include in my list of the central elements of the heritage that is now ours tb use and to preserve for the future these four: (1) The Spiritual Exercises, (2) development of the intellect, (3) service to the Holy See, and (4) apostolic flexibility. These four elements suggest that the Society of Jesus intends to foster in itself an embodiment of(1) holiness, (2)learning, (3) service to the Church, and (4)availability for necessary service ~an. ywhere in the world. ,~ Further specification of these elements rais'es four disturbing questions and one simple observation. The questions are these: 1. Does the prefer-ence .for poverty which characterizes The Spiritual Exercises also charac-terize the holiness of the Society today? 2. Does the emphasis on learning, present at the origins of the Society, remain an active emphasis in thisstage of the Society's growth and in all stages of the individual Jesuit's growth? 3. Does service to the Church of Christ and to the Vicar of Christ charac-terize our labors now as in the days of our origins? 4. Are we individually and collectively free to move our heritage and our resources in the direction of the greatest need, wherever that may be? The one observation I ~ould want to make in connection with the stewardship of the Jesuit heritage is this: formal education through the operation of schools, although part of the Jesuit tradition, is neither essen-tial to the heritage nor identifiable as an element that characterizes, the origins of the Society of Jesus. Similar reflection~, questions and observations can be directed toward the heritage and "household management" of any other religious commu-nity. " .~ o,~ 7 Justice Justice is symbolized by trays in balance on a scale. We speak of the "scale~ of justice." ~Vhen one tray yields weight to the other and imbalance occurs, the weights have to be adjusted to restore the balance. Imbalance symbolizes injustice; compen.sation makes adjustment (ad-just-ment), '~the achievement of justice, possible. Three years ago it was my privilege to address the New Orleans (Jesu'it) Province Assembly on th~ justice dimension of our apostolates~ In that paper I asked, "is ~our corporate apostolic service compensatory; are we 6 /ReviewforReligious; Volum~e 38, 197911. throwing our weight ~onto .the side of the oppressed?" I went on to say Symbolidally, justice is ~+l~resented by trays in balance on a scale.- The unbaladce of social injustice, where one group's advantage (th 'down tray) is taken at the expense .of another group (the up tray) calls for compensatory action.As a social group, we Jesuits should sh~ft our weight over to the weak stde. We see gaps between r, ch and poor, powerful and powerless, advantaged and disadvantaged. In exercising our min- " istry of justice, by whatever apostolic instruments, we sl~duld, it seems to me. trans- "' late the ideal of the Third Mode of humility into practice by choosing to be with Christ and as Christ---on the short side of all those gaps. Where do we throw our weight? Where do we throw our wealth, our income, our apostolic energy? One of the delegat6s to that assembly was the talented young lawyer-activist Alfred C. Kammer, S.J. In the question peribd following my talk, he expressed his personal view that the Society, as a group, occupier solidly and squarely the down tray in most" of the gap-comparisons that come to mind. In his recent contribution to Studies in the' Spirituality of Jesuitst Fr. Kammer~returns to my question, "Where d6 we throw our weight? Where do we throw our wealth, our income; our apostolic ener-gy?" and addresses it in these words: Th~ activist answers Father Byi'on's question by saying that the Society largely casts ' its weight with the "haves.'"with those who at best "don't care" and at worst are'the oppressors. He sees the institutional and personal weight of the Society lined up with the "haves" in such popular dichotomies as .these: white vs. black white vs. brown male vs. female U.S. vs. Third;World powerful vs. , powerless rich vs. poor . suburban vs. urban well-educated vs. poorly educated And, Fr. Kammer continues, "the,activist concludes that no matter how much Jesuits 'tinker' with their present .institutional commitments to facilitate the entry of some minority composed of the poor or disadvan, taged, th~e,.Society's weight is stii! .cgs.t overwhelmingly on the side of the well-off" (p~p. 10-11). I think Fred Kammer locates us Jesuits correctly. Weigh'ted do~v~ with the advantages of education, nutrition, health care, secure housing and all the other physical things necessary for our work, as well as those things less necessary but useful and convenient, we are on the down. tray, on the side of the well-off. Now_this raises many quegtions. What is the relatedness or relati0nship-between us and those who are less well off, those on the up tray, the disadvantaged. Are we Wher~we are because they are where they are? Has our gain been taken at their expense? With whom do we side when the issue ~" 'Burn-out' Contemporary Dilemma for the Jesuit Social Activist." Vol. X. No. 1, January 1978. Stewardship~ Justice and Purpos~e in Education is ,raised of redressing the balance? Without attempting to answer these difficult questions, I raise another that resurrects the,notion of stewardship. What are we do~ing ._with what we have? Do we manage it responsibly, share its, apply it,to the i,mprovement of life for others now and in the future? The Religious, CommUnity's Purpose in Education Many if,not most of us religious in America are stewarding our resources in an institutional educational environment. Will our stewardship-have anything .significant to contribute to .the promotion of justice? It may well be true that ~tinkering with our institutional arrangements will not shift our weight completely and existentially to the side of the poor and powerless. One need not conclude, however, that we must abandon our advantages. Nor does it follow that the down tray is necessarily the wrong place for' many religious to be. If we de=institutionalized our works, if wee gave away every physical asset we igossess ~nd went to live with the poor, poverty wo(dd be fieither relieved nor ~r~duced. We ar~ ~lo~t,lbcked 'into an adversary rel~ti6h~hip on the side ofth( rich againstth6 po6÷, 0n the side of whites against the blacks, on the side of a@ dominantgroup agaii~st any oppressed minoi'ity. We are in a position to'convert the "versus" linkages into hyphens find to forge connecting links of ~:econciliation between rich and poor, black and white, and other- di~,ided ~roups. A~dmittedly, many if not :most of us, a?e on the down tray. Admittedly, all occupants of the down tray will have to give somethingup if some semblance of balance is to b~.realized, and'most are unwilling to give up anything. And admittedly, the effort tO~'fi'chieve a balance between the trays is uphill and long range. But that is ttie.hatu're of the work we are called to do. Are we'free enough to do l~h~at i,v~b{k well? Central to an~ educational ~ork isthe develop~ment 0f"tiun~a~] potential. Human potential stretches into eternity;~the positive~side toward union with the Creatoi"bf that human p0t.e0[i-hl; the negative side points to the possibil: ity of eterh~i! alienation. , Formai education's inte{ests are coextensive with the entire range of positi~,e p~ssibiliti~s for human development. Recognition of this fact came early in Jesuit historY,. For more th~n four centuries now, we have been choosing formal education as an extr~brdinarily v~luable instrument for our work in the development of hum~.n potential. Many other religious in-sii'tutes have made'the same decision. ,:~ ,,~ ¯ At.this moment in our history, we Jesuits of the United States are faced with a.decline in numbers,'a fairly widespread loss.of nerve, some uneasi-ness ,about the appropriateness of our life-style and our ability, to live harmoniously and work effectively in companionship, and we are also faced with nagging doubts about.the apostolic value of what we are doing in,our schools. Our experience is.not uriique. In addition, we Jesuits have~lSeen challenged to redefifi~ ourselves~.and our mission.in terms of the service of 8 /Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 faith and the promotion of justice: Can this redefinition and concommitant rededication happen without abandonment:of our commitment.to formal educatiori? I think it can. Our Jesuit purpose in education is a logical extension of our stewardship and justice responsibilities.~And the same is true for many other religious. Formal education's interests are coextensive with the entire range of positive possibilities for human development. That is why religious communities choose formal education for their members, and choose to offer formal education to others. Higher education touches that ra.nge" of positive possibilities in a priv-ileged way. Wisdom is areal possibility at the stage of human development associated with higher education. At this level it is the privilege of educa-tors to group themselves into communities of inquiry which may become or beget wisdom communities,. The religious purpose in higher education is to move the minds and hearts of developing persons. The direction of this movement is Godward. The norm is truth. The outcome, it is to be hoped, is wisdom. And wisdom, we would all agree, is a gift from God. As the religious is a faith-committed person, so religious education is intended to be faith-commjttedactivity. If, as faith directs, everything depends on God, then wisdom would suggest that every'thing must be entrusted to God. If such wisdom is present with us at the beginning of religiously sponsored education, it may well be expected to reside with our students at the end of the edpcati0nal experi-ence. Any religious experience involves a search for God's will. This search, in the vocabulary of spirituality, goes b.y the name of discernment. And discernment, as we all know, is a wisdom characteristic. As any Jesuit knows, the Igna.tian way of discernment cannot be learned, from books. It can only be exp,grienced under the direction of a sensitive gpide. Hence, a special task, a privileged opportunity for Jesuits in higher education is to offer the e,xperience' of The Spiritual Exercises to those in .the learning community who want to grow spiritually. In the context o'f the Exercises, as in the classroom, learning should be directed by a motivator-organizer and assimilated by an active participant in the process. As a classroom educator or spiritual guide, the Jesuit, as an instrument of God's grace, is expected to assist the Spirit in moving the minds and hearts of those who want to grow. -' In the domain of higher education, there are many with the potential for wisdom. That is why Jesuits gather there to work. Their task is not only to teach and search for truth in all its forms, but also to share their founder's special grace with those who want to grow the Ignatian way. The Ignatian way toward wisdom is part of the heritage, the endowment over which every Jesuit exercises a stew~irdship responsibility. His antecedent respon-sibility; of course, is to have internalized the Ignatian way. His educational methods :will; not surprisingly, reflect it. Normally, his desire will be to live and work in companionship with others who are familiar with the Ignatian Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education way. And the Jesuit's hope, wherever he works, will be to share this way Or see it shared with others. That is responsible stewardship. It is also part of the Jesuit purpose in education. Parallel purposes, hopes and apostolic approaches characterize the work of other religious who are educators. There is much of a practical nature that (ould be said of education-for-justice efforts now underway in Catholic educational institutions. A lot of experience is accumulating. Rather than listing courses, projects and field experiences of demonstrated value, I would prefer to mention only one program that is designed to assist all educators in addressing the world hunger issue. Atthe 1974 World Food Conference in Rome, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pledged the cooperation of the United States to work with other nations so that "within a decade no child will go to bed hungry" anywhere in the world. In hopes of facilitating contributions from educational institu-tions toward this goal, Bread for the World Educational Fund launched in 1976 a Decade of Commitment on World Hunger (DCWH). The program is designed for institutions of higher education. It provides conference oppor-tunities for administrators, faculty, campus ministers, career guidance counselors and students to share ways of placing and keeping hunger on the academic agenda. Emphasis is placed on four areas within which colleges ~:an deal with the hunger issue: curriculum, research, campus ministry and career choices made by students ("In the face of the world hunger problem, what are.you going to do with your life?").?~ Som~ of.the best work in justice-education is happening in secondary schools. Again I refrain from listing the specifics. I would, however, like to say a word about the person of the secondary educator. To put it more pr.ecisely, I would like to repeat a great theologian's reflections on the value of the person and importance of the work of the religious who is a high school_teacher. The Jesuit secondary educator is the man John Courtney Murray, de-scribed with admiration and affection as "The Schoolmaster." He spoke of the schoolmaster as the grammarian, the person who is knowledgeable in the elements of his subject, whose knowledge is, in this sense, elementary but certainly not superficial. The schoolmaster is devoted to the communi-cation of these elements as a lifetime work. Being a schoolmaster, said Fr. Murray to a Jesuit audience at Woodstock in 1961, is '~being on the growing edge of things, beca.use the growing edge is youth." "We are supposed to be Jesuit ministers of growth," he added, "'ad profectum animarum." "We are supposed to be men of tomorrow. One of "~The Educational Fund, which can also provide worship aids and high school course-materials on hunger, is a separate corporation closely related to the Christian citi~.ens lobby known simply as Bread for the World (207 East 16th Street, New York City 10003). Membership in Bread for the World (annual dues $10) will keep one informed, by means of a monthly newsletter and background papers, about the hunger issue. "10 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 our earliest undertakings was to become schoolmasters, schoolmen. Doc-trina exacta et solida is first the tradition of the Church; it is also the tradition of reason. We are committed to an intellectual apostolate--a min-istry of and io intelligence." The schoolmaster imparts the skills and guides the maturation process. The more fully the religious schoolmaster or schoolmistress has assimilated the basic elements of his or her religious, heritage, the more valuable is he or she as a role model in the 'midst of the young. The classroom teacher's task is largely one of method and motivation; the object is to move both minds and hearts. Inevitably, the response the teacher stimulates will be a response to himself or herself. This is a privileged relationship. If the sct~oolmaster (or the scholar, for that matter) is a person of justice, a sense of justice will be communicated to the students. If the institution-alized set of arrangements known as a school embodies in its procedures relationships of justice, then those who teach and learn there will, in vary-ing degrees, embody in themselves the principles of justice. The religious schoolmaster has, of course, a life outside the classroom. There are pastoral opportunities and citizenship responsibilities. The apostolic base, the school, can and should.be a place from which the religious reaches out to the Christian and civic communities for the service of faith and promotion.of justice. That outreach will, it might be expected, involve both witness and advocacy roles in 'the cause of justice as an expression of faith. Education for justice is a challenge we religious are capable of meeting. We should have no doubt about that. Whether we will. meet it or not is another matter. But we can, if we choose. The educational outcomes, the results of our efforts to educate for justice, depend on powers beyond our own. There is no reason to believe that the Lord will not raise up men and women of justice in our midst and in our times. I recognize that there is no bne method known now to be the most effective in educating for justice. The argument over method goes back to the Aristotelian notion that the one who does justice will come to under-stand justice; and back as well to Plato's view that the one who first understands justice will then act justly. In this important matter of educat-ing for justice, we Catholic educators have a laboratory system in our American schools and colleges. We can try different methods in different situations and compare results. The findings of our experiments in educa-tion for justice can be shared with other educators in other systems. We can make a difference here. As we do it our way, in the intellectual-educational mode, unjust, ex-pioitative, discriminatory and oppressive situations will remain in our world. But in direct proportion to our success in educating fqr justice, future world situations will have a reduced share of injustice. It is a Chris-tian characteristic not to give up on the future. Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education / 11 Father BenWren, a New Orleans Province Jesuit whose scholarly inter-ests include Eastern mysticism, tells me that there is a Chinese saying to0the effect that one who is concerned with planning for a year should plant rice; the person interested in planning for a decade should plant trees. But one who wants to plan for a century will surely want to educate people. There.is a religious purpose in education. That purpose is consistent, for example, with our contemporary Jesuit focus on the service of faith and the specification of that service in the promotion ofjustice. The activist impulse suggested by the word promotion is quite congenial with our purpose and style of education. Through education; we can touch both trays on the scalEs of justice. When we work with the advantaged, we should have the disadvantaged in mind. We can challenge ourselves and all others who occupy the down tray to dedicate ourselves in conscience to making life livable for the poorest of the poor. When we work directly with the e~onom-ically disadvantaged, we can assist them in developing the competencies that can help them move toward a better life. The earliest Jesuit schools were free. But never, so far as I can deter-mine, were Jesuit schools exclusively for the poor or exclusively for the rich. Today, we are with the rich,much more than we are with the poor in our educational work. Who can say that we cannot somehow, somewhere in the decades ahead bring our educational energies into more direct contact with the poor? Who can say that we will not, in the meantime, find new and effective ways of bringing the "haves" with wtiom we work to an accept~ ance of their obligations injustice toward the "have nots"? And who woul~l want to take responsibility for disengaging ourselves from the apostolate that makes either option possible? That last question, in my view, highlights the importance of personal and community life-style for those who work in the educational apostolate. We religious in America are perfectly capable of going soft. We can indeed insulate and isolate ourselves from the condition of the disadvantaged masses. We are capable of-violating our stewardship. If that should happen, justice will not be served and the religious purpose in education will have lost its salt. In The American Mind (Yale, 1950), Henry Steele Commager remarks that for Willa Cather, the past was significant for its moral qualities. Her long literary life was, according to Commager, an elaborate remembrance of things past--the past of the pioneers who had built the West, of the immigrants who had carried with them into the New World their sense of beauty and art, of those earlier spiritual pathfinders, the Franciscans and Jesuits, who had served their fellowmen and their God so selflessly. And all her novels and stories., were animated by a single great theme as they w.ere graced by a single felicitous style, the theme was that of the supremacy of moral and spiritual over material values, the ever recurrent but inexhaustible theme of gaining the whole world and losing one's soul (p. 150). Dealing, as she did, with the frontier as the setting for many of her 12 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 stories, Miss Cather apparently found inspiration in the frontier idea and saw it as a setting for clarification, and dramatization of moral issues. Hence, as Commager points out, the passing of the pioneer generation meant, to Miss Cather, the passing of all the old virtues, "and she was incapable of believing that there could be different virtues in a civilization whose standards were those of the countinghouse, whose habits were predatory, and whose rewards were social and ostentatious rather than spiritual and private" (p. 154). Commager cites a tribute to Nebraska writ-ten by Willa Cather in the early 1920's: We must face the fact that the splendid story of the pioneers is finished and that no new story worthy to take its place has yet begun . The generation now in the driver's seat hates to make anything, wants to live and die in an automobile, scudding past those acres where the old man used to follow the corn rows up and down. They want to buy everything ready-made: clothes, food., education, music, pleasure; Will the third generation--the full-blooded joyous ones just coming over the hill--be fooled? Will it believe that to live easily is to live happily.'? (p. 154). Two generations have passed since those words were written. Religious at work in Nebraska and elsewhere in America are prepared to admit that many of us in many different driver's seats have been fooled. Regrettably, some of us, by witness and word, have foolishly encouraged others to believe that to live easily is to live happily. The "new story" thatoWilla Cather was looking for in Nebraska,can be written anywhere in America by contemporary religious educators, if they choose to. I suspect that "the full-blooded joyous ones just coming over the hill" are not now being fooled; they recognize that if we want to live happily, we will want to do what we can to make life livable for the poorest of the poor. Schools alone cannot do it and they certainly cannot do it right away. But without the schools, it will not be done at all:. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Michael T. Winstanley, S.D.B. Father Winstanley lectures in New Testament Studies at Ushaw College, the Senior Seminary for the Northern Dioceses of Eng_l, and. He lives in the Salesian community attached to Ushaw College; Durham DH7 9RH; England. His last article, "'Jesus, Poverty and the Kingdom," appeared in the July, 1977 issue. Your vow to remain unmarried for the sake of God's kingdom will draw you into the loneliness of the cross of Jesus and reveal the basic loneliness of every man.1 In his,book The Calvary Christ Gerald O'Collins writes: "Too often a cloud of stale words covers Calvary. Theologians and exegetes can use a language remote from anything we feel. Conventional-religious art asks for our conventional reaction. Tendencies .towards evasion in all of us allow this art to continue and the dull language to grind on. We accept the old fo.rmulas, the familiar crucifixes and the ponderous pronouncements of scholars with a mixture of loyalty and mystification. We need to find and fashi6n ways of reflecting on the crucifixion which can let it speak to us again with. new power.'' How far this statement mirrors our feelings and experience, each indi-viduai must judge. I should like to suggest that one way of reflecting on the crucifixion which can indeed let it speak to us again with new power is to tRulefor a New Brother (London; Darton, Longman & Todd, 1973), p. 16. 2G. O'Collins, The Calvary Christ (London, SCM, 1977), p. ix. 13 14 / Review for Religious, Volume 38,~ 1979/1 take one evangelist's presentation of the passion of Jesus, to meditate on it, and to allow its impact to challenge our lives. For each of the evangelists narrates the story in his own way, with his own particular emphases, highlighting different aspects of the drama, f~cusing different facets of the person of Jesus,.communicating his own theological vision and understand-ing of the significance of the event. Unfortunately, the originality of each approach is often blurred, and the sharpness blunted by the comfortably generalized picture which most of us have. In this article I shall concentrate on one of the motifs which dominates the passion according to Mark, namely the loneliness of Jesus.3 It is this which constitutes his greatest suffering, far more than any physical pain. In fact, Mark, as indeed the other three evangelists, evinces little interest in the physical torments of the Master, laying little stress upon them. Mark's Gospel has been called a passion narrative with a long introduction. This reminds us to view the passion within the framework of the whole Gospel; consequently, in our consideration of some of the elements of the narrative, it will be necessary to refer back to earlier sections of the Gospel. The earliest passion narratives probably began with the arrest scene. "Suddenly, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, appeared, and with him was a crowd armed with swords and ~cudgels; sent by the chief priests, lawyers and elders." The man responsi.ble .for the success of the arrest is not one of those whose constant opposition had dogged Jesus' tracks, but "one of the twelve," one of his friends. Our minds flash back to an earlier scene in which Jesus "then went up into the hill country and called the men he wanted: and they went and joined him. He appointed twelve to be with him, to be sent out to proclaim the gospel, with a commis-sion to drive out devils. So he appointed the twelve .-." (3,13-16). Discipleship is primarily a personal call to the intimacy of friendship, a being "singled out" in order to "be with." It is one of these chosen ones who had shared his fellowship who is the traitor; and the sign of his treach, ery is the normal sign of respect and friendship: "When he reached the spot, he stepped forward at once and said to Jesus, 'Rabbi,' and kissed him. Then they seized him and held him fast." The verb Mark uses here means a particularly ~iffectionate kiss, a firm embrace. After a futile act of token resist~ince which served only to emphasize Jesus' defenselessness, "they deserted him and fled, every one of them," including the~youthful follower who narrowly evaded capture. , Mark recounts this Scene with a laconic matter-of-factness that is chill-ingly disconcerting. Earlier that evening, as they walked together from the supper room to the garden, Jesus had predicted their flight: "You will all fall from .your faith; for it stands written: 'I will strike the shepherd down and the sheep will be scattered.'" And Peter, not untypically, had insisted that he would die even, rather than disown Jesus. "And they all said the same" 3cf. Hendrickx, The Passian Narratives (Manila, East Asian Pastoral Institute, 1977). Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation / 15 (14, 26-31). Yet they were not Slow to seek their own safety and leave Jesus to face his fate alone. This flight and abandonment, the memory of which haunted the early Christians, was in fact the culmination of that failure on the part of the disciples both to understand and to accept the messiahship of Jesus which Mark traces throughout this Gospel, especially after Caesarea Philippi in Chapter Eight. On that occasion, in answer to Jesus' questioning concerning people's opinions about him~ and his further probing as to the views of the disciples, Peter, as their spokesman, professed Jesus' messiahship. Jesus responded by speaking openly about his passion for the first time, which provoked a bewildered attempt to dissuade him. At this time Jesus rebuked Peter in ~strong terms for his thinking as men think rather than as God thinks, and proceeded to outline the nature of discipleship: "~nyone who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self behind, he must take up his cross and come with me" (8,34). A little later in the narrative, as they journeyed through Galilee, Jesus again spoke of his passion, "but they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask" (9,32). And on their way they argued about seniority and importance and greatness. Jesus predicted his passion for the third, time on the road going up to Jerusalem in terms which were unmistakably clear. The failure of the disciples to understand is illustrated by the next incident, in which the two sons of Zebedee made a bid for the top jobs in the Kingdom. The rest were naturally indignant about this, a row broke, out, and Jesus, in patient frustra-tion, attempted to open their minds to the nature of his messiahship and of his kingdom, and to the real meaning of discipleship in terms of service (10,44-45). It is this inability or unwillingness to grasp and to accept what messiah-ship meant for Jesus when this proved to be different from what the twelve were expecting and hopiag for; this inability or unwillingness to embrace in vision and in lifestyle the kind of discipleship such a messiah demanded, which expressed itself so decisively in their garden choice not to be "with him," to care for their own safety (8,35), to forsake him and flee. The next scene in the passion drama, comprises Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin and the denials of Peter; the~e two incidents are closely inter-locked in Mark's account. '~Then they led Jesus away to the High Priest's. house, where the chief priests, elders and doctors of the law were all assembling." Already Mark has clearly designated the Jewish leaders as the ones responsible for Jesus' arrest (14,43), and he indicates each section that made up the San.hedrin, the supreme religious and legislative body. For Mark, these are his real enemies. From the early stages of the public ¯ ministry they have consistently opposed him. In Chapter Two, when the paralytic is brought to Jesus, the doctors of the law consider his talk about 16 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 forgiving sins quite blasphemous, and Jesus vainly attempts to open their eyes as he cures the poor man. A little while la.ter, after the call of Levi, when Jesus is at table with tax-gatherers and sinners, the Pharisees com-plain~ to his disciples about the types he"mixes with; Jesus, on hearing this, retorts, not without a touch of irony: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick; I did not come to invite virtuous people, but sinners" (2,17). Mark now records the Pharisees' criticism of the disciples for plucking corn on the Sabbath, a complaint which stung Jesus to challenge their basic tenets in enunciating the principle that people mattered more than sabbath regulations. This incident is followed by an episode which underlines the mounting hostility, the failure of Jesus to win acceptance of the religious ~lite. It is a sabbath and Jesus goes to the synagogue, where there is a man with a withered arm. "And they were watching to see whether Jesus would cure him on the sabbath, so that they could bring a charge against him." Aware of their malicious intentions, Jesus tries to draw them, to make them aware of the perversion of religion, the distortion of the image of God, that adherence to legalistic casuistry entailed. He encountered an obstinate and ominous silence, saddening and frustrating. "But the Pharisees, on leaving the synagogue, began plotting against him with the partisans of Herod to see how they could make away with hirh." Thereafter Jesus is obliged to live and to work under the shadow of this threat. The rift widens as the ministry continues, and eventually, as the conflict approaches its climax, Jesus takes the game into their own court, openly challenging them by expelling the money-lenders and merchants from the temple .precincts. On hearing of this, the chief priests and doctors of the Law "sought some means of making away with him, for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching" (11,18). Not long afterwards Jesus spoke that indictment-parable of the wicked husbandmen. The inevitable result was that -they began to look for a way to arrest him, for they saw that the parable was aimed at them; but they were afraid of the people, so they left him alone and went away" (12,12). As that fateful final week progresses we hear of the attempts by the Phari-sees and Herod's party to entrap him in regard to the Caesar tribute (12,13), and by the Sadducees in regard to the resurrection (12,18-27); and we hear Jesus word-lash the doctors of the Law (12,38-40). And so, finally, as the Passover feast approaches, "the chief priests and doctors of the Law were trying to devise some cunning plan to seize him and put him to death" (14,1). Now these men have Jesus in their power at last. From the commence-ment of the so-called trial or enquiry, their intentions are firm and limpid; with cynical singlemindedness "they sought testimony against Jesus to put .him to death" (14,.56). Mark paints the scene in a few, bold, vivid strokes: the balking incompetence of the false witnesses; the silent, dignified, isolated figure of Jesus; his foes bent unanimously on his destruction. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Swiftly the evangelist brings the matter to a head, as the high priest asks Jesus whether he is in fact the Christ. At Jesus' open affirmation, the high priest, with an elaborate dlsplay of passionate horror, accuses him of blas-phemy; and the gathering ends as planned: "they all condemned him as deserving death' '--again Mark emphasizes the unanimity of the opposition, and the utter aloneness of Jesus. Whilst, in an atmosphe.re of frenzied hate and delighted success, Jesus is beaten and mockbd and humiliated, Mark shifts our attention to the courtyard where Peter stands by the fire warming himself in the chill night air. We are familiar with the painful description of Peter's triple denial of the Master. Mark skiifully orders them in a crescendo pattern so that the third denial is the most intense, accompanied by curses and a solemn oath. Some scholars suggest that Peter, still under fire in spite of his first two denials, resorts to the strongest possible manner of dissociating himself from Jesus by actually cursing him; this is the force to be given to that staggering disavowal: "I do not know this man you speak of"--an even more emphatic restatement of his earlier rejection of Jesus' messianic way at Caesarea Philippi. Peter, singled out to be with him, decisively opts in public not to be with him. Mark heightens the effect of this by juxtaposing the incident with the trial .scene: Jesus, true to himself and his mission, affirms what he cannot deny, his messiahship; and he is rejected by the religious leaders of his own people and by his closest follower. Alone and in chains, he is led away and handed over to pagan power (15,1). The rejection and isolation of Jesus is further accentuated in the subse-quent scene when the ordinary people shout for his death. The fickleness of crowds, the fragility of public opinion, is a commonly recognized phe-nomenon. From the statements of the Pharisees cited earlier, it would seem that Jesus continued to enjoy a considerable amount of popularity with the masses. Yet their acclaim was always suspect. Quite early in the Gospel, Mark describes the wave of enthusiasm and excitement sparked by Jesus' miracles and teaching; the people flocked to him with their sick, and hung on his words. But their response went little deeper. For the most part, they misunderstood the nature of his kingdom, the,genre of his peculiar messia-nism. They were not won to faith; they were prone to disappointment and disillusionment, with the resentful antagonism that this engenders. Now, when Pilate in a desperate effort to release him, offered the mob the option of choosing "Jesus Barabbas," as he was probably called, a freedom fighter convicted of murder, or Jesus of Nazareth, the crowd, incited by the chief priests, clamored for the insurrectionist, and screamed for Jesus to be committed to the hideous torture-death of crucifixion. We should not allow our familiarity with the story to dull our sensitivity to the poignant pain of that scene, the dreadful irony as the nation whose whole history pointed to this moment, the nation chosen out of all peoples on the face of the earth to be God's own people (Dt 7,6ff.), disowned their 11~ / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 Emmanuel. Jesus stands there in the open, alone, the impassioned cries of the people that was his people ringing in his ears, as they chant his rejection. His bitter desolation is intensified by a sense of injustice. Even Pilate was convinced of his innocence: "Why, what harm has he done?" Thus he is abandoned tothe Roman soldiery. In his economic description of the crucifixion and death of Jesus, Mark emphasizes the solitude of Jesus by mentioning details which, because of our acquaintance with the versions of Luke and John, we are apt to over-look. After the passers-by had hurled abuse at him and mocked him in his helpless anguish, and the lawyers had jested and gibed, "even those who were crucified with him taunted him" (15,32). At the end the robbers, too, renounce his companionship; Jesus does not belong even with his fellow-sufferers. Similarly, it is only after the death of Jesus that mention is made of the women who had followed him from Galilee, and who "were watching from a distance" (15,40). At the foot of the cross there is no mother, no beloved disciple; Jesus died utterly alone. The searing anguish of his pain and loneliness arid failure is focused and captured in the loud cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But he died "without a word or a wink from God to reassure him that, whatever the gawking crowd might think, he knew that Jesus was not only innocent, but valid where it mattered.''4 Jesus' sense of total rejection by men is compounded and intensified by his feeling abandoned by the Father,.by his experience of estrangement and alienation that be-longs to our sinfulness. The psalm that Jesus is citing is a psalm of uncon-ditional trust in God's love and ultimate vindication. The last words of Jesus are a radical expresSion of his loneliness, and a "radical expression of a devotion to God which endures in every adverse experience--a devotion which continues to claim God as 'my' God and will not let him go although he can be experienced only as the absent One who has'forsaken the peti-tioner.''~ It is this surrender in love and trust that is our window into the mystery of his personality, for it is the human expression of what.we have come to call divine sonship; it is this surrender in the brokenness of death which, like the buried grain, is the source of our life.6 It is, I believe, true that Mark's way of presenting the passion of Jesus can allow it to "speak to us again with new power," speak to us with hope and with challenge in the center of our experience. All of us know at first hand the meaning of loneliness. I still vividly remember my feelings of desolate helplessness on the occasion of my first day at school as mother walked out of the playground beyond the iron fence. Or years later, when, having spent three years in enclosed quasi-monastic surroundings, I went to sit my finals in London, sporting a large 4L. E. Keck, A Future for the Historical Jesus (London, SCM, 1972), p. 229. ~E. Schweizer, The Good News according to Mark (London, SPCK, 1971), p. 353. ncf. my article "Trust--the Life-Attitude of Jesus" in Doctrine and Life, Nov. "76, pp. 803 ft. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Roman collar at twenty-one; everything and everyone seemed to be telling me that I did not belong~°I recall also the numbing sense'of lostness that came over me as' the train hissed noisily to a halt in Wigan station the evening 'my father died. Loneliness has many forms: the jarring sadness of bereavement, the corrosive listlessness of loss and separation, the anguished alienation and shame.of guilt and sin, thedisappointment of failure, the isolation of intense physigal suffering or imprisonment; the d(structive discouragement and paralysis of non-acceptance and rejection, the pain of misunderstanding and estrangement, the gnawing emptiness of unfulfilled longing for intimacy and genuine cbmpanionship, the absence of~God. Loneliness is thic.kly woven into the fabric of our lives, it.is a facet of our human poverty, our poverty of being. But Mark assures us that it is an aspect of being human that Jesus-fully shared throughout his ministry and especially in hi~ final hours. Most of us are anxious to avoid pain, physical pain; our medical and pharmaceutical experts have mercifully developed many varieties of anal-gesic. Most of us, likewise, sedulously attempt to avoid the pain of loneli-ness; and our society has developed a wide range of would-be anaesthetics--from discos to little dog~--to soften the abrasive harshness of our experience. I, for one, am very grateful for the refuge and comfort afforded by the telephone! And yet I wonder whether Mark is challenging us as disciples of Jesus to Cope with our loneliness m. ore creatively. Whilst recognizing with thanks the extent to which he made the experience of loneliness his own, perhaps we are reluctant to recognize that he did what most of us, most of the time, seek to .shun. In spite of gripping fear and instinctive repugnance, he did not run away from it; and his steadfastness transformed it into a life-giving element of redemption. Perhaps it is here that Mark is speaking to us again with new power; perhaps the challenge for disciples of Jesus consists in transforming the pain of loneliness into a source of personal growth and of life for others. It is very important that instead of taking one of the numerous escape roads open to us, we learn to come to terms with our loneliness and listen to our own feelings and struggles, our aspirations and questions, and live themacceptingly. It is here in the unique my.stery'of our personal selfhood, in the depths of our being, that we must have the courage to allow God to find us. It is here that his call is to be heard: "Do not be afraid, for I am with you . " So often God seems absent for the simple reason that we are fearfully evading his loving presence. Loneliness is paradoxically a poten-tial source of enrichment, for it can teach us the meaning of poverty of spirit, which opens us to the gift of God's kingly rule through the Spirit poured into our hearts, that surrender in loving and trusting obedience which is the hallmark of the Master.7 rI'his is developed by Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out (London, Collins, 1976), pp. 25-101. 90 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 In learning to come to terms with our loneliness, we may learn like Jesus, to love more genuinely, more compassionately. Our going out to others will be legs oriented to answering our own needs for companionship and fulfillment, and will become an expression of authentic service which can liberate and heal and enliven. At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked Peter and the other eleven: ~' And you, who do you say I am?" He reiterates this question to each Christian daily. Peter was able to acknowledge J~esus as Messiah, but his response was inadequate, it did not involve a willingness to follow in his way; he jibbed at the implications of discipleship. Loneliness, failure, misunderstanding, rejection are always painful, very painful, and are a constant in our human experience; a constant, however, shot through with hope because of the paschal mystery of Christ. Our answer as disciples to the challenging ques-tion of Jesus must be expressed in our willingness to take up this cross and go "with him." A Lamb Looks Through the Fence (Where the grass appears to be greener) The grass is greener on the other side: At least, it seems that way. Shepherd, give me a heart content To praise, to server to stay. This is the pasture of Your choice, And lessons here await: Calm the longings of my heart And bid the storms abate. For fences also keep us safe, Hedged in with loving care, Provided for and protected from The lion and the bear. Teach me to trust--this humble prayer Removes the restless yen: Some day we'll see from a higher view How green our side has been. Vi~la Jacobson Berg 5 Roosevelt Ave. Malverne, NY 11565 Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities Leonard J. Crowley Leonard J. Crowley, Titular Bishop of Mons in Numedia, is Auxiliary Bishop of Montreal. He is Director Of the Office for English Language Affairs in the archdiocese; 2000 Sherbrooke St. West; Montreal, Que. H3H IG4; Canada. n the very fitting context of the Feast of Pentecost last year, two Roman Congregations (The Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for Religious and for Secular Institutes) promulgated a very significant docu-ment on Directives for the Mutual Relations Between Bishops and Reli-gious in the Church. The statement is significant, for its very existence admits that there is room for growth in understanding between the episcopal office and religious communities. For far too long within the Church's often turbulent history there has been too little fruitful communication between the overseers of the faith and those specialists who have a particular and time-honored gift to share with the faithful. Th~ warning of John Cassian to his monks in the fourth century seems, even today, to express a deep-seated mistrust: "The two groups you must avoid at all times are women and the bishops." The Diocesan/Religious Rivalry This basic antipathy often shows itself as well in the ranks of those from whom the residential bishop is normally chosen in North America--the diocesan clergy. What some may naively call a healthy rivalry between religious and diocesan groups is often~ at root, a basic distrust of one another's real motives and abilities in the exercise of the apostolate. 21 22 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 This recent document addresses itself directly to this sorry condition where it exhorts that "efforts should be made to renew the bonds of fratero nity and cooperation between the diocesan clergy and communities of religious." It even suggests the context of "simple and informal" gather-ings "which serve to increase mutual trust, apostolic solidarity, and fra-ternal harmony" (37). The duty for seeing to it that such fraternal gattierings take place and grow in significance and depth is placed squarely, as it should be, on the shoulders of the bishop. Furthermore, it is the duty of the bishop to so blend the services of diocesan and religious groups that each recognize members of outstanding talent and together support their promotion to positions of service commensurate with their capabilities; for "the bishop should . . . exhort the diocesan priests to recognize gratefully the fruitful contribution made by religious to their Church and to approve willingly their nomination to positions of greater responsibility which are consbnant with their vocation and competency" (55). In basic fact, if we truly are to witness to the mystery of the Lord Jesus in our midst, then there should be no rivalry but only harmony in the service we render. The bishop and his diocesan assistants should rejoice in the presence of specialists who bring a particular talent to minister ina certain area to the People of God. In such a context, "bishops, along with their clergy, should be convinced advo-cates of the consecrated life, defenders of religious communities, promoters of vocations, firm guardians of the specific character of each religious family both in the spiritual and in ihe apostolic field" (28). As a matter of fact, it is the bishop's "specific office to defend consecrated life, to foster and animate the fidelity and authenticity of religious and .~o, help them become part of the communion and of the evangelizing action of his church, acc.ording to their distinctive nature" (52). ~ Difficulties of Identification But herein lies the crux of the problem. Many a bishop would be hard pressed to identify the "distinctive nature" of the religious groups en-trusted to his watchful overseeing. In many instances there seems to have ¯ been a loss of clear identity on the part of religious communities. The bishop i~ fully aware, in most instances, that "the very nature of apostolic action requires that [he] give precedence to interior recollection and to the life of prayer;" but he is also frustrated by the realization that some religious apparently have not taken to heart the realization that they must, "in conformity with their distinctive nature, renew themselves in depth and be assiduous in prayer" (23a). What a bishop must be seeking from religious who reside in or enter his diocese is a specific dedication and consecration to a form of spirituality and to an apostolic witness that is as clear and as vital as it was when the Ruleo that embodies that life was first written. The bishop must be concerned with the future of his flock; but he wants that future founded solidly in the values that have come out of the past. Therefore he must be in search of"religious Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities [who], even while showing a particular spirit of enterprise and foresight for the future, [are] intensely loyal to the intention and spirit of their insti-tute." (34). However, the simple fact appears to be that many religious groups have maintained a loyalty to their institute but have lost sight of both its intention and its spirit. The Second, Vatican Council has urged. The Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life to begin with a sincere return to the spirit and the mind of the Founder and from that unique font to build anew a personal and communal zeal for the spread of the Gospel, in all its richness. It is obvious that many, if not all, religious communities have adapted themselves, their customs, their habits, to the contemporary condition--not without a great deal of soul-searching, painful compromise, and interminable meetings. But adaptation was the easier half of the challenge and directive laid down by Perfectae Caritatis. How many communities have gone on to embrace a radical renewal of their original spirit? For it is in the light of that question that one can honestly ask about the future relevance of religious life. Ignorance of Specific Spirit In many instances, individual religious find it all but impossible to dis-tinguish the uniqueness of their charism from that of other religious commu-nities. Beyond a loyal chauvinism for their own institute, many admit that their vision, their mission, their methodology is essentially the same as evi~ryone else's. The historical reasons that called: the original foundation into existence often are gone now, the needs alleviated, the witness fulfi!led, the expectations satisfied. The more specific the historical reason for the foundation, the more difficult becomes the task of pinpointing its relevance now in the latter part of the twentieth century. This quandary has caused much frustration on the part of dedicated and deeply concerned men and women who recognize the values of their traditions, see a need for apostolic zeal within the mission of the Church, but find it difficult to wed the two into an effective and realistic union within the contemporary con-text. What has happened in the minds of many young religious is to say, "Forget the past. Deal with the present and prepare for the future." But such an outlook definitely isolates one frbmthe ~rich traditions that give reason for the continuing existence of the particular institute. It truly ap-pears that too many religious today are ignorant of the spirit that enkindled the foundation of their community. They may know its historical back-ground; but they have done little to identify with .the charismatic zeal that gives them a uniqueness and an individuality so necessary in building up the full experience that is Church. For there appears today to be little difference between one religious community and another except in terms of an accident of history or geography. Beyond the clear distinctions offered by the stric~tly contemplative and monastic communities, religious orders and societies seem to have Ihid aside those distinctions that called them into 24 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 existence. Many individuals apparently responded to a vocational urging as personified in a particular individual: a teacher, a pastor, a chaplain, a family friend. The specific community to which that individual belonged meant little, except that it was the obvious context within which the indi-vidual was to pursue his vocation if he intended to follow the lead of his childhood hero. Thus many young men have gone in pursuit of the priest-hood, not as a diocesan priest or as a member of a religious community, but as a priest like Father Racine, or Father Joe, or Father O'Brien. Many young ladies simply continued their religious quest in the same context as the academy or the convent school to which they were sent by parents desirous of the best education possible for their offspring and knowing that the "good sisters" would provide just that. Symbol of Identity Of course, as the individual comes to identify with the community to which he has gone, to learn of its traditions and history during his years of postulancy and novitiate, he doubtless grows in love for and identification with the order or the congregation. That identity used to be symbolized .very powerfully in the reception of the religious habit. More than anything else, the habit had been the external symbol of an internal commitment. For many communities of religious women, the bishop was called upon to participate in this very important step in identification with the spirit of the Founder and the vision of the order. But, for many communities today, the habit stands as a symbol of the past. And the search for a clear, contempo-rary sign of identification whereby new members might feel a sense of oneness with the community has been a very frustrating one. Yet, in the beginning, it was not the habit that gave identity; it was the spirit and zeal of the Founder, as these drives inspired the community, giving a clear sense of purpose and single-mindedness to all who embraced the Holy Rule. It is that spirit which must be renewed in religious communities today if the symbols of religious life are to have any role to fulfill within the Church. The Problem of Stability Because many religious communities have been established for the ministry of the Universal Church and not for the local church alone, many within a diocese, often the bishop himself, tend to resent the fluidity of a religious community's commitment to a particular apostolic endeavor. For such persons, whose commitment to the local church is total, there is a very deep-seated hesitancy to entrust the fulfillment of a ministry to a group whose commitment often seems to be as long as its superior's vision is far-reaching. Such an anxiety seems natural and even fortified by the gospel parable about the hireling and the good shepherd. However, what many, whose commitment to the local church is so intense, fail to recognize or to acknowledge is that the purpose of religious exemption is "so that institutes Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities carl express their identity more adequately and devote themselves~to ,the common good with special generosity and on a wider scale" (22). If all who work together within the diocesan community have a proper appreciation of the exempt status as "a certain expression of that pastoral concern which unites them intimately with the Roman Pontiff for the universal care of all people," such an awareness "will promote greatly increased apostolic' ini-tiative and missionary zeal in every particular church" (22). ' Of course, every religious community that comes to ~erve the local church, even if it does beloia~ to an institute of pontifical right, "should feel themselves truly a part of the diocesan family" (18b). Therefore their com-mitment should be as deep find their solicitude as pervasive as every other apostolic witness within thediocese. However, in those situations where an institution finds itself "unable to carry on a given undertaking, its superiors should, in good time andwith~confidence; make known the factors hinder-ing its continuance at least in its actual form, especially if this lack is due to personnel. For~his part, ti~e local ordinary should consider sympatheti-cally the re~luest to withdraw from the undertaking and in common accord with the superiors seek a suitable solu'tion" (47). in other words, every local Church must always see itself as a vital organ of the universal People of God under the guidance of the Holy F~ther. None of us can afford to allow our apostolic vision to become so myopic as to blind us to the needs beyond our own backyard. Bishops~ especially, must realize that the zealous service of religious in his pastoral domain is always carried on'with a sense-of ministry to the Universal Church. Such a presence, then, is a blessing as it broadens the horizons of our apostolic perspective and helps us to appreciate more deeply the total concern of the Father for all his children. Thus as religious come and go within a diocese, neither the ordinary nor his diocesan assistants should resent their fluidity but shoiald see, in their willingriess to move as the Spirit calls them, a vivid reminder that we all are a pilgrim people on the move to the home that we can ohly begin to build toward in this world. The Church is larger and more loving than any of us. We must always st.rive to be of humble service to her needs and to free those who feel the ardent call to another vineyard, to another manifestation of the Spirit's solicitude in the midst of the people of God. Future Expectations Religious ~ommunities are ~:alled today to "devote themselves with full awareness and zeal to the task 0f incarnating and manife.sting in the diocese the specific witness and the genuine mission of their institute" (22). This is the value and the service that the bishops, are going to be searching for in the future, all the more so ,as they realize quite clearly that they "are entrusted with the duty of caring for religious charisms . [For] in this way;" by fostering religious life and protecting it in conformity with its own Review for Religious, Volume 38,~!~979/1 definite characteristics, bishops fulfill a real. pastoral duty" (9c). Thus the bi~hopJs going to be in search of and solicitous for those communities that. are responding in the modem day to the needs of the Church after the spirit and .with the zeal of their founders. Quite obviously, then, "religious supe-i- iors have a grave duty, their foremost responsibility in fact, to assure'the fidelity of the members to the charism of the Founder, by fostering :the renewal prescribed by the Council and required by the.times" (14c). The future of religious life will lie in the oab!ljty that each religious community has to move away from the mentali~ty of being an embattled camp; of~asse~ting, by quality of performanceoand depth of, solicitude, the recognition that "every institute exists.for the Church and must enrich her with its.~distinctive characteristics, according~to a particular spirit,and a specific mission" (14b). Eacho!n,stitute-is a shepherd, not a hireling-~.,~but only, ifoit speaks with the voice of its Founder who echoes the voice of the Good Shepherd. "The very charism of the founders appears a_s "an experi-ence of the Spirit' transmitted to their ,disciples to be lived, safeguarded, deepened and constantly developed by them, in harm~gny with the Body of Christ, continually in the process oLgrowth" (11). o. The future of the religious life de, pends, then, on a renewal that will be as much new as it will be re-. Besides a deep appreciation of the~historical origin and vision of one's community, each one,must se, ek innovative and creative ways w~ith which to bringthe wisdom an~t°~technology of contempo-rary society to bear upon the timeless values articulated, by the Lord Jesus and specifi.cally~ pursued within a particular religious context. The more clearly and more wholesomely we can make those value~"'li.~,e in our own day, the more relevant and essential becohaes the role we intend to.fulfillS' That is one reason why the renewal of the religio~us life remains ~such a crucial issue. However, that renewal is feasible only if each in~stitiate ,and every member is clearly aware that"it is necessary to preserve the identity of each institute so securely, that the danger of an ill-defined situation be avoide.d, le§t0religi,ous, failing to give .due consideration to the .particular mode of action proper to their character, become part of the ]if~"of the Ch.urch.in~a vague and ambiguous way" (11). ~_ Personal Reflection' As a bishop, I have been renewed by this document from the two ¯ Congregations, with a sense of the very serious responsibility that I have for the religious communities who minister to the people .I w.atgh o.ver.~I have always hoped that the religious who come into our midst would bring their special gifts and talents to' bea~- however or wherever thei.r apostolic pre~s-ence took them. Now I realize more clearlyothat, together wit.h my brother bishops, !' have a duty to help.directly and distinctly the religious commu~ nities in our midst to remain true to their founders' ideals and to fulfill ~their, specific mission in th.e w_ay that they alone °can do. In other words, 9s bishop, it is my duty to see to it that the apostolic commitment of each ~ ~ ~ ., ~ Refie~ctions.-bf a Bishop on Religigus Communities / 27 community is in keeping with and true to the spirit of their Rule. I must be available to help each religious entrusted to my pastoral care--and that includes every one in the diocese where I ministeruto be true to the specific charism of his or her community. It is my deep hope and confident prayer that religious, for their part, will serve each diocese in which they labor, not as general practitioners of gospel values (nor will: they accept ministries which would expect such an approach), but rather will share the fruits of their own foundations with the whole people of God in the particular and unique way that they are able. Admittedly such an approach demands a restructuring on the part of young and old alike. But that revamping is essential to the future flowering of the religious life and the future fulfillment of the Church. Unity Through Diversity In conclusion, the renewal of every religious community is eventually going to bring each congregation to the realization that we are all struggling toward the day when Jesus will be "'all in all," where there will be no distinct communities because the vision of every founder will finally be focused together in~ the one reality of the Lord Jesus. And there will be'no more religious communities because there will be only one religious Com-munity in the City of Goti; there will be, in the-~0rds of St.'Aug~astine, "one Christ loving himself." Yet, as we move toward that day of fulfillment, we musl move in the paradoxical fashion of human naturemfor~we move toward unity through .diversity. It is that great diversity of religious ingight and,~xp~erience which must be shared.with the Christian Community'in order that its unity might be achieved mor~ effectively and all-inclusively. In order to accomplish that objective; y,oung religious must take gr~at pride in the"tradition to which they ~ commit themselves, a pride that will make them zealous sharers, with all'God's people, of:the girls entrusted by the Spirit to their care. For ,those girls shall be, preserved only if they are generously commu-nicated to and'for the Church. And religious must learn to see in the bishop ,a source of support and solicitude, no longer the "'enemy,''-~but a loving brother, deeply concerned for their well-being and their growth. For the bishop clearly should understand that the future of religiousfife is the future life of the Church. - ~0 As the~Spirit shared the great diversity of his charisms on. that first Pentecost, magi the message that Mother Church has given to her ministers on this past Pentecost Sunday fill all of us ~4ith deep respect and concern for the building up of the girls entrusted to each of us for the life of the Church. Th, en.the grace of the Ho!y ,Spirit will fio~d fulfillment in us all as we bec~me truly one in Christ to the glory of God "the Father. From.""Ministry'' tO"Church Work" The.Fate of Tired Souls Paul Marceau, C.S.C.' " Father Marceau is a doctoral candidate in spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union, .Berkeley, CA. Presently he is on the staff of Moreau Seminary; Notre Dame, IN 46556. n the aftermath of the recen~ papal election a news commentator referred to one of Pope John Paul's distant predecessors who, after assuming the office, said that he spent so much time tending to the needs of others that he was in danger of becoming a stranger to himself. The problem of the threat of'being consumed by the demands of ministry is not a new one. Jesus himself seemed to recognize this danger and from time to,time would draw the disciples aside to rest (Mt 14:13f.). In this articl6 I~will sketch what 1 believe ~to be a particular form which that problem' takes 'in apostolic religious life today: the phenomenon of the over-burdened, under-cared-for religious who is being consumed by apostolic and community work and who, in the process, may be dying a slow and painful death as a human being, a minister, and a religious. As the life of such a person gets frag-mented by the constant demands of apostolic ministry there is a danger of losing one's personal center, and one's relationship with God becomes threatened in the process. Whenthat happens in the life of any minister in the Church I would suggest'that the apostolic activity of such an individual ceases to be "ministry" °and becomes only "church work." Most reiigious in apostolic communities have found (and continue to find) the early years of ministry an intoxicating experience. The apostolic life which they enter after their years in formation is challenging and de-manding. There seems to be so much to be done, so many needs to be 28 From ,"Ministry" to '~Church Work" attended. Within a short time the religious begins to feel needed and ap-preciated in ways that were unknown and perhaps impossible in the years of formation? There. develops a greater sense of self-worth as the person begins to do what he or she could only reflect upon or do only in a controlled and well-regulated way in the years of formation. There is a sense that one is finally fully immersed in ministry and with that comes the sense that one isat last doing something with his or her life, and not simply preparing to do so. A.new dimension of the personality develops and becomes more cen-tral: that of the hainister and apostle. The focus shifts from what ~was, in the years of fOrmation, substantially pr.eparatory, receptive, and to a large degre,e inner-directed and reflective to the active, the outward, the full immersion in ministry. The apostplate in these early years after formation makes heavy de-mands on self and time but most individuals are excited by this and would not want it to be otherwise. With the constant need and cpnstant demand of the apo.stolate, however, there come problems with the m.anagement of one's time and, ,indeed, of one's life. There is less and less time (and perhaps even desire) for leisure, for one's own concerns, for reflection upon one's life. Given the choice between the needs of others and one's "free time"0 (and there doe~ not alw.ays seem to be a choice), the religious often sacrific~es w.tlat .is the e~siest to sacrifice: personal time and space. Prior to the Changes in religious iife'which took place following Vatican I1, time for prayer and reflection was protected, at least in theory,2 by being built into~ the schedule. Such tim(for private ~'ea.ding, prayer, and refl+ction, how-ever, isnow no longer "given"; it has to be found and it seems ~ncreasingly difficult.to find it. Personal prayer and reflection gradually have come to be nudged out of the lives of many by the hectic ~nd busy pace of their apostolic.life. Indeed, there was a time in the past decade when such times aside f(om'ministry were rl.o.t only considered luxuries but were Iobked upon as 'selfish luxuries, as time stolen from the service of others in need. Perso'n~l prayer beco~n"e~, problematic, even for those with the best of intentions. Few, if any.~,fiaiike a conscious decision to give UP personal prayer; it gimply gets~ pushed out by the "more important" and more immediate concerns of Io~,e and service to others. It is a gradual process by which people's lives simply become so overwhelmed by the 9postolic and. qn the past. of course, apostolic involvement during the years of formation w~s minimal. Young religious were protected from such "outside" distractions. As a result, for people trained in such a context, immersion into full-time ministry,provided a shocking change from . their years of formation, The change is less abrupt today since significant apostolic involve-ment is seen as a critical part of formation. Nevertheless, the "full-time" ministry has a dynamic of its own which can really be experienced only in the doing of it, no matter how well one is prepared for it. zWhile time for meditation, spiritual ~'eading, examination of conscience, and so forth, may have been provided in previous schedules, there is certainly enough evidence to wonder to what extent such schedules were ac~tually honored--other than by those in formation. 30 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 community demands that there is simply no time "left over" for oneself., Finding time for' personal prayer becomes a terrible.struggle, the wagingof, ahopeless, losing war. For some, the loss of,,that dimension of their re-ligious life is easily justified by their appeal .to the demands of ministry; for others Such loss is--the Source of much shame and guilt.~ Foi" many, prayer has bedome a time squeezed into'fi hectic and already' cluttered day. It is ~so~ething to be fitted in between Walter Crorikite ahd'~ an evenin~g meeting, or between a dis~tressing hous~ meeting arid the celebration of the Eticharist.:These patterns of prayer-time tend to reflect their livegt prayer time itselfis'9 hectic and bdsy,°'often cluttered, time. Even when the time is fotindfor it, prayer is'filled with the concerns of 0ne's~ day. It is a time full of distractions, a very busy and unfocused time, filled~ with the hundreds of stimuli that the individual brings off ~he street with him: The time which one struggles to have alone'with God becomes a time to do a lot Of religious "business," a trine for pra~,ing for the concerns ministry, .for commending to ~he Lord all the. wounded who ha~d tbuched one's life that day. The time "aside" is really no time aside at'fill but simply a 'diffei-erit'fOi'um for doing what"one had been doing all'day long. " " For"others, the dynamic of personal prayer shiftg from "time aside" to prayer-on-the-i'un, a kind of "are you running ~vith me~, 'Jesus" format. There is sirrligly no 'time to tend to the'personal reli~gidoiums e"n °s i~o'n~ "o:f ~ o' n~e* :s~ ' life, and God is put on "hofoldr "~ n'"creas"~ °ngly lon"g ~er. "p~e ,r i.~ods of time. Not infrequently i'eligious m~ke little bargains with God, prom'ising to return to him at a latCr date when there is more time available: "I'm g?ing tO be very busy this s~'ineste~ and I reall3i won't have mucl~time for prayer ' but I'll get back t'~3ibu at Chris~tmasvacation or during the~summer when things let up a liitle." But Chrqst~n°~s o~:summer vacation corhes along, and when there ts finally t~me for prayer, such individuals find that they can no longer pray as they once d~d because they have fallen out of the habit of personal prayer. The closeness and the ~nt~macy ~s no longer there; God seems to be further away. The more personal, direct and intimat~'relationship~vith God that one might have known in quieter and mor~ peaceful ti~e~ is gone. There is a dis-ea'se about one's relationship to God, and the times alone with him are f0un'd~{o be somewhat strained and uncomfortable. The struggle to fi'nd some t~me aside does not, aftei- all, seem to' be quite worth it because thOre does not seem to be much pbint to it. " ~ Iwshort, given the difficulty of finding times for prayer,~ and the busy and hectic pace we experience,e.ven when they fire found, prayer time becomes~ more and more minimalT"and what there is becomes increasingly lesg satisfying. As a.result,, m~ore and more weight for the spiritual life comes to be put on community, or on "apostolic prayer." Liturgy and'common prayer become the focus and substance of the prayer life .of many to the exclusion of~all other forms. But with that, .there is often felt an, uncom-fortable dissonance between what one says in his~ministry and'what one' From "Ministry" ,to "Church Work" d0es.-,Thus~, although he may preach eloquently; celebrate reverently, discuss the gospel enthusiastically and be complimented and affirmed by his parishioners, students, and fellow community members as being a good priest andreligious, the spiritual dimension of apostolic and community I.ife seems to have no echO;in his ownolife: He believes the message and is sincere when he tblls others about it, but at times it seems very far frorfi what he himselffis experiencing. Neverthe!ess, sharing sacraments,and common prayer~with others is at least a lifeline for many. When there is a dis-ease and a discomfort about being too alone with oneself and with°G0d, one can often find solace in participating in the more formal, more .struc-ttired ,forms of prayer, such as the sacraments and Office, since slach f/arms allow 'one to approach God without being too alone before him. Just as p~ople must build up habits of pr.aYer with time and practice, so it is that they fall out of the habits of personal prayer. Thps, ~hen a pe,rson's life become~ overwhelmed and fragmented by a busy and hectic apostolic ministry, personal prayer becomes difficult not only because of time con-siderations but because the doing of it becomes an uns~itigfying thing. For one who has fallen out of the practice .of personal prayer, moments o~f aloneness can become very frightening, and so instead of struggling tofind such times of alonene'gs and of the oppo~:tunity to foc~us within, the religio0,s may eventually fipd h~mself strugghng to avotd focusing w~th~n for fear of seeing too deeply, with to6"~uch clarity, ~hat may be happening to his fraghaehted life. When tli~it' h~ppens, the 'i~dividual spends an enor~mous amount of time and psychic energy fleeing such moments, protecting him: self from God. P~rsons sensing this dis-ease a, bout the'Jr relationship with God may read about God, talk al~out God, may do'the works of the Church and~ma~ even°hpproach G~d. in the company of othersobut they are often unable to bear facing God' in their aloneness, to be ~ilent before him. If such.is.the fate of n.ot a few apostolic religious in the past decade (and I believe it has b, een), then the task for them, again, becomes one of the struggle t9 av.oid, such moments. The apostolate, itself a contributory cause to this state of affairs, becomes a welcome and easily legitimized.distraction from facing oneself. Religious can throw themselves into their_work and give themselves over to be consumed by the apostqlic need which, as a matter of fact, is always ~,aiting there to be cared for. But this is not the zeal of those early y~ears of their ministry; it is, in fact, just the oppqsite. The work, what one does, is now.no longer ,a way of sharing what is inside, but a way of avoiding it. Instead of zeal andenthusiasm driving one from within to sha~e what.~e .has pers.onally experienced and discovered about'life and about God,,there is flightto the work for its own sake, a flight away from the i,nterior self. ~with diminishing personal energies and resources.tq ~driye and sustain himself, he becomes willingly carried along by the demands of the apostolat~e, .and~ lifebecomes one busy apostolic distraction. When ihat .happen,s, when,a person becomes emptied inside and can live .only on'the 32 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 outside, then he is:no longer engaged in the doing of ministry but.is simply busy about doing what I would call simply "church work." The irony of all this is that a person may be, and very frequently is at this same time in life, just h!tting his professional stride, doing the kinds of things that he always wanted to do in ministry,~with all the requisite pro-fessional training, and receiving very reassuring feedback from others about his ministry--and yet the.re seems to be something terribly missing, and he cannot understand why~ He may be doing very good work, pro-fessionally satisfying, assisting others in. living their lives and yet feel that he.is not doing a very good job of living his own. He might say to himself: "I should be happy but I am not. What is the matter with me?" As one person expressed it to me: "I am good and successful at what I am doing. ! enjPy it and find satisfaction in it--but why do I feel like I am dying?" The constant concerns and needs of others (and the constaht need to be focusing outside oneself), the very things .which used to energize and sus-tain the person in the early years of ministry, now only drain energies and makes the indiviidpal feel th~it his whole life', by choice"or by abdication, is being consumed by the apostolate. The apostolate has become for him a thousand-tentacled monster, constantly making demands, never letting up, constantly draining him of diminished or even exhausted personal energies. For the weary church worker the apostolate becomes a.two-edged sword: it is a welcome distraction protectin.g him from looking too closely within and, at the same time, a drain upon his personal energies even to the point of exhaustion. There is a variation to the above theme ~f the one who allows his life to become c~onsumed by the apostolate~ in order to avoid what may be dying inside, and this variation is marked by the opposite of involvement: with-drawal. For this person the apostolate becomes an eight-hour-a-day (or less)job and he is quite capable of walking away from it in order, as he sees it, to preserve his own necessary personal time and space; Having created sixteen hours of personal time and space of the twenty-four, however, the task he faces then becomes One Of filling up his space and time so that he will dot be left alone with it. In order to defend himself from se6ing the void within, the individual will do anything to fill up that time, to be distracted. He will read novels and magazines for hours (this may be his'version of "'being alone"). He may spend evening after evening watching television without really knowing or caring what is on the screen. He may arrange a heavy social schedule.'He will do anything rather than face the emptiness and discomfort that is within him. The weary church worker's life has become overwhelmed and frag-mented by the consuming demands of today's apostolate. He may be a victim of the work but. in the end; he knows that b,~ ,.'s a willing victim. He m'ay even see himself in the role of a martyr, giving his all that the world rr]ay be saved (or at least a little'more saved). But underneath the hectic and clu~ttered life of today's church worker, there is the danger of building up F¢om "Ministry" to "Church Work" /,33 increasing levels of resentment against those whom he serves. The de-mands never let up and nobody will leave hi~n alone. He may be tired. There may be a lot of suppressed anger and resentment. But worse than either of these, as long as he seems-to be good and successful in his work, is the fact that nobody seems to care about what is dying inside him and how he feels about himself and his ministry. The problem, in fact, is that no one can see what is dying inside him. All the outward signs appear to be good. The iridividual is busy, involved, committed to the apostolate, and actually doing good work there. He is sociable and affable in community, relating well there. No one can see what is happening inside him because no one is allowed to see it. The individual may have a difficult time even bringing himself tO see it and there may be too much shame and guilt to allow anyone else to see it. All the while the person may be saying: "they (superiors, fellow religious, fellow ministers) are themselves too busy ministering to others and I cannot burden them with my problems; I know what I~feel like when one more problem comes my way and I don't want to be just one more problem for' them." There is a final, cruel irony in the situation of the apostolic religious who, by the process described above, has been turned into a busy church WorkeL There is a rehewed interest and concern for spirituality and praye~ in the Church today--and that is w~lcomed. Religious are once more con-cerned about their relationship with God. But, as often a~ not, that concern is a source of guilt rather'than a source of strength. Concern for spirituality and prayer--whether the concern is assumed or imposed~--isjust one more ~lemhnd placed upon the life oLthe already tired religious. Instead of one's i'elationship with God being the source of personal energy and an impetus to ministry, it can become just one more thing to worry about along with.all the others~ one more thing with which the religious has neither the timenor the energy to contend. Instead of being the place of rest where he no longer has to be doing and Working, his prayer becomeg just one more thing to do and to work at. Instead of his relationship with God being the source and center of life, it is thrown in with all the other things which clamor for attention in a life which has lost its center. Apostolic religious communities in America today are running the risk of producing amongtheir members merely weary church workers suffering from battle fatigue. In the long run, however, there will be a price to pay in human suffering and tragedy, as suppressed anger and resentment can be suppressed no longer and begin to surface, Often in indirect but destructive ways. Religious will retire too Soon from the battle, burnt out men and women who will no longer be driven or taken advantage of. They will unclutter their lives of hectic apostolic activity and then turn and fill them up with other more relaxing distractions; but whether busy with apostolate or busy with relaxing distractions, many will be leading lives of quiet desperation because their lives no longer have any focus or center to hold them together. Review for Religious, Volunie°38, 1979/1 There are alternatives, I think, to the way we live apostolic religious life and the way we do ministrytoday. Just ~as~we do no good for a.materialistic society if we ourselves get caught up in its materialistic ethos, likewise we do little good for a society that runs at an insane pace, fragmenting the lives of its people when we ourselves run at; that.~same pace, becoming quite as fragmented in our own lives. A different style and pace of apostolic religious life need not mean that apostolic ministry be less involx;ed, less concerned, or less whole-hearted than it is now. .~ . ~.," Finding the meaning of one's life in one's relationship to God and sustaining that relationship personally through reflection and prayermmany indeed "take time away from others" but it may also allow us to offer them something more than what had been our busy, overburdened lives. G~'ound-ing our personal lives outside of the work we do may both'free us from the apostolate and, at the same time. free us for it. We will be freed from the apostolate not in the sense that we will lose the apostOlic dimension of our life in favor of the comtemplative life but rather in'!the sense that the meaning of our lives, as individuals and as communities, would no longer be tied to this specific apostolate and this particular work. "We would be freed from the works of our own hands to pursue and minister to the needs of people wherever and whatever they may.be, On .the other hand, it may well be that we would be doing the same kinds of. things ,that we are ,doing now,. but the person doing them will be different: still busy, but less frantic, and bringing to those situations a life which is a little calmer, a little more rootedand peaceful. Our apostolic ministry might be less cluttered but, at the same time, more deeply involved; we might be less frenzied, but also more zealous about the things we do. Finding the focus and center of one's life in God and taking time to tend to that dimension of life will give impetus and focus to our ministry. It will take :nothing away from it but will, instead, make ministry all the more importantmand all the more possible. "Promises to Keep"' A Homily for Final Vows J.Peter Schineller, S.J. Father Schineller, ~ member of the faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago (JSTC), shared with those who witnessed his final vows in the Society of Jesus the't~houghts and movements that were his then. He resides at 5554 s. Woodlawn Ave.; Chicago, IL 60637. While'I was visiting "my brother and sister-in-law over the Christmas hblidays, as oftenhappens with a new toy, an argument arose betweeh their two children. The younger boy was unwilling to let his big sister play with his new eiectriC helicopter. The conversation went something like this: "It's my t6rn! You'have to let me play ffith~it."" "I don't want to and 1 don't have to." "You have to, and you know you have to." "I don't ~have to,' and I ~on't." "You have to, because you promised!" "Well, OK." My five year old nephew was trapped. He was caught by his promise, and he kne~ it. He knew in his child's wisdom that a prom~ise is something special, something sacred, and not just any old word. Promises make a difference.' "The child in me made promises more than 18 years ago, not about toys, but about how to spend my whole life*; promises not to ariother pers6n, but promises to God, tlie Father of all persons. And here I am this ~evening, to *The Jesuit's "first vows," taken at the end of the novitiate, include the perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. (Editor)' 35 36 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 renew and to finalize those promises in my profession of "final vows," and to renew the promises with joy and enthusiasm. And so in these last few moments in which I am still a Jesuit scholastic, I would :like to share a few thoughts on 1) how I see these promises, 2) where the inspiration to make the promises comes from, and 3) how it is possible for anyone to make a profession of vows. First of all, what am I promising and vowing this evening? In one sense, it is nothing new, nothing beyond what I promised eighteen years ago, a life of poverty, chastity and obedience in the Society of Jesus. It is not a new turn, a grandiose new option, but rather a public statement of my choice tO continue on the road begun. Yet in another sense, it is a new choosing, because with eyes far more open than 18 years ago, I am saying, "This is the path for me, and I promise to take this path as long as I live." The promises I make tonight are promises that I can only make tonight, and could not have haade five, ten--or eighteen years ago. Much has been written about the meaning of the vowed life. i donit intend'to present a new theory, but let me say briefly how.I see what I am promising. In the vow of obedience, I am saying that I will not try to build ~a career for myself. Rather my life is a responding life in the Society of Jesus, a response to the call of God as seen in the needs of others. In chastity I am foregoing the joys, pleasures and anxieties of building a home and family and thus establishing family roots. My basic community will be the Jesuits I live, work, and move with. In this way I hope to be available for loving service, wherever the good news of God's love is called for. In poverty I am saying that I will look upon my time, talents, education as always God's gift to me, not for myself, but to be shared in the service of others. Finally, I promise to do all of this as a member of the Society of Jesus. That is much easier to grasp and to explain. For it means living, growing, working, enjoying life, and dying with many of the persons you see here. And it is quite a group: young and old, tall and short, from all over the United States, and even from around the world. What do w,e have in common? All of us are engaged in the serious convers.~ition and ctiallenges of Christian life and ministry, in the~.tradition of Ignatius and the many .great Jesuits of the past and present. We are trying-in many different ways to let the good news of the love of God break into this world. ~ Secondly, where do I get the urge or inspiration to make these vows and promises? If it comes simply from my own imagination, then I could make and break these promises without further ado. But years ago, in quiet and diverse ways, the idea crept into my head to be a Jestlit and a priest. The idea came fr.om reading books, from conversation; from the example of my family, parish priests, and from Jesuits who taught me, And so I responded. "Promises to Keep," A,Homily for Final Vows But it was a long time ago that the journey began. Today where do I get the inspiration to make this profession of final 'vows? It seems to me that the process is quite similar. You, so many here, and so many who couldn't be here, in your own ways, have kept ~the vision and ideal of being a Jesuit priest before my eyes. YOU have been sending me signals, challenging, pushing, leading m.e, ~and so I respond. You have been sending me signals,' as I read them, that indicate that what I am about is good, and is from God. Signals have come from the parish at Harvey, Where I help on Sundays, to friends and teachers at the University of Chicago; from Jesuits in New York to students I teach and learn with here at the Jesu.itSchool of Theology; from fellow faculty members, friends of Hyde Park, to those I live with at Jesuit House. And I have to rely on :these signals, signals which have given me hope, courage, and confidence .,that 1 am on the right path. There is one conviction that has grown over the years, that while the vows are finally from God and made to God, it is according to his plan and purpose that the desire and courage to take and renew the promises of vows always comes mediated through.human lives. I sensed today a new insight into, or application of the parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25. If I might dare paraphrase it, I would say, "what I prpmise or vow to you, the least ofGod's brothers and sisters, I am vowing to God himself." But thirdly, how it is ppssible to make and live such promises? Many would say that this way of life is inhuman, psychologically unhealthy, or even un-Christian. How can i be sure that this is truly the will of God for me? How can I avoid the danger of the vows, the danger of being un-loving, irresponsible, the danger of pride in thinking that I have chosen a "better w~y" than n0n-vowed life? How can I'choose or control the future, and say where I wish to be ten or thirty years from now? Am I not fighting against Christian freedom, the freedom of the Spirit? Finally, and most trouble-some, how can I promise to God what he alone can give true obedience, holy poverty, and perfect chastity? These virtues are his gifts, and so how dare I promise or vow them'before God? The answer to these difficulties and°dangers must be an answer in faith, hope, and loving trust. Let me explain: I used to think I could figure it out--and had figured it out. I had what I thought was an adequate view of God, a solid enough view.of myself and the meaning and possibiliti~es of human life. I thought that on the basis of this perspective I could pronounce and keep my vows. They made a lot of sense. Now I see it is ndt so easy. For I see that vowed life, in common with all life, is, to use Karl Rahner's phrase, "a surrender to the mystery and incomprehensibility of God." I can't give a complete and adequate rational account or grounding for vowed life, for myself or anyone else. But on the basis of expei'ience and prayerful reflection, I dare to say that this life is not only.possible, but it is God's will and graced way for me. Living the vows as I have been about and encoun- 311 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/'1 tering the mystery of God in and through them is. their only final justification. Th.ey have been, are, and I say tonight, will continue to be my way to meet God, to be myself, and to respond to the needs .of God's people., Just as the Jesuit-.style of life has shaped my daily existence, so, in a.mysteriou.s way, the vowed life has shaped and formed my faith-filled idea of God himself. The God, revealed to me through the vows is a God I can and must stand before in trust. He is the one. who gives joy, peace, fulfillment, and a sense of purpose and mission far deeper tha~ any that I could create or grasp on my own. Moving to the center of the mystery of the possibility of the vows, I dare to say in and through these vows that God, the incomprehensible one, is not distant, far-off, uninvolved, but rather he is somehow present and working as the one who makes possible these promises in the first place. I find I am almost forced to say that he, in his Holy Spirit, is making the vbws and promises in and through me. And go only on this basis.do I dare to promise what God alone can give as gift. For I am convinced that it is a response to his impulse and urge that pushes me to make this commitment. I began these reflections with the story of a child:s pr~mise at Christ-mastime. Let me conclude with a poet's words on promises. In the midst ofa busy Week in a snow filled winter in Chicago, a pocida of Robert'Frost is perhaps most appropriate, "Stopping by Woods on a Siaowy Evening." It is good that we are here together, pausing; ~stopping not by woo~is, but in the city i~f Chicago in Augustana Lutheran Church.Tlie poet, stopping with his horse and carriage explains, "The woods are lovely, d~rk and deelS." And ~peaking formyself, Isay, yes,the woods I have journeyed through over ,the past eighteen years have been lovely, dark and deep. The woods a~re lovely--exciting, encouraging, adventuresome and challenging years, with beautiful moments of joy and peace, so lovely that~ I gla.dly, freely continue down this path. The woods are dark--filled with the .unexpected, from a pre-Vatican II Church onward towards Vatican III, with the graced paradox of a Jesuit pronouncing his final vows in a Lutheran church. Final-ly, the woods are deep if nottiing else the years of th~ journey have been deep, far too deep for me to understand and explain all that led me here tonight,, and all that is involved in this celebration, far tro deep for me to adequa.tely thank all who have supported and e, ncouraged me. Yes, the woods have been deep--filled with the mysterious presence of God in one humari life. The,,woods I,have journeyed through have been lovely, dark and deep, and I am saying in effect tonight that I would not trade a~0ay this way of, life through the woods for any other way. I say this joyfully, and as strongly as I can. But we can't stop here and pause here too long in-snow filled Chicago. For as the poet reminds us,'and as his poem concludes: "Promises to Keep," A Homily for Final Vows / 39 The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. May God who is Father, Son and Spirit continue to strengthen and guide each one of us on our journeys in the miles ahead. REPRINTS FROM THE REVIEW "A Method for Eliminating Method in Prayer," H. F. Smith, S.J . 30 "An Apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice," M. Oliva, S.J . 50 "CelibateGerhtality," W. F. Kraft . 50 "Celibacy and Contemplatio~n,'~ D. Dennehy, S.J . 30 "Colloquy of God with a Soul that Truly Seeks Him" . 3.0. "Consciousness Exhmen," G: A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. . ~.50 "Hidden in Jesus Before the Father," G. A. Asch~ffbrenner, S.J . 50 "Institutional Business Administration & Religious," Flanagan and O'Connor . 30 "Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation;' S.C. for Rel!gious . ~ . .~. . 35 "Prayer-of Personal Reminiscence," D. J,' Hassel, S.J .6.0. '~Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of .Disdernment of Spirits," J. R. Sheets, S.J. ' . 50 "Psychosexual Maturity in CelibateDevelopment," P. Cristatitiello . . . ~ . 60 "Retirement or Vigil," B. Ashley, O,P. .~.3.0 "The 'Active-Contemplative' Problem," D. M. Knight .7.5. "The Contemporary Spirituality of ihe Monastic Lectio," M, Neuman, O.S.B: . ~. . 50 "The Four Momeiats of Prayer," J. R. Sheets, S.J .5.0. "The Healing of Memories," F. Martin . . . 35 "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat," H. F. Smith,oS.J . :.° . .35 Orders for the' above should be sent to: Review for Religious Room 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St~ Louis, MO 63108 Destructive Passivity Spiritual Direction in Judith Roemer Sister Judith is a member of the staff of the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth; Church Road; Wernersville, PA 19565. ecently, I have become aware of the work of Aar.on a.nd Jacqui Schiff on psychological aspects of passivity (T. A. Journal, 1:1, January, 1971). As I read some of their findings, I began to see applications to the situation of spiritual direction. I began to realize how important it is for directors to be more alert in detecting patterns of destructive passivity in their directees. I came to recognize how important it is not to foster such patterns. It.seems to me, then, that noting and examining the categories of these psychologists regarding negative passivity can be highly productive in improving the process of spiritual direction. ~ "Passivity" has long been esteemed in the spiritual life. For that reason, it seems necessary to distinguish clearly from the start precisely what is the subject of this paper. There definitely is a time for activity, and a time for passivity. What seems essential is that passivity, as a way of responding, be carefully chosen. When, after looking at a situation and being in touch with my faith, my intelligence, and my affectivity, I decide to do nothing, I have made good use of passivity. This paper is not about those freely-chosen, well-thought-'out, peacefully and joyfully chosen situations. On the con-trary, this paper is concerned .with a form of passivity which inhibits adult responsibility and substitutes an unproductive way of acting for a decision. Previously I had thought of passivity in terms of "'dging nothing," However, the unproductive types of passivity wear many masks. Along 40 Destructive Passivity in Spirit.ual Direction / lll with "doing. nothing," passivity can take the form of "over-adaptation," "agitation," "incapacitation," and "violence." Each form in turn has many other forms as the category is expanded. In writing about the situation of spiritual~direction, my assumption is that, for the most part, I am dealing with normal, productive adults. Hen~e~ without pushing Schiffs' original categories of abnormal behavior beyond their intent, I suggest that the destructive areas of passive behavior noted by them do have potential tendencies that are also to be~found ~n the situation of directing healthy adults. Both director and directee carl profit by being aware of them. Secondly, I want to show that the Spiritual Exer-cises of St. Ignatius contain some useful tactics for cou.nteracting destruc-. tive passivity. Using these tactics can be the occasion for providing quality decisions for the furtherance of the Kingdom. Doing Nothing In religious circles we often smile knowingly at the self-made martyr; we chide one another with the standard phrase, "Offer it up." We are indignant at the priest and levite who preceded the Good Samaritan and passed by the wounded stranger because it wasn't their business. We scoff at Cain as iii~ asks about being his brother's keeper. All of these are simply good exam-ples of the first category of destructive passivity, of doing nothing. Not quite so obvious is the example of a person who gathers data ad infinitum; waiting endlessly for the perfect insight, the perfect moment, before con-cretizing his dream in decision. Close to him is the example of the person who is caught in speculation to the point of paralysis. His personal intui-tions convolute beyond time and talent, becoming a threatening burden rather than a beaconing light. Substituting one a~tivity for another, washing the car instead of writing the checks, is yet another form of "doing nothing." A quite obvious form is plain indecisiveness. Not quite so easy to detect would be falling into a certain disproportionate balance of activity and passivity in prayer. One of the greatest struggles in prayer is knowing when to let go of activity in order to be quiet. As a person moves from a meditative stance to a contemplative stance, he is faced with the decision to choose or to resist passivity. Instinctively he would tend to resist whatever would challenge his depen-dence on word, fantasy, clarity or concept. In prayer, though, a person at some time is faced with the necessity of choosing the darkness of faith in place of his familiar dependency on thoughts and feelings. In the Exercises of St. Ignatius, the First Principle and Foundation (23) gives a clear direction against ~'doiflg nothingi': "The other things., are created for man to help him . Hence he ought to make use of them insofar as they help., and to rid himself of them insofar as they prove a hindrance." Later, in the Kingdom (91-98) the id quod volo (grace desired) is indicat- 49 /Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 ed in the petition to be "prompt and diligent., not to be deaf." Further on, the Three Classes of Men (149-155) portray sets of persons in the midst of decisions. At one extreme is the destructively passive man, who, filled with hopes, dreams, doubts, and attachments, comes to the end of~ his life uncommitted, not having "made use of any means." At the other end is the man of the ThirdClass who has developed a sense of freedom, a willingness to work with many options "to be better able to serve God our Lord." Many,, times people are unaware that there is any way out of their unproductive passivity, and thus see "doing nothing" as a way of survival. But this neednot be the case. A director who insists on careful discernment encourages his directee to find and develop many alternatives, thus lessen-ing the need for anyone to be locked into a single unproductive mode of ¯ acting. Over-adaptation A second, kind of passivity is over-adaptation; taking another's goal as one's own. Unlike the former category of "doing nothing," this one of over-adaptation appears to be busy and productive. Yet the exaggerated dependency role continues to operate and the results are destructive. Fear and "peace at any price" are common manifestations of over-adaptation in religious life. Yet it is often close to ordinary adaptation, which is a necessary~part of human existence. Hence over:gdaptation is difficult~to spot externally. However, careful listening to a directee can give a director many hints of how the directee is going to excessive pains not to cause trouble, to be nice, to be cooperative. Unfortunately it is not uncommon to hear of difficult or even impossible situations in which a person chooses to "sit" on his thoughts and feelings, to "adapt" rather than confront another person or a structure. The pain is often "offered up," and the unhealthy situation persists lest the individual be considered unmortified, or narrow-minded. Fear, too, can be used to mask over-adaptation. Especially among reli-gious women, being timid sometimes has an air of virtue about it. The timid woman wants to be rescued, preferably by a male spiritual director who will protect, reassure, and comfort her without suggesting that she move out of her unproductivity :and decide, with his help, what she is to do about it. Rather insidiously, this kind ofpassivity can be a mask for a deeper kind of aggression. It is difficult to challenge someone who is "trying so hard" to cooperate. Consciously or unconsciously, it doesn't take too long for the over-adapter to learn how much control can be gained in such a situation. Unfortunately, this kind of over-adaptation is often canonized as "docility." ,. Ironically, gaining control through over-adaptation often proves frus-trating. In the effort to mold, regulate and maintain the climate of safety created by over-adaptation, the directee often cannot hear the voice of the Destructive Passivity in Spiritua[ Direction Spirit. This kind of person has set up an atmosphere in which he does not have to give up his security. In clinging to safety he has substantially cut himself off from the world of inspiration and challenge. Directors often see this in directees who cannot believe that God could possibly be leading them beyond their self-made rules, beyond their self-made security and safety. Directees see this in directors who speak only of asceticism, never of mysticism, who prefer devotions and practices instead of fidelity to the Spirit. In some way those who claim they have no time for prayer as well as those who claim they cannot be involved with their neighbors both have fallen heir to passivity,in the form of over-adaptation. The former have let the rat race rather than their own head, heart and faith decide their destiny. The latter have refused to be molded by the poverty, particularity, and concreteness of the Incarnation.' Lastly, in our day, we often fail victim to concern for public relations. Our assumptions about what the bishop will think, what the lay teachers will think, what our community will think, what the Protestants Will think, what the children will think, and so on, endlessly, often decide the course of important events ?Further, they are used as a justification and motivation for over-adapting, for decisions which are unworthy of our faith experi-ence. Over-adaptation is an excellent example of how the "angel of darkness" comes disguised as an "angel of light" (Ex 332). We are all familiar with the monsters that have arisen in the guise of virtue under such "headings as availability, community, poverty, or blind obedience. Burning the candle at both ends, :navel gazing, stinginess, and the ill-use of human talents are all destructive~and.unworthy of the Kingdom. Those who have suffered these delusions might well look less to over-adaptation and more to considered responsiveness in their future decision-making. The Exercises are intended to be a celebration of one's gift of spiritual freedom. Key to that~disposition is ~ spirit of indifference. 1 can use things when I need them and put them aside when they hinder'rme. I canchoose the one or the other, not being unduly influenced by position, location or advancement. Such a stance demands a sense of presence: pres~ence to myself ag I accept the wonder and agony of who I am; and presence'to God as I accept the reality of Someone beyond'me who loves me, At the peak~ of the Ignatian ,experience, the exercitant becomes a cor~templative-in-action. Again and again, each one of the exercises faces him with the question: "What do I want?" He is asked to identify his desire and pray for what he needs. He is asked to face the reality of what he can do, what he needs to ask for, what he plans to do about it all. As though this were not enough, he is asked to order his de~i~es, prioritize his Iongings, lest he assume the posture of the man of the Secon~l Class (Ex 154), thus leaving himself open 44 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 to compromise and mediocrity, It is comforting to note that over-adaptation is often the easiest of the unproductive passivities to remedy. Most people who are negatively pas-sive have done a lot 0fthinking :to arrive at such a position. They are equally capable of assimilating new. information, though. For this reason, it would be a good thing for a director to confront such negative passivity directly. Thinking seriously about developing more positive options, a director and directee can develop new alternatives that lead to more creative results. Agitation The third category of unproductive passivity is agitation, the repetition of actions that have no meaning in terms of what the individual is seeking. In prayer this often shows itself in the kind of spiritual gluttony that ex-cludes the invitation to the darkness of faith. Most of us who pray consistently catch ourselves at times trying too hard, attempting to "program" a religious experience by learning the new-est techniques, and then clinging to the resultant experience as though it were God. Once an individual has fallen into this, it ultimately comes to him asa surprise to find that faith is~dark. His experience with this darkness then arouses anger, possessiveness, the demand that God come to him on his terms. His first experience with this reality often brings about more agita-tion in the form of worry, fretting, the gloomy exaggeration of his situation out of all proportion to its reality. Many persons tend to drop prayer at this point; "Nothing is happening," they say. Or they become over, involved in new techniques, in more interesting works, or in other people, rather than take the effort to learn to live comfortably with dark faith. Since religious people tend to be idealistic, they tend to strive for goals so high that the gap between the real self and the ideal self creates depres-sion rather than energy. Here is where good direction offers an opportunity for balance. Directors should be on the alert for extremes. Wild imaginings in time of prayer, quickly changing moods of sadness, exuberance, fear, or zeal need testing. It seems unlikely that experiences of being "bugged by God" about small ~hings or "being made to suffer" by God hold up in the pro.cess of good discernment. It is more likely that persons have allowed themselves the "luxury" of agitation as a replacement for the decision to accept fully the implication's of their call. Such a decision, lived, is sobering. Life with God becomes quiet, gentle, strong, and often hidden. One must be willing to give up the excitement of flurry, th.e pride of being a "martyr to the cause," the prestigiousness of extraordinary phenomena. The con-crete decision i.s amazingly simple, poor, and hidden, just as it was when the Word was made Flesh. St. Ignatius has many suggestions for coun~teracting agitation. In the Rules for Discernment for the First W~eek (313-327) he describes the behav-ior that is characteristic of those facing their own sinfulness. He warns Destructive Passivity in Spiritual Direction against secrecy, sadness, false reasoning, restiessness, frames of mind that lead to lack of faith, hope, and love. In the Second Week's Rules for Discernment (328-336) he describes the experience of agitation as "'violent, noisy, and disturbing." These, he counsels, are from the evil one. Again, [the course of thoughts suggested to us] may end in what weakens the soul, or disquiets it; or by destroying the peace, tranquility, and quiet which it had before, it may cause disturbance to the soul. These things are a clear sign that the thoughts are proceeding from the evil spirit, the enemy of our progress and eternal salvation ~333). Unfortunately, many enjoy their agitation. Not only does it substitute for their having to make a decision, but they can often find convincing reasons to suggest why it is actually accomplishing something. However, this would be a dangerous area to cultivate.Little that is long-lasting for the K~ngdom is accomplished through such agitation. Further, the'anxiety that I am arousing can move me into the more destructive aspects of passivity: incapacitation or violence. For the director, little or nothing is accom-plished by cooperating with the agitation ofhis directee. In fact, trying to dialog logically with a person in this state often brings the directee more deeply into a dependency role, delaying a good decision. In these cases an effort should be made by both director and directee to calm the agitation, moving it back to an over-adaptive situation where, temporarily at least, the director can give calm instructions that will provide a better atmosphere for the directee to think of alternatives and decide on more productive options. Incapacitation A more entrenched kind of passivity is the fourth type: incapacitation. 'One of the most common manifestations of freezing or incapacitation tn spirituality is stubbornness, an unwillingness to move one step further until I fully understand where I am going. This kind of stubbornness commonly occurs during the transition from meditation to contemplation. "I don't know what is going to happen, and I will not let go until I do," The result is that I stay where I am, often giving up mental prayer as a result. Hand-maid to stubbornness is scruple, a fear of doing something good lest I be wrong or at least somewhat ill-motivated, Much good can be left undone while a person worries about whether or not he is proud, vain, or ambitious, The Exercises answer this frame of mind. lfl such cases one should raise his mind to his Creator and Lord, and if he sees what fie is about to do is in keeping with God's service~, or at least not opposed to it, he should act directly against the temptation. According to St. Bernard, we must answer the tempter, "" I did not undertake this because of you, and I a.m not going to relinquish it~because of you" (351). Refusing to let go of an emotion, pleasant or agonizing, is another form of incapacitation. "'I can only pray provided it is a high experience." ""Io have grown comfortable with my anger (resentment, low self-image) and 46 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 the atmosphere I create helps me feel secure. I control my environment." Unfortunately, the situation backfires and shields the individual from life, i~ssenin'g the likelihood of his loving or suffering, rejoicing or crying with the rhythms of the real world. Having entrenched himself in his low self-image, he begins to project distorting 'images on God. God becomes the Great Controller, the Life-Taker, the Divine Exactor, rather than the Evoker of Freedom and the Loving Father. Lastly, incapacitation demon-strates itself as an unwillingness, an inability to look at one's blind spots. Fear of losing the security of his images often prevents the individual from being called beyond his own devices to the darkness of faith by the whispers of the Spirit. The Ex~rcises face incapacitation firmly by asking the individual to seek for the gift of knowing that he is deeply loved and ~knowing that he is at the same time sinful. Coupled with that grace is his growing realization of who he i~the wonder and the agonywthat leads him to grow comfortable and free with his own reality. In the protection of this new freedom the person does not.have to struggle for survival. He has experienced love. He knows that he is "precious in his sight" (Is 43:4). The Exercises would stir him out of his inactivity, bidding him to look at his secret stubbornnesses as a "false lover" who readily leaves as soon as he is discovered (326). In #325, I am admonished to face the temptation boldly so that it can be put to flight. My willingness to renounce my incapacitation reaches a high .moment when I honest|y put myse|f before Christ on the Cross "as one friend speaks to another" and hear myself own the answers to the triple question, " What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ?" (53). Paradoxically, the most extreme kind of passivity is violence. In it I give up my responsibility for thinking and loving to vent my energy on destruc-tion. Among religious people the violence is often inward: psychosomatic illness, masturbation, guilt, tortured imaginings. These are a poor substitute for the ecstacy to which I am called. The individual prefers the certainty of destruction to the uncertainty of wonder. Even worse, ,he can cloak the mess he has created in a false rationalization of the Third Degree of Humil-ity (Ex 167),thinking that these passivities are his way of bearing poverty, humiliation, and scorn with Christ. Eventually the fruits of distress and frustration, both in himself and in those who have to live with him, will hopefully bring him to his senses. The fruits of true Christian suffering and a true participation in Christ's life always bring forth peace and joy in the depths of the spirit. Violence can also be outwardly directed. We religious may not throw a chair through a window, but we do impose verbal burdens

Issue 10.6 of the Review for Religious, 1951. ; A.M.D.G. Review for Religious NOVEMBER 15, 195.1 After Ten Years . The Editors Spirituality of Teresian Carmel . Fr. Thomas, O.C;.D. Peace of C;hrist . Thomas A. O'C;onnor Secular Institutes . Francis N. Korth Way of Simple Love . ,James Lockeff Current Spiritual Writing . . . . Augustine KJaas The Race Problem . ~ . . . Gerald Kelly Questions and Answers Index for 19S I Book ,Reviews VOLUME X NUMBER 6 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS VOLUME X NOVEMBER, 1951 NU~BER 6 CONTENTS AFTER TEN YEARS--'~he Editors . 281 THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE TERESIAN CARMEL-- Father Thomas, O.C.D . 283 THE PEACE OF CHRIST-~Thomas A. O'Connor, S.3 . 289 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 295 SECULAR INSTITUTES--Francis N. Korth, S.J~ . 296 THE WAY OF SIMPLE L~)VE-~dames Lockett, S.J . 301 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING--Augustine Klaas, S.J.-- International Convention on Religious Life . 303 Reports on Renewal and. Adaptation . 305 Religious and Lay Helpers . 311 Prudence vs Credulity . . .~ ¯ . 313 HOW TO THINK AND ACT ABOUT THE RACE PROBLEM-- Gerald Kelly, S.J . 316 QUESTIONS AND~ ANSWERS--° 27. On Ackn~,w, ledging Gifts . 324 28. Succe~sso.r for Deceased Councilor . 32q 29. Slight°Deferment of First Profession . . . . . . . . 325 30. Can Shperior's Three-Year Term be Shortened? . 326 31. Can ~slstant Novice Master be Councilor? . 326 32. Pa~siontide Covering of Statues . 326 33. Admissioh of Deaf Applicant . 326 34. Must Altar Candles be Blessed? . 327 BOOK REVIEWS-- Officium Divinum Parvum; St. Clare of Assisi; Devotedly Yours 327 ¯ BOOK NOTICES . 329 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . . 330 TEN-YEAR INDEX-~SECOND CALL . 332 NO MORE REPRINTS . 332 ANNUAL INDEX FOR 1951 . 333 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, November, 1951. Vol. X, No. ~. Published bi-monthly: danuary, March, May, duly, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter danuary 15, 1942. at the Post Office, Topeka. Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.d., G. Augustine Ellard, S.d., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: derome Breunig, S. d. Copyright, 1951, by Adam C. Ellis, S.d. ~Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U. S. A. Before writincj to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. At:t:er Ten Years WrlTH this number we complete our first ten years of publica-tion. It seems an appropriate time to give.subscribers some facts about our history and some insight into our future. History Our first number (January, 1942) was already in the press when the war started. This number was mailed to" about 1300 subscribers; the last issue of that year w~s mailed to about 3200. Since that time our subscription list has increased gradually until now it is approxi-mately 8500. We began by publishing a 72-page magazine with large type and heavy paper. War and post-war restrictions on paper, as well as the rising "cost of everything pertaining to the printing business, forced us to cut on the quality oF paper, ~ the size of the type, and the num-ber of' pages. However, our present issue of 56 pages contains as much material as was printed in the first numbers. For more than nine years we held to our origigai price of two dollars per year. Only within this past year did we yield to pressure of rising costs; for, despite all the reductions regarding paper, type, and number of pages, our expense.s were much greater than they were in the early years of publication. Hence, in May, 195:11, we had to raise the subscription price to three dollars per year. We, did this with considerable regret, becaus~ we were conscious of the fact that most of our subscribers are small religious houses whose revenue is seldom more than meager. Our ambition has always been to publish a high-quality ecclesi-astical review, of special value to religious, whether clerical or lay. We have by no means reached the ideal; but we think we ~an say that we have published some valuable articles 'and series of articles. In our Question-and-Answer department, our policy has been to stress points that have some particular bearing on the religious life. We try to follow the same policy regarding bbok reviews. One of our special desires has been to keep a good Communica-tions department in which religious might help one another by dis-cussing some of the pract.ical problems of the religious life. We began this department with an excellent series of communications on spiritual direction. Unfortunately, we have never since been able to 281 THE EDITORS rise tO the standard set by that initial endeavor. Regarding unsolicited manuscripts, we have had only one "abso-lute" in our policy: we never accept poetry. Except for this, we have carefully considered every manuscript submitted to us. The Future In the past our subscription list has grown gradually and with a certain spontaneity, that is, without much special pushing. But there is a limit to suc,h growth, and perhaps we have reached it. We could use the special help of interested subscribers. For instance, there are still large numbers of religious communities that do not subscribe; and it seems that in many cases the sole reason for not subscribing is thai they have never heard of the REVIEW. Perhaps some of our readers would have occasion to g!ve them the information. Also, it seems to us that we should have more subscribers among diocesan priests who are directors and confessors of religious. Would it seem mercenary to suggest that a gift-subscription to the REVIEW would be just as good a Christmas present to such priests as a rabat or a box of cigars ? We must retain our new ~rice ($3.00), and we hope it will not make any substantial difference in the number of subscribers. As for articles, we still" have several in theI series on the spiritual-ity of' different institutes. These include "Salesian Spirituality," "St. Augustine and His Rule," and "Jesuit Spirituality." We have another article on secular institutes, and we shall publish more on that subject as our information grows. Also, we have a commentary. on the address on the states of perfection given by Pope Pius XII to the members of the First Congress of Religious; and we hope to pub-lish soon an English translation of the very importa.nt apostolic let-ter to religious, Uniqenitus Dei Filius, issued by Pius XI, in 1924. We would appreciate receiving good communications on practical problems, as well as suggestions concerning possible communications or articles. We close with a word of thanks to contributors and subscribers, and with a prayer of thanks to God, who has blessed us in many ways. THE EDITORS. 282 The Spirit:ualit:y !:he Teresian Carmel Father Thomas, O.c.D. THE CONCEPT of perfection which is the basis of all that has .| been written on the spirit of Carmel is that the objective of the Carmelite is a state of union in which the soul is transformed by love in God. "The state of this divine union consists in the soul's total transformation, according.to the will, in such a manner that there may be naught in the soul that is contrary to the will of God, but that in all and through all, its movements may be those of the will of God alone." (Ascent of Mt. Carmel, Bk.I, ch. 11, n.2.) This ideal set before his fellow religious by St. John of the Cross is carried over from the ancient spiritual tradition of Carmel as found in the work called the Institution of the First Monks (towards the end of the 12th century, or certainly before the middle of the 13th). The tradition of Carmel is twofold. "Firstly it consists in offering to God a holy heart, freefrom every stain of actual sin; we can reach that by our labor, our efforts with the help of grace; we have reached it when we are perfected in charity . The other end of this life is a purely gratuitous gift of God: it ¢0nsists in tasting, not only after death but even in this mortal life, the power of the divine presence and the sweetness of heavenly glories." (Institutio Primorum Monachorum, ch.2.) These two elements are not separate and unrelated. "By means of purity of heart and perfection of charity one arrives at the second end, that is, experimental knowledge of divine strength and celestial glory. " (Ibid.) . While this experimental knowIedge is a gift of God, it is not for that reason out of our reach or devoid of merit. Both St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Jesus speak of a double union with God. The first consists in perfect conformity of the human will with the will of God, which union of conformity is crowned quite normally with the mystical union in which the soul divestedof self-love is penetrated with the divine life and realizes tha.t God lives or dwells within. (Cf. Ascent, Bk.II, ch.5; Interior Castle, Mans. 6, Ch. Ill, n.3.) If few souls reach this high state, it is not because God wishes that it be the lot of a few, but because He finds few disposed for such union. (Livin~l Flame, A, St. 2, n.23) . 283 FATHER THOMAS Reoiew for Religious Carmel has always been the implacable enemy of mediocrity and half measures. St. Teresa warns the world that God "refuses to force our will, He takes what we give Him but does not give Himself wholly, until He sees that we are giving ourselves wholly to Him." (Wag of perfection, Ch.28, n.12.) And St. John of the Cross gives expression to the same thought by saying, "God communicates Him-self most to that soul that has progressed farthest in love; namely, that has its will in closest conformity with the will of God." (Ascent, Bk. II, Ch. 5, n.4) Total love postulates total sel'f-denial. Souls of the Teresian Carmel are called to a totalitg of looe. Asceticism of Carmel If the ideal of perfection is thus clearly set forth, the development of this ideal is no less evident in the writings of the Order. For the Carmelite, sanctity is to be reached by means of two practices: detach-ment and recollection, or, mortification and prayer. All the precepts of the Primitive Rule may be reduced to these. The central precept of the Rule: "Let each one remain in his celt; or hear it, meditating dag and nigh( on the law of the Lord, and watching in prager, unless otherwise jUStlg occupied, together with the prescribed recitation of the Divine Office and daily assistance at Mass, insure the primacy of prayer; while the precepts of poverty, fasting, abstinence, manual labor, silence, and humility form the background of mortification. Detachment is the negative element in the Carmelite program, ofwhich the Christian world today is perhaps overconscious. Too many spiritual men of our day have taken their impression of Carmel from the nothing, nothing, nothing of St. John of the Cross's map of perfection, forgetting th.at this nothing of detachment is dictated by the ALL of union with God. The saint who said to one of his peni-tents, "'Nothing, nothing, nothing, even to leaving our very skin and all else for Christ," (St. John of the Cross, Ft. Bruno, O.C.D., Ch.16.) was human and practical enough to realize that "unless the soul is enkindled with other and greater yearnings for that which is spiritual, it will be unable to throw off the yoke of nature or enter this night of sense, neither will it have the courage to remain in dark-ness as to all things.". (Ascent, Bk.I, Cb. X[V, n.2.) Austerity of life must be measured according to the strength of love. When love is strong, it will want to give much; when it is perfect, it will want to give all. (St: Teresa, Wag of Perfection, Cb. 32.) St. John of the Cross disavows any intention of trying to create a vacuum in the 284 November, 1951 TERESIAN CARMEL soul. As the soul is emptied of desire for creature satisfactions it is filled with desire for Christ. In fact, the saint recommends the culti-vation of an habitual desire for Christ before all else. "First, let him have an habitual desire to imitate Christ in everything that he does, conforming himself to His life." (Ascent,.Bk.I, Ch. 13, n.2) Father Gabriel finds it necessary to stress the order and discretion of St. John's treatment of this matter of detachment. "We think it. well to emphasize this advice of the Saint, for it shows how mistaken is the accusation which stigmatizes his doctrine as absolute and rigid. The principle of the necessity of complete detachment is absolute, but in its application the individual must take account of human weakness and needs. The man who would banish from his life every allevia-tion" and recreation would soon fall into a physical and moral weari-ness which would be detrimental to the spiritual life itself. Moreover, the pleasures of sense are' not always evil; there are pleasures which are perfectly innocent; but it is a question of not letting ourselves be-come attached to them. Otherwise we shall seek them in order to satisfy our own self-love, instead of using them for the benefit of our spiritual life and for the glory of God."~ (St. John of the Cross, Doctor of Divine Love and Contemplatign, p. 30, note.) Therefore, detachment is never made an end in itself. It is always looked upon as the instrument or means by which souls arrive at union with God in prayer. The most. important point of originality in the Teresian Reform was the intensification of mental prayer. St. Teresa herself introduced the two hours of mental prayer that are part of thd Car-melite day, and St. John of the Cross adopted the practice for the Fathers of the Reform. This interior prayer is the life of the vocal prayer and liturgy" of the Order, and is prolonged during the day in the.practice of the presence of God. Carmel does not view contemplation as an extraordinary grace, a quasi-miraculous favor reserved by God for a few privileged souls. "All who wear this holy habit of Carmel," proclaims St. Teresa, "are called to prayer and contemplation." (Interior Castle, Mans. V., -Ch.I, n.2.) In souls athirst for union with God, contemplation flourishes and becomes an instrument of progress on the way to per-fection and the crown of its perfect fulfillment. It is not to be confused with visions and revelations which Carmel; with St. John of the Cross, sees as extraordinary accompaniments of prayer and not in any way required in order to arrive at union with God. It is 285 FATHER THOMAS Ret~iew for Religious the teaching of the Teresian school of spirituality that contempla-tion is the normal development of the soul and postulates nothing more than the theological virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit, ele-ments of the supernatural organism of the soul, the activation of which may be called connatural. This is not the place for a defense of the doctrine of acquired contemplation. Suffice it to say that in the Teresian school specula-tion upon contemplation has arisen from" a living contact with mystical facts and is directed immediately to the utility and guidance of contemplative souls. A contemplation which we can obtain by our human manner of working by means of the ordinary light of Faith and the ordinarg aids of grace (Quiroga, Don que tuao, Ch.I, p. 511.) has met with disfavor iri some circles, but a conciliatory spirit will find that the differences of various schools in this regard are little more than variations of terminology. (Cf. Gabriel, op. cir., p. 178, sqq.) Realization of Ideal Carmel's insistence upon prayer is made practical in the culti-vation of a personal love for Christ. Prayer is conceived as a friend-ship, and since the cultivation of friendship follows the laws of habit formation, each meditation is looked upon as a contact with Christ which, upon being repeated, soon results in deep esteem and strong love. This friendship inspired the Reform. "All I cared for then, as I do now, was that, as the enemies of God are so many and His friends so few, these latter might at least be devoted friends of Jesus Christ." (St. Teresa, Way .oF PerFection, Ch.I, n.2.) The Merciful Love of God manifested in the great mystery of the Incar-nation is the spiritual center of Carmel's spirituality. St. John of the Cross' insistence upon having an habitual desire to imitate Christ has been mentioned. This desire inspires a per-sistent search for God. Creatures cannot satisfy, for they are but traces of the divine. (St. John,, Spiritual Canticle, St. VII.) Con-tact with' Christ by way of faith in prayer brings the soul to the object of its search (Ibid. St. XII.), and then through suffering and the cross it penetrates and finds fruition in the "deep mysteries in the wisdom of God which are in Christ." (Ibid. St. XXXVI, n.2.) The progress of the soul through creatures to Christ, and through Christ to union with the Divinity is wonderfully traced by the Mystical Doctor. And we have only to .read his poem beginning, "How well I know the fount that freely flows, although 'tis night!" 286 Nooember, 1951 ¯ TERESIAN CARMEL to realize his tremendous appreciation for the Incarnation, and especially the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It is in the Blessed Sacrament that the Carmelite finds the daily companion-ship that inspires divinefriendship. The tenderness and simplicity of this love shows itself in Carmel's devotion to the Infancy of Our Lord. St. Therese of the Child Jesu~ is a delightful reproduction in our day of all the deep strength of the Spanish Mystics. Witness her oblation to the Merciful Love of God and the power of her thought when describing, it. (Autobiography, Cb. VIII, p. 148.) The ambition of every worthy Carmelite is to be what St. Teresa of Avila termed a deooted friend of Christ. Another practical manifestation of Carmelite spirituality is a tender love for Mary. Carmel' glories in the title of Order of Our Lady, but thisis not a mere empty honor; it is given substance in a Marian life that is marked by three traditional characteristics: imi-tation, intimacy, and consecration. The Order looks upon Mary as "More Mother than Queen" (St. Therese, Autobiographg, Ch. XII.), models' it prayer life upon her simplicity and recollection, and considers every vocation a speciMly established relationship with the Mother of God. Furthermore, far from considering its Marian life as a hindrance to union with God, Carmel's teaching is that intimacy with Mary lends greater unction to the highest mysti?al union. (Cf. Michael of St. Augustine, The Mariform Life and Marian Life in Mar~t and for MaGt, Chs. XIII, XIV.) " Carmel has for seven centuries enjoyed the special protection of Our Lady through the Brown Scapular, and considers this garment a sign of its consecration to Mary. Total dedication of the Order to the Blessed Mother is indicated by its traditional motto: Totus Mari-anus est Carmelus. Apostolate This paper on the Spirituality of Carmel seems to demar~d a final word regarding the apostolate.' After passing from the Orient and the eremitical life of its cradle in Palestine, the Order became mendicant in the West and espoused in its vocation the apostolic life, preserving at all times a leaning towards contemplation and solitude. So completely has the contemplative dominated the active in "Car-mel, that the Order has always looked upon its prayer life as its first apostolate. The life of the Carmelite Nun is founded on the principle that prayer has an apostolic value. St. Teresa placed before her nuns the 287 FATHER THOMAS very militant function of aiding God's priests by their prayer and penance. "I think," she writes, "He prizes one soul which by His mercy, and through our diligence and prayer, we may have gained for Him, more than all the other services we can render Him." (Four~datiorls, Ch. I, n.7.) T.he Church has always considered con-templatives as the apostles of the apostles. Plus XI, writing about the work of the contemplatives, says, "It is easy to understand how they who assiduously fulfill the duty ot~ prayer and penance con-tribute more to the increase of the Church and the' welfare of man-kind than those who labor in the tilling of the Master's field. For unless the former drew down from heaven a shower of divine graces to water the field that is being tilled, the evangelical laborers would indeed reap from their toil a more scanty crop." (A. A. S., Oct. 25, 192.4.) The friends of Christ, therefore, obtain the greatest victories in the conquest of the world for Him. St. Thomas gives the theologi-cal reason for this in these words, ",lust as the man who lives in grace fulfills the will of God, it is fitting (cor~grttttro est). in this relation of friendship that God should fulfill the will of man by saving others.'" (Summa Tl~eol. Ia IIae, q. 114, a.6.) And St. ~lohn of the Cross puts it this way. "A little of this pure love is more fruitful for the Church than all external works." (SloiriutaI Canticle, B. St. 29, n.2.) Since priests of the Order exercise an exterior apostolate also, they must necessarily show the influence of- the ideal of divine intimacy fostered in Carmel. Carmelite priests have the particular mission of helping souls to lead a life of interior union with God. They must find themselves at home with the problems of spiritual direction. This does not mean that the priestly ministry of a Carmelite limits itself to interior souls, since the priest of God owes his generous and zealous efforts to the whol~ Chu}ch, not excluding sinners and infidels. But when St. ,lohn of the Cross converted a sinner, he did not rest content with bringing about a return to the state of grace., He tried to lead this soul to a fervent life. One saint can do more than a thousand mediocre souls, and the great Carmel-ite Salmanticenses call attention to the great joy that is given to the Heart of Christ by leading souls to higher sanctity. (Curstts Theol. Tract. XIX De Caritate, disp. V, n. 93.) 288 The Peace ot: Christ: Thomas A. O'Connor, S.J. WHAT is the peace of Christ? What is this peace which Christ comes to give? Immediately there flashes on the screen of our minds the scene of that first Christmas. "While all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy Almighty Word leaped down from Heaven from Thy Royal Throne" (Wisdom 18: 14). We see the shepherds on the hillside guarding their flocks. "Suddenly the glory of God shone round about them . and an angel said to them, '. behold I bring you good news of great joy which shall be to all the people; for there has been born to you today in the town of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign to you; you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there was with" the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth among men of good will.' " . With haste we go with the shepherds, and we find Mary and Joseph, and the Infant lying in the manger. "A Child is born to us, and a Son is given to us and the government is upon His shoulder: and His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the. Mighty, the Father of the World to coine, the Prince of Peace" (Is. 9:6). God is the God of Peace (I Cot. 14:13), and His Son, the Prince of Peace. As He in prospect looked forward from His crib to the days of His earthly life, so we in retrospect look back to His thirty-three years amongst us. He has come, Zachary prophesied, "to guide our-feet in the way of peace" (Luke 1:79). Time and again His sacred lips would speak those most consoling words, "Go in peace." His first greeting to His assembled disciples after His resurrection was "'Peace be to you!" As Peter later testifies (Acts 10:36) "God sent his word to the children of Isgael, preaching peace through Jesus Christ." At the Last Supper, as the shadows of His earthly life were deepening, He revealed to His closest followers the secrets of His Sacred Heart, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not 289 THOMAS A. O'CONNOR Review/or Religious as the world gives, do ! give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid." And at the conclusion of that beautiful dis-course He summed up the purpose He had in mind in the many thoughts He had communicated to them, "These things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace." What is the peace of Christ? This peace which He comes to give? God is the God of peace because He is Love Itself, and He wishes to make all partakers of His love. "For I know the thoughts that I think towards you," saith the Lord, "thoughts of peace and not of affliction" (Jer. 29:11). St. Paul says, "For God is a God of. peace, not of disorder" (I Cot. 14:33). Again, ". beat peace, and the God. of peace and love be with you" (I Cor. 13:11). "May the Lord of peace himself give you everlasting peace in every .place" (II Thess. 3:16). The peace of Christ can be considered in a three-fold way: 1. Christ is our peace in bringing us peace wi~h God; 2. Christ is our peace in giving us the means to be at peace with our fello;ccman ; 3. Christ is our peace in teaching us how to have peace within our own hearts. Peace, says St. Augustine, is the tranquillity of order. It is.that serenity and quiet calm that is of 'the very nature of perfect order. I. Peace with God Christ is our peace in' restoring the right order between sinful man and his Creator, by reconciling the sinner with his offended God. As our Redeemer, He, "the second Adam, atoned for the original sin of the head of the human race. "When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom. 5:10). He is th'e atoning Victim for our sins. "He is a propitiation for our sins, not for ours only but also for those of the whole world" (I John 2:2). The sinner cannot be at peace because his soul is at war with God. Mortal sin, we remember, is .the worst evil in the world, bu( let us not forget that the second greatest evil in the "world is venial sin. Christ is our peace in taking away our sins and the sins of the world. We are His peacemakers when by our prayers and sacrifices we help in bringing to the sinner the peace of Christ. As we gaze lovingly on the Infant Christ lying in His manger, let us recall the-words of St. Paul to the Colossians (1:15-21): "He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature. 29O November, 1951 THE PEACE OF CHRIST ¯ For in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible., he is before all creatures, and in him all things subsist. For it has pleased God the Father that in him all his fullness should dwell, and that through, him he should reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in the heavens, making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." II. Peace with Our Fellow Man" Christ is our peace in re-establishing the proper order among men. This second kind of peace Christ left to the world by including men in the Mystical Body of Christ, and this in a two-fold way: First, Christ removed all barriers between nations and made them one. "You the Gentiles, says St. Paul (Eph: 2:12), "were at the time without Christ, excluded as aliens from the community of Israel. but now in Christ Jesus you, who were once 'afar off, have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself. is our peace, he it is who hath made both one, and has broken down the intervening wall. Therefore you are now no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are., members of the house-hold of God." Hence the peace of Christ does away with all barriers of race or nation or class of society. All have.been made one. "For He is our peace and has broken down the inter:;cening wall." Secondly, Christ is our peace in establishin, g right order among all men, because we have all been called into one.~.body-v-the Body of Christ. "For in one Spirit we are all baptized into one body. Now you are the Body of Christ, member for member" (I Cot. 12:12). "For just as in one body we have many members., so we, the many, are 6ne body in Christ. If it be possible, as far as in you lies, be at peace with all men" (Rom. 12:4). "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that there be no dissention among you, but that you be perfectly united in one mind and in one judgment" (I Cot. 1:10)~. "Put on, there-fore, as God's chosen ones . a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Bear with one another and forgive one another ¯ . . but above all have charity, which is the bond of perfection. And may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts; unto that peace indeed you were called in one body" (Col. 3:12-15). III. Peace Within Our Own Hearts The third kind of peace which Christ brings us is peace within our own hearts. He offers to set up there a tranquillity of order over 291 THOMAS A. O'CONNOR Re~iew [or Religious the conflicting emotions and disturbing affections of our heart. This is the peace which He stresses in His discourse at the 'Last Supper. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world giveth to you, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled nor let it be afraid." Christ wishes to instil in the Apostles a calmness and courage for their coming trims. He wanted to impart to them some of His own peace of mind and strength of soul with which He was approaching His passion. This same serenity of mind, this unruffled calmness of .soul, this fearlessness in the face of physical suffering were to be needed by many a martyr. His words were for all His heroes who were to suffer and to die for Him down to the end of time. They were for a Mindzenty, for a Stepinac, ~or a Beran, and for the count-less unknown priests and religious languishing in prison today. "If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also" (John 15: 20). i'These things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have affliction. But take courage, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). What is this peace of Christ? "This peace of Christ," says St. Augustine, "is serenity of spirit, tranquillity of soul, simplicity of heart, the bond of love, the consummation of charity." This peace of Christ is like a radiant star in the heavens, flashing to us its bright rays of inspiration and guidance. It is a multipointed star, brilliantly beckoning us to a full possession of the peace of Christ. For in the first place the peace which Christ would set up in our hearts comes from a perfect conformit~l to the u~ill of God. He the '.'Way, the Truth and the Life" has shown us the perfect way. "Thou hast fitted a body to me," He said, "behold I come to do thy will, O God" (Heb. 10:7). "For I bare come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me" (John 6:38). In the agony in the garden He pleaded with His Father to remove the cup of suffering but added: "yet not my will but thine be done" (Luke 22:42). Thus shall you pray: ". thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (Matt. 6:10). The will of God is the highroad to happiness: His commands the blueprints of peace. "He who does the will of God abides forever" (I John 2: 17). As religious, we possess Christ's peace in our obedience. By obedience we put off our own wills to put on the will of God as declared to us by our superiors., to be possessed and governed by His Divine Providence by means of our superiors. "And if peace and 292 November, 1951 THE PEACE OI:: CHRIST tranquillity of mind is desired," adds St. Ignatius, "he certainly never shall arrive unto it, who has within himself the. cause of his disquiet and trouble, namely, the disagreeing of his own judgment from the law of Obedience." (Epistle on Obedience.) Secondly, Christ's peace comes to us from an unwavering trust in God's Divine Providence. For God's Divine Providence rules every-thing. Everything that takes place, happens not by chance but in accordance with the absolute or permissive will of God; and out of the circumstances of our lives, God draws, if we allow Him, an even greater good. For "not a sparrow will fall to the ground" without our heavenly Father's leave (Mr. 10:29). And "as for you" Christ says, "the very hairs of your head are numbered. Therefore do not be afraid" (Mr. 10:31). Again Our Lord says, "Therefore I .say to you,do not be anxious for your life., nor yet for your body. Your Father knows" what you need. "Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things will be given you besides. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow" (Mt. 6:34). It is as if He were saying, live in the present;, love and serve God today; don't worry about the future; leave all that in the hands of your heavenly Father. St. Peter says: "Cast all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you" (5:7). St. Robert Bellarmine in an exhortation on the Providence of God says that this realization of God's Divine Providence will put us at complete rest. For we shall realize that God, knowing everything, is aware of what is both helpful and what is harmful to us. Conscious of God's power and His tender Fatherl~ love, we know that He will arrange everything for our good. With the Psalmist we can confidently say, "Even though I walk in the valley of death, I shall not fear" (Ps. 22). Thirdly, Christ's.peace comes to us from imitating His meekness and humility. "Learn of me," He says, "Who am meek and humble of heart and you shall find rest for your souls" (Mr. 11:29). Rest for our souls: peace, quiet of mind, tranquiIlity of heart. St. Am-brose, commenting on the causes of this lack of peace, compares this restlessness of heart to a fever which tosses us about, denying us all rest, burning within us. "This fever that afflicts us," he says, "is our selfishness; this fever is our lust; this fever is our ambition; this fever is our anger" (Com. on L. ch.4). Christ.promises us, if we imitate Him, pehce, rest for our souls. "Learn of Me who am meek": meekness controls th~ surges of anger, 293 THOMAS A. O'CONNOR Review for Religious bringing a tranquillity of order to our raging emotions. Learn of Me who am humble: humility establishes right order in thinking of ourselves. "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (Prov. 3:34). "If anyone thinks himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceives himself" (Gal. 6:3). "He who humbles himself as this little child, he is the grefitest in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 18:4). "Unless you become like little children, you shall n. ot enter the kingdom of heaven." (Ibid.) "I therefore exhort you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all humility and meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, careful to preserve the unity of the Spiri't in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:4). "Do nothing out of con-tentiousness or out of vainglory, but in humility let each one regard the others as his superiors, each one looking not to his own interests but to thdse of others. Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who though, he was by nature God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave, and being made like unto men" (Phil. 2:3-7). Fourthly, the peace of Christ is increased in our hearts as we become more and more unselfish, more and more Christlike. Un-selfishness cuts at the very tap'root of a thousand anxieties and frus-trations which are the bitter fruits of a life of self-seeking. We must put off our old selves to put on Christ. All selfishness must go. "Charity," says St. Paul, "is not self-seeking" (I Cor: 13:5). "For Christ did not please himself" (Rom. 15:3). Christ sought not himself in anything. "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30) must be our motto until each of us can say with St. Paul (Gal. 2:20), "It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me." Christ said, "My peace I give to you." In proportion, then as we are like Christ, in that same proportion we possess His peace. Fifthly, the peace of Christ floods our souls, in proportion as our hearts are filled with the love of. God and our neighbor. Christ said, "I am the vine, you the branches. As the'Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love" (John 15:10). "Do not love the world," says St. John, "or the things in the world" (I John 2:13). Again in the same Epistle, "He who does not love, does not know God; for God is love" (4:8). "No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us" (4:12). "And this commandment we have from him, that he who 294 November, 195 l THE PEACE OF CHRIST loves God should love his brother also" (4:21). "Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind.' This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' " (Mr. 22:37). As we gaze in loving adoration at the scene in the cave of Beth-lehem, we see primarily and above all a scene of peace. It is the peace of Christ, the peace which the Prince of Peace came to give, the peace which the world cann6t give. We see that peace reflected in the kindly face of the strong, self-possessed, mild-mannered Joseph. XT~re see that peace resplendent in the radiantly pure features of Mary Immaculate. That peace was theirs when at Nazareth they heard the disap- .pointing news that a census was to be taken, that all must register, each in his own town. That peace was theirs during the long hours of that wearisome, four or five day journey to Bethlehem, to the town of David.,That peace was theirs even when they heard the crushingly discouraging "No room" as they unsuccessfully sought for shelter. That peace was still theirs when, abruptly awakened at a midnight hour by a fear-inspiring message, they hurried away to a foreign land to save the life of the Child from those who sought to destroy Him. That peace was theirs because their wills were .al.ways perfectly conformed to the Will of God, Sbedient to His every wish. 'That peace was theirs because they trusted unreservedly in the guidance of God's loving Providence. That peace was theirs because, being truly meek and humble of heart, they had found rest for their souls. That peace was theirs because they were utterly finselfish. That peace was theirs because they loved God with their whole heart and their neighbor for the love of God. "So may the peace ot: God, which surpasses all our thinking, watch over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:7). OUR CONTRIBUTORS ~ FATHER THOMAS, O.C.D., is novice master in the Carmelite novitiate, Brook-line, Massachusetts. THOMAS A. O'CONNOR is president of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, and FRANCIS N. KORTH, AUGUSTINE KLAAS, and GERALD KELLY are on the faculty of the same theologate. JAMES LOCKETT is studying philosophy at Springhill College, Mobile, Alabama. 295 Secular Inst:il:ut:es Francis N. Korth, S.J. ON FEBRUARY 2, 1947, Pope Plus XII issued an Apostolic Constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia which crystallized a movement that had been developing in the Church for more than fifty years. By his action the Holy Father gave official recogni-tion to a new juridical state of perfection, namely secular it~stitutes.I In a separate article the juridical nature of these institutes will be considered. For the present let us take a brief look at the history of secular institutes. During the past century it became more and more evident that there were certain types of apostolate which could not be carried on easily by religious because of their distii~ctive garb and cloistered life. For this reason the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, an institute without common life and a di.stinctive habit, was founded in Paris about 1790. It received the decree of praise from Rome on April 29, 1853, and definitive approbation four years later on April 24. It~ constitutions were temporarily approved for ten years on May 30, 1870, with final approbation being given on June 8, 1890 (at which time the institute numbered over two thousand members). An insert in the constitutions mentioned that the institute's vows were neither public nor simply private vows of devotion. A similar organization of men, the Work of Youth, was estab-lished at Marseilles on June 24, 1821, by Father Joseph Allemand. Some of its members lived in their own homes' and engaged in vari-ous occupations in the world. There existed also other groups of a like character, such as the Virgins of Jesus and Mary (founded in 1844), the Daughters of Mount Calvary (1866), and the Sister Servants of Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist (1867). On August 11, 1889, the Sacred .Congregation of Bishops and Regulars in its decree Ecclesia CathoIica stated that societies which did not'conform to the traditional common life and characteristic garb would not be recognized as religious congregations or 9rders, but only as pious sodalities. Such a step was taken because of the 1There are three such recognized states of perfection at present, namely religious in-stitutes, societies of common life, and secular institutes. These constitute a threefold category of the juridical state of perfection to-be-acquired. This latter is not to be confused with the juridical state of perfection acquired, of which the episcopate is the example. 296 November, 1951 SECULAR INSTITUTES increasing number of "unorthodox" institutes. However, even after this decree, approval as religious was granted to the Lady Catechists (Novem~ber 21, .1907) who dress" as laywomen, and to the extern Sisters of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Venerable Catherine Volpicelli (3uly 5, 1911) who live in the world. Similarly or~ December 1, 1916, the Sisters of Our Lady of Labor received the nihil obstat to canonical establishment. Mean: while, .in 1911 the constitutions of the Sbciety of the Daughters of Saint Francis de Sales were approved, in which it was stated that the Society was not to be considered as a religious congregation. During the first decade and a half of our present century, while the work on the compilation of the Code of Canon Law was in progress, consideration was given to this new type of institute whose members live in the world, but the time was not yet'ripe for an offi-cial pronouncement; hence the Code made no mention of them. These associations, however, were multiplying. They numbered clerics and lay persons, men and women; the lay element was pre-dominant. As the problem became more urgent, a deeper study of the ques- .tion was made. During the International 3uridical'.Co.ngress held in Rome in 1934, a change of policy was indicated "by Cardinal La Puma, at that time Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. As a result, approval of their constitutions and recognition as true religious was granted to the Work of Youth, of Marseilles (April, 1933) and to the School Missionaries of Saint Catherine of Siena (April, 1934). At that same International Juridical Congress, Father Servus Goyenecbe, C.M.F., made a fervent plea for the devel-opment and recognition of the new type of institute (Acta Congres-sus Iuridici lnternationali's (1934) IV, Rome, 1937, page 315). In accordance with a request of the Holy Father, Plus XI, the Sacred Congregation of the Council was maki.ng a special study of the problem. Under its auspices a meeting was held in 1938 at Saint Gall, Switzgrland, with Father Augustine Gemelli,' O.F.M., pre-siding. At least twenty-five associations, mostly of a lay character, took part. About the same time a detailed examination of the entire question was being made by Father Arcadius Larraona, C.M.F. (now Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Religious) in conner-ton with the application for papal approval of the constitutions the Sisters of Our Lady of Labor. Both the Holy Office and the Sacred Congregation for Religious 297 FRANCIS N. KORTH were interested in the study of this matter. Favorable progress was reported. A special Commission for a final review was set up. The result of all these protracted labors was the above-mentioned0Consti-tution Provida Mater Ecclesia. What about the present condition of these new institutes? How many have been approved? In what countries? From various sources I have been ableto gather the following details. I believe they are quite reliable, but I cannot vouch for their perfect accuracy. Up to March, 1950, the number of applications received in Rome both for permission to establish diocesan secular institutes as well as for the decree of praise for an institute already established totaled ninety-eight. Three-fourths of the applications came from institutes of women. Of the institutes of men, tWO-fifths were clerical. Dioc-esan secular institutes already established numbered twenty-two. Of ninety-seven applications for the years 1948-1949, the breakdown as to countries was as follows: Austria 4, Belgium 4, Canada 1, Colombia 3, France 12, Germany 9, Holland 2, Hungary 1, Italy 45, Mexico 4, Poland 1, Rumania 1, Spain 8, Switzerland. 1, Uru-guay 1. Definitive pontifical approvhl has been granted to five secular in-stitutes: the Opus Dei (Madrid), the Missionaries of the Kingship of Christ (Milan), the Institute of Qur Lady of Labor (Paris), the Company of Saint Paul (Milan), and the Daughters of the Queen of the Apostles. I shall say a little more about the first four. of these institutes. In the United States a branch of the Opus Dei has been estab-lished in Chicago. Canada has at least two secular institutes: the Society of Missionary Nurses (women), founded at Montreal in 1942 by Monsignor Edgar Larochelle; ,and the Society of Lay Apostles of the Missions (24 McDougall, Ottawa, Ontario). Some other organizations reported as secular institutes include the follow-ing: Carmelites of Our Lady of Life (Avignon, France), Compan-ions of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus (Lugano, Switzerland), the Company of the Child God (Antioquia, Colombia), Disciples of the Lord (Monterrey, Mexico), Dominican Institute of Jesus Cruci-fied (Orleans, France), the Institute of Our Lady of the Way (Vi-enna, Austria), Secular Institute of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Kent, England), the Society of Parish School Teachers (Saho, Uruguay), Teaching and Nursing Society (Lucknow, India). So much for the general picture. Now a word more about those 298 Nouember, 1~ 1 SECULAR INSTITUTES ¯ first four Secular institutes that received pontifical status. 1. Opus De[. The institute was founded in Madrid on October 2, 1928,. by Monsignor dos~ Maria Escriv~i d~ Balaguer. Its full name is Sacerdotal Society of the Holy Cross and'Opus Dei. The Sacerdotal Society is clerical, while the Opus Dei is composed of lay-men. The Opus Dei has two sections, one for men and the other for women (thi~ latter was started in 1930). The two sections are absolutely separated, so that they are really two completely different institutes, each with its own government. The Opus Dei was the first secular institute to obtain papal approval. It received the decree of praise on February 24, 1947, and on dune 16 of the past Holy Year (1950) the decree of final approbation. (To avoid confusion it might be welI to state that according to the current practice of the Sacred Congregation the steps ofapproba-tion are the following: (1) decree of praise of the institute (not merely a quasi or partial decree of praise), (2) approbation of the institute, (3) provisional approval of the constitutions, (4) possible renewal of temporary approval, and (5) final approbation of the in-stitute and of the constitutions. But probably more than one of these steps will be taken at one and the same time. In any case, with the decree of praise the institute becomes papal.) Opus Dei has as its general purpose the sanctification of its mem-bers by the practice of the three evangelical counsels and the observ-ance of its constitutions. One of its specific works is to spread the faith and encourage a life of evangelical p~rfection among all social classes or grades of society, ~nd especially among intellectuals. Members of Opus Dei are not religious, have no community life (for the most part they live in their own homes, though sometimes a number have a house in common), take no public vows, and do not wear a distinctive garb. (These are general characteristics of any secular institute.) The members live and act as other faithful in the world do. They dress as others in their own profession or grade of society. Their numbers include nobles, peasants, lawyers, business-men, doctors, professors, students, politicians, members of parliament, and cabinet officials. The. institute allows its members perfect free-dom in their professional work, financial activities, social or political doctrines, and in similar matters, provided of course that they act in conformity with Catholic faith and morals. Charity plays an im-portant role in the spirit of this institute. The members are to live in the world without being of the world. Hence they carry on the 299 FRANCIS N. KORTH Ret~iew for Religious apostolate also in quarters which are banned to priests and religious. The Spanish Opus Dei was built around a core of university stu-dents. Groups of one hundred were formed. Some lived in their own homes, going daily to their office or professional work. The Spanish Opus Dei has received permission to work in all parts of the world. It spread to Ireland, Italy, Mexico, and South America, and has a branch in Chicago. 2. Missionaries of the Kingship of Christ (Milan). This or-ganization was. founded on November 19, 1919, by a grgup of ¯ twelve young women who were Franciscan tertiaries. Directed by Father Augustine Gemelli, O.F.M.~ the society under the above title spread throughout Italy as if merely a branch of Franciscan tertiaries. In 1945 papal approval as a canonical pious association was received and the statutes were approved for five years. Having developed ac-cording to the pattern required for secular institutes, the new institute received papal approval (decree of praise and a15proval of its new constitutions for three years) on July 12, 1948. That made it the second secular institute so approved. It numbers about two thou-sand. In its ranks can be found doctors, nurses, government emr ployees, and members of the I'talian.Chamber of Deputies. The two principal purposes of the institute are the sanctification of the members through striving after evangelical perfection, and zeal. in starting new apostolic works or promoting established ones. In particular and in conformity with the internal disciplne of the insti-tute and of the other works in which they are engaged, the members should be active in Catholic Action, assist pontifical and diocesan apostolic works under the direction of tl'ieir superiors, and take part in other apostolic works. The Franciscan spirit is the guiding light of the institute. 3. Institute of Our Lady of Labor. This French secular insti-tute was ~he third to receive papal approval. It was founded as the Sisters of Our Lady of Labor in 1904 at Lyons, France, by Miss Rochebillard under the direction of Father Anthony Eymieu, S.J. It had received the nibil obstat to canonical establishment as a religious congregation on December 1, 1916. The actual establishment was made by the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Amette, on October 31, 1917. The organization had two sections: one leading a common life in houses of the institute, and the other living in their own homes in the world. The present secular institute has a motherhouse in Paris. 4. Company of Saint Paul. This institute was founded on No- 300 THE WAY OF SIMPLE LOVE vember 17, 1920. Its purpose is the social apostolate. On June 30, 1950, the decree of praise was bestoWed. So much for the numerical data. As to the types of apostolic work in which secular institutes are engaged, there is great variety. Catholic Action, social work, helping pastors, carrying on the apos-tolate in various professions and jobs are some general categories. The constitutions of each institute would have to be consulted for its specific works. A concluding word. To avoid inopportune restrictions on the development of secular institutes, the Sacred Congregation of Reli-gious has refrained from issuing complete and definitive norms for these new institutes. Aside from the essentials, therefore, the matter is still in .the process of settling down and jelling. There are prob-ably a good numbgr of'organizations which are gradually adapting themselves to the broad outlines given for secular institutes in the Provida Mater Ecclesia. The 'N X/'ay of. Simple Love James Lockett, S.J: WE MUST NOT be disturbed at what goes on beyond bur wills outside the inner recess of Our hearts. At times our lower nature will be disturbed by anger, at other times pride, at other tim~s carnal love, at other times sickness, at other times vain-glory, at other times love of our opinion; at times combinations of these at once; and at times the lower nature will be at peace. But we do not have to wait for these respites to love God. Amidst all these things the one who loves God should joyously and peacefully live with God in his heart. These things--they come and go, boil up and die away, but our life need not be one of turmoil. It should be hidden with Christ in God. And it would seem to me that the way to fight all these things is essentially the same, namely, the way of simp.le love. Let them come and go! What difference does it make? We should glory in our infirmities, for when we feel weak, then we should be strongekt of all, because then we may all the more confi-dently and easily place all our strength where it belongs, in Gbd who is our All. By the why "~'f simple lov~ in fighting alltemptations I do not 301 JAMES LOCKETT mean to say that those spiritual writers are completely wrong when they say we should fight temptations against purity by a course oppo-site to that which we use against pride, because the courses of action they advise seem all right in both cases. But I say that they are wrong in saying that they are opposite courses, thus needlessly and harmfully complicating oub lives; really the methods they give are essentially the same" course in either case. Are we tempted to im-purity? Go away from it to the infinite Good. There we shall begin to see the greater value of the true Good and after a while the storm shall pass and the One Good shall draw us away from the other "good." Are we tempted to pride? Go away from it to the infinite Good! There we shall see the truth and the beauty and the wondrousness of humility and how b~r loving our nothingness we possess infinity. And after a while the storm shall pass and the One Good will draw us from the other "good." Are we tempted to love our opinion inordinately, are we tempted to desire not to feel bad? Whatever we are tempted to, we can go away from it to the Truth, to the infinite Good. We must put our life there, hidden with Christ in God. See how simple our life should be! It is the way. of simple love. All these complications do not represent the Spirit of our Master, flowing from the gospel. I do not mean when I say "go away to the infinite Good" that we can feel Him whenever we wish. Rather I mean in simple little peace we must unite our wills to Him, Whd "dwells in our hearts, and in simple little faith look toward Him, and He will do the rest. Perhaps soon He will make the storm stop, per-haps He will let it last a while. It doesn't matter. Storm or no storm, we will be pleasing Him and making Him smile, and we will be protected in His arms. So you see, life should not be complicated but simple. It~ is not our Lord's will that we go through the pilgrimage without the devil and our lower nature acting up. How else could we merit so that we may be eternally near Him and possess Him? But let us, in little simple love, glory in our infirmities and while using what legitimate natural means we can to shu~ the devil's mouth, trustingly go away to Jesus and Mary, living away from all these things in the interior of our hearts, where the inmost will which we can always control lies. Then the devil and our lower nature will never hurt us no matter how hard they tug at our wills, but we will increase in sanctifying grace and in our power against them along the simple road of peace. 302 Current Spiri!:u l Writing Augustine Klaas, S.3. ¯ From La Vie des Communaut~s Retigieuses-- THIS Franciscan pubIication devotes its February 1951 number to a practical summary of the first International Convention of Studies.on the States of Perfection. It was held in Rome, from November 27 to December 7, 1950, and was attended by a large number of eminent priests and religious from all over the world. After Pope Pius XII's introductory letter of approbation and direction, and the last part of Cardinal Micara's opening discourse on the ,exigencies of modern times and how religious institutes are to meet them by reforms and adaptations, VCR gi4es an outline descrip-tion of the various sessions of the convention. The general division of the topics on the .program was threefold: (1) the renewal and adaptation of life and discipline in the various states of perfection; (2) the renewal and adaptation of the states of perfection with reference to the instruction and training of members; (3) the renewal -and adaptation of the states of perfection in their ordinary and extra-ordinary apostolates. As was to be expected, the speakers and ~ctive participants on the program were mainly members of religious insti-tutes, but there were also quit~ a few diocesan priests and some lay-men. No nuns were on the speakers' list. VCR then prints a section ot: the final aIlocution of Cardinal Micara, the closing discourse of Pius XII on the concept of the reli-gious life, and lastly the Apostolic Constitution Sponsa Christi. I confine myself here to expressing the concluding remarks spoken by Most Reverend Arcadius Larraona, C.M.F., secretary for the Sacred Congregation for Religious, and the resolutions of the convention, ¯ formulated by the Capuchin, Father Agatangelo da Langasco, secre-tary of the convention. This information in VCR I supplement from L'Osservatore Romano for December 9 and I 0, 1950. Father Larraona states that one of the objectives of the conven-tion was to neglect no facet of the subject, thus giving the convention a note of universality. This objective was achieved. Certain results he says, have already been attained. The proceedings of the conven- 303 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Reoieto for Reliqious tion, which are to be published later, will give an account of many other good results. Of the greatest value was the' attachment of reli-gious to and union of mind and heart with the Sovereign Pontiff, the highest superior ot? religious, who grants the status of public law to each religious institute (Canon 499, no. I). Also in evidence was the union of thought, affection, and intention of religious with the local bishops in activities of a local naturg; and finally, the under-standing, union, and mutual collaboration of religious with the dioc-esan clergy. The autonomy of every religious family is necessary for its development, its discipline, and its usefulness, but exemption with regard to external things may be interpreted more or less strictly, depending on the nature of the work being done. Catholic Action must be aided and supported, but within the limits of religious discipline. Religious must engage in Catholic Ac-tion according to the general and special directives of the Holy See. Using these directive.s they must also animate their own particular associations. The adaptation proposed by the convention must rest on a solid foundation, namely, on the primacy of doctrinal and ascetical values in the ideal religious life. This primacy has two basi~ pivots: the toows, about, which revolves the whole of religious asceticism; and common life in both its material and formal senses. Also, the internal forum has the primacy over the external. Superiors must understand that confidence in them is not imposed from without but inspired from within. There is another primacy, the primacy of the specific purpose of each religious family, with its consequent fidelity to what is essential and adaptability in what is only accidental, This specific purpose must be re-thought and re-lived according to modern times. The .adaptation of the apostolate necessarily implies co-ordination with the diocesan clergy and with local organizations. The resolutions of the convention, read by Father Agatangelo, are as follows: 1) that an effective c~usade be organized to. preach the 3ubilee now extended to the whole world; 2) that afterwards there be established in Rome a bureau of co-ordination between the diocesan and religious clergy; 3) that a center for the training of spiritual directors and spir-itual masters (such as masters and mistresses of novices, etc.) be set up; 4) that a center of literary studies be founded to train teachers 304 ~Novernber, 1951 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING for the schools of r~ligious; 5) that, for the purpose of, putting into practice the resolutions and adaptations of the convention; there be more frequent and regu-lar contact between religious superiors and the Sacred Congregation for Rel~gious, and that conventions within the various religious fami-lies be encouraged; 6) that, to preserve union and fraternity, there be instituted a liturgical Feast"of all the Holy Founders; 7) that there be a greater exchange among religious of certain elements of particular law, such as administrative experiences, law practices, and the like; 8) that there be published additional volumes of the Collectanea $. C. de Relioiosis and that pontifical documents on the subject of adaptation be collected; 9) that a s~udy institute of prac6cal administration be inaug-urated under the auspices of the Sacred Congregation for Religious; 1.0) that in all humility the Sovereign Pontiff be asked to issue a solemn document condemning the errors which are being spread con-cerning the state of perfection and giving clear and precise directives for the desired adaptations. From SuppHment de La V~ie Spirit~telle-- The S~ppl~ment for February 15, 1951 gives the content of three interesting reports to the Convention of Religious in Rome, men-tioned above. These reports will be reprinted later on inthe Acta of the convention. They contain practical examples and suggestions for the renewal of the state of perfection and its adaptation to mod-ern times. While the authors have in mind primarily the religious of France, perhaps also thos~ of Europe, yet many of their observations have a much wider if not universal application. At any rate, these rep.orts give a good idea of some of the things discussed at this all-" important assembly of religious, convoked under the auspices of the Sacred Congregation for Religious at the bidding of the Pope. I~t should be noted that these are merely samples of many reports made to the convention, and digesting them here we are not necessarily ex-pressing approval of all the suggestions. The first report is by Father A. PlY, O.P., co-editor of La Vie Sloirit~elie, and has for its subject renewal and adaptation with spe-cial reference to government of religious and the observance of the,. 305 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Rev[eto for Religfou~ vows. Before presenting his suggestions f.or adaptation, Father PI4 lays .down three important principles which he thinks should be guides in this delicate matter: 1) The main objective sought is a renewal of "spirit, or rather a re-vivifying of the letter of the law by the spirit. Changes of" consti-tutions and rules are something entirely secondary, and should be confined to points of secondary importance. 2) Old established orders and congregations are not to be replaced by certain new forms of the religious state which have appeared in recent years, or by secular institutes. However, some elements of these new types of religious life can be beneficial, if adopted and ap-plied prudently by the older orders and congregations. 3) Adaptation and renewal refer only to means, not to ends. Mod-ern times and conditions require the use of certain specific means and not of others, which may have been more practical in other times and circumstances no longer obtaining. Suggestions Affecting Gooernment Wth these three general principles in mind, Father PI~ makes five suggestions of adaptation and }enewal affecting government a'nd the laws of religious institutes. 1) Cloister. Contemplatives should retain their cloister essen-tially just as i~ is. On the other hand, institutes that have the active apostolate for their purpose, particularly of women (e. g. teachers, nurses, catechists), would profit greatly by the removal or modifica- ' tion of what is called "semi-cloister," and thus be able to accomplish more efficiently the apostolate for which they. were founded. In this connection may be mentioned the religious habit, which separates the religious from the world. There is no thought of suppressing this distinctive reIigious gar.b, but some habits, especially of nuns, could be simplified, in order to put them more in accord with poverty and with present circumstances, notably in mission countries, and also "better adapted to local conditions and climate. Furthermore, visits with the family are today looked upon with less severity than for-merly, as opportunities of parents to visit their children in religion become more frequent and the parents themselves became a part, as it were, of the religious community of their children. Also visits to parents are more readily granted, so that religious may fulfill their filial duties. These trends seem to be in the right direction. 2) Fraternal Charitg and Common Life. There is a greater de-mand today among religious for fraternal charity and common life, 306 November, 1951 "CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING manifested by sharing responsibilities, apostolic work and those unsougl~t-after tasks done for the common good, and more particu-larly by rediscovering the fruits of common fraternal charity in the conventual Mass and Office in choir. 3) Coadjutor Brothers and Sisters. The dearth of vocations to be coadjutors of various kinds has focused attention on the two "classes" of religious. Some congregations have abolished their co-adjutor group outright, while more try to reduce to a minimum the" differences between the two classes, on the points of religious habit,. prayer, training, and even work. 4) Government and Formation ot: Religious. Religious are being trained more and more for positions of responsibility and gov-ernment. In certain places local superiors, summoned to the mother-house, are instructed for a month in the duties of their new office. Masters and mistresses of novices are taking special courses designed to help them solve the problems of their office. Likewise, religious subjects are being educated and formed more and more by means of special classes, conventions, and institutes for religious. Also a fine spirit of collaboration on common projects is being shown by the various religious orders and congregations. 5) Physical and Mental Hygiene. Cleanliness has been im-proved, the means to it better provided for, and pe[mission to use the means is now granted more liberally than in former times. Present-day city life and various social upheavals seem to have serious reper-cussions on nervous balance and stability. More sleep is required and adjustments are being made along this line by religious. The hour of rising and retiring is aIso being set more in accord with modern customs. Contemplatives and the novices of active institutes are being granted occasions for relaxing the nerves. Physical exercise every day, as well as more strenuous games during recreation, are being intro-duced, as also periods of manual work, and entire days of relaxation. Vacations for strenuous workers have been found helpful. To be praised is the heroism of some superiors in refusing to accept new missions, new fields of labor, etc., when their subjects are already overl~urdened and taxed to the limit. Such over-worked .religious cannot do their tasks well and, what is mbre serious, suffer spiritually because ,they cannot do the prayer and spiritual exercises prescribed by their constitutions, thus failing victims of an unwise "activism." Regarding the Wows Father PI~ then takes up the three vows, after first saying a word 307 !~UGUSTINE KLAAS Reaieu~ for Religious about religious discipline. Young people ~oday have a high regard for sincerity. Empty conformity and routine, external action that is not .the spontaneous expression of a deep, personal, religious life,. seem odious to them. Hence, when the material practice of a minor rule becomes a serious breach of its spirit and of charity, generous youth is shocked. Although this desire in the young for "truth". must be purified, still it does have its origin in the Gospels. Hence, some novice-masters are training their charges by showing how each rule and observance is really linked up with the Gospels. This is something very opportune today. Also, it is a sign of a deep under-standing of, the rule that some communities no longer consider it necessarily a sacrilege to suggest a change or modification of their constitutions. Certai'nly wisdom and holiness are required to make such changes but it is not wisdom and holiness to refuse a priori any change whatever. This is more in evidence still when there is ques-tion ¯ of the custom book. Some recent religious congregations" of women, for fear of becoming frozen to their custom book, ,have stipulated in their constitutions that they will have none at all. Many others are seriously revising and adapting their custom books to present circumstances. 1) Vow of Pouertq. The most serious problems of adaptation today concern the vow of poverty. Economic conditions in the world have so changed and developed that poverty itself and the con- ~cept of poverty are not the same any more as they were in former cen-turies. Poverty is essentially a liberation and an imitation of the poor Christ, but it must also conform to poverty as it is really prac-ticed by the poor. H~nce there are trends towards sharing the inse-curity of tl~e poor, towards living in smaller communities and thus avoiding large buildings, which give the impression of wealth, towards doing as the poor of the vicinity do, for example, by sending the sick to the hospital and even to the common wards in the hos-pital. Contemplatives in particular are facing acute financial diffi-ties at present and they are solving them b'y doing work for which they are paid. These problems of poverty are being carefully studied. 2) Vow of Obedience. The reproach is sometimes made that the vow of obedience promotes childishnes and, immaturity, that it does not allow for a proper "development of personality." However that may be, it is true that obedience must be solidly grounded dog-matically, the judgment must be rightly formed, and the virtue of prudence must be exercised. Obedience should be a school of ma- 3O8 November, 1951 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING turity. Obedience is a holocaust, but not less a human act. 3) Vow of Chastity. There is scarcely anything that could be changed here. Considerable !mprovement has been made in giving young religious before their vows the necessary information on this subject, psychological more than anatomical. This instruction is not complete unless there is filso given young religious sonde idea of the Christian beauty of chastity and its exceptional value as a means to perfection. Of Spfritual Means In the second report Father Reginald Omez, O.P., makes some pertinent suggestions on adaptation and renewal in the realm of spir-itual means. 1) Vocal and Mental Prayer. In recent years the faithful have come more and more to understand and appreciate the liturgy. They are gradually centering their devotion on the Mass and Office. Often they actively participate in the Mass. Religious must not obstruct but rather co-operate and join in this return to the great traditional devotion of the past, and hence they should adapt their customs accordingly. Making use of the vernacular: shortening the long vocal prayers, choosing prayers of significance,--these are the things they must do, rather than continue monotonous, endless repetition ° of litanies, Paters, and Aves. ¯ The Office of the Blessed Virgin or the Rosary with its.mysteries is a good substitute for long, vocal prayers whose content belongs perhaps to another age. Mental prayer must always' be emphasized, but it should be given a more doctrinal con-tent. There is a happy return to the Holy Scriptures and the liturgi-cal books for mental prayer. " Su'rely improvements can be made on the questionable practice of reading aloud'the points, of meditation from a book, a relatively recent practice among religious. 2) Examination of Conscience. Today there is some opposi-tion to the examination of conscience among young religious, who consider self-examination something morbid, egocentric, and harm-ful. They dislike certain outmoded formulas Of examination; they detest casuistry and moralizing. They like to follow the inspiration of the moment; they say it is the intention and the charity perme-ating the act that really count and all the rest is of little importance. The examination of conscience must be retained, but the manner of doing it can be brought more up-to-date and improved by making use of the light of modern psychology and customs and by employing the better understanding we have today of modesty, humility, obedi- 309 AUGUSTINE KLAAS for Religious ence, and other virtues. 3) Mortification and Penance. Penance and mortification will always be necessary means for holiness and for the apostolate. They cannot be entirely replaced by the apostolate. However, certain types of corporal penances, seem to be no longer adapted to piesent-day temperaments or living conditions. Physically the young today are capable of great effort and fatigue when urged on by various motives, such as war. It is on the mental and nervous side that the modern tempo of life takes its toll. For this reason, more sleep is needed. Penances, therefore, that would impair mental hygiene or harm the nerves should be avoided. Also, some forms of penance are consid-ered more or less silly by the young today or at least hard to {~nder-stand. For these, others should be substituted that are more in con-formity with the generous spirit of the youth of today: for example, the giving up of certain bourgeois comforts among religious, com-forts which were suitable to another age. Furthermore, young men, used to army life, are sometimes surprised and scandalized by the soft 'comforts and conveniences found in religious houses, things that they had long ago given up. It seems that modern penance sb, ould be in the direction of work for others, manual labor, especially the menial tasks of doing the dishes, etc., where there is little risk of the sort of pride that often goes with spectacular and attention-draWing penances. 4) Retreats. Retreats are very much needed today, as well as days of recollection. .It seems that they should not be overburdened with too many exercises, but that there should be more time for the personal task of reflection and contemplation. 5) Recreation. Recreation must relax the nerves. Religiotis given to a sedentary life must be allowed suitable athletic games to exercise their muscles. Many dit~iculties of health, morality, and sp'irituality arise from the lack of normal physical development. Modern inven-tions, such as movies, radio, and television, can be used prudently for recreation, instruction, and information. Of course, the religious spirit must not suffer from these things; hence, superiors must be vigilant to correct abuses. A Year of Transition The third report is made by Father Daniel Albers, O.M.I., who suggests for all active apostolic orders and congregations a year of transition from the quiet life of the seminary to the busy ministry. This year would be the equivalent of the tertianship of the Society of. 31o November, 195 l CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING Jesus and. of similar practices, in some other religious institutes. The objective of such a transition.period of time would be a deepening of the spiritual life and, under experienced direction, a gradual intro-duction to the life of the apostolate. It is applying to religious com-munities what Pope Plus XII has recently suggested for the diocesan priesthood in the Encyclical Menti Nostrae and has himself put into practice by founding' the seminary of St. Eugene in Rome. Another desideratum is that after four or five years of the ministry the young priests be brought together once more to reflect on their spiritual and apostolic life in.order to balance and deepen both. These first years of the active ministry are extremely important ,and often set the pat-tern for the rest of life. From Reoue des Communautds Religieuses-- In the June-August (1949) number of this Belgian magazine for religious there is an opportune article by a superior general of a congregation of women on'the relations that should obtain between religious and the lay women who share their works of charity and education. An insufficient number of vocation's and tile multiplication and expansion of religious works make the present elnploying of layfolk a necessity. These lay helpers are not a necessary evil, nor persons to be merely tolerated, since they can make a real dontribution, sup-plementing the work of the religious themselves. Rather the hiring of lay help is somethng good and in accord with the Holy Father's call to Catholic Action. Religious are giving lay women an oppor-tunity to heed that call. How bring about a close collaboration between religious and lay women employees? First of all the latter must not be too numerous, since the work must retain its exterior and interior character as an institution conducted by rehglous, Lay helpers must also be carefully chosen. They must be competent, something not always indicated by the adademic degrees they may have. Their morals must be above suspicion, their practice of the Catholic religion active. They must have or learn to ,have a sense of responsibility, be supernaturally zealous and self-'sacrificing in their .work, humble, submissive to the regime of the institution, and prudently .a.postoli.c. The religious making the selection, must never, through a mistaken sense of charity, sacrifice the common good to. the particular. 311 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Review ~o~ Religto,,s What are the duties of religious towards the lay helpers who share their work? Lay helpers are not underlings, but ~olleagues. They are not under the Sisters but at their side. Therefore, they should be treated with every regard that religious would wish for themselves--with politeness, friendliness, charity, tact, etc. Reli-gious should see tO it that their associates receive from others the respect, obedience, and good will due them-. Their quarters, dining-room, and the like, should be clean, have at least a minimum of com-fort, and even a little beauty. They should give lay helpers material assistance. The author is not speaking here of obligations in justice--that is taken for granted --but over and above this religious should exercise a spirit of sisterly charity, especially in little things and in the manner in which they deal with them. If they show this charity, their helpers will spon-taneously and generously offer themselves f6r extra work: for ex-ample, as substitutes for religious, impeded from thei~ tasks for one reason or another. ' Religious owe lay helpers intellectual assistance. Teachers meetings, personnel meetings, discussions, etc., must be well organized and directed, so that they may benefit all by practical, definite con-clusion~. Suitable books, magazines, newspapers should be put at the disposal of lay helpers. Their opinions and ideas should be re-spected and humbly adopted if they are good and apropos. There should be no narrow-mindedness amorig religious as t'o whose influ-ence should predominate in the school or hospital. Neither should compete for influence, but both groups should work together in a great spirit of active Cfiristian,charity. Religious owe lay helpers moral and spiritual assistance. This is done mainly by the charitable way they do a service, for instan'ce, give a book, or some information, or a word of encouragement. They should visit a lay helper who is ill and also her sorrowing fam-ily. Much good can be done by a smile, a word here and there, a bit of advice given opportunely. They must never be too busy to give a friendly welcome .to lay helpers, even though it distracts from work and causes them to lo~e the trend of thought for a moment. A cer-tain holy religious used to say to every knock at the door: "The ,Be-loved is never disturbed." Another way to assist lay help morall!y is to furnish them an opportunity for a retreat. Conclusion: there should be union in charity, team-work in humility, joy in sacrifice, and forgetfulness of self. This is the pro-gram of the Master, a sure pledge of success. 312 November, 1951 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING From L'Osservatore Rornano~ In the February 4, 1951 number of L'Osservatore Romano ap-peared an important article entitled "Christians, be more prudent!" Written by Monsignor Alfredo Ottaviani, the Assessor of the Holy Office, it is a plea for greater prudence in judging favorably certain extraordinary religious phenomena seemingly widespread today. It is a message of particular significance for religious, whose guidance in these matters is often sought by the faithfql. No Catholic, he says, denies that miracles are possible and do take place. They have a purpose, have been in the Churdh from-the beginning, and do actually occur today. But they must be strictly authenticated, or they will discredit true miracles. Christ himself warned: "False christs and false prophets" ~¢ill arise who "will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead ast'ray, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew 24:24). Hence, it is the right and duty of the Church to pass judgment on the truth and riature of events and reve-lations which are claimed to be due to a special intervention of God. True children of.the Church will submit to this .judgment. Fifty years ago'the Church had to warn against scientism and positivism, which scoffed at these so-called superstitions of the dark ages. Today, the tendency is in the other direction: people are too credulous and uncritical in their judgmen't of extraordinary hap-penings. They hanker for and run after these things even though they may not at the same time be practising Catholics. Sometimes persons ignorant of the Creed pose as ardent apostles of this sort of religiosity. They even criticize and condemn the ecclesiastical au-thorities for not enthusiastically running along with the crowd. The obedience of Catholics in this matter too often leaves much to be desired. Monsig.nor Ottaviani cites some recent deplorable instances of credulousness in Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, and the U. S. A. (Necedah). These errors and aberrations are not surprising if we remember that religious sentiment has also felt the effects of original sin. There-fore, religious sentiment, to be sound and useful to man, must be guided by reason, nourished by grace, and controlled by the Church. I quote the following important passages from the London Tablet's (February 24, 1951) translation of this document: "The period through which we are passing stands between one of two excesses: open, inhuman irreligion or unbounded, blind re- 313 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Reuieto /: or Religious ligiosity. Persecuted by the supporters of the first and compromised by those who uphold the second, the Church does nothing more than repeat her maternal warning. But her words remain unheard amidst denial on the one hand and exaltation on the other. There is no doubt that the Church does not wish to cast the wonders which God works into the shadow. She merely wants to keep the faithful watchful concerning what comes from God and what does not come from God, and Which can come from His and our adversary. The Church is the enemy of the false miracle. "A good Catholic knows from his catechism that th~ true reli-gion rests in the true Faith, in Revelation, which ended with the death of the last Apostle and has been entrusted to the Church, its interpreter and custodian. Nothing else necessary to our salvation can be revealed to us. There is nothing more for which we must look. We have everything, if we wish to make use of it. Even the most accredited visions can furnish us with new motives for fervor but not with new elements of life or doctrne. True religion abides essentially, apart from in the conscience, in the love of God ~ind the consequent love of our neighbor. And, more than in acts of wor-ship and rite, the love of God consists in doing the will of God, obeying His commandments. This is true religion. "A good Catholic knows that in the saints themselves the nature of sanctity is not composed of the preternatural gifts of visions, prophecies, and wonders, but in the heroic exercise of virtue. That God should in some way authenticate holiness by miracles is one thing, but that holiness consists in performi.ng miracles is another. We must not confound holiness with what can be and is, as a rule, an unmistakable sign of holiness, but not always sufficiently clear so as not to need the necessary supervision of religious authorities. "On this point the teaching of the Church has" never been equivo-cal. The man who turns back to events of dubious interpretation rather than accept the word of God loves the world more than God. Even when the Church authoritatively canonizes a saint, she does not by this act guarantee the preternatural character of all the extra-ordinary facts connected with his life. Still less does she approve all his personal opinions. By the same token she gives even less guaran-tee to all that is written, often with unpardonable levity, by biogra-phers with more imagination than judgment. "We repeat that in order to be religious, it is necessary to be so in proper fashion and as a matter.of duty. In order to be good Cath- 314 November, 1951 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING olics and devout people we must act with all the attention" with which we act when applying ourselves to the most serious things of life. Incredulity 'is just as harmful to the sincere believer as credulity. True, it is not everyone wh6 can form his own opinion on every point. But what are the Bishops and the Pope for? "It is a strange thing: no novice would dare to buid a house by himself, tailor his own clothes, make himself a pair of shoes, or cure himself of a sickness. Yet when it is a question of religious life, people reject all authority, refuse to place any trust in it, even distrust and disobey it (vith impunity.'. "For the last ten ~ears, while the religious authorities have re-mained hesitant, the people have acted hastily and busied themselves with wonders which, to say the least, have not been verified. Speaking honestly, we must admit that such events may be expressions of natural religious enthusiasm. But they'are not Christian events, and they give a frightful pretext to those who are out to discover at all costs the infiltrations and survivals of paganism and superstition in Christianity, especially Catholicism. Just as wrongdoing may in-sinuate itself in our daily lives, so may error insinuate itself into one or the other individual Catholic, a thing which causes no wonder to those who understand what man is. But just as sin must be recog-nized as sin if we would free ourselves from it, so too, in the case of error, we must recognize it as such. Just as the Church has the power to forgive sins, so has it also been commanded by God to redeem us from error. "Let Catholics hear the word of God which the Church, and the Church alone, preserves and repeats whole and incorrupt. Let them not run like sheep without a shepherd after other voices seeking to drown the voice of God when it is true that they oppose the voice of the Church. We have Holy Scripture, we have Tradition, we have the Chief Shepherd and a hundred other shepherds next door to our homes. Why should we offer the spectacle of fatuousness or un-healthy exaltation before those who oppose and despise us? 'Chris-tians, be more prudent,' wrote Dante in his day. 'Do not be like feathers that bend tb any wind.' The great poet urged the very same reasons that we give today: 'You have the Oldand the New Testa-ment, and the Shepherd of the Church to guide you.' Dante's con-clusion, too, is the same as ours: 'This is sufficient for your salva-tion' (Canto V, vv. 73-77)." 315 I-low !:o Think and Ac : about the Race Problem Gerald Kelly, S.J. THE title of this article was suggested by the simultaneous recep-tion of two pamphlets: How to Think about Race, by Louis J. Twomey, S.J.; and Fi:tg Wags to Improue Race Relations, by Frank A. Riley: The word "problem" 'is not in either pamphlet title, but the fact of a problem is very much in both author's minds; they wrote their pamphlets to help solve a problem. Both pamphlets refer explicitl~) to the Negro problem, but their content applies equally to the problem of discrimination against other minorities, such as the Mexicans, the Japanese, the Chinese, and so forth. My remarks will also be directed to the Negro problem, but they too can be applied to the other problems. The Problem In thinking about the race problem, the first thing to do is to recognize that there is a problem. Some people believe--or would like to believe that there is no problem. When you mention the Negro problem to them, they look puzzled, raise their eyebrows a bit, and ask icily, "'Is there a Negro problem?" Others admit the prob-lem, but explain it very simply by saying: "There would be no prob-lem if the Negro would keep his place." (These, incidentally, do not say "Negro.") No unbiassed and even moderately well-informed person can fail to see that we have a race problem--or, to be more specific, a Negro problem. And it consists not in the fact that the Negro will not keep his place but rather in the fact that white people will not let him have his place. The two-volume work, An American Dilemma, by Gunnar Myrdal, is a scholarly, factual proof of the ex.istence of the problem. And hundreds of books, pamphlets, and articles that have appeared within the last decade or two give further evidence, not only of the existence, but of the magnitude of the problem. To see that we have a Negro problem, one has but to consider what ought to be and what is the status of the Negro in the United 1B0th pamphlets are published by The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Boule-vard, St. Louis 18, Missouri. 316 THE RACE PROBLEM States. There is always a problem when the is falls below the ought to be. There is a problem in our personal spiri,tual lives when our conduct fails short of our standards; there is a problem in our social order when the income of the working man is not what it should be; and there is a problem in millions of personal lives and in the social order of the nation when an entire race is daily accordei5 a treatment that is contrary to the laws of God and of the nation. What ought to be the status of the Negro? Like other men, he has a human nature and he is destined, through the providence of God, for heaven. This common nature and comm6n destiny should unite men. By reason of their' common nature and common destiny they are one family. This unity is expressed through love in the natural order, and in the supernatural order through charity. And love (charity) expresses itself through kindly thoughts, prayers for one another, words of courtesy, mutual co-operation, helping one another in need, and so forth. This bond of love joins all men; the commandment of love knows no distinction of race. Like other men, the Negro is a human person, a distinct indi-vidual; and by reason of his human personality he is the subject, not only of duties, but of inviolable rights. He has the same right as other men to say "mine," and to have what is his respected .by other men. He has the same right as others to worship God. He has a right to life and liberty as long as he is not proved guilty of crime. He has a right to equality of opportunity to make a decent living, to develop his talents, to marry and provide for his family, to enjoy recreational facilities, to have his share of honor, and so_forth. These rights, conferred by God, are confirmed by the law of the nation when it makes the Negro an American cil~izen. And to these rights, the nation either adds civil rights or guarantees equality of opportunity in ob-tai~ aing civil righti. What is the status of the Negro in the United States? He is segregated--forced to live apart from the white man--and thus the law of union is violated; he is discriminated'against--treated as an inferior--and thus the law of equality is violated. His life is les.~ secure than the white man's; he has less opportunity to obtain the 'necessities and comforts of life. He is more readily arrested and more easily convicted. On one streetcar he finds a sign, "This space re-served for our colored patrons"; on another, where no printed sign is displa~'ed, he finds "unwelcome" written on white faces. While traveling he has difficulty getting proper acco{nmodations and even 317 GERALD KELLY Reoiew for Religious getting food. .He must say "sir" to the white man, but he is called, "Johnny," "Doc," or "uncle." His house is a menace to his physi-cal well-being, and his congested surroundings are a greater menace to his soul's welfare. When he tries to move to another neighbor-hood, he is repelled by violence, thwarted by restrictive covenants, or humiliated by the exodus of prospective white neighbors who flee him as 'they would a contagion: He sees his children denied educa-tional opportunities, his wife and mother denied the courtesies ex-tended to other women. Even in his worship, he must have a "spe-cial" church or a "special" place in the white man's church. These and scores of other insults, humiliations, frustrations, are the daily fare of the American Negro. Not that all the abuses are practised eveiywhere and by everyone; but the general pattern is so common, even in the North, that some.unprejudiced scholars do not hesitate to call it our greatest national scandal. It is not an acci-dental pattern; it is a calculated system of oppression and contempt. Perhaps the scholars just referred to were not conscious of the theological meaning of "scandal," but Catholics should be definitely° conscious of this. Theologically, scandal is an occasion of spiritual harm to the neighbor. Scandal is very seriously involved when white Catholics practice racial segregation and discrimination; because their conduct makes it very difficult for Negro Catholics to preserve the faith and well-nigh impossible to convert Negroes to the faith. There can scarcely be greater scandal than this. From what I have written (which is just a brief repetition of what has been said and written often and more forcefully by others) it should be evident that we have a problem. Despite. the fact that recent years have witnessed a strong trend against discrimination and some improvement in the status of the Negro, his condition is still not what it ought to be. He is still l~he victim of a policy which was described in a report issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith as a "grave derogation to the Christian concept of the individual's inherent dignity.''2 This policy involves contempt, hatred, and scandal. And the responsibility lies not with the Negro victim, but with the white people who either willingly perpetuate the policy or negligently refuse to do what they can to stop it. 2The report is printed in pamphlet form under the title The Catholic Church and Neproes in the United States. It can be obtained from the Catholic Interracial Coun-cil of Chicago, 21 West Superior Street, Chicago 10, Illinois. Five cents for single copies; four cents each for 100 or more: special rates on orders for 1000 or more. 318 Not~ernber, 1951 THE RACE PROBLEM How to think about the Negro problem? I said tl~at the first thing to do is to recognize the problem. A second thing'is suggested by another statement in the ~eport of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. The report says that the "thought of a wide, general conversion of the Negroes to the Catholic Church is an illusion until and unless the attitude of American Catholics-~clergy and laity--is cornpletelg purified of approval of the segregation pol-icg or of the many deprivations of educational opportunity, of fair employment, and of decent housing that arise as a result of it." The words I have italicized indicate the second step in thinking cor.rectly about the Negro problem: we must disapprove of the segregation pol-icy, which is, in fact, a colossal violation of, justice and charity. Such disapproval, incidentally, is not a counsel of perfection; it is a strict duty, and a serious one. What to Do An evil is not removed merely by recognizing its existence. Something constructive has to be done. "But," an individual will say, "I am so small, and this evil is so great and so widespread.How can I do anything about it?" Actually, there is much that any in-dividual white person of good will can do regarding the Negro prob-lem; and it is my purpose, taking a cue from Mr. Riley's pamphlet, to indicate some of these things here. It may be noted that much that I say seems to have no special pertinence to religious. Yet it does pertain to religious, as well as to other people, and in one sense at least it has a special application ~o religious, because religious by rea-son of their position in the Church have an influence for good or bad that is definitely special. A constructive solution to the Negro problem must work "from the inside out." I mean that it must begin with correct attitudes, with an inner spirit that will be the soul of external action. Vast numbers of people do not have this inner spirit. As Francois Mauriac states forcefully in his Life of Jesus, at the conclusion of the chapter on the Samaritan woman: "He tarried for two days in the midst of the outcast Samaritans, thus giving his followers an example which was to be transmitted in vain to the rest of the world. For if there is a part of the Christian message which men have refused and rejected with invincible Obsti-nacy, it is faith in the equal value of all souls, of all races, before the Father who is in heavem" The indictment is dreadfully true, but it does not make our case 31'9 GERALD KELLY " " Review ?or Religious hopeless. Even the devil of racial hatred must yield to prayer and self-sacrifice., That is why Fifty Ways of Improving Race Relations insists much on the need of prayer, of prayer "that light may shine in the dark areas of white men's minds, that the race heresy may be put down." Any one of us has this power of prayer, and we can use it to beg for ourselves and others a vital appreciation of the truths of reason and faith that are the foundation of racial amity and justice. Many white people, it is said, are. not malicious; tl~ey simply have such an aversion for the Negro that they abhor the very thought of living with him on equal terms. I admit the existence of this psy- ¯ chologicaI problem. Yet it seems to me that it can be and is overrated.: It is not substantially different from the problem of aversion as it is sometimes experienced by one white person towards another, even .by one religious towards another. Morally speaking, the aversion itself is merely a feeling, and as such it is not culpable. Neverthless, since the fostering of this feeling can be the source of great' harm, it must be disciplined like other dangerous emotions, and proper means must be taken to eliminate or to temper it. And here again a first remedy is prayer. It should not be too much for anyone to ask sincerely for the grace to act according to Christian principles, despite'a feeling of antipathy. After all, we do this regularly when we pray for the grace, to preserve.chastity, despite strong contrary feelings. Many students of the rac~ problem say that aversion to the Negro springs from ignorance and that it disappears or.subsides when one gets to know the Negro. Some white people who have lived near Ne-groes for many years might answer this by saying that no one knows the Negro better than they, yet their knowledge has not affected their aversion. I think that one might legitimately question whether such people really know the Negro.' Real knowledge of a person im-plies something more than just being near him. Real knowledge comes in friendship, from getting under the surface into a man's heart and his feelings. The system of segregation and discrimination is itself a block to such knowledge; and it perpetuates a vicious circle by which aversion fosters segregation and segregation fosters aversion. More than twenty years ago Father Francis J. Gilligan wrote in The Morality of the Color Line:s 3This book is out of print. It is a real pioneer study--and a very capable one-~- of race relations in the light of Christian moral principles. Father Gilligan is pro-fessor of moral theology at the St. Paul Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota. He has for many years been Chairman of the Governor's Interracial Commission of Min-nesota, a commission that has done very constructive work in the.matter of race re-lations and that has published some splendid leaflets and booklets. 320 No~ember, 1951 THE RACE PROBLEM "To be forced always to seek a restaurant on th~ rear street, to be placed'always at a table in some alcove, to be compelled always to accept a se~at in the gallery of a .thea.tre, to be denied access to every respectable and standard hotel, to be driven constantly to tax one's ingenuity to secure a reservation in a Pullman, are conditions Which would occasion in every man, and the Negro is no exception, anger and despair. A white person probably can never fully realize the anxiety and hesitancy which the Negro experiences almost daily in trying to satisfy conventional needs." Father Gilligan is undoubtedly correct when he says that prob-ably a white man can never [ull~t appreciate what the Negro experi-ences. Nevertheless, any white man with good will and a good imagination can learn much by using what psychologists call "em-pathy"-- namely, by putting himself in the Negro's place, by trying to feel what the Negro feels in the various frustrating circumstances that make up the pattern of discrimination. "Psychologically, this cultivation of a strong "fellow-feeling" is perhaps the best antidote for aversion, because one powerful emotion tends to neutralize the "other. Also, deep feeling for the Negro stimulates constructive action in his behalf. Some of the greatest strides towards interracial justice have been made by ~¢hite men who had the power of sharing the hurt feelings of the Negro.' .To stimulate this "fellow-feeling," it helps to read a good auto-biography, like Dar~ $~mpl~on~, by Elizabeth Adams. For the same purpose--but to'a lesser ~legree, because the personal element is wanting--it is useful to-get a complete picture of the wrongs "done the Negro by reading An American Dilemma, or at least the con-densation of this work, entitled The Negro in America, by Arnold Rose, one of Myrdal's collaborators. I would not recommend these two works, however, without adding the caution that their other-wise. scientific and morally wholesome tone is marred, by the section that recommends artificial birth-control as a means of solving the problem ot: "Negro overpopulation." (See Myrdal, I, 175-181; Rose, 60-61.) (Before I leave the subject of aversion, I should like to add that the white man has no monopoly on it. The Negro too has an aver-sion for the white man--and understandably so, in view of what he has suffered. But, like the white man, he must be willing to put aside or temper this aversion in order to establish a Christian system of race relations. I am not stressing this here because my main con- 321 GERALD KELLY Reoiew for Reliqious cern is with indicating things that white people can and should do as regards the Negro.) From the inside to the outside--that is, from thoughts and feelings to words and actions. ~ prime rule of speech is to avoid what reasonably offends, other people. On the basis of this rule, a Negro should not be called a "nigger," and a Negro woman should not be referred to as a "negress." Both words are offensive to Negroes, as are many others that need not be mentioned here. The best way for anyone to keep this rule is to abstain entirely from using the words, because if white people use them among themselves when speaking about the Negro, they very readily use them when speaking, to the Negro. Another basic rule of speech is to be extremely careful about repeating unverified and disparaging rumors about the Negro. "Seldom in the history of mankind," wrote Father Gilligan, "has any group been more widely misrepresented, misunderstood, and handicapped by popular rumors than the American colored group." Accepting such unfounded rumors is rash jiadgment; passing them on to others is calumny. As regards both speech and conduct, I should like to stress one. point that is of particular interest to the moral theologian. In our theological treatises on the virtue of charity we make much of what are called the common signs of good will and courtesy. (Cf. "On the Duty of Loving the Neighbor, Especially Enemies," in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, VII, 299-312.) These are various little gesture~ and words that are due to all fellow-citizens, fellow-workers, neighbors, and so forth, and not merely to one's'special friends. I think it is very important that every individual white person be conscious of this duty when he is dealing with Negroes. If he says "sir" to a white man, he should say "sir" to a Negro; if he tips his hat to a white woman, he should also tip his ha~ to a Negro woman; if he says "good morning" to white neighbors, he should say "good morning" to his Negro neighbors; if he shakes hands with a white person to whom he is introduced, he should shake hands with a Negro under the same circumstances. In themselves these are small things; and any individual with good will can do them. Yet, failure to use them can cause deep hurt and humiliation, whereas their use can cause genuine elation to those who have been constantly denied them. Moreover, they manifest just what is needed to improve race relations:, good will and respect. The foregoing are ways in which any white individual can help to improve race relations, even though others do not co-operate with 322 o November, 1951 THE RACE PROBLEM him. But for any grand-scale reformation of the social order, there must be group action, as our recent Popes have stated so often. Fiftg Ways to Improue Race Relations contains many suggestions for par-ticipation in group action: for example, by be!ping'such organiza-tions as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored, People, the Urban League, various interracial councils; by .voting for good social legislation, by joining with others to urge Congressmen to promote such legisla~tion, by signing petitions to have Negroes admitted to schools that make a policy of excluding them, by joining in protests to owners of stores, restaurants, and hotels, that discrim-inate against Negroes; 'and so forth. By these and various other ways the apparent insignificance of the individual can become a very sig-nificant force in establishing a Christian social order in our race rela-tions. Specigl for Religious In themselves these points, as I mentioned previously, have no special pertinence to us as religious. Ye.t, since they pertain to all persons of good will, they certainly pertain to us, too; and we can and should carry them out in our personal lives. Moreover, they have a verst special pertinence to us because of our position of leader-ship among Catholics; we are expected to teach Catholic doctrine by word and example--and one might say, particularly by example. The best argument against segregated schools is to have our own schools unsegregated; the best way to denounce segregation in wor-ship is to have no color line in our own churches and chapels; and the best way to condemn discrimination in professions is to have our own convents and seminaries wide open to all qualified appli-cants, irrespective of race. And certainly the best--if not the only--" way to inspire youth to practice justice and charity is to be gracious exemplars of these virtues in our own daily lives. The effects, good or bad, of even our smallest public actions are tremendous. The Priest for May, 1951, published an article entitled "Black Priest," which contains the reflections of a Negro convert studying for the priesthood. Two incidents recounted in the article indicate the effects of even our small actions. On one occasion, when the author had returned to his home in the South for the funeral of an aunt, two white women, one of them a nun, came to visit him. 'On another occasion, while he was driving with some of his colored friends, he stopped to visit a monastery, . and the superior insisted °that he bring his friends in and treated them with true monastic hos- 323 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Reoiew for Religious pitality. These courtesies had a profoundly salutary .effect on his friends, helping them to see that the Catholic Church is not "a white man's church." "These incidents," reflects the author, "may seem like little things, but what if that good Sister and other lady had not come to ~ee me? ~Yc~hat if we had been turned away from'the door of the mon-. astery? For one thing, I probably would have kept the promise I made to myself never to go South ~again. But the most serious result would have been that more souls would have been pushed farther and farther away from the Church. Those were two times when I was really proud 9f my fellow Catholics. May God bless them!" Ques ions and Answers --27~ I was the priest-advlser of a girl who entered the convent four months ago. A week after her entrance I sent her a Missal, which she had said she needed. I have not heard from her. Would you please print what my re~ action should be? The reaction might include a little pain,, but it need not include surprise. Gratitude is becoming a rare virtue, even among religious. The nunqber of those who take,time out to acknowledge favors re-ceived seems to be very small. In the present instance, the girl may have failed to acknowledge the Missal because of restrictions on letter-writing in the postulancy. Restrictions are certainly necessary, but they should not be allowed to defeat the greater purpose of giving the young religious a well-balanced training in all the virtues. Superiors should see that the postulants and novices acknowledge gifts and favors or they should make some other provisions for such acknowledgements. All through our religious life much of our support is provided by benefactors. If young religious are not trained to express gratitude for small things they will not be properly grateful to benefactors When they hold positions of authority. m28-- One of our general councilors died recently. Our constitutions do not provide for the succession in place of a deceased councilor. What shall we do?' 324 November, 1951 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Canon 20 tells us to follow the style and practice of the Roman Curia when the law does not provide for a contingency. In this mat-ter of finding a successor for a deceased member of the general coun-cil, we have an indication of the style and practice of the Sacred Con-gregation of Religious in article 271 of the Normae of 1901 which reads as follows: "The councilors of the superior gerieral have a de-cisive vote in matters of greater moment. Such matters are especially the following: . . . 12° the substitution of another Sister until the next general chapter in place of a general councilor who has died, or was deposed, or is perpetually impeded." This article has been written into very many constitutions of lay religious (Brothers and Sisters), both before and after the ~romul-gation of the Code of Canon Law in 1917. Hence it offers a safe norm of action when the constitutions are silent in the matter. Frequently enough an article is added in modern constitutions to the effect that the substitute general councilor thus chosen by a ma-jority vote of the council takes the last place among the c6uncilors, not that of the deceased councilor; that place is taken by the coun-cilor next in order of election in general chapter. The other coun-cilors move up accordingly. ¯ m29-- We would like ÷o know whether, according to canon law,. it could be permitted for a good reasor~ to have the first profession of temporaryvows one year and two, three, or four days after [nvestlture? Canon 571, § 2 states that "the novitiate completed, the novice shall be admitted to profession if he be judged suitable, otherwise he shall be sent away." Commentators on the law, however, are agreed that a few days' deferment of the investiture for a good reason would not be a violation of the law. Such good'reasons would be, among others, the desire to have the investiture for all on the same day; or the desire to have both investiture and profession of vows on the same day; or because the retreat master was unavoidably delayed for two or three days. If the constitutions of a religious institute state that the superior is ap-pointed for a term of three years and that he may be reappointed for a further term in the same housemdoes this imply that the said appointed period of three years b~nds the superiors not to remove him from that posi-tion during the said time, either tooplace him in charge of another house 325 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ,Review [or Religious or to remove him altogether from authorifi/? Canon 505 does not necessarily require that a local superior be appointed for a period of three years, but merely forbids that he be appointed for a lo.nger period. The constitutions will determine the length of time a local superior is to hold office. Usually this is a period of three years, and, under normal circumstances, he should not be removed from that office. The common good, however, may re-quire his transfer to another house before the expiration of three years because his special abilities are needed there. Again, it happens occasionally that a religious is appointed local superior and, because of his incompetency, is a cause of serious harm to the community. Common sense dictates that such a person should be removed from office and not be allowed to complete a three-year term. Is it permissible for a religious appointed assistant to the master of novices to be one of the councilors to the superior in the house where pro-fessed religious llve? The assistant has very little contact with the professed religious since his duties confine him to the work of the novitiate. There are no regulations in the Code of Canon Law as to the persons who are appointed councilors to a local'superior. The con- ,stitutions may restrict this office, but unless they do; any professed member of the community may. be appointed to the local council. During passlontide is it ever permitted to remove the violet coverincj from the statue of the Blessed Virgin for one of her feasts? Or from the statue of St. Joseph when his feast occurs during that time? Or from any other statue at this season? During Passiontide it is not permitted to uncover the statues if the feast of the Titular, or of the Dedication of the Church, or of St. Joseph occur (S.R.C. decree 3396). However, if out of devo-tion to St. Joseph, the statue of the saint is exposed off the altar (extra altare) during the month of March, it may be left uncovered dhring Passiontide (S.R.C. decree 3448 ad 1 I). 33 A week ago a young woman called at the rectory and asked whether I could find some rellcj[ous community that would take her as a candidate, as she feels that she has a vocation. This may seem strange,, but the girl is deaf, a~d I know of no community in the United States that will take her 326 Nooember, 1951 BOOK REVIEWS with this handicap. Hence I'm writing you to see whether you can help me find some order or congregation of women that will take this girl. We await an answer from our readers. 34 Do the candles used at Holy Mass and at Benediction have to be blessed.'/ There is no obligation to bless altar candies (to ~e used at Holy Mass and Benediction) but it is fitting to do so. They may be blessed either on Candlemas Day (February 2) or at any other time. On Candlemas Day the form given in the Missal under that date should be used. At other times the form to be used is that given in the Roman Ritual (VI!I, 3). Book Reviews OFFICIUM DIVINUM PARVUM. German-Latln text. Fulda Conference. Herder-Pusfef, 1951. Pp. 569. Price not given. The press recently carried a not~ to the effect that the bishops of Holland have secured permission to edit a vernacular Office for all Dutch Sisters not ofili~ed by Rule to the recitation of the Divine Office. The notice has special 'relevance to the book here, noticed, inasmuch as the Fulda Conference of Germany secured such permis-sion and has published a shortened breviary for the optional use of all German Sisters not obliged to recite the Divine Office. This O~cium Pacou/o (I was informed) has be~n adopted by some eighty-thousand Sisters in a short time. One can easily see why. This handy edition has a Latin text of the "New" Psalms on the left-side, a German one on the right; the Psalms are in the transla-tion worked out by Romano Guardini. The entire arrangement strikes a good balance between the variety of the Divine Office and the brevity of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. The bishops' endorsement recommends the book for public Sunday Vespers or Compline.--GERALD ELLARD, S.3". ST. CLARE OF ASSISI. By Nesta de Robeck. Pp. vii q- 242. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 19SI. $3.S0. This is perhaps as authentic a biography of St. Clare as can be written from the meager reliable sources that are available. The Life contains only 139 pages, but it is well written and interesting and 327 BOOK REVIEWS Reuiew for Religious documents are frequently quoted. The first chapter is the history of Assi~i from Before Christ to the thirteenth century. The second covers her childhood and youth up till the time she adopted the way of life of her fellow-townsman, St. Francis. The third shows how she formed her life along the lines of that of Francis and what a deep impress his last years and death made upon Clare and the Poor Ladies who followed her. Chapter four speaks of her personal sanctity and dealings with the pope. Chapter five describes how her influence and holii~ess irradiated out to the numerous new members and houses.of the Second Order ot: St. Francis, who all looked to her as their mother. The final chapter presents her in the full maturity of ber sanctity, her last years, death, and glory. Five Appendi~es make up the last half of the book: the Office of the Passion, the Rule of St. Clare, the Testament of St. Clare, the Cause of Canonization, the Bull of Canonization of the Virgin, St. Clare. There is a three-p~ige bibliography, a two-page index, and eight excellent plates. The sp!rit .of gqntleness and charity in the service of Lady Poverty. was the spirit St. Francis passed on to St. Clare and her Poor Ladies. That spirit lives today in St. Francis' sons and daughters all over the world. Those who have any contact with them catch something of it. So will those who read this book.--C. A. HERBST, S.J. DEVOTEDLY YOURS. By Sister Berfrande. Pp. 400. Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 19SI. $3.7S. Sister Bertrande, the author of The Education of Sisters (re-viewed at length by William J. McGucken, S.J., in the first issue of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, January, 1942) and director of Maril-lac House of Chicago, the large social center of the Daughters of Charity, may not be the greatest letter-writer in history, but she has left in Devotedly Yours, a very'interesting batch of letters. Intended originally "for Sisters only," her letters tell her com-munity in Chicago about all there is to tell of her extended and cir-cuitous Holy Year Pilgrimage that included the far-flung houses of Charity in France, North Africa, the Holy Land, Italy, England, and Ireland. The letters reveal zest for life, a sense of humor, abil-ity to recount anecdote and describe vividly, and devotedness and gratitude to her religious congregation. The author's wish should be fulfilled. "May these letters influence others as the journey influ-enced me: The Holy Lanai made of me a better Christian, Rome 328 November, 1951 BOOK NOTICES made of me a better Catholic, Paris made of me a better Daughter of Charity."--J. E. BREUNIG, S.J. BOOK NOTICES As a child, Helen Caldwell Day knew the sting of poverty and discrimination in her home in the South. Full of ambition she went North to enter nurses' training. Through realities on duty and trivialities off duty, she learned both the fulness and the emptiness of this life. She became a Catholic. She was married, saw her hus-band arrested and taken to prison, and after months of loneliness became a mother. She learned--what she had not known as a child --that there are white people with whom a Negro can live on terms of equality and genuine friendship. She tells about these and many other things in COLOR, EBONY. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1951. Pp. viii + 182. $2.25.) THE CONVENT MIRROR, by Very Rev. Frederick T. Hoeger, C.8p.S., is a series of conferences for religious. It is the fruit of thirty years of retreats to priests, Brothers, and Sisters. They were written to help religious love their vocation ever more and more. The author himself notes in the preface that "He is inclined to go to extremes to keep from religious life the least ill-repute." (New York: Frederick PustetCo., 1951. Pp. 246. $3.00.) The fact that Emmanuel Doronzo, O.M.I., would take the trouble to translate the DICTIONARY OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY is in itself a guarantee that the book is worth while. A generous sampling of the volume's contents confirms this judgment. The book thor-oughly covers dogmatic theology, as well. as providing much matter from associated branches of philosophy and theology. There are a good general bibliography, a concise synthesis of dogma, an outline of the history of dogmatic theology, helpful bibIiographies under in-dividual topics, and a complete index of entries. The present trans-lation, the first in English, is made from the second Italian edition. The authors are Msgrs. Pietro parente, Antonio Piolante, and 8alva-tore Garofalo. The translator has kept faithfully to the original text, but has r~vised the bibliographies in order to make them more useful to English readers. The format leaves nothing to be desired. (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing'Company, 1951. Pp. xxvi q- 310. $4.50.) 329 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Reuiew [or Religious In LETTERS TO THE MARTYRS Helen Walker Homan gives dear illustrations of the abundantly verified statement that ours is an age of martyrs. She compares, the lives of early martyrs like Saints Stephen, Agnes, Ignatius, Sebastian, Lawrence, and others with heroes of our "day like Arhhbishop Stepinac, St. Maria Goretti, Car-dinal Mindzenty, and others. The epistolary cast of the book, as a series of letters to martyrs, may seem artificial to some and detract from the inspirational value of the book. (New York: David McKay Co. Inc., 1951. Pp. xii -]- 236. $3.00.) ONE AND HOLY, contains three lectures by Karl Adam to mem-bers of the Una Sancta movement in Germany who are making real efforts to build a bridge between Lutherans and Catholics: "The Roots of the Reformatign," "How Luther Left the Church: the Pos-sibility of Reunion," and "How is Reunion to be Achieved." The author shows how polemic has sharpened the differences and suggests that the basis of reunion may be found in a sympathetic investiga-tion of the conditions that gave rise to Luther. His viewpoint and practical proposals are worth thinking about. Cecily Hastings trans-lated the book. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1951. Pp.' vii ÷ 130. $2.00.) In view of the Holy Father's recent Encyclical, "Heralds of the Gospel" (June 2, 195 I), touching again and with supreme author-ity on native cultures, native clergy, social prosperity, medical aid, lay missionaries, there is special timeliness in the translating of Father Danielou's books, The Salvation of the Nqtions (1949), and the present volume ADVENT, or the preparation for Christ and his saving message among all the i~amilie

Issue 17.3 of the Review for Religious, 1958. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious MAY 15, 1958 M~re Marie of the Ursulines . Sister Benita Daley Gifts Of the Holy Spirit . paul w. o'erie. C~urrent Spiritual Writing . Thomas G. O'Ca~lagha. Do We Know Our Mother? . Sister M. Annice Summer Sessions Book Reviews Questions and Answers Roman Documents about: Christ and World Harmony Religious Obedience Feminine Fashions VOLUME 17 NUMBER 3 Ri::VII::W FOR RI:::LIGIOUS VOLUME 17 MAY, 1958 NUMBER 3 CONTENTS M~-RE MARIE OF THE URSULINES~ Sister Benita Daley, C.S.J . 129 SUMMER SESSIONS . 134 THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT-- Paul W. O'Brien, S.J . 135 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING--- Thomas G. O'Callaghan, S.J .1.45 DO WE KNOW OUR OWN MOTHER?-- Sister M. Annice, C.S.C . " . 157 SURVEY OF ROMAN DOCUMENTS~R. F. Smith, S.J . 167 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS: Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 178 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: 13. Changing a Will . 188 14. General Sanation . 188 15. Absence During the Canonical Year . 189 16. Constituting a Chapter Without Approval . 190 17. What Is an Immediate Third Term as Superior General?. 190 18. Gloria in tile Mass of a Beatified Foundress . 191 19. Canon Law for Brothers and Sisters . 191 OUR CONTRIBUTORS ' 192 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS,, May, 1958. Vol. 17, No. 3. Published bi-monthly by The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Blvd., St. Louis 18, Mo. Edited by the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approval. Second class mail privilege authorized at St. Louis, Mo. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J.; Gerald Kelly, S.J.; Henry Willmering, S.J. Literary Editor: Robert F. Weiss, S.J. Copyright, 1958, by The Queen's Work. Subscription price in U.S.A. and Canada: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U.S.A. Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to: Review for Religious, 3115 South Grand Boulevard. St. Louis 18o Missouri. /v re Marie ot: !:he Ursulines Sisl:er Benil:a Daley, C.S.J~ IN JUNE, 1958, when the city of Quebec celebrates the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its founding, it will honor Samuel de Champlain, who first recognized the importance of this great port on the "king of all rivers" as he termed the St. Lawrence. The achievements of the great men who contributed to the growth and development of that city will be recalled--men like Bishop Laval and Frontenacm but no chronicle of its glor!es will be complete without a tribute to that illustrious pioneer, M~re Marie of the Ursulines. The passage of three centuries has not dimmed the memory of the courageous woman who exemplified in her remarkable career an amazing variety of callings: wife, mother, mystic, business woman, teacher, writer, and cloistered religious. Her name and deeds are interwoven with every worth. while endeavor to colonize the little seventeenth-century settle-ment that was to become the thriving commercial and industrial city of today. In her missionary-career of thirty-two years, she endured all the hardships incident upon life in a pioneer out-post that was constantly under attack by the Indians. Marie Guyardqthat was the family name of this Ursuline missionary--was born in 1599 in Tours, France. Reared in a Catholic home by devout parents who inculcated habits of deep piety and love of labor in their eight children, Marie leari~ed at an early age to relish the joy of prayer and meditation. Yet, like any normal child, she entered gaily into games and pastimes with her brothers and sisters and the neighborhood children. When she was only fifteen years old, she asked her mother's permission to become a nun. Her mother refused this requesti believing that a person like Marie, so gay and vivacious, should 129 SISTER BENITA DALEY Review for Religious marry. Marie's parents then proceeded, to seek a desirable husband f~r their daughter. Their choice fell upon an estimable young silk merchant of Tours, Claude Martin. Thus it was that at the age of seventeen Marie became a bride. Although the desire to lead a religious life in the cloister still dominated all her thinking, she never questioned her parents.' decision about marriage. That, she believed, was the unfolding of God's plan in her life. She would obey her parents and accept this sacrifice of her own desires. Married life brought heavy burdens to the inexperienced girl. Marie Martin had to assist her husband in the manage-ment of his business which included, according to the custom of the time, housing and feeding his principal employees. Even though the religious bent of her nature sonstantly impelled her to yearn for hours of solitude in which to pray and to meditate, she developed great skill in directing her husband's establish-ment. Her talent for organization, her ability to deal harmoni-ously with all sorts of individuals--she supervised a large staff of servants and about twenty workmen in her husband's shop --these gifts were to serve her well in later years as a missionary in New France. The birth of her son, Claude, in 1619, gave her great joy; but six months later her husband died, leaving his finances in such a state that she was virtually penniless. A widow at nineteen, with an infant son to care for, attractive and highly respected, this young girl received many offers of marriage. Her family advised her to" remarry as the solution of her problems. But Marie Martin knew exactly what she would do now. She would follow the call of God in her heart; she would live for Him alone, making a cloister for Him in the depth of her being. Some day her hope of consecrating her life to God in religion might be realized. When and how this might be accomplished she did not know for her first obligatioa required her to devote herself to the upbringing of her child. 130 May, 1958 M~E MARIE Madame Martin returned then to her father's home but soon answered the call of an older sister who needed help in the management of her large household. Marie's brother-in-law, Paul Buisson, a wealthy artillery officer, approved this plan for he knew that this capable young woman, in return for a home for herself and her child, w.ould supervise his affairs efficiently. Eventually, Marie took complete charge of his transport business, his warehouses, and his stables. In short, she became the unpaid servant of the Buisson family--prepar-ing meals, nursing the sick, regulating accounts, and directing employees--for all these duties fitted admirably into her design to live entirely for God. Eagerly she sought the means to multiply fasts, penances, and vigils. It is not surprising then that history records her as one of the great mystics of her time. In the midst of her endless labors, God rewarded Marie Martin with heavenly visions, with revelations of the Blessed Trinity and of the Incarnation. Bossuet called her the St. Teresa o{: her century; and well he might, fo'r, like the saint of Avila, Madame Martin was practical, never neglecting ordinary duties for spiritual joys. Leading this extraordinary life of close intimacy with God and of long hours of toil, Marie wat,ched her young son grow into a strong and healthy boyhood. When he was twelve years old, she confided him to the care of the Jesuits to be trained, believing that a boy of his age needed a man's guidance. With. his consent, she achieved her long-desired goal, entering the Ursulines in Tours in 1631 at~ter obtaining her sister's promise to pay for young. Claude's education. In later years, Marie Martin experienced the happiness, of knowing that her son had become a Benedictine priest. In the cloister, Marie de l'Incarnation, as she was now called, attained ,great mystical heights. God bestowed upon her special giftsthe interpretation of scriptural texts--which are evidi~nced in the spiritual writings she composed at this time. She even saw Canada in a vision, not knowing it by name but SISTER BENITA DALEY Review for Religious perceiving only that ~it would some day be the field of her missionary labors. When she learned that the Jesuits of New France were asking for teaching nuns for Quebec, she resolved to answer the call if the opportunity arose. She longed to bring the light of faith to the savages of the New World. It was " with great rejoicing then that she received her appointment to found with two other Ursulines a mission school for Indian children in Champlain's struggling colony on the St. Lawrence. Exactly. four years after that great explorer's death, Mire Marie and her companions sailed from Dieppe. That was May 4, 1639. After a three-month voyage, they landed in Quebec, receiving a joyous welcome from its two hundred colonists. The tiny house to which ~he nuns were ceremoniously conducted was little more than a shack, but to Mire Marie it held promise of the fulfillment of her apostolate for souls. The little convent with its back against an enormous cliff looked out on the enchanting loveliness of wide stretches of water, a world of beauty that M~re Marie always cherished even when, at a later date, hunger and cold and destitution plagued the nuns. Here the first school opened with six Indian girls. Hardly were the Ursulines settled in their new home than an epidemic of smallpox broke out in the colony. Soon sick Indians in all their dirt and" wretchedness crowded in upon thenuns who cheerfully nursed them. In so doing, M~re Marie and her co-workers sacrificed the convent's slender resources in food and clothing. Y~hen the horrible experience ended, they de-cided that they had been too busy to contract the dread disease. As the number of pupils in the school steadily increased,' it became necessary to build a structure that would adequately house both nuns and students. The task of raising funds for this pressing need devolved upon Mire Marie. Then began that series of letters that went to France on every ship leaving ~he port of Quebec. Historians record that during her mis-sionary life this pioneer wrote over twelve thousand letters, enough volumes to fill several shelves in a library. 132 MARIE Not all of these letters were appeals for money. Many of them, sent to Ursuline convents, to important people in France, and to her Benedictine son, constitute, in the opinion of scholars, one of the finest primary sources of information on seventeenth-century Quebec. They narrate with typical French clarity the daily occurrences of the colony so that every phase of its de-velopment unfolds in this correspondence. The appointme~nt of the governors of the colony, the Indian massacres, the tor-tures of the Jesuit martyrs, the perils of living under constant threat of Iroquois hostilities, the complete destruction by fire of the Ursuline convent in 1650, the horror of the earthquake that shook Quebec three years later-~all these facts M~re Marie recounted in vivid detail. If the nuns, being cloistered, could not move freely among the colonists, the latter came to the convent to seek advice on various matters. M~re Marie took great pains to keep herself informed on all questions that pertained to the well-being of the people. As a result of her interest, government officials as well as the colonists, esteemed her sane judgments, her practical good sense. They valued more and more the type of education she administered in her convent school, for with the new re-cruits that had come from France to increase her staff, she planned an educational program that aimed to transmit to the pupils the culture and traditions of Old France. In 1642, the new monastery, a three-story structure, the pride of the colony, was completed. Mire Marie herself had drawn up its plans and supervised its construction, even mount-ing the scaffolding to direct the work in progress. But material achievements did not lessen her spiritual undertakings. In order to instruct the savages in the faith, she mastered four difficult Indian languages, thus displaying an amazing linguistic ability. She began this study at the age of forty; and, in the following twenty years, she demonstrated her proficiency by writing catechisms, grammars, and dictionaries ir~ 133 SISTER BENITA DALEY the Algonquin, Huron, and Iroquois dialects. These texts have proved invaluable to missionaries of later centuries. At her death in 1672, this interpid French woman had com-pleted thirty-two years of missionary labor crowned with success as an administrator and educator. She had helped to initiate a new movement in the Church--the active participation oi: re-ligiot~ s women in missionary, educational, and social projects. Her pioneer work led to the establishment of numerous com-munities of religious women who today staff our hospitals and schools and undertake the social apostolate. Agnes Repplier, in her biography~-M~re Marie of the Ursulines--now appropriately being re, issued in this anniversary year, points out that holiness "was the weapon with which she fought her' battles, established her authority, and became a living principle in the keen, hard, vivid, friendly, ~nd dangerous life of New France." SUMMER SESSIONS Marquette University will conduct a three-week workshop in sister formation granting three semester hours of graduate credit in education. The workshop will explore the application of the Everett Report to the needs of communities of sisters. It has been designed specifically for directresses of study and for the administration and faculty of juniorates and scholasticates (college level) of sisterhoods. It has been scheduled for the mornings and afternoons of August 4 to 22. It is open only to sisters. The fee is $50.00. The directress of the workshop is Sister Elizabeth Ann, I.H.M., of Immaculate Heart College; Los Arigeles, assisted by sisters acquainted with the Everett Report and by other consultants. Room and board t~or the sisters attending the workshop is available in Schroeder Hall. Address: Marquette University Graduate School, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin. St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana, announces the six-teenth annual summer session of its Graduate School of Sacred Theol-ogy for Sisters and Laywomen (June 23-August I). Scheduled are fourteen classes in: fundamental theology, dogma, morals, Old Testa-ment, New Testament, patrology, biblical theology, church history, introduction to theology, introduction to Sacred Scriptures, introduc-tion to the Summa of St. Thomas. The faculty includes Jesuits, Dominicans, Passionists, other priests, and lay professors. Address (Continued on page 166) 134 The ifi:s. ot: :he I-Ioly Spiri Paul W. O'Brien,S.J. FRANKLY I HAVE always wanted to know more about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They held a strange attraction. The soul seemed to feel instinctively that they occupied a key position in its spiritual, life. And yet the.y seemed so elusive. Beyond a few elementary notions, they remained rather difficult to grasp. I wondered whether the main ideas could not be pinned down and put in simple language. It is this I have tried to do both for my. own understanding of the question and perhaps for the profit of others. The Need oE the Gifts ." A soul in love with God and witl~ some little experience in th~ spiritual life comes quickly to realize its ihadequacy. This comes about not merely frbm the intellectual conviction that unaided nature can~ never reach the supernatural, that "without Me, you can do nothing." Rather it is an experimental knowl-edge, even supposing God's elevating grace, of the slowness of its mind to grasp the things of God. It "tries to penetrate the truthsof faith and finds them veiled; it seeks to draw the logical conclusions from these truths, but the elements of the'problem slip from its memory before the conclusions are reached. Its will that should be such an impelling power toward God is so hesitant, so wavering; and, even when with God's grace it feels a power for ordinary acts~ of virtue, it senses its inadequacy for anything that might be termed heroic. In all sincerity we are seeking to do the will of. God, "a will presented to us through obedience, through our rules, but which still leaves so much undefined. We know at a given moment "what" we. must do, but the "how" seems to admit of indefinite progress; and we feel blocked. The life that we live seems to be a life planned by a reason directed by' faith,, but it is one where my reason 135 PAUL W. O']~RIEN Review for Religious does the directing. Actually we are longing for the Holy Spirit to assume the direction of our lives. We are thirsting to have our love enkindled by the Spirit of love-to have our intellects enlightened by the Spirit of Truth. In a word, we are yearning to supplement our life of the ~irtues by a life of the gifts under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Nature of the Gifts St. Thomas tells us that these gifts of the Holy Spirit are permanent dispositions of the soul to obey the Holy Spirit promptly. They are not just passing actual graces; they are permanent dispositions in the soul. They are not like the in-fused virtues which enable us to act; these are passive disposi-tions which enable us to receive, to be acted upon by the Holy Spirit. Granted the existence of our supernatural organism, we might possibly reason fo the necessity of such gifts, in order that the organism be perfect; but God has spared us the labor. He has told us of the gifts in Isaias 11:2: "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and under-standing; the spirit of counsel and of fortitude; the spirit of knowledge and of godliness (piety). And he shall be filled with the fear of the "Lord." Actually the text refers to Jesus, .the Messiah; but the Fathers of the Church in explaining it taught that these gifts have passed from Christ to all the mem-bers of His Mystical Body. It is therefore a point of faith that these gifts exist. It is also certain that they are permanent habits. But, for the rest, theologians have their little differences. It is ~the more common and more probable opinion that the gifts are really distinct from the virtues. And it seems more probable that there are actually seven gifts, though some theologians think it not improbable that the number seven is used, as often in the Old Testament, in a mystical sense of plenitude. But for our practical purpose, it is enodgh to know that the gifts of the Holy' Spirit exist, that they are permanent in the soul in grace, 136 May, 1958 GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT and that through them the" Holy Spirit can direct all the activi-ties of our souls. Reason-guided or God-guided? When God made human nature, He put into it all that it needed to live its life and do its work in a fitting manner. And so He endowed it with a soul, with faculties of thinking and willing, and virtues to 'perfect these faculties. We then had everything necessary to live a human life. The guiding power in this organism was reason. To live as a human being, we had to live according to reason. But God did not leave me to my natural resources and natural end. He destined me to know Him in the beatific vision and to share His own divine life. To accomplish this, it was necessar~ that He elevate my natural organism; and this He did by bestowing gratuitously on my soul sanctifying grace together with the infused virtues, both theological and moral. Not only has He elevated my powers making them able to act supernaturally and reach out to Him; but He has furnished new maps to my reason, indicating the way to :Himself by marking out new signposts with His revealed tr~ths. Surely .the way is now clearer, and reason .finds more secur.!.ty; 'bui it is still reason that directs my life, even though :helped by faith. My life to God is still reason-controlled. And ~onsequently !t is subject to all the. limitations of human reason. ¯ I cannot s~e all the future; .I. cannot foresee the consequendes of my present actions; I cannot know the hearts of those with Whbm I deal, whether my well-meant word or action may not be untimely. My grasp of faith is so imperfect. If only the great God who is above all might enter in to guide my life! How wonderful to replace the groping of my reason through an uncharted future with the security of divine Wisdom--my vision obscured by the veil of faith, with God's clear knowledge of Himself, eternal Truth--my imperfect intuition of the hearts of others, with the intimately penetrating knowledge of God--my hesitancy in choosing God's way, with the sureness of 137 PAUL W. O'BRIEN Review ]or Religious God's Will-~.my :weakness of love, with the impetu.osity of God's Spirit. And yet this is the life that God holds out to me through the gifts. This is'the true meaning o~ the gi~ts, that my soul is o.pened up to this direct action o~ God, that my soul is disposed to obey. promptly, this Spirit o~ ldve, that my soul may soar above its reason:controlled guidance, to be taken to God's Heart as His instrument, guided by the Holy Spirit, with all that this involves. Some Illustrations Theologians around the time of St. Thomas tried to explain the gi~ts o~ the H01y Spirit by the examp!e o~ a rowboat fitted out with~sails~ The oars or.the.boat ~orresp0nded to the virtues, the" active ¯agents in the movement ot~ the.boat. The sails were the gift's of the Holy Spirit, those passive disppsitions by which the boat recdi~ed an outside impulse and direction from the Wind. ¯ " ~ Cardinal Billot, some six centuries later, modernized the dxample, propoging a °motOrboat fitted out with ~ails. The motor, actively 'propelling the° boat f~:om "within, corresponde~{ to th~ virtues'; the ~ails, receiving passi,~ely the breezd, reprd-sent~ d the gift's of the" Holy Spirit. ~ Were ~hese great .theologians alive t~0da'y, we may pre.sume that the)) would look for s~mething more" modern and might hit on Our radio-~ontrolled rob0.t planes. Sbme time back ~I saw some boys~ flying iu'~h a plane; and," if I am no~ mistaken (in ~nY .even~ it may serve~ us ~or an example), ~he plane, somd ten feet long; contained i~s "own motor, Which propelled it into the air" arid drove i~ along a( an~ ordinary spee~l. O~ co~rse there was no one in the plane. But 'aitach'ed some w.ay to th~ motor was a radio recei,~er. From the ground the boys '~ver~e ~ble to sdn~t impulses into ~hat rhceiver and to control the ipeed of thd motor' as well as the di.rection o~ the plane~ They could turh it to thd right or left, speed it up, make it lo6p the loop, and sO forth. "I ~ould not but think that that' little radio receiver" co~respohded t6 ~he" gifts of the Holy Gh6st~ while the motor correspondedto the in~used Virtues. 138 May, 1958 GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT The gifts of the Holy Spirit, then, m~y be considered as God's radio receiver put into our soul, a passive disposition to receive the impulses from the Holy Spirit. Surely we carry within us our own motor, the infused virtues, which move us along in a normal way; but in order that these virtues be directed, that their activity be increased, there was need of a receiver. The plane could fly without the receiver, just as we can practice ordinary virtue without this special direction of the Holy Spirit. But to be controlled with sureness, to be brought to a safe landing, to receive added strength, for all this we needed a means by. which the Holy Spirit could enter. Neither do we consider the radio receiver as the motor of the plane. And so it is with the gifts. They are not the motive force that moves the soul; they merely receive the impulses of the Holy Spirit that activate the virtues. The virtues remain the operative powers of the soul. Cormaturality What are these habits, these permanent dispositions of the soul? Do they merely mean that God in His almighty power can break into the soul whenever He wishes--a mere "obedi-ential potency," as theologians would say--or are they some-thing more? The disposition which is a gift of the Holy Spirit is something more. It creates in the soul a sort of reaching out for God's inspiration, a power of attraction, giving the soul what theologians call "connaturality," making the soul as it were "tuned-in,~' preparing the soul so that the-inspiration of the Holy .Spirit would feel "at-home." A child is attracted to the loving atmosphere of the family circle, but repelled by the cold, indifferent spirit of a strange house. .And so while the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is gratuitous and the disposition is passive, yet the gift creates this connaturality, giving the soul a certain claim on God's help. Through fidelity to grace, the soul can merit an increase of God's inspirations and conse-quently a greater capacity for the gifts. PAUL W. O'BRIEN Review for Religious The Functions of the Individual Gifts Theoretically there is a certain utility in knowing the func-tion of the individual gifts. It completes our knowledge. But since spiritual writers are not in complete agreement on these functions and practically the discernment of the effect of each gift is rather difficult, it is enough for the good soul to know that God has a way of directing all its activities, that this way. is by means of the gifts, and that God will know which gift He is using, even though the soul may not. The soul needs only to beg God to come in His fullness, to take over the direction of all its acts. However, it is helpful to note in a general way (I am fol-lowing St. Thomas) that every activity of the soul is cared for by the gifts. All of God's grace is directed to enlighten my intellect or strengthen my will. Hence the gifts perfect these two faculties, four of them (wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and counsel) perfecting the intellect, and three of them (piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord) perfecting the will. Now the intellect may grasp truth intuitively, or it may have a judgment about it. And in judging about it, it may judge divine things, created things, or apply general truths to concrete acts. For each of these operations, there is a gift by which the intellect in that operation is disposed to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Corresponding to and perfecting the intuition of truth is the gift of understanding, by which the soul penetrates the truths of faith--understanding not merely how believable they are, how right it is that the soul adheres to them, but penetrating even to the very truths themselves, perceiving connections be-tween the truths, analogies, logical conclusions, etc., all of which it could probably get by study, but which it receives in a simpler and more instinctive manner. This gift together with the "gift of knowledge perfects faith. The gift of wisdom corresponds to that judgment of the mind about God and divine things, as the soul judges that God 140 May,, 1958 GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT is lovable above all, as 'it ~askes God with'~i certain sweetness, as it judges all things in the light of God and adheres to Him in charity. Wisdom perfects charity. The gift of knowledge corresponds to the judgment of the mind about created things or of divine things according to creatures. It enables t.he soul to form a true judgment of human things--to see clearly its own conduct and the conduct of others. It is this gift that is activated particularly in the dark nights of the soul, making the soul see its sinfulness and the nothingness of created things. Like the gift of understand-ing, this gift also perfects faith. The gift of counsel looks to the direction of particular actions--what to do here and now under these circumstances. What faith, wisdom, and knowledge teach in general, counsel applies in particular. This gift corresponds to the virtue of prudence, which prescribes the means for attaining the end. Three gifts perfect the will. Piety excites the soul to a filial affection toward God. The virtue of religion and the gift of piety both lead us to the worship and service of God. But religion considers God as Creator, while piety looks to Him as Father. Piety reaches not only to-God, but to everything and everybody connected with Him; hdnce to Holy Scripture, the saints, the souls in purgatory. It corresponds to the virtue of justice and governs us in our relations with others. With regard to ourselves two gifts come into play. Forti. rude stimulates us against the fear of dangers or human respect, enabling us to resist certain strong temptations, to undertake arduous works for God. It corresponds to the virtue of forti-tude. The other gift regarding ourselves is fear of the Lord. The~e are two kinds of fear, that of tl~e slave who fears the lash, the punishment, and that of the son who fears to sadden. his father by offending him. The first is called servile, fear and has no place in the gift. Rather it is filial fear, which looks 141 PAUL V~. O'BRIEN Review for Religious chiefly to God and deters us from offending Him. Thus it perfects hope. But it also makes us avoid that which most attracts us to sin, namely the delights of the world; and in this respect it corresponds to the virtue of temperance. This gift of fear of the Lord is the basis of all others, for the first step on the way to God is a reverence for Him that makes us flee sire Ordinary and Extraordinary Action of the Holy Spirit It is a great consolation to the soul to know that as long as it is in the state of grace it possesses all the gifts of the Holy Spirit and is therefore under the guidance of the Holy Spirii. However this guidance varies according to the disposition of the soul and its fidelity. It is not a felt guidance, and great activity of the Holy Spirit may' pass unnoticed in the soul and may be guessed at only because of its effects. It is through this action of the Holy Spirit that various vocations are realized, as step by step He leads the soul to the fulfillment of His eternally determined plan. In acting through the gifts, the Holy Spirit may enter our lives in two ways. One is the ordinary way, inasmuch as He conforms to the ,natural workings of our intellect and will, elevated of course by grace, taking occasion from sermons, our spiritual reading, our meditations, to inspire us with good thoughts. We experience greater light, a more intense love; and yet our intellects are reasoning in the way they have always reasoned; and our wills are loving as they have always loved. Even the acts to whic~h the Holy Spirit will lead us are acts accord with our nature, within the sphere of reason enlightened by faith. Through this constant influence of the Holy Spirit in our ordinary actions, the soul may arrive at a high degree sanctity, without being consciously aware of this intense activity of the Holy Spirit through His gifts. Though heroic sanctity is attainable through this ordinary mode of action of the Holy Spirit, it is more common to find in the saints the more extraordinary mode of action by which 142 May, 1958 GIFTS OF THE; HOLY, SPIRIT our faculties, through these same gifts, are given a new way acting~or reach out for .objects naturally outside their normal' sphere. This extraordinary action of the Holy Spirit takes various t~orms: in one, it will be the way oi~ infused contemplation, com-monly called the mystic life, which is generally brought about through the intense activation of the gifts of wisdom, under-standing, and knowledg~gifts that perfect th~ intellect. Ex-amples of such action may be found in~ the great contemplatives, St. ~John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila. It is well to note that. the gifts of ~wisdom .and understanding may.be present in' a soul in a. high degree without the soul being conscious of. them or without their producing infused contemplation, which is 'but one of the possible forms of their influence. ¯ In another, the' e~traordinar.y' action of the Holy" Spirit will direct the soul to a more active and apostolic life, in which the gifts which are directed more to action (e.g, counsel and fortitude) predominate.' Such a soul was ~Sto Vincent de' Paul, who seems not to ~have en'joyed .infused contemplation/ but who led a life of heroic charity. In still others, God's acti6n works toward a combination of these lives, as with the great contemplative~ ipostles,' St. Paul; St. Ignatius,-St. Francis Xavier. Thd form which this' action of the Holy Spilit Will take will depend on the vocation and work to Which God has destined the soul. BUt whethe~ the mode of action be ordin~iry or extraordinary, no sanctity is possible without this habi~hal docility to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit; ai~d this docility is at-tained through the gifts. Our Practical Attitude " There is .no soul in love with God that d6es not desire to be completely under .the sway of the Spirit \of Love. ¯ And, since this" direction will come about especially through the gifts oi~ the Holy Spirit, there is no" soul that does not long to possess 143 PAUL V~r. O'BRIEN these gifts in all the fullness that God may be pleased to grant. Since an incoming inspiration seems to enlarge the capacity of ~the gifts, our desires for the increase of the gifts are really desires that God may be ever more generous with His inspira-tions. Our problem, then, is one of fidelity to. these inspirations and the growth of our desires that the ego may decrease while God and His influence are !ncreasing. However, there is a certain preparation that can be made.' And here we may return to our "radio-receiver." For good reception, the air must be. clear, free from "interference," free from ~'jamming." Alas, how often our little "gift-receivers" are shut out from the impulses of God's grace by the interfer-ence of passion and prejudice, and by the jamming of worldli-ness and the clamor of creatures. We must clear the air through purity of heart--striving with all our might until an emptiness of self has cleared the way for His divine influence. But it is not enough to .have the air cleared; we must be "tuned-in." The soul must be recollected, attentive to God, tuned-in to the Holy Spirit, not trusting in the initial impulses and guidance of its reason, but turning with evei-increasing fre-quency, as He gives the measure, to the Holy Spirit for the inspiration and continuation of our works. When our part is done, the rest will depend on the source of the impulses. But here we have no difficulty; for the source of our inspirations is God with His power, His attractiveness, His clarity. His part will never fail. The trouble can only be in the receiver. We must go forward therefore in confidence, trying to bring home to ourselves the beauty, the security, the divineness of a life lived under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The measure of that life in us will depend in great part on the strength of our desires. We will long for it, struggle for it, and keep begging for it as we implore the Spirit .of Love in His sevenfold gift (septiformis munere) to come in all His full-ness into our hearts. Come Holy Spirit! 144 Current: Spirit:u l rit:ing Thomas ~,. O'C~lhgh~n, S.,J. St. Th~rhse of Lisieux A VERY NOTABLE event occurred two years ago in the field of hagiography. It was the publication of the auto-biographical manuscripts of St. Th~r~se of Lisieux.1 o.ne point of great interest in this was that the saint's own handwritten manuscripts--there are three of them--were photographically re: produced in their origina/ form: two copybooks (one. of eighty-four leaves and the other of thirty-seven) and a letter (five leaves). Accompanying the published manuscripts were the editor's three volumes of scholarly, most interesting, and helpful notes. For many years readers of St. Therese s autobiography, The Story of a Soul, have known that the printed account which they were reading did not agree perfectly with the autograph manuscript. For example, the preface of a 1924 French edition made it quite clear that there had b~en changes in the text. The very awareness of these changes aroused the desire of hagi-ographers and devotees of Th~rhse to know exactly what the original manuscripts had said. These autograph manuscripts had been iCor many years in the care of Mother Agnes of Jesus, a sister (Pauline) of Th~se a~d prioress of the Carmel at Lisieux. When she was asked to have them published, she arranged to have this done after her death. Thus, in 1952, a year after her death, a beginning was made under the direction of Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., the eminent Carmelite spiritual theologian. When he died the following year, the work was entrusted to Father Francis of St. Mary, O.C.D., who has completed the task most successfully and admirably. ~ Manuscrits ~utobiogra~hiques de 8ainte Thgr?se de l'EnfantJesus, Carmel de Lisieux, 1956. 145 THOMAS ~,. O~CALLAGHAN Review for Religious Whatever one's opinion might have been before this present publication, it is now quite clear that The Story of a Soul is not really a book, nor even a spiritual diary. It is rather a com-pilation of three manuscripts, all written during the last three years of the saint's life. The first of these, the larger of the two copybooks, was written during the course of 1895 at the request of the above-mentioned Mother Agnes of Jesus. She, as prioress at the time, asked Th~r~se to write her childhood memories. At that time there was no intention of publishing them; they were to be only "un souvenir de famille." This manuscript became the first eight chapters of the autobiography. The second manuscript, written during September, 1896, was a letter to her sister Marie, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, who had asked Th~r~se to explain her "little way of confidence and love." This letter, also never intended originally for publi-cation, became by reason of its importance Chapte~ XI of the autobiography. The third manuscript, written during June, 1897, three months before Thgr~se's death, was the second copybook. This was written at the request of Mother Mary of Gonzaga, the prioress at that time-~Mother Agnes of Jesus, her predecessor in office, very diplomatically persuaded her to request it--and was intended to serve as the basis of a short biographical account which by custom would be sent to other Carmels after Th~r~se's death. Although it was written nine months after the letter to Sister Marie, just mentioned above, it preceded it in the auto-biography and became the substance of Chapters IX and X. These, then, are the t.hree manuscripts from which was drawn the autobiography of Th~r~se of Lisieux. When, a few months before the saint's death, there arose the question of the publication of them, Th~r~se gave Mother Agne.s of Jesus the permission to edit them as she thought fit. Mother .Agnes did just ~hat (and, because of various reasons and personalities in-volved, it was perfectly legitimate to do so). "In fact," says Father Francis, the editor, after comparing the manuscripts with 146 May, 1958 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING ihe published version of the autobiography, "Mother Agnes of Jesus rewrote the autobiography of Thgr~se" (I, 78). '~ What did Mother Agnes change? How serious were these changes? How did they alter the real Th~r~se? Since we cannot answer these questions in this very brief survey--un-doubtedly many articles will be written during the next few years on these precise questions--we would like to recommend a very fine article, "Saint Th~se," written by Sally S. Cunneen, in Jubilee (October, 1957). It is an article which makes for most pleasant and interesting reading. Faith and Love St. John the Evangelist dedicates a large part of his writings to .the development of his teaching on love. In his account of the public ministry of our Lord, the first twelve chapters of his Gospel, he unfolds some of this teaching by°showing the relation-ship 0f love to faith. It is this relationship of Johannine love and faith that Father Barrosse, C.S.C., makes the subject of a very scholarly and fine article.2 As a help to one's spiritual life, many points in this article are well worth study and reflection. First, for St. John, what is faith? It is not merely an in-tellectual assent to a list of revealed propositions. For the be-loved disciple faith means to believe in Christ, to accept "Jesus for what He is . . . the Son of God sent or come into the world" (p. 540). BUt, as Son of God, Christ is God's image, and thus God's revelation of Himself. Christian faith, then, means to accept Christ as God's revelation of Himself to men. It is not merely, however, a spdculative knowledge about God which Christ reveals. He desires also to reveal to men God's inner life by offering them an experience of it, a share of God's own life. To do this w~is the salvific mission of Christ. Faith for St. John, then, means to accept Cl~ris~ as the "Son of God who has come into" the world as God's salvific manifestation 2t'The Relationship of Love to Faith in St. John," Theological Studies, XVIII (1957), 538-59. 147 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religiou~ of Himself to men" (p. 543). This really demands in practice a complete surrender of one's entire person to the living person of Christ. But what is the relatiorr of this Johannine faith to love? Perhaps the following summary answer of the author to that question will be an indication of the important matter which he treats in the article and how profit, able a study of it could be. .In Christ God offers Himself to men out of love. Christ is the concrete manifestation of God's love in the world. To believe in Christ means to accept Him as God's offer of Himseli:; in other words, it means to comply with the advances of God's love. Those who love themselves inordinately, who desire a glory independent of the borrowed glory they can have from God in Christ or who love the evil which they have apart from God, can only reject the offer of God's love and refuse to believe. Only those who love God's glory and who therefore love. Christ, the manifestation and offer of that glory, will accept the advances of God's love. These are the men who have the "love of God" within them. (p. 559) The Rosary There are two parts to the rosary devotion: the recitation of the Paters and Aves (vocal prayer.) and meditation on the mysteries of the life of Christ and Mary (men~al prayer). Of these two, the latter is the. more important; it is the soul of the rosary devotion. But it is also the more difficult. What makes it so difficult? Father Paul Mahoney, O.P., selects, three of the main difficulties and offers some practical remedies.~ These dif-ficulties are: inattention, inability to probe the mysteries, and disunity of thought. The first difficulty, then, and perhaps the most common, i.s inattention or the lack of attention or the "inabilit~ to keep the mind and imagination centered upon one idea for even a short period of time" (p. 427). There are several causes of this. The first is a lack of proper training; a person has never learned to concentrate; and, thus, over the years the bad habit of inatten-tion has developed. In such cases, the opposite habit must be 3 "Difficulties with Rosary, Meditation," Cross and Cro~zn, IX (1957), 426-33. 148 May, 1958 CURREI~ SPIRITUAL WRITING formed by deliberate effort. Perhaps this is best done, when say-ing the rosary, by taking only One thought for each decade and deliberately concentrating on it during the recitation of the ten Ave$. "Another cause of inattention is neglecting to make a conscious intention before saying the Rosary" (p. 428). Since the ~osary is such a fruitful devotion when said fervently, a devotion worthy of our very best efforts, it is Very important, before starting it, to make a firm intention to recite it well. And, since the desire to finish our prayers quickly can stifle fervor, our intention should include the resolve to take our time and avoid rush. A second difficulty in meditating during the rosary is "an inability to probe the mysteries. Many fed incompetent to meditate on the mysteries of ~he Rosary." (p. 429) A very basic mistake here is to confuse prayerful meditation with theo-logical speculation. The latter is by no means necessary. For the former all we need are a fe~v spiritual thoughts which will lead to will-acts of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, love, hope, humility, and the like. But where will we find these few spiritual thoughts? They can be easily gathered from an attentive read-ing of the New Testament, the Missal, and Breviary, especially those passages which pertain to the rosary mysteries. Everyone should have a little collection--mental, or even better, written-- of spiritually helpful rosary thoughts. For the third difficulty, disunity of thought, and its solution, we shall refer the reader to the article itself. A summary of it would only be confusing. Despite the difficulties that are attached to fruitful recitation of the Rosary, we must make the effort. Repeated beginnings, labor, aridity, and perseverance are the price that must be paid for mastery of the Rosary. But once victorious, the soul can confidently expect what is promised in the prayer for the feast of the Holy Rosary: imitation of what is contained in the mysteries and possession of what they promise. (p. 433) 149 THOM~,S G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious Catholics and Neurosis What can Catholics do to modify or prevent neurotic reactions? The answer to this question is given in a very solid and clear article by Father James F. Moynihan, S.J., the chair-man of the Department of Modern Psychology at Boston College.4 A neurosis is a minor mental disorder, psychological in origin, which is characterized by personality maladjustment, but which does not usually require commitment to a mental hospital. The formative process of such a disorder, says Father Moynihan, "seems to involve a certain type of personality who~ in some conflict causing anxiety, finds a solution iri pathological (neurotic) symptoms" (p. 248). Thus, at th~ core of a neurosis is an anxiety. Depending upon the manner in which a person reacts to and resolves this anxiety, his behavior .is either normal or neurotic. The main purpose of Father Moynihan's article is to point out ~ome of the elements of a solid spiritual life which help a Catholic to adjust himself and to react to anxiety normally. We will limit ourselves here merely to his observation on humility. "Good mental health has a very definite correlatidn with an old-fashioned virtue which we call humility, yet not so old fashioned that it has not crept back into our current literature on personality and personality-adjustment. We can, to be sure, have some very distorted ideas on just what humility means, yet certainly an honest appraisal of one's own excellence is basic to the concept. The person with a balanced sense of his own qualifications, with a real sense of humility, is not confounded' by the limitations inherent in his own personality make-up. He need not look upon them as evidence of personal inferiority. For he realizes that limitations are the common lot of humanity; that he is a man and not a god. Nor does he need to hide in fantasy and self-excuse, or develop the Cinderella complex of self-pity with its inevitable concomitants of envy, jeal-ousy, and a sour-grapes attitude. In fact, a sense of humility is the basis for a real semse of humor which psychologists associate with the mature personality because it prevents us from taking ourselves too seriously and helps us to realize that our human experience is a shared ~xperience. This virtue of humility, manifested in a self- 4"Catholics and Neurosis," Spiritual Life, III (1957), 247-56. 150 May, 1958 ~URRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING concept that is objective and realistic, can, of course, be strengthened by faith in God's abiding presence so that it will lead the individual to a degree of confidence in which he can say with Saint Paul: can do all things in him who strengthens me." (p. 252) Venial Sin Although venial sin is not destructive of charity nor incom-patible with the state of grace, one should not underestimate its harmful effects on the spiritual life. Father Jordan Aumann, O.P., in a brief but fine article on the nature of venial sin and its relation to charity and perfection, enumerates and comments on four of the more important effects of venial sin.5 "First, venial sin lessens the fervor of charity and decreases thg soul's generosity in the service of God. Secondly, venial sin or zhe attachment to venial sin deprives the soul of many graces and inspirations . Thirdly, venial sin makes the practice of the virtues increasingly difficult." Finally, and this effect follows from the preceding, "venial sin gradually disposes for mortal sin." (pp. 268-69) From such effects it is quite clear that venial sin builds up in the soul a strong barrier to the perfect love of God and to Christian perfection. The Liturgy Sign and causality: these are two key words in sacramental theology. For a sacrament is a sensible sign which causes grace. When St. Thomas treated the sacraments, he carefully balanced these two elements of sign and causality. Before his time, how-ever, emphasis had been placed on the idea of sign; and after him, especially since the sixteenth century, the stress has been mostly on causality, the idea of sign being relegated to a definitely inferior place. To show that this imbalance, the overemphasis on causality, has impoverished the role of the sacraments~ in the spiritual life is the purpose of a very solid and interesting article by Father Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., the editor of Worship.e 5"Venial Sin and Christian Per~%ction," Cross and Cro¢wn, IX (1957), 262-70. e"Two Approaches to Understanding the Sacraments," I¢~orshi~, XXXI (1957), 504-20. 151 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious A sacrament is a sign; thus, it is something which leads to the knowledge of something else; it instructs. "In the case of the sacraments it is Christ who instructs, insofar as He chose the sign; and it is the Church too that instructs, inasmuch as she expanded and further explained the essential sign, by surround-ing it with additional rites ~ind prayers" (p. 507). In the sacraments, then, Christ and the Church are our instructors, our teachers. The sacraments are also causes; but they cause what they signify. It is only a proper reading of the sign, therefore, which will instruct us as to what is being caused. This is im-portant. It was, for example, the neglect of the sign of the Eucharist--food, necessary for nourishment, growth, strength --that led to the neglect of frequent Communion for such a long time. In the spiritual life what have been the consequences of overstr.essing during the last few centuries the element of causality and of neglecting that of sign? Here briefly are some of Father Diekmann's interesting observations in answering that question. First, an overemphasis on the causality of the sacraments in the production of grace has resulted in an overshadowing and obscuring of the important role of faith in the process of salva-tion and sanctification. In fact, the Protestant rebellion was in part an attempt to restore faith to its proper and significant place. Another result has been "a more or less mechanistic view of the sacraments" (p. 510), that is, a sacrament is a "holy thing which contains and confers grace" (ibid.). Thus is lost the notion of the sacraments as bein_g the saving actions of Christ, a continuation of the priestly activity of Christ. "F~x opere ol~erato means really, ex opere operantis Christi . " (ibid.). A third result of overstressing causality was the narrowing down of the sign to what was necessary for validity and a neglect, therefore, of what Christ and the Church through a full sign '152 May~ 1958 CURRENT SPHtITUAL WRITING have been trying to teach about the effects of the sacrament. Another consequence has been an overemphasis on the Triden-tine phrase non loonentibus obicem, not placing a hindrance; thus, a negative, passive approach in the reception of the sacra-ments has been inculcated, not that positive disposition of faith and devotion which St. Thomas taught and fostered. These unfortunate but logical consequences of this over-stressing of the element of causality are being corrected in ~0od part today by modern liturgical-theological writing, which is re-establishing the proper balance between sign and causality. The article continues with some most interesting points about the relation of the sacra'ments and sacramentals, the social nature of the sacraments, the sacraments as acts of worship-- this last point rarely being given its proper importance and at-tention.' This is truly an excellent article and well worth careful reading and study. Priests will find both interest and inspiration in "The Pas-toral Value of the Word of God," an exceptionally fine paper read at the Assisi Liturgical Congress by Father Augustine Bea, S.J., consultor of the Sacred Congregation of Rites and t~ormer rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.7 The ques-tion which Father Bea answers is: What is the pastoral function, importance, and efficacy of the word of God (i.e. of Sacred Scripture) in the sacred liturgy? His answer is most important for one who is both "minister of the word" and '"minister of the Sacrament," the priest. At the Last Supper our Lord "created the type of the principal liturgical function of His Church: close union of the word with sacrificial action" (p. 243). For on that evening His sacrifice was surrounded with His words of teaching, en-couragement, and exhortation. It is therefore quke understand- 7 Tile Clergy Mont/i/y, XXI (1957), 241-54. This and all the other papers read at the congress appear in The /lssisi Patters (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1957). 153 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious able that the three elements: Sacred Scripture (Epistle and Gospel), explanation (homily), and Eucharistic Sacrifice, should be "a characteristic mark of Catholic worship" (p. 242). Sacred Scripture has of its very self, since it is the word of God, a marvelous pastoral efficacy. But when thisword of God (together with its explanation in the homily) is united to the Eucharistic Sacrifice, this pastoral value is increased and intensified. This is why "the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit . . . , has united the reading and explanation of the word of God with the offering of the eucharistic Sacrifice in one great liturgical unity and has desired that the same priest be 'minister of the word' and 'minister of the Sacrament' " (p. 250). Most of us are not too familiar with devotional practices among Christians of the Eastern rite churches. Consequently, an informative and interesting article on Russian icons is most welcome,s According to the dictionary' icon means image, portrait, statue; and, as related to the Eastern Church, it means a sacred painting or mosaic. Such a definition,, however, might be a bit misleading, for not every sacred painting is an icon nor is a true icon painter concerned with making mosaics. Icons originated in Egypt long before the time of Christ. "In its original form it was a representation, made in the encaustic method, of a deceased person and placed by relatives on the mummy case of that person" (p. 322). These pictures or paintings were not perfect and exact portraits, but distinguish-ing characteristics of the person were. sufficiently retained so that the subject was recognizable. What was of major import-ance, however, was that the picture look "alive." To attain this vital quality special attention and emphasis was given to the eyes. S Mary Corkran, "Russian Icons," Cross and Crown, IX (1957), 321-29. 154 May, 1958 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING This type of painting was later copied and adopted by the Christians. They retained the characteristic design and coloring, and even something of the purpose of the icon, to commemorate the dead. But in the Christian tradition, obviously, the subject changed and became the Savior, our Blessed Lady, the saints, and many characters from the Old Testament. Also, in the more elaborate icons, there were whole scenes taken from the Old or New Testament. These icons were not considered merely as decorative re-ligious paintings. To the Oriental Christians icons were sacred objects, blessed by the Church, and "honored as Special symbols of the person they represented" (p. 323). They had a very real place in both public and private devotion. "In the churches were splendid images of our Lord, Our Lady and the saints, each of them having its own special place. Many of the smaller ones were taken down and displayed for public devotion, or carried in procession, on the appropriate feast days. The larger and prinicpal icons were fixed and, before the beginning of a service, the worshiper made what amounted to a holy pilgrimage among Christ and the saints, bowing low before each one and perhaps lighting a candle or two" for private devotions (pp. 324- 25). Each home had its iittle oratory where there were enshrined icons of the Savior, our Lady, and favorite saints. This was the center for the family life of prayer. Among the countless icons in honor of our Blessed Mother, some of the most venerated are those portraying our Lady of Tenderness. These picture the Blessed Mother, her eyes ex-pressing interior grief, looking down upon her Child, while He, looking up to her, puts his hand to her face in a loving desire to comfort her in her sorrow. Our Lady of Tenderness must certainly be looking down with eyes of interior grief upon her Russian children today. Let us hope and pray that they will look back to her. Prayer St. Teresa of Jesus said in her Life that mental prayer is nothing but a friendly conversation with God who knows and 155 THOMAS G. 0'CALLAGHA.N loves us. For her, mental prayer was not a mere duty, an impersonal ascetic practice, but a real personal relationship with God. In "The Realm of Prayer" Romano Guardini tries to insist upon the same point.~ After stating that the "first step into prayer is self-recollection" and that the second is "visual-izing (before the inner eye) the'reality of God," he states that the third is "seeking His holy face. In this the worshiper tries to establish, or rather to give expression and effect to, the 'I-thou' relationship with God which is man's birthright." (p. 12) God, to whom we speak and pour out our heart in prayer, knows and loves each of us intimately and personally. To Him we are individual persons, not merely blurred parts of a countless throng. He has called each of us to an intimate personal relationship of love with Him. "Into this mystery of love. one enters through prayer." This is what it means to seek "the face of God" or, as one may put it, the "heart of God." Prayer must be a person-to-person relationship, a per-sonal affair. Not merely to seek, but especially to find the "face and heart" of a personal God in prayer, is undoubtedly difficult. There are distractions which come upon the soul from both without and within. This shows the need for "the right attitude, both outwardly and inwardly: collectedness at the beginning and discipline during prayer" (pp. 10-11). But these of themselves will never suffice. The key to the answer is in faith. "In this concealment, darkness, and void, my faith must seek out His countenance and His heart so that I may direct my prayer to Him. I must establish the inner point of contact and hold on to it, when--as constantly happens--it tries to elude me." (p. 12) Faith must seek out His holy face and heart. Without that there can be no personal conversation with Him who loves US. ~Jubilee, December, 1957. 156 Do We Know Our Own Mot:her? Sister M. Annice, C.S.C. RECENTLY IT occurred to me that I have had devotion to our Blessed Mother as long as I can remember. Fortu-nately for me as for millions of other Catholics, my good parents introduced me to the Mother of God as soon as I could grasp anything through pictures, statues, and the words of prayers relating to Mary. This process involved both ex-perience and some formal learning. It was not a matter of one exclusive of the other. No doubt, it would generally be granted by most o~ us that our imaginations and affections, our emotions and thoughts were all at work as we gradually grew in the knowledge and love of the Mother of Christ. Every new insight into the mysteries of the rosary brought its emotional repercussion of joy, sorrow, love, confidence, etc. That is completely normal to the psychological structure of humaa nature. Added to this, we also. received that special endowment from God, supeknatural grace, moving us to know and love His Mother more intimately and to seek her he(p and friendship. And yet, asI listened to Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., recently, I began to wonder if some of us actually do know Christ's Mother as realistically and intelligently as we might. Are we not too satisfied to constantly petition Mary for every-thing that we want and to say a good many perfunctory prayers? In complete, adulthood, with a wondrous capacity for superna-tural love and a developed mind able to seek more complete knowledge of her mysterious privileges, do we not still _act toward Mary as we did at the age of adolescence? When I heard Father Peyton speak of Mary as "omnipotent" in her inter-cessory power with her divine Son, I knew that I had never before experienced this same surprise and joy. And in that same week as I .was leafing through a little booklet entitled, 157 SISTER M. ANNICE Review for Religious Liturgical Novenas to Mary,I I was again profoundly im-pressed when I read, "The Lord gave thee His own power, for through thee He completely overcame our enemies." Thus it "dawned" on me that I had not given enough attention'or thought to the Blessed Mother's prerogative of participation in divine power. Now, should anyone wish to know more about this great privilege purely for the sake o~c possessing great knowledge? Assuredly not! Its fruits should be growth in the love of, and confidence in, the Mother of God. These virtues will not develop without some "culturing," some ground in which to take root and grow. Granting, of course, that only God can give us the grace of these supernatural virtues, we are still re-quired to cooperate with God in this action. And this requires effort on the part of our faculties to dispose us better for the receiving of God's grace. Now in this case it would seem that to consciously cooperate with God, we ought to make use of our ability to learn greater, and deeper, truths about God's Mother. It is, then, in this spirit that we propose to consider some-thing of that power of Mary which is said to be next to omni-potent. But to understand Mary's power, even in a partial way, is to understand better the stupendous gifts of grace be-stowed on her by God, in view of her divine maternity. The expression used by the angel Gabriel at the annuncia-tion must be truly the best signification of Mary's unique privilege. It would seem that the title "full of grace" could not then be improved upon by-man. But what we do with the interpretation of the angel's salutation is bound to fall short of the reality signified, which was Mary's real state of soul. Full-ness of grace is generally to be understood as a superabundance of holiness. Mary's sanctity was unquestionably inferior to the 1Published by the Benedictine Convent of Perpetual Adoration, Clyde, Missouri. 158 May, 1958 Do WE KNOW OUR MOTHIi~? created sanctity of her divine Son in proportion as the divine motherhood falls short of the prerogative of the' hypostatic union. This beautiful prayer, composed by the archangel, is at the same time a perfect description of the woman chosen by the Second Person of. the Trinity to be His own Mother. Here was the one human being preserved from the stain of sin, the frightful darkness of spiritual death, and in no way subject .to the influence of Satan. Mary. must certainly have received from God a greater fullness of grace than any other mere creature; for Christ, her divine Son, the Son of God, is the principle of grace, that is, the very author of grace. Now the more closely one approaches the source or principle of anything, the more he participates in the effect of that principle. And the Blessed Mother was the nearest one to Christ in His humanity because He assumed His human nature from her alone. For this reason it is held by Catholic theologians that the sanctity of Mary transcends the sanctity of all the saints in heaven and sur-passes even that of the highest angels. Upon this p~rfect creature Christ depended for His physical life His flesh and blood. From her He drew His beauty of figure and features, His sensitive hands, His majestic head, and His eternally lighted, gentle, but piercing eyes. She was at the same time the mother of this babe with a human nature and this divine Person, Christ the Son of God. The great holiness and power of Mary which we reverently hope to understand better are inseparable from her Immaculate Conception. This privilege of our Lady was Solemnly defined by the Church as an article of faith. His Holiness, Pope Pius IX, on December 8, 1854, solemnly pronounced the dogma: We declare, pronounce, aad Vdefine that the doctrine that holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instant of her conception was kept entirely free from the stain of original sin by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the foreseen merits of Christ Jesus, the Savior of mankind--We declare, pronounce and 159 SISTER M. ANNICE P~eview for Religious define that this doctrine has been revealed by God and. therefore must be firmly and constantly believed by all the t:aithful.-° The p.rivilege itself, which Pope Pius IX declared to, be a part of revelation, is Mary's actual preservation from original sin through the merits of Jesus Christ and is revealed implicitly or confusedly in the book .of Genesis (3:15). God's own words spoken to Satan are, "I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." Christian scholars and exegetes have interpreted this passage as God's first enun-ciation of His victory over the devil through the plan of the promised Messiah. In an implicit way Mary is undeniably mentioned here. For Christ, the Savior is the posterity of "the woman" in conflict with the posterity of the serpent. Further-more, this victory over Satan would not have been complete if Mary had not been preserved from the stain of original sin by the merits of her divine Son. We' may say that, as a whole plant is contained in a tiny seed, the Immaculate Con-ception of the Messiah's Mother is contained in the promise of God recorded in Genesis. From the writings of both Greek and Latin Fathers there is evidence that they held as part of their ancient tradition the two principal ideas which implicitly contain the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; namely, Mary's absolute purity and the contrast between her and Eve, the~,first mother of mankind. Yet the Eastern Church seems from the first to have. had a clearer conception of the dogma itself. However, the controversial period in the West which led to a gradual clarification of the dogma must be recognized as a providential act--a kind of blessing in disguise. So much sincere, honest debating, discussing, and resolving of difficulties by the best minds in the Church was a splendid theological education and orientation of the minds 'of the faithful. Indeed, the whole '-'Thomas J. M. Burke, S.J. (ed.), Mary and the Po$es (New York: The America Press, 1954), pp. 43, 44. 160 May, 1958 DO WE KNOW OUR MOTHER? movement may well have been the main factor which helped to bring about the solemn definition of the dogma by Pope Plus IX in 1854. The second phase of Mary's plentitude of grace refers to her increase of grace at the Incarnation of the Word. The Fathers of the'Church hold that Mary conceived the Word spiritually, as it were, by an act of faith and charity before she conceived Him physically. Thus, she conceived Christ intellectually and volitionally by the act of her holy will before He descended into her blessed womb. And St. Thomas has told us that Mary's fullness of grace increased at the Incarna-tion of her divine Son, giving as the cause of this the mutual love of Jesus and Mary. This new increase of grace is con-sidered the immediate or proximate preparation disposing Mary for the miracle of divine motherhood. Since the grace had to be proportionate to this perfection, it seems that a special grace from the Word efficiently caused Mary to be properly united with Divinity itself. She. is thus the unique creature, who, by giving to Christ His human body, is really included in the divine plan of bringing the Son .of God into the world. The moment that Christ entered into Mary He undoubt-edly produced in her an increase of divine love such as had never been experienced by any soul on eaith. For no other being was ever to have the privilege of giving Him His very flesh and blood. Rather, He was ever afterward to give it for them and to them, on the cross, in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and in Holy Communion. Since grace is the effect of God's active love for His creatures, the mutual love of Mary and her Son must also have brought about a constant increase of grace in her soul. For God loves all men, yet loves the elect in a special way. Surely then, His unique love of His own Mother would effect an immeasurable superabundance of grace in her. It is extremely important to understand that God gave Himself so freely to Mary's soul as to constitute it in a strictly unique state of holiness. Hers was/~ love of the highest natural 161 SISTER M. ANNICE Review for Religious as well as supernatural level, and she was entirely responsive to her Son's love for her. All souls seem to have a kind of unlimited obediential potency or capacity for knowledge and love which God freely makes use of to lead them to the beatific vision. Yet they are born shackled and earth-bound by Adam's sin. Light and love must be admitted into their souls through the instrument of sacramental baptism. But in Mary we find, as we have said above, a person entirely preserved from the blight of sin in her very being, life, and powers. From the very origin of her life her judgment was clear and her appetites pure and virtuous. Thus they were like clean arrows coming forth from an absolutely pure source. The Psalmist expresses something of the mightiness of such a person in the words, "Who is this that cometh up from the desert, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army in battle array?" (Cant. of Cant. 6:9). It is surely with justifiable reasons that theologians teach that grace increased constantly in Mary's soul throughout her life. While we know that Mary's graces had limits set to them, since they were in a human soul and thus not absolute, we do not know, nor does it seem possible for us to fully understand, to what degree of holiness she attained as she progressed to-ward the end of her earthly life. The growth of charity in any soul causes the will to avoid sin and cling more lovingly and generously" to God. True charity also extends to all men after first extending to God, thus uniting all souls in Godhthe greatest joy that can come to us on earth and a kind of imita-tion of our beatified life. The Church teaches us that merit, prayer, and reception of the sacraments are the requisite means for growth in charity. Of course, God alone can produce this divine virtue in man's soul; and His love is ultimately the reason for any infusion of grace into a soul. But good acts may contribute to one's increase in grace by disposing the soul for it and, in a way, morally meriting that reward. Moreover, St. Thomas teaches that where acts of charity are not remiss 162 May, 1958 Do WE KNOW OUR MOTHER? (short of that which the soul is capable of) the soul receives the reward immediately and thus grows in grace progressively. Surely, all of Mary's acts of charity were such as to receive immediate reward and her consequent progress is again im-measurable. Mary's prayers, next after her divine Son's, must also have been the most efficacious ever uttered on earth. They thus not only had the most meritorious but also the most im-petratory value. For these are proportionate to the humility, confidence, and perseverence of the one praying and surely Mary excelled in all of these virtues. After considering Mary's initial fullness of grace and her continuous development in God's love and grace, we come finally to the unique grace of her Assumption into heaven. The Church has explicitly defined this privilege of Mary as an article of faith. Toward the end o~ the Holy Year, 1950, our present Holy Father solemnly pronounced the dogma that "The Mother of God was assumed body and soul into heaven." Since this dogma is so closely related to that of the Immaculate Conception, which we have been considering, it will be sufficient to recall that from the sixth century forward the departure of the Blessed Mother from this world has been celebrated in the liturgy of the Church for August 15. And it can be accepted without question that the death of the Blessed Virgin cannot be regarded as a penalty for personal sin, nor as the effect of original sin. Thus again, it is through theological argument, proceeding on premises that are a part of divine revelation, that the Church arrives at valid conclusions about the Assumption of Mary. The state of incorruptibility of the Blessed Mother's sacred body is the first fact which is inferred. Since the Mother of God is associated in such a singular manner in the triumph of her Son over Sat.an, she shares in the privilege of being preserved from the penalty of death and decay in the grave. It is accepted that the Blessed Mother who is "the woman" spoken of in the Protoevangelium won a threefold victory over Satan; namely, over sin by her Immaculate Conception, over 163 SISTER M. ANNICE Review for Religious concupiscence by heq virginal motherhood, and over death which is a penalty for~ s~n" by a triumphant resurrection similar to that of her divine Son. Thus, we may say' that the Blessed Mother, side by side with her divine Son, triumphs over death and corruption. The dogma of our Lady's Assumption is so closely associ-ated with her Immaculate Conception that it is almost surprising that the papal proclamation on the former took place a whole century later than the Immaculate Conception. Yet they are two very distinct and separate privileges even though the in-corruptibility of Mary's body is to be inferred from her complete preservation from sin and her virginal purity. Perhaps no one has more beautifully and emphatically pointed out the close relationship between these unique privileges than His Holiness, Pope Pius XII. In his encyclical, Fulgens Corona, he asserts: From now on the faithful can meditate more deeply and more profitably on the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. For there is a most intimate connection between the two dogmas. The mar-velous wisdom and harmony of the divine plan by which God wished that Mary be free from all stain of original sin emerge more fully and clearly in the light of the assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven. Thd promulgation of this doctrine has shown it to be the crown and perfection of that earlier privilege bestowed upon her. These two illustrious privileges, then, stand out in radiant glory, the one as the commencement, the other as the crown of her earthly life. The total innocence of her soul free from every vestige of sin has as its counterpart and fulfillment the total glorification of her virginal body. Since she was intimately associated with her Son in His struggle against the foul serpent of hell, so also she shares in His glorious victory over sin and its tragic effects? Having considered briefly the unique graces of our Blessed Mother, we ought surely to grasp somewhat better the reasons for her great power in obtaining graces for all men. We .must also realize more profoundly that by her divine motherhood Mary participated in the love, holiness, and power of God, in a way possible to no other of His creatures. As a concluding consideration we might ask ourselves, Precisely how does Mary 30p. cit., p. 14. 164 May, 1958 Do WE KNOW OuR MOTHER? enter into the very act of' our salvation? For we know in a general way that she is coredemptrix of the whole human race and that her mediation like her motherhood is truly universal. The general teaching of the Church regarding Mary's causality in our sanctification is that of moral causality. virtue of this causality Mary is present by an affective presence in the souls of those who are in the state of grace and pray to her. This kind of presence may be attributed, to a degree, to any beloved object which, though absent from the one loving it, is virtually present to the lover. So, our Blessed Mother is affectively present in the souls of her children who truly love her. And this affective union tends toward and contributes to the real union which we shall enjoy in heaven with Christ and His Mother. As we r~each higher degrees grace and charity and our wills advance in the transforming love of God, we must surely grow in the love of both Jesus and Mary. But it is through her union with her divine Son in His sacred passion and death that Mary is the coredemptrix of men. The teach, ing of the Church is that Mary merited de congruo all that Jesus has merited de c~ndigno for us. Thus, her merits are completely in union with and dependent on those her divine Son. This has been confirmed by the pronouncements of a number of the supreme pontiffs in their encyclical writings. Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical on the rosary, says: This is why we pour forth the Angelic Salutation so often to Mary, that our weak and halting prayer be given the confident strength that it needs; we plead with her that she intercede with God for us and that she become our advocate. The prayers we say will find great favor and efficacy with Him if they are commended by the prayers of the Virgin; for He addresses to her this gracious invitation: "Let your voice sound in my ears, for your voice is sweet" (Cant. of Cant. 2:14).4 Pope Pius X in/ld Diem Ilium asserts: So by reason of her mutual sharing in the afflictions and desires of Christ, Mary "most properly deserved to become the reparatrix 40p. cit., p. 100. 165 SISTER M. ANNICE of the sinful world," as well as dispenser of all the benefits won for us by the bloody death of Jesus. Of course, we do not deny that the right to confer these benefits belongs to Christ . Yet, in consideration, as we have said, of the sorrows and sufferings common to both Mother and Son, the Venerable Virgin has been empowered to be "for the entire world its most afficacious mediatrix and advocate with her only Son.''s And Pope Benedict XV, writing on the Queen of Peace, states: And since all graces which God deigns to bestow in pity upon men are dispensed through Mary, we urge that in this terrible hour the trusting petitions of her most afflicted children be directed to her: This seems to be the fact underlying the establishment of the feast of Mary Mediatrix of All Graces. In the beautiful hymn of Matins for this feast the Church sings: "All the gifts which the Savior merited for us are bestowed by His Mother Mary. The Son gladly loads us with benefits in answer to her" prayers." Likewise, our present Holy Father has extolled Mary's part in our sanctification and the salvation of the whole world by instituting the new feast of Mary Queen of the Universe. A study of the encyclicals on our Lady would, of course, require another paper or rather a whole volume. But even a brief study of the Mother of all graces--Mary, full of grace~ is sufficient to convince us of the power corelative to such grace. Summer Sessions (Continued from page 134) inquiries to: The Registrar, S~hool of Theology, St~ Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana. Dr. Karl Stern, noted Catholic psychiatrist and author of The Pillar o.f Fire and The Third Revolution, will conduct an Institute on Mental Health in Religious Life from June 9 to 13 at St. Louis University. The institute will be limited to religious women. ~ Oil. cit.,'p. 56. 6 William J. Doheny, C.S.C., and Joseph P. Kelly, Papal Documents on Mary (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1954), p. 151. 166 Survey ot: Roman Document:s R. I:. Smit:h, $.J. THE DOCUMENTS which appeared in the /lcta/lposto-licae Sedis (AAS) from December 1, 1957, to January 31, 1958, will be surveyed in the following pages. All page references to AAS throughout the article will be accom-panied by the year of publication of AAS. The 1957 Christmas Message On December 22, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 5-24), the Roman Pontiff gave to the world his annual Christmas message. Taking as his text the words of the Breviary, "Lift up your eyes, O Jerusalem," the Holy Father exhorts the faithful to lift up their eyes to the great things of God as did the shep-herds and the Magi at the sound of angels and the mysterious shining of a star. Though this vision of God's great deeds, continues the Vicar of Christ, brings strength, peace, and har-mony, yet many today, attracted by that science which ex-tends the power of man even into the realm of the stars, can bring themselves to admire only the great things of man, changing the angelic hymn to read, "Glory to man on earth." This attitude, he adds, is typical of homo faber, man the maker who reveals his greatness in his works; modern man, however, r0ust learn that by adoration before the crib of the Man-God he will not retard the course of his technical prog-ress but will add to it the crowning perfection which will make of him, homo sapiens, the mar/ of wisdom who easily under-stands that what God manifests in the mystery of Christmas is incomparably greater than all human power, energy, and effectiveness. Devoting the first major part of the message to Christ the comforter amid the discords of the world, His Holiness 167 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious begins by remarking that modern man is torn between ecstatic admiration of the harmony of nature and bitter discouragement at the chaotic existence for which he himself is responsible. This, he adds, has led some moderns to fall into a total pessi-mism, holding that disharmony is the characteristic mark of the human situation. The 'source of. this pessimism is to be found in the preponderantly material progress of modern times which has deprived man of a sense of true human values. Born and trained in a climate of rigorous technology, .man tends to conform himself to the characteristic superficiality and insta-bility of technology, emphasizing speed, sense observation, and material energy at the expense of the intellectual and the spir-itual life. The answer to this total pessimism, Plus XII points out, is to be found in the mystery of Christmas. How can man despair of the world, if God Himself does not despair of it? How can the glory of the Creator of all things shine forth in a world based only on contradiction and discord? If men would but learn the lesson of Bethlehem that every human action should look to eternity for its direction and effectiveness, then the activity of man on earth would not be condemned to absolute discord but, on the contrary, would manifest the eter-nal harmony of God. In the second principal part of the message, the Pope considers Christ as the pledge of the harmony of the world. He' begins by noting that the coming of the Incarnate Word, while confirming man's right to dominion over the world, shows at the same time that this dominion can be achieved only by the Spirit of God. On the le~)el of man this means that man must find in his soul, image of the Spirit of God, the link which unites all the world into one harmony. It is in his spiritual element that man will find the sign of unity, order, and harmony. Where the spiritual abounds, so also does the harmonious. If, however, the spiritual element (and conse-quently the divine element) is no longer regarded as funda- 168 May~ 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS mental, then there is no longer a possibility of harmony; the world becomes something estranged from man, obscure and dangerous, ready to be not an instrument, but an enemy. It is true, continue~ Pius XII, that Christ has not removed all the consequences of original sin t:rom the world. Dishar-mony and consequently sadness will still exist among men'until the dawn of the eternal day, but this sadness will not be a sadness of death, but the sadness of an expectant mother whose sorrow is turned to joy after the birth of her child. For the goal assigned to history after the time of Christ is the birth of a new life, of a humanity in constant progression toward order and harmony. In the final major division of his message, the Pontiff considers Christ as the Light and the Way for men in establish-ing harmony in the world. The Christian, the Pope begins, is not merely an aesthetic admirer of the divine order in the world; he is also an ardent defender of it against those forces which would prevent its realization. This zeal for the preservation of harmony should be the decisive element whenever there is question of the development or abandonment of projects which human ingenuity now has the possibility of realizing. Recent military progress, adds the Pope, has certainly produced new signs in the heavens, but they are also signs of that pride w~hich feeds hatred and prepares conflict. Accordingly the seekers of harmony must center their efforts on the achievement of peace, a good so precious and desirable that every effort for its defense is well spent, even when it involves the sacrifice of some legiti-mate aspiration. May the Prince of Peace, concludes the Pon-tiff, through the solidarity of all men of good will, complete that which is lacking in the order and harmony willed by God for the world. For Priests and Religious On November 6, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1046-47), the Sacred Penitentiary published the text of a prayer for priestly 169 R. F. SMITH" Review for Religious vocations composed by His Holiness. The faithful may gain" an indulgence of ten years each time they recite the prayer; and, under the usual conditions, they may gain a plenary in-dulgence if the prayer is recited daily for a month. Under the date of December 15, 1957 iAAS, 1958, pp. 51-54), the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued an instruction in which it is stated that a priest who is sick or one who is going blind so that he can read only very large print can obtain from the congregation a dispensation to celebrate a votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin or the daily requiem Mass. The rest ,of the instruction details the rules and rubrics which must be fol-lowed in celebrating those Masses. On December 9, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 34-43), the Holy Father delivered an allocution to the Second International Congress of the States of Religious Perfection. The tendency toperfection, begins the Pontiff:, is a habitual disposition of the Christian by which, not content with fulfilling the duties which bind under sin, he strives with all his might to love and serve God and to serve his neighbor for the sake of God. Toward this ideal every Christian is invited to tend; but it is realized in a complete and a surer way in the three states of perfection described in canon law and the three apostolic constitutions, Provida Mater, Sponsa Christi, and Sedes Sapientiae. However, the Pope adds, this does not mean that outside such states there does not exist a true tendency toward per-fection. There are a great many men and women of every. condition who bind themselves to the evangelical counsels by private vows, being guided in matters of poverty and obedience by persons selected by the Church for this purpose. To such persons none of the constitutive elements of Christian perfection is lacking, even though they do not belong to a juridical or canonical state of perfection. Although, the Holy Father continues, Christian perfection is always the same in its essentials, still, because of the condi- 170 May, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS tions of modern times, the manner .of applying oneself to per-fection needs modification. This need for modification applies in a special sense to those outside the states of perfection who occupy high social rank and discharge important duties. Such persons are constrained to surround themselves with a certain display of comfort, to participate in official festivities, and to utilize expensive means of transportation. These are things that appear at first sight difficult to reconcile with the poverty and humility of Christ; nevertheless, even in the midst of such material goods, nothing is lacking in their total consecration to God, for grace works in them according to the words of Christ: "That which is impossible to men is possible to God" (Lk. 18:27). The Holy Father then considers some of the problems that arise from the need for modification and ildaptation in the states of perfection. After noting that the desire for religious perfection does not preclude the consideration of the renovation and adaptation of the means toward perfection and after observ-ing that the objective norm for determining the spirit of any religious group is the mind of the founder as that is expressed in the constitutions of that group, the Vicar of Christ takes up the matter of obedience; for, as he says, the movement of adaptation has provoked a certain tension in this area of re-ligious life. In particular, the accusation is made that obedience imperils the human dignity of the religious, hinders the maturing of his personality, and prevents him from being orientated to God alone. In considering the first objection, the Holy Father notes that the religious should recall, that when our Lord said that His disciples would find repose of soul in following Him, He was teaching that over and beyond legal observance they would discover the sense of true submission and Christian humility. These attitudes will free the religious intekiorly, showing him that his acceptance of his state of subjection is a placing of 171 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious himself in the hands of-God whose, will is expressed through the visible authority of those whose role it is to command. In reply to the charge that religious obedience leads to infantilism, the Holy Father observes that this charge cannot be proved true in the case of the.majority of religious in their intellectual, affective, and active lives. Moreover, it must be recalled that St. Paul in Ephesians 4:12-13 urges the faithful to grow into the perfect man; and in I Corinthians 13:11 he explicitly forbids Christian adults the modes of thinking and feeling which characterize childhood. The Holy Father recalls that already in 1952 he had used these texts to show that a sane education teaches a man to use his liberty wisely and to become independent of his educator. If every member of the states of perfection, superior as well as subject, would apply to himself these texts of the Apostle, then every danger of infantilism would vanish, without jeopardizing legitimate au-thority or submission to its decision. Nor, continues the Vicar of Christ, can the objection be sustained that obedience turns a person from God. Superiors command only in the name of God, and subjects obey only for the love of Christ. In this way the subject daily ratifies the total gift of himself to his only Master. In the final part of the allocution, the Pontiff urges the various religious groups to collaborate with each other; he like-wise exhorts them to close and constant contact with the Holy See. This does not mean that the Holy See wishes a centraliza-tion of everything; centralization is a system of government which makes all decisions and reduces subordinates to the role of mere instruments. Such centralization, says the Pontiff, is entirely foreign to the spirit of the Apostolic See. Neverthe-less, the Holy See can not renounce its character as the directive center of the Church. Accordingly, while leaving to constituted superiors the initiative foreseen by the constitutions, the Church must retain its right and exercise its function of vigilance. 172 May, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS Clothes and the Woman On November 8, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1011-23), the Holy Father spoke to a group of fashion stylists, giving one of the longest allocutions that he has delivered in recent months. Taking as his subject feminine clothing fashions and their attendant moral problems,~ His Holiness begins by examining the threefold purpose of clothing. The first purpose, he points out, is that of hygiene, a purpose which arises chiefly from the need for protection against the climate and other external agents. Hygiene, he notes, can never justify license in clothing nor can it permit a style of clothing that is injurious to health. Modesty, the natural pro-tection of chastity, is the second purpose of clothing. This purpose must outweigh all caprice and must always preside at the determination of clothing styles. The third purpose of clothing is that of fitting appearance. This purpose arises from the natural and legitimate desire to enhance the beauty and dignity of a person by clothing. From this third purpose of clothing arises fashion or style, the express function of which is the enhancement ot: physical beauty and which is characterized by elegance. Fashion, Plus XII continues, is of great social importance for style has always been regarded as an external index of public manners. It is, then, says the Pope, providential that there should be persons like those he is addressing who are technically and religiously prepared to free style from undesirable tendencies and who see in fashion the art whose partial purpose is to give a moderate enhancement of the beauty of the human body but in a way which will not hide but rather adorn "the imperish-ableness of a quiet and gentle spirit" (I Pet. 3:4)'. His Holiness continues by saying that style, like other good things, can be corrupted by fallen human nature and turned into an occasion of sin and scandal. This is the reason why at times ecclesiastical tradition has been extremely severe 173 R. F. SMITH Revicw ]or Religious with regard to matters of fashion. Nevertheless, Christianity does not demand an absolute renouncement of care for the external appearance of the body; for this would be to forget the words of St. Paul: "I wish women to be decently dressed, adorning themselves with modesty and dignity" (I" Tim. 2:9). Accordingly, the Church does not condemn ~tyle when it seeks a fitting enhancement of the body; this attitude of the Church, however, does not stem from a purely aesthetic view-point, but rather from her conviction that the human body, God's masterpiece of the visible world, has been elevated by the Redeemer to be a temple and an instrument of the Holy Spirit. It is evident, adds the Pontiff, that alongside decent style there also exists indecent style; the frontiers between these two are sometimes difficult to determine; but one principle always remains true: style may never be a proximate occasion of sin. Another source of immorality in style is an excess of luxury, for this leads to a grasping for wealth, is an offense to those who live by their own labor, and reveals a cynical attitude toward poverty. In their thinking on the problems of style and fashion, suggests the Holy Father, his listeners should keep in mind three concrete rules. First, they should never underestimate the influence of style for good and for evil; secondly, style must be consciously directed, not slavishly followed; and, thirdly, in all sectors of fashion moderation should be observed. The Pontiff then concludes his allocution by urging, hig hearers to bring their Christianity to bear at meetings of the fashion w6rld and in their work to fight for the supremacy of spirit over matter. Talks on Various Subjects On November 24, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1037-40), the Pope broadcast a message to the people of Milan at the con-clusion of a special mission of several weeks duration preached in all the parish churches of that city. Calling Milan the heart 174 May, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS of the national economy, the Pontiff noted that the elevation of the earthly city to the level of the city of God is the goal of the Church. He urged the Milanese to apply themselves to the same goal and concluded by expressing the hope that the close of the mission would mark the date of the city's spiritual renaissance. On November 10, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1024-27), Pius XII gave an allocution, to the International Congress of the Private Schools of Europe. He told the group that the attitude of a country toward private schools is an accurate reflection of its spiritual and cultural level. If the State reserves the task of education exclusively to itself, it thereby manifests an attitude incompatible with the fundamental rights of the human person. On November 24, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1027-33), the Pontiff talked to a group of physicians concerning several moral problems of so-called reanimation. Reanimation, as envisaged here, means" the use of respiratory apparatus to bring back to consciousness a patient who has suffered a central paralysis which consequently has paralyzed the respiratory system. The first question asked about the case is whether or not there is a right and an obligation to utilize respiratory apparatus in all such cases, even in those which in the judgment of the physician are completely hopeless. In answer the Pontiff replies that a person has the right and" duty to take the means necessary to preserve life and health. This duty, however, usually obliges a person only to the use of oidinary means; that is, means which do not impose an extraordinary burden on himself or on others. On the other hand, it is not forbidden to do more than is strictly necessary for the conservation of life and health. In the case described, then, the physician's rights and obli-gations are correlative to the rights and obligations of the patient, who, though he may licitly use the respiratory apparatus, is not obliged to do so, since it is an extraordinary means of con-serving life and health. With regard to the family of the 175 R. F, SMITH Review for Religious patient, their rights and obligations depend in general on the presumed wishes of the unconscious patient, provided he is of age. As to the proper and independent rights of the family, they are ordinarily obliged to use only ordinary means. Hence, if the use of artificial respiration would be too costly for them, they may licitly insist that it be stopped and the doctor can licitly obey them. As the Holy Father points out, this is not mercy killing, since the removal of artificial respiration in this case causes death only indirectly. The second problem concerned the question of extreme unction in such a case. The Holy Father replied that artificial respiration should be prolonged until extreme unction is ad-. ministered. If, however, the circulation of blood has already stopped, then extreme unction cannot be administered if the patient is certainly dead; if, however, this is doubtful, then extreme unction may be administered conditionally. The third moral problem asked whether a person in a state of hnconsciousness because of a central paraly.sis and whose life--that is, his blood circulation--is maintained only by artifical respiration, and in whom no improvement is noted for several days, should be considered as.dead; or should one wait for the cessation of blood ciiculation in spi~e of artificial respiration be-fore he can be called dead. To this the Holy Father replied that the question of the moment of death is a purely medical one and hence does not pertain to the competency of the Church. On November 9, 1957 (AAS: 1957, pp. 1023-24), the Pontiff gave an allocution to the Ninth Convention of the Food and Agriculture Organization, noting with sadness the depopu-lation of agricultural areas since "1952 because 6f the decrease in the prices of agricultural products. This loss of population, he remarks, is disquieting; for it is a threat to a sector of population which, because of its stability and fidelity to tradition, is more than ever necessary for the equilibrium of society. 176 May, 1958 ROMAN ~)OCUMENTS On November 27, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1033-36), the Holy Father spoke to Theodore Heuss, president of the Federal Republic of Germany, in the presence of many German notables, expressing praise for the accomplishments of the German people since the war and voicing the hope that the new Germany will assist in the unification of Europe. The Pontiff's interest in the federation of Europe was also shown in the speech on. ~his subject which he gave on December 3, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 31-33), to members of the Council of the Municipalities of Europe. On November 5, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1003-10), the Pope spoke to the ecclesiastical archivists of Italy, telling them to care for their archives not merely for the sake of erudition, but for the glory of God and the honor of the Church; for in their archives there are many beautiful records which if revealed would give striking testimony to the holiness of the Church during the course of history. Miscellaneous Matters On November i, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1051-56), the Holy Father issued an apostolic constitution in which he pro-vided that all who make a pilgrimage to Lourdes between February 11, 1958, and February 11, 1959, inclusively may, on the day of their choice and after confession, Communion, and prayers for the intention of the Holy Father, gain a plenary indulgence. On December 25, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 29-30), the Pontiff issued an apostolic letter in which he created a new" rank within the Pian Order founded by pius IX in 1847. The new rank will be called ~he Grand Golden Collar; it will be superior to the three grades into which the order was already divided and will be used to decorate heads of states and other persons of wide authority. On December 13, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 50-51), the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued a decree concerning the 177 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious cdmposition of the paschal candle, of the two candles lit during Mass, and the candle which in some places burns before the Bl~ssed Sacrament in place of. a lamp. The decree "states that it is the mind of the congregation that all these ~andles contain a fitting proportion of wax, olive oil, or other vegetable oils. The congregation, however, leaves to the bishops' conference of each country the determination of the per'centage of these materials-that must be' in these candles if they are to be used for. liturgical purposes. Where there is no national conference of bishops, the ordinary of the place is to decide the matter. On October 24,. 1957 .(ASS, 1957, p. 1045), the same congregation approved the formula for. the blessing of a radio station; the text of. the blessing may be found in AAS,-1957, pp. 1043-45. ,. On June 21, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 46-49), the same congregation approved the introduction, of. th~ cause of the Servant of God Dorothy. de Chopitea Villota Serra (1816-91), wife and mother. On the same day (AAS, 1958, pp. 49-51), the same congregation also approved the reassumption of the cause of. Blessed' Marcellinus Joseph Benedict Champagnat (1789-i840)', priest, donfessor, and founder of the Institute of the Little Brothers of Mar~,. ' " Book I?eviews [Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.] THE SACRED HEART IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH. By Margaret Williams, R.S.C.J. Pp. 248. Sheed and Ward, New York 3. 1957. $3.75 . Mother Williams describes her book as "an anthology of the passages taken from the writings of the men and women best qualified to speak: lovers and thinkers and doers, apostolic scholars, saints all walks of llfe, persons heart-conformed to Christ who have.p.ut iato their own words 'the purposes oi: His Heart to generation upon generation' in the life of the Church." This is ajust estimate; and she has composed an impressive book which has impact: the 178 May, 1958 BOOK REVlgWS swing, and sweep of the devotion through the centuries to its prominent ¯ place in the Church today. Many of the selections make fascinating reading, and sprinkled through the narrative sections are many drops of knowledge valuable to any client of the Sacred Heart. In this treasure are many little-known selections from well-known' authors. Especially valuable to,this reviewer were Bossuet's sermon and Cardinal Newman's meditation, as well as A Kempis's sermo~ and the Meditation on the Five Wounds from the times of Richard Rolle. To know that the great Benedictine nuns at Helfta were accustomed to offer each past hour to the Sacred Heart; that St. Clare adored the Divine Heart in the Blessed Sacrament many times a day; that St. Catherine of Siena in vision watched Christ exchange His own Heart for hers--such details enrich us all. And to know that the Litany .of the Sacred Heart was collected by Venerable Madeleine Remuzat, a Visitandine nun living around the time of the deliverance of Marseilles from plague in 1720; that June was made the month of the Sacred Heart after a girl in Paris asked her bishop in 1833 to make this request; that-St. Plus X added the threefold invocation to the prayers after low mass--such knowledge adds to our apprecia-tion of our present-day practice of the devotion, thereby leaving us the richer for it. Theologically the book contains a few unfortunate expressions. Christ's Heart did not "experience the full range of human feeling, for Himself or for others" (p. 8), unless the latter phrase somehow enables contrition or penance or remorse to be included in His experi-ence. That "all dogmas can be traced to Scripture, in which they are at least implicitly contained . . . and devotions grow from dogmas" (p. 10)~ is a statement which needs explication, to say the least, and might lead the unwary into historical quicksands if "dogma" means a truth solemnly defined by the Church as pertaining to faith. That "religion is the highest of all virtues because of its object, which is God Himself" (p. 25) seems to confuse the virtue of religion with "religion" in general, taken as the sum-total of all our relationships with God, especially faith-hope-charlty; this may be a possible opinion, but should not be stated as if it were simply certain. But these are rather fine points and do not obscure the great value of the book. There is one matter, however, which, it seems to this reviewer, ought to be brought to the reader's attention lest the value of the book be somewhat dissipated. This is the necessity of clearly dis-tinguishing between '~divine Love" and "the Sacred Heart." The two are not simply tl~e same, as Plus XII repeatedly implies in 179 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious Haurietis ~lquas in passages like "the heart of the Incarnate Word is rightly considered the chief index and symbol of the threefold love . . ." (America Press translation, No. 27). This distinction is of utmost importance when we begin to trace the devotion in history. "Divine Love" appears from the first moment of human history and permeates the bible story of man's strivings to answer or reject that Love. "Divine Love" is a 'theme of the Fathers of the Church and a constant delight to Benedict and Chrysostom and Venerable Bede. But this devotion to "divine Love" is not yet devotion to the Sacred Heart--a point which Mother Williams plainly makes in a note on page 23: "The organic Heart of Christ, the proximate object of the Devotion, is not clearly indicated in these passages [in the early Fathers] although it is implied indirectly." Again on page 66: "It is the authentic mark of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart thus to see the physical and not merely the metaphorical Heart of Christ as the symbol of His love for men." This is fine, but the readet~ will justly ask how to reconcile such statements with earlier ones such as' that on page 2: "Looking to the spirit rather than to the letter, [the second way] finds the Devotion in the varying blends of its elements, tracing it back to the early ages of the Church and even into Old Testament times. In this sense, Devotion to the Sacred Heart has been at work since God first set His heart upon man." This way seems to the reviewer to lead to an obscuring of the very nature of this particular devotion; the "elements" ofa devotion are not yet the devotion itself, and there is danger of mere nominalism in calling "Devotion to the Sacred Heart" any cultus in which the symbolic Heart of Christ does not actually appear. This one distinction clarified, the book will richly repay any reader. An epilogue gives a good summary of the connection between this devotion and that to the Immaculate Heart; the proper distinc-tions are made, and the p~'oper emphasis indicated. An interesting appendix lists scripture sources for the. various invocations of the Litany of the Sacred Heart. The style is at times a bit too colorful for some tastes, as on page 134: "Satanic violence, blood-drenched and black, beat against the white serenity of Providence . " But far more representative of the spirit and .worth of the book is this: '*The Devotion to the Heart that so loves leads straight into the Trinity. Mother Church, like Mother Mary, will think these thoughts of Christ's Heart from generation to generation, till all her children have been called home into the Vision of Love." (p. 219) Thank you, Mother.--D~XVID J. BOW.X, AN, S.J. 180 May, 1958 BOOK REVIEWS A HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Vol. VIII. Period of the Early Nineteenth Century (1823-1878). By Reverend Fernand Mourret, S.S. Translated by Reverend Newton Thomp-son, S.T.D. Pp. 807. B. Herder Book Company, St, Louis 2. 1957. $11.00. Those who have the earlier volumes of Father Thompson's trans-lation of A History of the Catholic Church will be eager to add this eighth and next-to-last volume to their sets. They are already aware that this work fills a definite need as nicely as it fills a library shelf. For those as yet unfamiliar with this translation of Father Mourret's Histoire Generale de l'Eglise, a quick survey of their library stacks will make its usefulness apparent. Such an experiment will reveal that the shelves contain no comparable treatment of church history in English. This nine-volume treatment of the whole of church history helps to fill the gap between the smaller text-book histories and the more specialized studies of particular persons or periods. The present volume begins with the pontific.ate of Leo XII when the political fallibility of the Council of Vienna had already become harshly appar.ent. It ends with the death of Pius IX whose reign was climaxed by the pronouncement of papal infallibility at the Vat-ican Council. The history of the years between is made to march in step with the popes and the Catholic crusade to bring Christianity to a Europe which had largely rejected it and to mission lands which hardly knew it. The story is an absorbing, nineteenth-century re-enactment of the passion, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ in His Mystical Body. Since the nineteenth-century battles of the Church were largely European, one of the chief values of this book is that it is written by a Et~ropean. Father Mourret gives the reader the benefit of his extensive reading of French works and periodical records which would otherwise be inaccessible to most Americans. Moreover, the author is not distracted from events of greater historical significance by any feelings of a need for detailed treatment of the beginnings of Catholicism in the United States. It is humbling to find that Father Mourret gives the ecclesiastical history of the United States in the early nineteenth century only 7 out of the 807 pages of his book. However, honesty demands the admission that this coverage is fair enough if one takes a world view of church affairs during the period. It should also be said that this curtailment of side issues gives the author space for more adequate treatment of the European story he is admirably equipped to tell. 181 ]~OOK REVIEWS Review for Religious Father Mourret's story is a factual one. He is not so much a ra-conteur of illustrative anecdotes about important people as he is a careful, clear-headed recorder of events: As such he uncovers many revealing facts about such elusive subjects as Freemasonry, socialism, and liberalism. His book will also give very helpful data to teachers and others who must explain such matters as the Syllabus of Errors, the definition of papal infallibility, or the 'perenially popular topic of the relationship of church to state. Although in Father Mourret's marshaling of facts he himself does not tend toward generalizations, he will perhaps excuse a con-cludi- ng general comment on his work. This generalization regarding the book, which the efforts bf Father Thompson as translator and the willingness of. Herder as publisher apparently second, is that any library will find it a useful addition to its shelves.- CLYDE B. KELLY, S.J. RICHES DESPISED. A STUDY OF THE ROOTS OF RELI-GION. By Conrad Pepler, O.P. Pp. 181. B. Herder Book Company~ St. Louis 2. 1957. $3.25. "Modern industrial man is out of tune with the hymn of nature." As a result, the riches of Christianity--a religion rooted in natur~ are despised. So says Father Pepler, insisting that man must live close to Mother Nature for his spiritual welfare. The author's analysis of modern society indicates that most men, when "out of tune and out of time with the rest of the divine orchestra of the universe," become more and more unreceptive of grace. "Looking down into the nature o~c man and seeing in that nature its .reflection of the whole world of nature," "Father Pepler claims that the world's recent material advances have hidden the nature of man under "an encrustation of artificiality." Between man and his God have ariseh the immense barriers of a false culture and a false imagination. The author sagely comments on the harm done by'modern mediaof corn- " munication in achieving a uniform, mechanical imagination. The Christian religion was designed for the man in touch with nature; modern man is not in touch. The point is exemplified by our difficulty in understanding the natural symbolism of the sacra-ments, sacramentals, and the Mass. It is Father Pepler's opinion that "the Christian religion cannot exist normally and as an integral part of society in the artificiality of modern civilization." To correct the situation, "society must somehow be changed in order to allow grace to work freely." So the author offers some 182 May, 1958 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS principles and practical suggestions for fhe change. For instance, acceptance of. the .standard of the cross is one of the principles. Riches Despised is a thought-provokirig book which reads easily. Its insights into the interaction of man and nature are reminiscent of Anne Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. Father Pepler has delved deeply into a baiic problem of ~modern Christianity and offers a lucid, penetrating analysis; this is the "great merit of the b6ok. But his. solutions, are disappointing and generally unacceptable, though distributists and advocates 6f a "back-to-the-land" move-ment may be pleased. Making the monastic ideal a rallying point for the wo~Id of 1958 and suggesting that a foundry need employ no .more than fifty men seem to this reviewer to be highly imprac-ticable suggestions.¯ One small point: Is it accurate to refer to religious obedience as a "denial by vow of . . . personal initiative"? Religious who work close to Mother Nature will find in this book an appealing apologia for their way of life. Religious who wonder why it is so difficult to find God in all things will find a partial answer in these pages. Readers attracted by the ideas under-lying the Grail movement will want to read Riches Despised~ RA~YMOND C. BAI~IMHART," S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 400 North 'Broadway, Milwaukee I, Wisconsin. My Other Self. In Which Christ Speaks to the Soul on Living His Life. By Clarence J.: Enzler. This,book is not to be read but pondered, prayerfully. It lends itself ideally to St. Ignatius's second method of prayer. The author's presentation of Christ's ¯address to the~ soul is done reverently and with convincing verisimilitude. When ment.al prayer is difficult, try using, this book. It should help to dispel the mists with which the centuries may have shrouded the'figure of Christ for you 'and b'ring Him right down to the present. Pp. 166. $3.50. The-Plaints of the Passion. Meditations on the Reproaches of the Good Friday Service. "By Jude Mead,'C.P. You will find abun-dant material for .many meditations in the author's explanation of the eleven Reproaches chanted on Good Friday during the venera-tion of the. cross. There is an excellent introduction on the "various senses of Holy Scripture. Pp. 133. $3.50. 183 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religio~ts The Rubrics of the Revised Holy Week Liturgy in English. Pp. 69. $1.00. The Simple Rite of the Restored Order of Holy Week. Pp. 95. $1.00. Both books were translated and edited by Gerald Ellard, S.J., and F. P. Prucha, s.J. They are published with the authorization of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. They should do much to help. both priests and people to an appreciation of the new liturgical setting that now enshrines these holiest days of the year. Separated Brethren. A Survey of non-Catholic Christian De-nominations. By William J. Whalen. Living in a Protestant country, our relations with our Protestant neighbors will be much improved if we get to know more about their religious background. Such knowl-edge will also guide our zeal in our efforts to bring these "other sheep" back to the true fold. Priests and teachers ot: r~ligion should find the book particularly helpful. Pp. 284. $4.50. MESSRS. M.~H. GILL AND SON, LIMITED, 50 Upper O'Connell Street, Dublin. The Mother of the Little Flower. A Sister of St. Th~r~se of the Child Jesus Tells Us About Her Mother. Translated by Reverend Michael Collins, S.M.A. Present and future mothers of families wi/l find in the mother of the Little Flower a concrete realization to a heroic degree of the virtues which .make mothers of families truly valiant women. The translation is adequate but not always happy. Pp. 123. Paper 6/-. GONZAGA UNIVERSITY BOOK STORE, Spokane 2, Washington. Contemplation in Action. A Study of Ignatian Prayer. By Joseph F. Conwell, s.J. This book deals with the problem: "Is there a prayer proper to the Society of Jesus, .and if ~o, what is its characteristic note?" The author's interesting ~indings are supported by the authority of the Gregorian University, Rome, where they were first published as his doctoral dissertation. Pp. 123. Paper $2.50. B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, 15-17 South Broadway, St. Louig 2, Missouri. Conquest of the Kingdom of God. By John of the Angels, O.F.M. Translated by Cornelius F. Crowley. There is an unction in the writings of the ancient authors on the spiritual life which is all too frequently lacking in the writings of the writers of today. You will find that unction in the present volume which is the tenth in the "Cross and Crown Series of Spirituality." Pp. 216. $3.95. 184 May, 1958 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS The Church. An Introduction to the Theology of St. Augustine. By Stanislaus Grabowski. Priests, seminarians, and all students of St. Augustine will welcome this scholarly work on the Church accord-ing to the mind of St. Augustine. There are abundant footnotes and they appear where they are needed and have not been relegated either to the end of chapters or at the end of the book. This is the author's second notable, book-length contribution to the study of St. Augustine. His first was The All-Present God. Pp. 673. $9.50. The Liturgy of the Mass. By Pius Parsch. Translated and adapted by H. E. Winstone, M.A. The faithful are becoming more and more liturgical minded. The present volume, the third edition of a classic on the liturgy of the Mass, will do much to enable them tq under-stand the Mass and, as a result, help them to participate in it more fruitfully. Pp. 344. $4.95. Eve and Mary. By Peter Thomas Dehau, .O.P. Translated by the Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary, La Crosse, Wiscon-sin. This book is a study in contrasts as the title indicates. It con-trasts the pride and disobedience of Eve with the humility and obedience of Mary; the temptation of our first parents with the temp-tations of Christ in the desert. The book makes unusual spiritual reading for ,topics rarely considered are treated at length in its pages. Pp. 268. $3.95. P. J. KENEDY & SONS, 12 Barclay Street, New York 8, New York. The Sacrifice of Praise. An Introduction to' the Meaning and Use of the Divine Office. By V. G. Little. This book is much more than an explanation of how to say the Roman Breviary taking into account the most recent revision of the rubrics. It does this and does it well. But what inakes the book really outstanding are the chapters on The Genesis and Growth of Vocal Worship, The Office Through the Centuries, The Breviary, The Nature of the Office, The Redemption of Time, The Substance of the Office, The Divine Office, and the Life of Prayer. Even religious and priests who have said Office for many years can read these chapters and come from their reading with a new or renewed appreciation of what a treasure they have in the Bre~;iary and what a privilege is theirs to be able to say it every day. Pp. 200. $3.00. DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INCORPORATED, 55 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, New York. The Popes on Youth. By Raymond B. Fullam, S.J. Anyone who has anything to do with the education of youth, be he layman, 185 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religiou.~ religious, or priest, will find this book invaluable as a reference book where he can easily find the official teaching of' the Church on the many problems .connected with the education of youth today; as a source book for conferences and study groups; as a guide to his efforts and source of encouragement. That the book is meeting with the success that it so ricl~ly deserves is indicated by the fact that a second edition has already appeared. Pp. 442. $5.00. THE NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Maryland. Dogmatic Theology. Vol. II. Christ's Church. By Monsignor G. Van Noort. Translated and revised by John J. Castelot, S.SI, an~d William R. Murphy, S.S. This second volume of a ten-volume set on the science ot: theology measures up fully to the high standard of excellence established by the author and translators in the first volume, The True Religion. The present volume is divided into two sections. The first is apologetic, i.e., it treats the Church as viewed from outside in the light of reason; the second is dogmatic and views the Church from inside as illumined by faith. All interested in theology, but particularly teachers of religion on the college level, will find the book very useful and stimulating. Pp. 428. $7.00. Eucharistic Reflections. By Right Reverend Monsignor William Reyna. Adapted by Winfrid Hetbst, S.D.S. This is a new, revised edition of the very popular eight small volumes entitled Eucharistic Whisperings. The book is very useful for visits to the Blessed Sacra-ment. Pp. 404. $4.75. Ponder Slowly. Outlined Meditations. By Francis X. Peirce, S.J. Meditation books tend to similarity. This one is different. There is an utter lack of formality. Each meditation consists of a number of thoughts announced in ghort, pithy phrases leaving the reader free to develop them according to his needs. The material for the book was originally collected by the author and used by him for tric~ua and retreats to Sisters. In their present form the meditations should prove helpful to all who make a .daily meditation. Pp. 323. $3.95. PAGEANT PRESS, 101 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, New York, Chosen Arrows. An Historical Narrative. By Sister Mary de Lourdes Gohmann, O.S.U. The Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, Ken-tucky, will complete the first centenary since their foundation in the autumn of 1958. To mark the occasion Sister M. L. Gohmann has written a vivid account of the trials, labors, and successes that divine 186 May, 1958 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Providence has accorded these valiant workers in His vineyard. In her narrative the dry bones of historical fact are brought to life by the imaginative re-creation of many a conversation. The book is of interest not only to the members of the Ursuline Order and their many friends, but to all who are interested in the history of the Catholic Church and the history of Catholic education in. America. Pp. 533. $5.00. THE SCAPULAR PRESS, 329 East 28th Street, New York 16, New York. A Little Queen's Request. An Informal Biography of Saint Th~r~se for Our Teen-agers. By Sist

Issue 14.4 of the Review for Religious, 1955. ; Review Religi.ous JULY 1~,5, 1955 To Religious Men . Pope Plus XII Mother St. Bernard . Sister M. Cassilda Grace of Example . John Maffhews Sister Formation ¯ ¯ " Joseph F. Gallen Our Jubilarian Questions and Answers Notes for Contributors Book Reviews VOLUME XIV NUMBER 4 RI::VII:W FOR R LIGIOUS VOLUME XIV JULY, 1955 NUMBER 4 CONTENTS FATHER ELLIS' GOLDEN JUBILEE .1.6.9. TO RELIGIOUS MEN--Pope Plus XII .1.7.0. MOTHER" ST. BERNARD, HELPER OF THE HOLY SOULS-- Sister Mary Cassilda .181 NOTES FOR CONTRII~UTORS .1.9.4. OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 196 THE GRACE OF EXAMPLE--John Matthews, S.J .1.9.7 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 16. Period to be Covered by Quinquennial Report .2"00 17. Rank of Religious after Re-entrance .2.0. 1 18. Illness and Computation of Years of Novitiate .201 19. Indulgences and Eastern Rite .¯. . 202 20. Typed Ballots for Voting . 203 21. Combining Benediction or Holy Hour with Meditation . 204 RELIGIOUS CLERICAL FORMATION AND SISTER FORMATION-- Joseph F. Gallen, S.J .2.0.5 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS-- Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana .2.16 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1955. Vol. XIV, No. 4. Published bi-monthly: January, March. May, July, September. and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post O~ce, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March.3, 1879. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J., Adam C. Ellis, S.,L, Gerald Kelly, S.J., Francis N. Korth, S.J. Literary Editor: Edwin F. Falteisek, S.J. Copyright, 1955, by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year: 50 cents a copy Printed in U. S. A. Before wr;tincj +o us, please consult notlce on ;nslde back cover. ~ATHER ADAM C. ELLIS, the senior editor of thi} REVIEW, will celebrate his Golden dubilee as a Jesuit on August 31, 1955, at St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. Father Ellis was born in Buffalo, New York, where he attended St. Michael's Parochial School and Canisius High School. On August 31, 1905, he entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Novitiate, Cleveland, Ohio. In August, 1908, he was transferred to St. Stanislaus Seminary, Florissant, Missouri, for his second year of juniorate. His years of teaching as a scholastic were spent at Mar- , quette Academy, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Rockhurst Acad4my, Kansas City, Missouri. He made his philosophical studies at St. Louis University and began his course of theology af the same place. After the second year of theology, he was sent to Spain. There, at Off'a, near Burgos, he was ordained to the priesthood on March 10, 1921. He returned to the United States in the summer of 1921 and spent the following school year teaching at St. Ignatius College, Cleveland, and in the juniorate at Florissant. Then followed his ter-tiansh, ip at St. Stanislaus, Cleveland, September, 1922, to June, 1923. After his tertianship Father Ellis was assigned to special studies in civil and canon law at" St. Louis University. The course in canon law was later completed at. the Gregorian University, Rome, where he received the doctorate in 1926. He has just completed thirty years of teaching canon law: one year at Mundelein, Illinois; three years at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome; and the remaining time at St. Louis University and St. Mary's. As a canonist, Father Ellis has used his time, energy, and talent largely in favor of religious. He is a Consultor to the Sacred Con-gregation of Religious, editor of the English edition of Father Creusen's Religious Men and Women in the Code, and co-author with Father T. L. Bouscaren, S.J., of Canon Lau;: A Text and Commentary. Co-founder of this REVIEW, he has not only contrib-uted numerous articles'but has also ans~vered most of the questions. Father Ellis is spending the summer at Canisius College,'°Buffalo; but he will return to St. Mary's to celebrate his Jubilee with a class-mate, Father Michael J. Gruenthaner, S.J. His fellow editors wish him God's choicest blessings; and we are sure our readers join us in this. 169 To Religious Men Pope Pius XII [EDITORS' NOTE: This address was given to the Delegates of the General Con-gress of Religious Orders, Congregations, 8ocieties, and Secular Institutes, in Rome, December 8, 1950. We publish it now because we have had many requests about it and because we think it should be available to the REVIEW. The English trans- "lation was made by Father S. F. McNamee, S.J., and other members of the Mary-land Province of the Society of Jesus.] TO the Delegates of the General Congress of Religious Orders, Congregations, Societies, and Secular Institutes, Rome, 8 De-cember, 1950. 1. The Holy Year, through no merit of Ours, but through the favor of God's mercy, has proved more bountiful in blessings than the fbresight of men had anticipated. In the eventful cycle of its notable achievements, it has manifested the strong faith and richly abundant life of the Church of Christ, our Mother. Your Congress rightly takes its place among the more sigriificantly important events, and Over them your fraternal gathering reflects its own characteristic lustre. To you now We wish to address Our words of affectionate greeting. 2. The annals of church history record no meeting similar to this. Here, for the first time, religious organizations, whose mem-bers have selected as the goal of their lives the attainment of con-summate evangelical perfection, have assembled in large numbers over a period of several days to discuss and weigh the problems of their common interest. 3. It was Our judgment that the circumstances of the times made it altogether necessary to do so. For the changed conditions of the world which the Church must encounter, certain points of doc-trine touching upon the status and condition of moral perfection, not to mention the pressing needs of the apostolic work which you have so widely and so generously undertaken, all these have called you to devote yourselves to" this systematic study and discussion. 4. Your work is at its close. It was energized by careful dis-cussions; it has been prolific in proposals; and it will be no less fruit-ful, We hope, in perfecting the virtues which .will realize your pro-jects. With the resolute cooperation of your wills, the grace of God will enkindle those virtues, the grace, that is, which your prayers and religious acts of self-denial, more especially, because of their burning devotion, those of your sisters in Christ, have already in-voked upon this present undertaking. 5. You have requested the fatherly blessing of the Vicar of 170 July, 1955 TO RELIGIOUS MEN Christ as a pledge of divine guidance and assistance so that your Congress might be fittingly completed and terminated. But before imparting that blessing to you, We think it proper to present to you orally certain thoughts on the religious life which call for an explanation and which, once explained, may serve hereafter as a norm to direct your thoughts and actions. I 6. First of all, it will be useful for Us to indicate briefly the place held in the Church by the religious orders, and congregations. You are, of course, aware that our Redeemer founded a Church en-dowed with an hirarchical organization. For between the apostlds and their successors, with whom must also be grouped their assistants in the ministry, and the ordinary faithful He drew a definite line of demarcation; and by the union of these two elements the structure of the kingdom of God on earth stands firm. Consequently, the distinction between the clergy and the laity is fixed by divine law (cf. can. 107). Interposed between these two grades is the religious state which deriving its origin from the Church has its existence and strength from its intimate connection with the end of the Church herself, which is to lead men ,to the attainment of holiness. Though every Christian should scale these sacred heights under the guidance of the Church, nevertheless the religious moves towards them along a path that is peculiarly his own and by means that are of a more exalted nature. 7. Moreover, the religious state is not restricted to either of the two groups which exist in the Church by divine right, since both clerics and lay persons alike can become religious; and, on the other hand, the clerical dignity lies open to religious and those who are not religious. One would therefore be mistaken in appraising the value of the foundations which Christ laid in building His Church if he should judge that the peculiar form of the secular clerical life as such was established and sanctioned by our divine Redeemer, and that the peculiar form of the regular clerical life, though it is to be considered good and worthy of approbation in itself~ is still secon-dary and auxiliary in nature, since it is not derived from Christ. Wherefore, if we keep before our eyes the order established by Christ, neither of the two special forms of clerical life holds a prerogative of divine right, since that law singles out neither form, nor gives to either precedence over the other. What then the difference is between these two forms, what their mutual relations are, what spcial task 171 POPE PIUS XlI Review for Religious in working out the salvation ~f mankind has been assigned to each, all these details Christ left to be decided according to the needs and conditions of succeeding ages; or, rather, to express Our mind more exactly, He left them to the definitive decisions of the Church herself. 8. Undoubtedly it is according to the divine law that every priest, be he secular or regular, should fulfill his ministry in such a way as to be a subordinate assistant to his bishop. This has always been the customary practice in the Church, and the prescriptions in the Code of Canon Law whic.h deal with the members of religious societies as pastors and local ordinaries make this clear (can. 626-31 ; 454, ~]. 5). And it often happens in missionary territories that all the ci~rgy, even including the bishop, belong to the regular militia of the Church. Let no one think this is an extraordinary or ab-normal state of affairs to be regarded as only a temporary arrange-ment, and that the administration should be handed over to the secular clergy as soon as possible. 9. Again, the exemption of religious orders is not contrary to the principles of the constitu_tion given to the Church by God, nor does it in any way contradict the law that a priest owes obedi-ence to his bishop. Fo~, according to canon law, exempt religious are subject to the authority of the local bishop so far as the admin-istration of the episcopal office and the well-regulated care of souls require. But, even putting aside this consideration, in the discus-sions of the past few decades concerning the question of exemp-tion, perhaps too little attention has been paid to the fact that exempt religious even by the prescriptions of canon law are al'ways and everywhere subject to the authority of the Roman Pontiff as their supreme moderator, and tbat they owe obedien,ce to him pre-cisely in virtue of their religious vow of obedience (can. 499, ~1 1). Indeed the Supreme Pontiff possesses ordinary and immediate juris-diction over each and every diocese and over the individual faithful just as he does over the universal Church. It is therefore clear that the primary law of God whereby the clergy and the laity are sub-ject to the rule of the Bishop is more than sufficiently observed as regards exempt religious, as it is no less clear that both branches of the clergy by reason of their parallel services conform to the will and precept of Christ. II 10. There is another question connected with what has so far been said which We wish to explain and clarify. It concerns the way in which the cleric and the religious should strive for their due 172 Jul~j, 1955 To RELIGIOUS MEN moral perfection. 1 1. It is a distortion of the truth to say that the clerical state as such and as divinely established demands either by its very nature or by some postulate of that nature that the evangelical counsels be observed by its members, and that for this very reason it must be called a state of achieving evangelical perfection. A cleric therefore is not bound by the divine law to observe the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience; above all he is not bound in the same way or fdr the same reason as the one for whom such ob-ligation arises from vows publicly pronounced upon entering the religious life. This does not however prevent the cleric from assum-ing these bonds privately and of his own accord. So, too, the fact that the priests of the Latin rite are bound to observe holy celibacy does not remove or lessen the distinction between the clerical and the religious states. Moreover, a member.of the regular clergy professes the state and condition of evangelical perfection not inasmuch as he is a cleric, but inasmuch as he is a religious. 12. And though we have declared in Our Apostolic Consti-tution Prooida Mater Ecclesia that the form of life followed by the secular institutes is to be considered as a state of evangelical per-fection and recognized as such by the common law of the Church, since their members are in some way bohnd to the observance of the evangelical counsels, still this in no way contradicts wh~it have just affirmed. Assuredly ther~ is no reason preventing clerics from joining together in secular institutes so that by their choice of this manner of life. they may strive for the attainment of religious perfection; but in that case they are in a state of acquiring perfection not inasmuch as they are clerics, but inasmuch as they are members of a secular institute. After all, such an institute adopts, in the way of life it proposes to follow, the evangelical.c6unsels which are proper to the religious state and are ther~ realized-in their highest perfection; but the institute so achieves that end that it is nSt' de-l~ endent on the traditional pattern of the religious state but stands by itself in an external form of life which bears no necessary relation to the perfection just mentioned. III 13. We think it timely now to touch upon some of the rea-sons which the religious state hol~s out to men'as motives for em-bracing it. 14. There are.some.who,assert that the religious state by i~s POPE P~us XII Review for Religious nature and purpose, even though m~riting approval, is nothing but a safe refuge offered to the fearful and timid who have not the strength, to stand u.p to the dangers of life's storms, and, lacking the knowledge, 0r perhaps the will, to face difficulties, are led by their indolence, to bid farewell to the world and fly to the haven of cloistered peace. XVherefore we must inspire self-confidence and reliance on God's grace in those who see.k such idle tranquility, so ¯ that they may overcome these traits of character and attain the courage to face the struggles of common life. Is this indeed true? 15. It is not Our purpose here to evaluate the various motives inducing individuals to betake themselves to the religious life. XY~Te do wish however to indicate the principal and indeed the valid rea-son that should induce one to enter the protected enclosure of the cloister. And it is certainly different from that distorted opinion. stated above, which,-if taken as a whole, is both untrue and unjust. For not otherwise than the resolution to ente~ the priesthood, the resolve to embrace the. religious state, together with a firm constancy in executing it, demands greatness of. soul and an ardent zeal for self-consecration. The history of the Church in its record of the glorious.ochievements of the saints in heaven and of the religiQus institutes on earth, in its account of ~uccessful" missionary enter-prises, in its sketchi.ng of. the Church's ascetical teaching, no less than experience itself, indicates more clearly than the light of day that men and women of indomitable and whole-souled courag~ have flourished in the religious state as well as in the world. Again, do those religious men aiad women who so strenuously exert them-selves to spread the kingdom of the gospel,., who tend the sick, train the young, and toil in the classrooms, shun the society of their fellow men and shut them out from their love? Are not very many of them, no less than the secular priesthood .and their lay helpers, fighting in the very front rinks of the battl,e.for the Church's cause? 16. Here XVe cannot refrain from directing Our attention to another matter which completely denies the false assertion mentioned previously. If the number of candidates wishing to enter the enclosed garden of the religious life is diminishirig, especia!ly among young women, the reason very frequently is that they find it too difficult to divest themselves of their own judgment .and surrender their freedom of action, as the very nature of the vow of obedience de-mands. Indeed some praise as the real peak of moral perfection, not the surrender of liberty for the love of Christ, but the curbingof such surrender. The"norm therefore to be prdfekred in the formation 174 dulv, 1955 TO RELIGIOUS MEN of a just and holy person would seem to be this: restrict liberty only where necessary; otherwise, give liberty free rein as far as possible. 17. We transmit the question whether this new foundation on which some are trying to erect the edifice of sanctity will be as ef-fective and as solid in supporting and augmenting the apostolic work of the Church as was the one which through fifteen hundred years has been provided by that ancient rule of obedience undertaken for the love of Christ. What is now of supreme importance is to ex-' amine this proposal thoroughly, to disclose what lies concealed be-neath the surface. This opinion, if carefully considered, not only fails to appreciate the nature of the evangelical counsel, but it some-how twists it to a meaning in accord with its theory. No one is obliged to choose for himself the counsel of perfect- obedience, which essentially is a rule of life whereby one surrenders the control of his own will; no one, We repeat, be it an individual or a group. They can if they wish conform their conduct to this new rule. But words must be understood and accepted according to their obvious mean-ing; and, if this norm is compared with the vow of obedience, it surely does not possess the same "supreme value; nor is it an adequate expression of the wonderful example recorded in Holy Scripture: "He humbledHimself becoming obedient unto death" (Phil. 1:8). 18. He therefore is deceived himself and deceives others who, forgetting the propensities of the soul and the inspiration of divine grace, offers as a guide to one .seeking advice about entering the re-ligious state only that new norm. Hence, if it is clear that the voice of God is calling someone to the heights of evangelical perfection, without any hesitation he should be invited for the attainment of this lofty purpose to offer freely the sacrifice of his liberty as the" vow of obedience demands, that vow, We proclaim, which the Church through so many centuries has weighed, has put to the test, has properly delineated, and has approved. Let no one against his will be compelled to this self-consecration; but, if he does will it, let no one counsel him against it; above all, let no one hold him back. IV 19. But enough on this point. At the moment, We wish to speak on external works and the interior life. Hardly any question of grave importance for the life of regulars, or for the religious life. in general, has been treated at greater length. Nevertheless We wish to present Our own judgment on this matter. ¯. 20.- It was not mere.chance that brought about in our day the 175 POPE PIUS XII Reuiew ~'or Religious rise and elaboration of the philosophy known as existentialism. The men of our time, when confronted by events which bring up diffi-cult metaphysical and religious problems to be solved, gladly, with-out a thought of higher principles, persuade themselves that it is enough to act. as the exigeficies of the moment demand. But the man who professes our holy faitb refuses to follow such principles and to makeeach passing moment of time his whole concern, hurling him-self head-long into the stream of life. He knows that the "things that appear not" (Heb. ll:l) are to be considered of supre.me worth, are pre-eminently true, and so enduring in the future as to last forever. Yet--be it said with sorrow--though warnings and exhortations have not been lacking, even some ecclesiastics,' not ex-cepting religious, have been deeply infected by this contagion; and, while not denying a reality that transcends the senses and the whole natural order, they esteem it of little.importance. 21. Has this grave and dangerous crisis been overcome? Thanks be to God, We may hope that it has. Certain things which We have Ourselves witnessed, and which events bare made known to Us, offer this assurance. 22. The most active zeal can be closely allied with the quest for the riches of 'the interior life. Two stars that shine in the firma-ment of the religious life, St. Francis Xavier and St. Teresa of Jesus, are brilliant proofs of this. 23. An ~eager external activity and the cultivation of the in-terior life demand more than a bond of fellowship; as far at least as evaluation and willed effort are concerned, they demand that they should march along together step by step. With the growth of de-votion to exterior works therefore, let there shine forth a corres-ponding increase in faith,.in the life of prayer, in zealous consecra-tion of self and talents to God, in spotless purity of conscidnce, in obedience, in patient endurance of hardship, and in active charity tirelessly expending for God and one's neighbor. 24. This is true not only of the individual religious, who really is such in heart as well as in habit, but it is also the reason why communities as a whole are~solidly founded in the sight of God and men, and are deserving of the most generous praise. The Church in-sistently demands of you that your external works correspond to your interior life, and that these two maintain a constant balance. Do you not, both clerical and lay religious, profess that you have~ embraced the state of evangelical.perfection? If so, bring.forth the 176 Jul~l, 1955 TO RELIGIOUS MEN frhits proper to your state, so that the Mystical Body Of Christ, which is the Church, may draw ever-increasing vitality from your strength and fervor. This is the very reason why religious orders totally dedicated to the contemplative life are in their own way necessary to the Church, since they are for her a perpetual ornament anda copious source of heavenly graces. 25. You know, of course, that it has often been remarked that charity to the neighbor is gradually losing its religious char-acter and is becoming secularized. But an honorable and kind treat-ment of others that has no foundation in faith, and springs from some other source, is not charity; nor may it be called Catholic. Charity possesses a. dignity, an inspiration, and a strength that is lacking in mere philanthropy however endowed with wealth and other resources. Thus, if We compare our Catholic sisters who nurse the sick with some others who perform this same task out of mere humanitarianism or for pay, We discover in them something en-tirely different and of higher value. They may at times be inferior to others in technical advantages, and We take this occasion to urge them not only to keep abreast of others in this matter but even to surpass them. But where our religious women, deeply imbued with the vital spirit of their institutes and daily prepared for the love of Christ to lay down their lives for the sick, perform their labors, a different atmosphere prevails, in which virtue works wonders which technical aids and medical skill, alone are powerless to ac-complish. 26. Therefore let those religious orders and congregations that devote themselves to the active life keep ever before their eyes and inwardly cherish all that stamps their souls with the lineaments of holiness and nourishes the fire of the Holy Spirit in the depth of their pure souls. V 27. Dearly Beloved, We wish also to refer briefly to the ef-forts of religious institutes to adapt themselves to our changed times, and to join the new and the. old in harmonious union. 28. When young people hear the statements: "We must keep up to date" and "Our efforts must be commensurate with the times," they are fired with an extraordinary ardor of soul;' and, if they are serving unde'r the standard of the religious militia, they keenly de-sire to direct the efforts of their future religious undertakings accord-ing to this principle. And,.to a certain extent, thisis proper. For it often has happened that th~ founding fathers of religious insti- 177 POPE PIUS XII R~oiew for Religious ,tutes conceived new projects in ordei to meet the challenge which newly emerging needs were urgently presenting to the Church and her works; and in this way they harmonized their enterprises with their age. Hence, if you wish to walk in the footsteps of your pre-decessors, act as they acted. Examine thoroughly the beliefs, con-victions, and conduct of your own contemporaries; and, if you discover in them elements that are good and proper, make these worthwhile features your own; otherwise you will never be able to enlighten, assist, sustain, and guide the men of your own time. 29. However, the Church possesses a patrimony preserved in- .tact from her earliest origin, which is unchanged in the course of 'ages, and which is in 'perfect accord with the needs and the aspira-tions of the human race. The Catholic faith is the most important part of this patrimony, and in the encyclical letter Humani Generis 'We recently defended it from new errors. Preserve most diligently this faith undefiled by any blemish: hold firmly to the conviction that it contains within itself exceedingly powerful forces that can mold any age. 30. A part of this patrimony is the good pursued in the state of perfection; and this you must seek with the utmost zeal, so that °by the use of its methods and resources you may become holy your-selves, and either directly or indirectly make your neighbors also :holy. In this manner they, sharing ever more richly in divine grace, may live a holy Iife and die a holy death. Another factor in this patrimony is the lofty and sublime truth that self-denial for the love of Christ must be considered the only path to perfection. This truth the changing times can never change. 31. There are, however, circumstances, and not a few, when you can and ought to accommodate yourselves to the temper and the needs of men and the age. Indeed to a great extent this has actu-ally been done, and now the task is being completely and perfectly accomplished by our combined counsel~ and plans. As may be seen from the variety of your undertakings both as individuhls and as institutes, you have already initiated many adjustments in schools, in the training of youth, in the alIeviation of human misery, and in the cultivation and promotion of learning. Hence it must be ad-mitted, and Our affirmation admits of no denial, that a vast amount of energy is even now being expended to meet the altered conditions of our era with new and effective resources. 32. Nevertheless, in striving to adapt yourselves to the ex-igencies of the present, it is, in Our judgment, of paramount con- 178 Julg, 1955 TO RELIGIOUS MEN cern that you shrewdly investigate what spiritual forces lie latent in your contemporaries, by what secret,desires they are motivated, and what the true picture .is of their souls. We do not of course mean the picture that manifests their detestable and censurable qual-ities and expresses the tumult of passion and the corruption of vice. But in men as men, and most of all as Christians, though entangled in error and sin, there is not a little good and even a desire for greater good. You must encourage these good impulses and foster these aspirations, being always careful however not to-accept from the world what keeps it wretched and evil, but rather to infuse into the world what is good and holy in yourselves, and in harmony with these salutary longings. Being solicitous therefore for that feeble good in the hearts of others, furbish and develop it, molding from its grains of gold precious vessels and gathering its rivulets into mighty streams. 33. Some think, and perhaps rightly, that three marks are characteristic of our age: amplitude in thought and discussion, uni-fication of plan, and organization and speed in execution. Are riot these three notes also distinctive marks of the Gospel? Are they not characteristic of those who profess the Catholic faith and live ac-cording to its principles? opened to our minds than "All things are yours and Cor. 3:25) ? What closer simplicity and the unity What greater amplitude of vision can be that offered in the words of the Apostle: you are Christ's and Christ is God's" (I unity in understanding and love than the declared to you in the Sacred Scripture: "God, all in all" (I Cor. 15:26) and "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and wil~h thy whole mind and with thy whole strength . . . Thou shalt love 'thy neighbor as thyself" (Mk. 12:28-34)? 34. To enable us to be swift and spirited, and unhampered by the recollection of perishable things, we are admonished: "No man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God" (Lk. 9:62). And if you wish to behold models of virtue in whom these thr~e laudable qualities shine forth, recall tO your minds the Apostle Paul and all those who have been en-gaged in wondrous exploits worthy of an immortal remembrance. 35. Moreover, the ideals which light your way to contempla-tion and action, as well as the goal of the Church's other children, both priests and laity, are the achievement of Christian perfection and the salvation of the human race. For your part, you have at hand the most effective aids, namely, the evangelical counsels through 179 ¯ POPE PlUS XII,. Reoiew for Religious the'profession of your vows of 'religion, and through these by un-remitting warfare you can overcome the concupiscence of the flesh,. ¯ the concupiscence of the ~yes, and the pride of life (cf.I 3o. 2:16), -~ind thus become ever holier and efficient servants of God for the .salvation of mankind. Direct your thoughts and your actions to [reach these lofty heights, "so that being rooted and grounded in 'love" (Epb. 3:17), steadfast in the power of faith and rich in hu- ¯ mility, you may lose no opportunity to lead men, your brothers, ¯ to their Creator and. Redeemer, as stray sheep returning to their Shepherd. 36. Faithful and true to your duty of good example, see to it that your conduct harmonizes with the name you bear, and that ¯ your whole manne~ 9f' life conforms to your profession. According 'to the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles: "Careful to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:3), let peace reign within you and among you, among members of the same institute and among members of the same community, and with those of other institutes, between you and all who labor with you and with whom you labor to win men for Christ. Put far from you discords and disagreements which weaken and cripple undertakings begun with the highest hopes. The Church, as a field for apostolic en-deavor, is spread out all over the world; and an opportunity for toil and ~weat is open to all. 37. If the faith of religious is strengthened by the example of a life whose pattern is unyielding observance of the vows, if the priest regards nothing as hard or irksome in his quest for the salva-tion of souls, then the expression of the Apostle when referring to the word of God will also be true of them today, "living . . . and efficient and keener than any two-edged sword" (Heb. 4:13). We recently warned the faithful that in these calamitous days, when the misfortune and grievous want of many is in sharp contrast to the immoderate luxury of others, they should be willing to live tem-perately and to be generous to their neighbors oppressed by poverty. Come then, excel all others by your example in this insistent work of Christian perfection, justice, and charity; and thus lead them to imitate Christ. 38. Finally, with a great hope that the efficacious grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may bring forth from your Congress benefits of enduring value, and as a pledge of our abiding love, We affection-ately bestow upon all here present and upon religious communities everywhere in the world the Apostolic Benediction. 180 4 t Mot:her ern d, I--lelper o[ :he bloly Souls Sister Ma~y Cassilda TAKE the Blessed Sacrament, Mother! Keep Jesus with you!" / Startling words from a priesl~ to a humble religiou's woman! Yet, on the night of fire and consi~rnation following the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the most unexpected ~became reality; and Mother St. Bernard could not doubt tba'~ this most redoubtable commission was for her. For to bet was held out the veiled ciborium Father Casey had just removed f~om the tabernacle. To her care was being confided in the terrors of that ni~ght the most precious of treasures, to be conveyed to'a place of safety. Our Lord clearl~z willed to accompany and 'protect the bewildered superior and her little community in their wearying flight. They were in sehrch of shelter from the adv~incing fl.ames, laden with what they could save from their abandol~ed convent. Mothe~ St. Bernard helps us to visualize the scene¯ "In the pres-ence of Jesus thus abased, entrusting Himself to me, tears filled my eyes," she writes; "I carried Him close to my heart, with a few of the commumty as escort, while the others saw to the transportation of our belongings. Walking alon'g the crowded streets, we prayed. I adored Christ hidden in my arms. When for a moment I lost sight of the others, my heart cried out in fear .t.o .my[ Lord, and there they were with us once ,more!" He assured them a safe ar-rival at the Church of St. John. Our Lord was theft replaced in the taberngcle and the HelpFrs spent the rest of the night in the base-ment of the church. This cross marking their, recent foundation was destined in the designs of God's providence to be the starting point of great development, for the San Francisco house. The Helpers devoted themselves amongst the homeless and destitute in the camps immediately organized; and, when, in the influenza epidemic of 1918, they showed themselves not only ready, but eager to nurse the plague-stricken, their place was forever fixed in the warm hedrts o]~ the West, from their archbishop down. But who was this religious selected by God fo.r so signal an honor, and how.had His providence T~onducted her thither from the quiet ancestral domain of her parents in sunny France? She was Marie Antoinette de Cherg~ and was born not. far from 181 SISTER MARY CASSILDA Review for Religioias Poitiers, France,. in 1850. There had been time since 1356 for the roar of battle tb die away; but the spirit of chivalrous France lived on in the line of Cherg~s, priding themselves on their loyalty to their traditions and their faith. Her father, Charles de Cherg~ eminent lawyer, archeologist, and writer of his time, was deeply Catholic and an admirable father. A prayer he composed for his sons has come down. to us written in fine French verse. "In Thy goodness, Lord; keep them ever faithful to their family motto; 'Straight on in the path of honor.' " The mother of Marie Antoinette was a pious, deeply affectionate woman, remarkable for distinguished gifts and devotedness in her home. The future Mother St. Bernard's character, ardent in the pursuit of holiness and dauntless in her zeal for the glory of God, can be easily discerned in her noble parents. She was a lovable, gentle child, fond of the games of her age, but already drawn by grace to the "greater things" of the saints. At the age of five, the farewell visit of a Jesuit leaving for the missions in China, and his blessing bestowed on her, left in her soul a grace which, she believed, de-veloped later into her immense desire to be a missionary herself. He had baptized her, child though she was, with the astonishing title of "Mother Abbess"; and it was spontaneously adopted. But her graces ran deeper than this. She found herself gradually drawn toward an absorbing love of God. As her own words tell us, "A mysterious recollection would steal over all my faculties, without my understanding what it was. I thought that everyone experi-enced the same, especially on First Communion day. I would with-draw to pray. I would have wished to be always alone to enjoy our Lord's presence. He seemed near to me in a way quite.different from anything faith or the imagination can produce; it was as if with my eyes closed I was sure someone was near me. Gradually I could think only. of Him." Marie Antoinette had need of a great interior strength, for natur-ally- and perhaps because of her interior favors--she was painf.ully timid, and frequently troubled with scrupulosity. N~ar her there was no one to help her. "I begged Our Lady," she wrote, "to send me someone to guide me in God's Name." Our Lady answered her child by-first enabling her to find in the family library the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. By these a clear and solid Christian phil-osophy of life laid in her soul a foundation and support for further graces. Then, in the person of an old. friend of the family, 'Father Rabeau, S.J., she found the "someone" she had asked, for as guide. 182 MOTHER ST. BERNARD. He directed her also in her works of charity, visiting tl~e poor and catechising the children of the neighborhood. Finally, seeing that her attractions were leading her toward the religious life, as lived by the Helpers of the Holy Souls, he put her in contact with the mother general. Marie Antoinette found in these religious the ful-fillment of all her desires of perfection and apostolate--even of the missi6ns in China. They lived the dee[i, interior life 0f Ignatian spirituality that she had learned to appreciate; they were zealous for souls, all souls, even those in purgatory, whom they assisted by their works of charity toward the living. Among them a warm family spirit sustained and cheered their apostolate. But it was only at the age of thirty that she was able to over-come a too-loving opposition and break away from her dearly loved family. She entered the novitiate in the old Premo.nstraten~ian Abbey of Blanchelande, where the souvenirs of the former holy monks spurred on the young to fervor. The Society of the Helpers of the Holy Souls had been founded only in 1856 by Eug~nie Smet, of Lille, France. She was born in 1825 of a fine family. The li~¢ely faith and enterprising spirit of the brave Normans was her inheritance. From early childhood she' had been drawn towards the suffering souls in purgatory; and un-accotintably so, for no death had marred the joy of her happy home surroundings. Her education at the Sacred Heart of Lille left its im-print on her; she determined to consecrate her life to God. Purga-tory was calling her, and the thought of it was stimulating her to constant sacrifice and devotedness. As a young girl, in her works of charity, she would leave gifts at the door of the poor or the sick with the written appeal, "Say a prayer for the Souls in Purgatory." Along with her solicitude for these Holy Souls, there was grow'ing in Eug~nie a childlike and ardent devotion to Divine Providence. "He gives me everything," she ended by saying, "I will give Him these souls He wants, and cannot have: I will be God's Providence!~'- This noble ideal awoke in her all her abilities for practical social work. Soon she was forming an Association of Prayer--others be-sides herself must be God's providence--and, thanks to good or-ganizing, she had thousands working for purgatory in many dio-ceses of France. For these Holy Souls she was even ready to tear herself away from her loved home and go to Paris, as she had been invited, to found an order for ~heir deliverance. The saintly Cur~ Of Ars, her counsellor at this difficult time, qualified~ her project as "a thought of love from the Heart of Jesus." When be'hearSt later SISTER MARY CASSILDA Review [or Religious that the rules of St. Ignatius had been granted to her struggling group; he exclslimed, "The poor littles ones, they are saved'!" "ires, throfigh the dire poverty of their beginnings, the disappointments, and anxious searchings inherent in such an enterprise, God was' re-vealing to Eug~nie (now Mother 'Mary 'of Providence) His plan for her work of aiding purgatory. Prayer there would be--and of the deepest !--with " expiation in the form of charity toward the living as the most effective means of helping the dead! The Helpers would give themselves to spiritual and corporal works of mercy, ac-cording to the needs of the country in which they would live, under the direction of the Church. A call to visit apoor woman sick in the neighborhood indicated their most precious means of expiation: care of the sick poor. Other works followed from this: instruction of converts, catechism in parishes, preparing belated bap.tisms, First Communions, confirmations, arranging for the validation of mar-riages, etc. Guilds were soon formed to meet at the Helpers' convent; and, as they became known, cases of all kinds were sent them by priests. The Helpers were launched to succor not on!y the Holy Souls, but all needy, helpless or hopeless ones, by personalized social service. Their works were to be gratuitous. Into the fervor of the early years of the order, Marie Antoinette de. Cherg~ plunged with her ardent desire for sacrifice, fruit of her special graces. There they xvere--all the sacrifices she wished for, and more besides! She had to learn during her novitiate to leave behind her, at the word of obedience, all fears or hesitations, as well as her frequent interior disturbances, and go straight forward, still, honoring the family motto. Her mistress Of novices discovered -%-e. ventually, shall we say ?--qualities of a great apostle glowing under her timid exterior. The occasion appeared in an .unexpected call on Sister St. Bernard to replace another novice for. a catechism lesson to the parish children. The novice companion, who assisted at the course, could not get home soon enough to relate to the mother mistress what she "had seen and heard"; a fire of. zeal had burst forth in Sister St. Bernard's clear exposition of doctrine, enflaming both children--and novice. At the following lesson to the same group, it was the mistress of novices--present to verify the marvel --who was herself enflamed. Soon after her: vows Mother St. Bernard was named superior of the Helpers' Convent at Montm~artre, Paris, built beside the site of the'chapel where-St. Ignatius and his compani6ns had pronou.nced their first vows. In this populous and ignorant quarter of the city, 1'84 MOTHER ST. BERNARD Mother St. Bernard's zeal found full scope for its activity: a transL formation in the neighborhoc~d was achieved. But the mother general trembled at the price being paid. In'a letter to Mother St. Bernard at this time, she wrote, "Dear d~ughter, it is the lack of care of your health and the ardor with which you undertake more than you can" do, that makes you ill. Yoi~ are to obey implicitly the mother in-firmarian; otherwise you will have roe dying of anxiety." Several years of very successful apostolate here and at Liege put the finish-ing touches to Mother St. Bernard's preparation for a more distan~ field of action. She was called, to head a group of Helpers for the first American foundation early in 1892. New. York bad been chosen. In her journal Mother St.Bernard wrote: "On learning the Divine Will I felt both joy and sorrow in my soul. This first step towards the missions rejoiced me, but I was broken by the thought of the sacrifices awaiting me. Lord Jesus, I give you all that I hold dearest!" On the pier at New York on a bright May morning, the new-comers were welcomed by two friends, chosen, it seems; by divine providence to further this latest enterprise of the Helpers. Miss Addle Le Brun and Miss Anne Cronise represented a group of Cath-olic ladies who were eager to have the Helpers extend their work to the United States. They had behind them Father John Pren-dergast, S.J., and Father Robert Pardow, S.J., who, on' visits to Europe, had learned to appreciate the practical character of this new congregation and had urged widely'among their friends that an in-vitation be sent to the mother general to found a house in New York. This appeal had been made, and fell in happily with the Helpers' rule which sends them to any part of the world where there is hope of God's greater service by procuring more efficaciously the relief and deliverance of the souls in purgatory. Archbishop Corrigan's blessing and hearty cooperation had been assured. And so.at last Miss Le Brun, as the chronicle tells us, "is receiving us as long-desired and much-loved sisters; even weeping "for. joy.", She conducted them to the small house prepared for them on Seventh Avenue near Twenty-third Street where other friends welcomed them no less warmly. A letter to the mother house remarks on the delicate it-tentions of their kind reception. ".'. even a lamp was burning bex fore a picture of Our Lady of Providence, Queen of Purgatory; there were flowers, arid holy water! and all. was provided, for the first meals of our little Community. I could never express to yoi~ fittingly the affectionate interest which dear Miss Le Brun and her 185 SISTER MARY CASSILDA Review [or Reli~iou~ family have shown us. Gratitude fills all hearts." ¯ For newcomers, surprises were to be expected. "Think: of it!" one wrote back to France, "the first to call on us after our arrival was a colored gentleman, a tbarming individual! He showed .us how to make the kitchen fire.". Through their refectory window catalogues, advertisements, etc., were flung at almost every meal. On their way across the East River, the ferryman would take no fare. Material help in varied fo~ms came at their prayer through the "visible Providence" of benefactors--it might be "bread," or "coal," or "a desk for Mother Superior's room." At Iast they ended by cry-ing out in return, "Good St. Joseph, you spoil your children!" On June 13, the first Mass was said by Father Wucher, provin-cial of the Fathers of Mercy. Devoted friends had surpassed them-selves in their zeal for the Lord's glory that the tiny chapel might be adequately fitted out in time. During Mass, it was with tears of emotion and gratitude that all present welcomed our Lord. The Helpers were ready now to do their humble part of constructive work in the service of the Church in the archdiocese of New York, discounting such handicaps as the unaccustomed heat, the language (a problem to some), and the :'caresses of holy poverty." To this day they feel how much they owe to the encouragement of the clergy and°the generous help of their friends. From these sources they drew, in great part, the confidence with which they began and the success they later achieved. Only two days did they wait for their first sick call. It was an old Alsatian woman confided to them by their chaplain. She was ~o receive Holy Communion on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and they were asked to prepare her room. The home was in rehlity an bld shack set up in a small, damp yard. The sick woman was stretched on a low bed--in the midst of discomfort and disorder-- and welcomed as angels from heaven tl-ie "Sisters" who offered to "lend a hand" foi house cleaning and to be "sacristans" for the welcome of the adored Visitor of the morrow. Some sheets, here-tofore unknown in the home, brought a little material comfort; while a new bedspread, some clean towels, and a simple altar adorned with candles and flowers added a note of cheerfulness and hope. "You will come back again, Sisters, won't you?" asked .the sick wo-man; after the ceremony. A hearty "As long as you need us" was her reassurance. Cases of even greater poverty and need ~were soon discovered. .:. A.~Helper writing to he'r mother general makes light of the difti~ 186 dul~!, 1955 ., MOTHER ST. BERNARD culties ¯encountered. "What a pity .we can't make more often ex-. cursions such as we did lately on our rounds! Our visit to Mrs. X ended, we were preparing to climb down the stairs to go next door, but Mrs. X directs us, 'dust go by the roof, Sisters!' And so we did,: and continued down the block by the same route! I wonder how we shall fare this week--the roofs are deep in snow." Father Schleuter, S.d:, chaplain of Blackwe11's Island, sent the Helpers a call for help in his work there. In the Hospital and Home for Colored Incurables, they began their visits of cheering and in-structing, which they continue to this day. Other hospitals have since been added. Their first case among the colored was the subject of another letter of triumph to Paris. Love for the least of Christ's little ones ¯ drew the Helpers to these--so destitute of all in those days. And they realized they were loved by the "new Sisters." Hearts opened at their approach, and soon we read of the baptism of nine little Negro children under five years, along with a good woman whom human respect did not deter from "joining up." They all had been collected in the same street, one which resembled nothing so much as a camp of outcasts. In one home three children slept on fi heap of rags as a bed; no furniture at all was to be seen; the father, doubt-less as bead of the family, ' had the honor of a seat on the window sill. We may easily surmise what an amount of ingenuity and ac-tivity was needed to produce the ten neophytes washed and pro-perly dressed for baptism. These souls and others discovered in the Helpers' visiting needed further attention and spiritual development. Guilds at th~ convent were formed for different groups, and the prompt and" numerous attendance at meetings showed they were appreciated. The "colored ladies" of Friday evenings could hardly be persuaded to go home when the time came. "You tell us such beautiful things, Sister, that we would want to stay all night. No one ever before talked to us like that." Indeed, the impression of. the Helpers was something akin to astonishment as they found they Cguld speak everywhere of religion without fear of indiscretion. Souls seemed to expect the mention of the name of God and an invitation to draw nearer to Him; indeed, they seemed even to long for it. A glimpse of activities on their first Christmas day in New York might give an idea of what progress was being made: (1) several First Communions at the midnight Masses (friends who had,bein. invited to assist had hastdned to fill the chapel);.~(2)-~a.receptidn of. 1,87~ SISTER MARY .CASSIED~. sodalists of ourLady'scheduled' for'~t later hour in.'the morning; ~lnd (3)one fo'r tiny tots (boys and girls)" in the.afternoon--the last ended with a "party" for' all concerned. The bell for Offiice at last put" an end to the prolonged rejoicings, and also to the ceaseless smil-ing and entertaining of the hostesses. Instruction of converts was hnother' item of Helper apostolate. The first soul to be thus tended was a young girl who called and presented to.Mother St. Bernard.a note of introduction from Father Van Rensselaer, S.,J., of St. Francis Xavier's. Another case was that pointed out to us by a ~lesuit with the information; "Protestant woman ill: her "little granddaughter to be brought up Catholic:" A little later the priest asked news of his patient. "She is learning her catechism w'itb much fervor, Father," was the reply. "The child, you mean? . No, the grandmother." "You are .joking, Sister! That can't be! There is nothing to be done with that wo-man . she is a bigoted Protestant." "I can assure you, Father, she is well on the way to" conversion; and it wasn't diffi:ult, either." The 'Helpers' constructive efforts were tending not only to re-lieve misery but to promote development socially and spiritually. First of all, their guilds for young girls and women carried in their programs cultural help fitted to the abilities of their members; sew-ing, languages, singing Under able direction were attractions much appreciated:those displaying talent for music were assisted and en-couraged. A primitive lay apostolate was started among the most fervent members; they were to "bring others," "notify of cases," etc. Italian groups also (of both men and women) received par-ticular attention; soon their Lenten missions were bringing, the re- "treat master immense consolation by the great number of returns to God. As the chapel was filled to capacity, the Helper in charge would give as direction to bet more fervent members, "Don't come tonight; leave your place for that one who needs it more." The formation of the Lady Associates also was a work towards which Mother St.' Bernard's far-sighted zeal turned most .prayer-fully. Favored by God as she was, she seemed to have only to evolve a project in order to draw God's blessing down upon it. Her power was her trust in the "fluidity" of her apostolic 'vocation--its perfect adaptability to.the mentality and needs of America--and in this trust she went straig,ht 6n. The group.of Lady Associates, in the idea of the foundress, Mother Mary of Providence, was called to share closely'in .the Helpers' prayers and. apostolic labors, sharing thus in-their merits for purgatory. From these ~lite were to com~ 1':88~ July, 19~ MOTHER ST. BERNARD the indispensable contributions.towards the Helpers' upkeep an.d works, cooperation in organizing parties or outings, for other groups, companions for the sisters in their visits to .the sick, the poor, or the hospitals. Indeed, it was.no small consolation, for Mother St. Bernard to see certain ones arm themselves with sick-case kit and contribute humble personal service. They bad monthly conferences by the best-known speakers amon. g the clergy, and a three-day re-treat in Lent. By November, 1894, twenty-seven ladies bad already made their .promises of prayer and work for the Holy Souls and bad received their silver crucifix. Mother St. Bernard on this occa-sion stressed their "joy on being received as ou~; Associates, their happiness in the bond of closer union it established with the Helpers." For these souls Mother St. Bernard stood-out as an inspiration and a subject of veneration. One of the first group, who is still living and still a devoted Associate, loves to recall the thrilling im-pression of reverence they experienced when they.stood in her pres-ence. They could not but feel that in the depths of those gentle, smiling eyes was a Presence, whose radiance awed and won them. A ~roof of their esteem for her is found in a life-sized marble statue o(the Sacred Heart erected in memory of her in the convent garden at Eighty-sixth. Street. The uplifted eyes and arms of Christ ex-emplify well her spirit: "That they may know. Thee, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent!" Mother St. Bernard, then, was the life of these varied projects: The generous response of New York Catholics to her zeal w~is the more and more numerous attendance at convent meetings. By 1894 the house could no Idnger contain them. The house itself, moreover, was becoming unsafe: c~uarters must be found elsewhere. This amidst general protestations; "our poor clients were for having the Arch-bishop oblige us to stay!" A' site on East Eighty-sixth Street, be-tween Park and Lexington Avenues, was "deemed suitable, since it placed the Helpers just between their dear poor and the friends not less dear on whom they relied for charitable help. Funds for the moving'were needed; the ladies, volunteered to sponsor a bazaar on the new premises. Let us hear an eye-witness tell of their fervor. "The Octave of the Holy Souls (November 2nd to 9th) :has closed as brilliantly as it began. The Archbishop had had his 'inevitable' absence ex-plained on the invitation cards. The chapel in its feast-day decora-tions gave sensible devotion, and our ladies.' kept it a bower of flowers for the full eight days. A bouquet for our Lord of still more ~189 SISTER MARY CASSILDA agreeable, perfume was the throng that crowded the chapel and drank in the words of Rev. Father Campbell, S.J., former provin-cial of the Jesuits. Father lent himself graciously to all the desires of our ladies for interviews, confessions, etc . " Father Campbell showed his appreciation of the organization by calling it "a great work destined to do much good, one in which good spirit and at-tachment to. their group is far above the ordinary." Nor was purgatory lost to view outside the convent by the Helpers. The Association of 'Prayer founded by Mother Mary of Providence was gathering in treasures for the deliverance of the Holy Souls. The Associates at present are numbered by thousands in each of the Helpers' convents (six now in the United States); they ap-preciate what is being done for their own dear deceased and are glad to obtain for them even more suffrages by participating actively in the "relief" work. For eleven years Mother St. Bernard had been praying, working, suffering, to give God to the souls whom providence directed to her in New York for purgatory's sake. She had loved God as St. John computes charity, for indeed she had "loved her neighbor." She had loved, too, her community; otherwise, how explain the un-failing response of its members to her unceasing calls on them "to relieve the misery of Purgatory by tending the needs of earth"? The fire of zeal that consumed her she knew how to communicate strongly and sweetly to her daughters; they ran gladly in the path she traced for them. But tbey were now to pay the price of further spiritual con-quests by sacrifice. Proposals for a foundation from various quarters :had been set aside by major superiors in favor of St. Louis. Arch-bishop Kane desired the Helpers for his flock, and Mother St. Ber-nard was charged to car'ry help. thither. Consternation reigned 'among her many friends; but Mother'St. Bernard, with ;i group of six Helpers, left in May, 1903, for her new field of activity. They 'found the little house that had been, rented for them on Delmar ¯ Avenue had been stripped by robbers the night.before their arrival. Of whatever furniture or provisions had been collected" for them, 'nothing .remained--and no 'wonder! Not fi door nor a window could, be closed securely; a state:of dilapidation.prevailed. But the exterior had the charm of St. Louis spaciousness' and verdure; the Helpers breathed gratefully an atmosphere of most cordial welcome; ~they,were delighted. Two beds were considered en6ugh .to start with; others'would come. Acarton would arrive correctly address~d.-~".'!.But 9'0 ~lulv, ¯ 1955 MOtHER. ST. BERNARD who sent us that?" would query the Helpers. "You bought it this mbtning," declared the grocery boy delivering it. "Not we, certainly!" "Well, someone just'as "certainly has v'aid for it." The ddnor was never discovered.; The large-l~eartedness of St. Louis Catholics assured the Helpers hearty support, frdm clergy and laity. Bishop Glennon, replacing Archbishop Kane taken sudde.nly ill, was delighted,~ when he heard no distinction of religion, race, or color was mad~ in their works. "You nurse the sick--colored?" he inquired. "Of course!" was the eager reply. The best families, with their deep spirit of faith, were glad show their appreciation of a work for their beloved deceased; g!fts of all kinds flowed in to lighten the rather severe poverty of the first weeks. It must have been great since the ~tory gores, that .the sister cook appeared one day in her superior's room to report a difficulty: she had just one dollar to get the commun!t~' thrbugb day. Mother St. Bernard, in her inimitable way. replie.d, we did not (ome here to eat; we came to save souts!" The incident ended happily, however, for the sister cook; she was called back to have an addition made to her capital. Sympathy was widely awakened. The "new Sisters' " arrival had got into the newspapers. Even bef6re the door bell had been repaired, friendly calls began. "You have come from so far, poor things !--have you been. expelled from France?" '.'The French hav~ such good taste., do you give instructions in millinery? or French?': or just, "Welcome to St. Louis . . . we will help you get started!" Work began at once; calls for nursing the sick around them--or even far from them--were answered. By June the Helpers already had sixty young girls forming a sodality. By October, thirteen ladies had gathered for serious apostolic work, and eight of their daughters and their friends in a group, apart. When the Octave of the Dead was solemnly celebrated with daily sermon and Benediction, one hundred of their friends fillefi chapel, ha.llways, veranda, etc. And their ardor .was no whir damp-ened if the preacher¯failed them unexpectedly; af~er'a wai~ o'f an h~ur and. a half,.they would have Benediction only, .anti depa;t-- l~ving the.work more than. ever! ~ " " ¯ . By. Januar.y .pf.'the next yea}r! sixty-two, colbred" w?.men we)~ attending a "weekly meeting. ¯ In thr~e years: time :(~is.soon as t.hei¯Helpers had settled in. their Review for Religions present home, 4012' Washington Boulevar.d) we read. of two. hun-dred and fifty poor who were~ served'ice cream .and cake at.a party,r How? W.e may 'wonder: All to the credit of.providence and St. 'Louisan generosity ! ,:~. Work. among the colored was pursued with an almost heroic courage. Along the banks of the Mississippi were to be found the poorest and m0,st abandoned of these; some of~the hovels 'were even a menace td~the lives of the religious. One Helper was warned that an infuriated husband was preparing to knife the next Helper who entered his house to care for his wife and cbiidren! The great need of the f~am!ly made the religious discou,n,t the possible danger; she "~ent again. But prudence.would nbt allow her to return--for the present ! The little c61ored children were collected for catechising when 'and where they could be i%u'nd. If a basement that h~id been "their ~e6tre" was needed ~or some other purpose, Helper-and pupils moved off res!gnedly with chairs and benches to the nearest hospitable-- iand still temporary--quarters. From contact with the parents of th~s~ children, bapt!.sms followed, often of whole families. Mother St. Berriard left St. Louis in 1905 to serve her order as foundress of a new house in San Francisco. But l~e} shpernaturai thirst fo.r the" total immolation"of foreign-mission life was not yet slaked. In her corresponderice with the mother ~eneral, allusion was frequeiatly made to China as a much-desired future post. At last ~.h:e latter w~ote her d~ar daughter to be in peace for the present, ~.'for if God Wants you in Chinal He will upset the earth to get you there!" We shill see bow, literally, He was soon to do so. " From the beginning San Francisco was to show'itself a worthy successor of New York and St. Louis as the "Providence" of the He!pets. Archbishop Riordan declared himself ~'their father," and ~ven complained paternally that he v~as not invited to do more for them. Providence also furnished friends, who, for the' sake of pur-gatory and its Helpers, were. glad to help "the Sisters" find a house and begin their charitable works. These were soon in full swing. A p~a~eful apostolate seemed assured them when, at five-fifteen in the morning, April 18 brought i~pon the city the historic earth-quake. When calm began to reappear and Mother St. Bernard was able to write, she began the account of the great catastrophe with the words, "God be praised for ha~cing enabled us to pass through these sad days in peace and joy in Our L'ord! All are saved, and not too exhausted, considering recent fatigues and emotions:" The 192 July, 1955 MOTHER.ST. BERNARD tale of these latter the .Helpers like to forget, remembering only the marked instances of divine protection, the touching, charity they had experienced, and the good they had been allowed to do for "souls. As a matter of fact, once the time of actual danger passed, they found a temporary residence, which promptly become an ark of salvation for many. ,lust a little later, Bishop Montgomery, on a visit to see how they were faring, discovered that the Helpers were making hay while the sun shone. Starting to open a door to the right, be was stopped by "Not~there, Excellency, confessions are being heard!" To the left, a group was being instructed for baptism; upstairs, souls in sorrow and distress had discovered the Helpers and were being consoled and helped. That morning eighty persons had assisted at a Mass said on the stairway; the absent members of the community were on their intensive tours in the camps. His Ex-cellency could only express his satisfaction with his Helpers for their readiness to meet the emergency. The catastrophe, indeed, which had shaken the city, ,bad not less deeply stirred the hearts of the victims: many saw in it the chastening hand of a Father long 9eglected, and were ready to turn to Him, or recognized in the Charity they' witnessed the one true church, and.desired to enter it. It was the happy lot of the Helpers to bring these to the priest. Five camps, each'comprising thousands of souls, were confided to their care;, and," before the refugees were able to find homes, the apostles bad again and again filled their nets wi'th the almost mirac-ulous draughts provided by the Lord; months of labor and fatigue, lightened by accompanying joy. By October a conventual life could be resdmed once more in a house temporarily rented, and the ordinary ,works of their voca-tion be resumed. To these were to be eventually.added extensive work among the French and the Chinese. But it was not to be Mother St. Bernard who would cultivate the new field as she had done in St. Louis and New York. The present shattering experience had seriously" fiffected her health, and she was recalled to Paris by an anxious mother general to be moth~red in her turn. Looking back over the labor of the year, she could say, "Our efforts have certainly borne fruit in Purgatory; and even if We had come to San Francisco only to give to God the souls re-cently converted, and to prevent, as we hope, 'so many mortal sins, ou~ sacrifices would be Well rewarded!" 'On September 19 Mother St. Bernard and a companion arrived once more at the'Jr home-land and were welcomed w. ith the warm affection that character- 193 NOTES ,FOR CONTRIBUTORS Reuieu.~ "for ,Religious izes the Helpers' family life. The time spent there¯ shou!d'~h~v~ been for her an epoch of peace and repose by the°side of her ~beloved mother general; but the Lord's way for her was still alternately one of extraordinary graces of union, and of interior¯ unrest and torment. Temptations, scruples, a too-ankious striving for a per-fection ever eluding her were now a 's~nctifying.fire in which' a last. mystic purification was being accomplished: and graces were being bbught for her apostolate. Finally, the mother general, yielding to the entreaties of Mother St. Bernard, gave her as assignment the missions. 'And in December, 1908, her last journey--this time to China !--was begun. The Helpers had been in that country since 1867, assisting the Jesuits in Kiang-su by training Chinese maidens for their priests' mis-' sionary work, caring for abandoned babies and orphans, and even opening schools for Chinese and European girls. Mother St. Ber-nard was welcomed there as a gift of God to the mission. She was appointed superior of one of the Helpers' convents in Shanghai, to which several European schools and free dispensaries were attacbed. The ~ictive part of her li'fe, ~however, was over; for her health had failed her completely now; but from her room, or even her bed; she' governed her establishment and had the consolation of 'designing and constructing a new altar for the chapel. It was the last time she would arouse and guide the latent abilities of her daughters for the adornment of the I£ord's abode among them. The Jesus she had ever so faithfully served was surrounded to the end by the care of her adoring love. After a long decline, patiently accepted, she went at last to find rest in Him who .had been her "All" in her struggles here below. His sacred name was the last her dying lips were heard to utter. She rests now in the convent cemetery; her remains, a long silent prayer for the welfare of her beloved China. Not es t:or Con!: 'ibutors tin our March number (pp. 104-112) we,publish~d the main part of a new style sheet. The material given here completes the .project.] VII. PAREN 'HESES EN,U.MERAT[ONS 1. Pla~e between parentheses figures or letters used to mark divi, sions of. enumer~ations,run., into the. .text. . :,,~ The,reasons for his resignation were three: (1) advanced age, (2) failing health', and (3) a desire to travel. 2. Pa'refitbe.ses a}e ~sed in pairs except that, when enum~;~d "di@- sions are pa~agrapl~ed, a~single parenthesis is ordmardy"u~ed {6 r94 NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS follow ~l lower-case (italic) letter or a lower-case roman numeral; a period is used instead of the parenthesis with Arabic figures and capital (roman) letters. He gave three reasons for not coming: a) He was not sure of the appointed time. b) He had no available transportation. c) He was sick. He 'gave three reasons for not coming: i) He was not sure of the appointed time. ii) He had no available transportation. iii) He was sick." He visited briefly the cities of-- 1. St. Paul, Minnesota; 2. St. Louis. Missouri; 3. Kansas ,City, Missouri. He visited briefly the cities of-- I. St. Paul, Minnesota; II. St. Louis, Missouri; III. Kansas City, Missouri. 3. If one or more of the enumerated items is a complete sentence, a period is the proper end punctuation; if all the enumerated items are. incomplete sentences and do not contain internal pur~ctuation, a comma is the proper end punctuation;if all th'e enumerated items are incomplete sentences and one or more of the items contain in-ternal punctuation, a semicolon is the proper end punctuation (cL the examples above). 4. If a period, comma, semicolon, or dash is needed at the end of a parenthesis that interrupts a sentence, place the mark outside.the parentheses. " Karen did not kfi'ow (or so she said). Here he gave .big strange, thofigh accurate (and' handsomely delivered), ac-count of the disaster. ]['ilton was.b.orn thi~ year of the flood (1894.) ; he doesn't remembe_r, much 5.' If a co, lon,.':question mark, or exclamation pbin~ I~elonks only"to th.e .p.a~[.enth_.~esi~, place the mark inside the p~ir~nth~ses' and end th~ sentence with another mark. : , ,~ : (Helen:) There is something .you'.are forget'tizig! "' '~' :. ' :: ~." .' Karen did not know (or did she?). ¯ :'" ¯ :" "''¢ Yates absconded with:'my fishing tackl~ (the.Scoundrel!;). d a , 6. If a colon, question mark, or exclamation point bel~n~ to the rest of the sentence or to.both the parentheses and the rest of the sentence, .place the mark outside the parentheses. .-" Pe'r6n nientions three ladrones (robbers) : Gonzales, Trega, and the'nameless . butcher. . ": . ¯ ¯ ;.Would.you care to join .us (in othei" words,, will you fake.the.d/ire)~ Chesterton said the most startling thing" ~oh. page 7) ! . ., .:i ¯ 1. NOTES 'FOR CONTRIBUTORS 7. Independent parenthetical sentences are enclosed in parenthese~ and are .punctuated and capitalized just like other independent sen-tences; the end punctuation is placed it/side the parentheses. I had just met the. man. (Oldenburg insists I met him a year earlier. Olden-burg, however, remembers things more or less as he pleases.) We had been introduced by Clesi, a mutual friend. VIII. COLON 1. Use a colon to introduce formally any matter that follbws-- usually matter in apposition. (A dash, less formal, may be used also for this purpose.) : She felt as .you would expect: worried, frightened, perplexed. 2. Use a colon to introduce a clause, that summarizes what has gone before. (A dash, less formal, may be [~sed also for this purpose.) You are to appear at exactly two o'clock; you are to be wearing a green cap; you are to leave at precisely th'ree: o'clock:" these things you must do . exactly and without fail, 3. Use a colon to introduce items tha~ are indented like paragraphs, provided that the introductory statement could stand as a sentence by itself. If the introducto;~z statement., is incomplete, use a dash. He'gave three ~easons for not coming: j ¯" 1. He~was not sure of the appointed time. . 2. He had no available transportation. 3. He was sick. He visited briefly the cities a) St. Paul Minnesota; b) St. Louis; Missouri; ,. c) Kansas ~City, Missouri. 4. Capitalize the first ~vord after a colon whenever you want to introduce formally a complete. :sentence following the colon. ., , The. '.next. questipn ~hat came up.for discussion was: Are the requirements for membership strict enough? . ,. 5. 0 D6 not capitalize the first ,k, ord after a colon, when. y9u are (I) merely giving an example or amplifying a preceding clause or (2) adding'brief iiems that do not make 'a" complete sentence. " Everything ffas~perfect for our walk' to Corona: the day was sun'ny a~id clear; the air grew cooler and scented as we climbed the Divide; and we seemed to have the .whole mountain to ot~rselves. Peace is not an accident:, it is built of law and self-restraint. Be sure to bring,these things .with you: .,swim.ruing trunks, slacks, and tennis shorts. OUR CONTRIBUTORS SISTER MARY CASSILDA, Helper of the'Holy Souls, went to China ~'i~h Mother St. Bernard!add spent the first twenty-five years of her religious life there; the latter part of her life has been spent almost entirely as mistress of novices. 3OHN MATTHEWS and 3OSEPH ,F. GALLEN are members of the faculty, of Wood-stock College, Woodstock, Maryland.: . ?1~,96 "['he ot: l x rnple John Matthews, S.J. GOOD example r(quires at least two persons --.the one Who gives and the one who receives the example. A man gives holy example b~; doing holy deeds; when these virtuous works move another to .imitafe them, that other is said to receive good example. Of course, all fine actions stir men to applaud them; but our human approval may go no further. At times, however, God appoints a worthy deed to serve as a grace. We call it an external grace' because it is a divine gift outside our souls-- for instance, the Bible. Thus when God wills that another's holy action be an example to us, then --and only-then-- can that act of virtue help us to do a like deed in a way leading to heaven. Then'the virtuous deed teaches us. It arouses our admiration. It draws us to imitation. It encourages us. It moves us to good thoughts and resolutions. It can even open up new paths of holiness. In this way a virtuous work prepares our minds and wills to receive from God the actual grace with which we can do deeds of superfiatural worth. So does the grace of example play its part in the divine plan for our salvation. Jesus Christ is our greatest model of holiness, our finest example of virtue. He practiced all the virtues in their fullness -- without defect and without sin. He excelled in love of and obedience to His heavenly Father. Towards men He was patient and merciful. He offered His enemies, a Heart of love. While humble, He evei spoke the truth with,courage. The perfection and harmony of virtue iri-spired all His actions. Rightly do we call one of such perfect holi-ness our greatest grace of example. Moreover, ou~ Lord had a mission to be for mankind the exem-plar of virtue. From ~ternity God the Father in His loving providence had willed expressly that the actio'ns of His Son should be graces of example for men of future ages. H~nce our Lord cafne into the.~orld to model holy deeds for us and to draw us to imitate His example. Our Savior was aware ofthis mission; and He completed it by model-ing ~vety virtue in every circumstafic6 of life--iia the family, in dealing with others, in poverty an'd labor, in honor and tempation, in prayer and pain a'nd death. $6 foi'countlesss'children 6f God, the actions of Jesus have been and are an external grace; throu'~-cen-t- ,197 JOHN MATTHEWS Review for Religious uries to come our Model will offer men the grace of holy example. "For I have given you an example that, as I have done to you, So you do also'[ (3ohn 13:15). Note those last words: "so you do also." Therein the Savior stresses our duty to be graces of example for our fellow men. Jesus has the right to command us; He is our Lord and Master. Yet He did not merely impose on His faithful the duty of imitating Him; He also practiced the virtues Himself: "As I have done to you, so you do also." Christ commands only what He first did. "For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow His steps" (I Pet. 2:21). In the likeness of ,Jesus, we too must give holy example to our brethren. This means, first, that we may not give bad example. Our ac-tions must never be a scandal to others. Hence priests and religious can well challenge themselves. Have I through discouraging advice failed to draw my neighbor to God when I could have? Has my neglect of duty been a bad influence on my flock? Has my failure led others to act remissly? Have my faults disedified those whom God has placed in my charge? We see readily that poor example can be very damaging to our neighbors' faith and .holiness. But our Lord also calls us to be sterling examples to those about us. Thus we are bound in Christlike charity to give .holy example, especially when it is needed to save others from suffering serious scandal or from committing mortal sin. This duty is uni-versal; on all men of all time rests the task of inspiring each other by worthy conduct. Particularly obliged to give good example are those having authority--religious superiors, parents, teachers, civil officials, bishops, and priests. Like Christ, her Head, the Catholic Church has the mission of being the exemplar of sanctity in the world. She must be holy her-self and she must also model holiness for every walk of life. In-deed, ~so clearly was the Church a pattern of virtue in her early days that even the pagans remarked this. "The practice of such a special love brands us in the eyes of some. 'See,' they say, 'how they love one another . . . and how ready they are to die for each other.'-1 Today likewise the Church's children must in .charity offer Christ-like example to those in and out of the fold. As Catholic~, there-fore, it is emine.ntly our duty to live. so virtuously, that God," if Hd wills, may use our holy deeds as patterns for imitation by other 1Tertullian, Apolo~y,'Ch. 3 9. duly, 1955 TH'E GRACE OF F.XAMPLE me'n. Then will Our Catholic life carry on the wonders our Savior did. Our practice of virtue will draw souls to Christ and to His Church. The duty of givin~ example will be an apostolate to our neighbors in the Lord. We will be our brothers' keeper, a good shepherd to sheep outside the fold, a leaven in the mass of mankind, and a flame lighting for men the way to God. Truly is our good example a help to the holiness of others--in the convent, seminary, school, parish, hospital, everywhere. It com-bats evil .example; it challenges bad will; it supplants ignorance (cf. I Pet. 2:12-15); and it offsets that fear of men which keeps the timid from acting rightly. Frederic Ozanam,2 hoping to begin his work amongst the needy, .was so hindered by obstacles that he almost gave up the idea. In search of strength he stepped into a church. There he saw a man praying before the Blessed Sacrament. It was his friend, Ampere, a scientist of renown, a pioneer in the field of electricity; and, from this man's prayerful example, Ozanam drew the courage to work again and finally to found the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The example of Ampere was an external grace, prepared by God from all eternity fbr the disheartened Ozanam. Again, worthy example helps man spiritually because it spurs others to imitation.In 1646, St. Isaac 3ogues, 3esuit missionary, died under the blows of an Iroquois tomahawk. As a young priest 3ogues saw two of his fellow missionaries returning from their labors to Quebec. He wrote3 of them to his mother. "They were barefooted and exhausted, their underclothes worn out and their cassocks hanging in rags on their emaciated bodies.", Yet the sight of these missionaries was an external grace for 3ogues--and the oc-casion of actual graces that made his missionary vocation stronger. He continues in his letter: "Their faces . . . expressive of content and satisfaction . . . excited in me both by their looks and conver-sation a desire to go and share with them the crosses to which our Lord attached such unction." That desire St. Isaac satisfied thr.oug.h torture and martyrdom. A last word. ~oncerns oumelves. God places us where we. can best~gain heaven and lead ot.he~s there. In this vocation all should give and receive holy example. Through the centuries the family heroes of~the Catholi+ Church--Christ, Mary, saintly men and wo- 2James Bro~terick; S.J.,'. Fred&ic Ozanam and His" Society (London: Bu~:ns, Oates f3 Washbourne Ltd., 1933:). . . ¯ -. . 3Dean Harris, Pioneers of the.Cross.in Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Good-child). QU~S.~IONS AND ANSWER~ Reoiew for Religious men and children--have been patterns of virtue for mankind. Today Catholics have the task of carrying on the work of their heroes and of being themselves graces of example for all those God brings into. th'eir daily life. Indeed, the Christian apostle will stand out amongst men as another light of the world, drawing souls to his Savior and his Church. Such a crusade can well be fruitful unto life eternal both for ourselves and our neighbors in Christ. As Catholics, we will also see the holy actions of others. These may not impress us much; indeed, we may even smile at them. When, however, God wills that another's act challenge us, we find heart and mind drawn to praise and imitate the virtuous deed. In this favorable situation God pours into our soul the heavenly strength of His actual grace, wherewith we ourselves can imitate the fine ex-ample of our neighbor. I~ is God who puts .us in the way of inspiring example. In His special care for each soul, He planned that from all eter.nity. We must, then, take to heart the example others give us; for thereby God seeks to help us grow more holy. We should profit by the worthy example we notice, be alert for the actual grace which fol-lows example, and use God's graces, both external and actual, to do those virtuous deeds which delight God and open heaven for us. ( ues ions and Answers 16 In Review {or Religious, XIII (1954), 251, it is stated: "Major superior-esses . . . shall send in their report as follows: . . . In 1956 . . . the super-ioresses of America (North, Central, South)." A doubt occurs to our minds as to whether the year 1956 is to be included in the quinquennial report, which then will be sent to the Sacred Concjrecjation of Rellcjious early in 1957. Kindly let us know. In a decree dated March 8, 1922, the Sacred Congregation of Religious determined the dates for the years in which the quinquen-nial report is to be sent to the Holy See by all religious institutes according to the" prescriptions of canon 510, and it provided as follows: "The five-year periods are determined and common for all religious institutes and they begin with the first day of January, 1923." Hence (he first report to be sent during the year 1928 began with Jantlary I, i923, and ended with December 31, 1927. Simi- 200 4.ul~l7 1955 . . QUESTIONS AND ANS,.WERS lar.ly .the report to be sent to the Holy See during the.year 1956 (nQt 1957) by all religious institutes of women' from the Americas (North, Central, and South) will cover the .entire five-year period beginning with January 1, 1951, and ending December 31, 1955. ml7-- When a sister v~hether temporarily or perpetually professed, who has left the community, is permitted for a good reason to return, should she take her rank in religion fron~ her first profession? Or should she be.' ranked according to her profession after her re-entrance? Supposing that by "left the community" you mean. that sister asked for and obtained a dispensation from her vows, then the an-swer is to be found in canon 640, § 2, which reads as follows: "If, by.virtue of an apostolic indult, he i~ received again into the insti-tute, he must make a new novitiate and profession, and his place, amongst the professed members, must be reckoned from the day of his new profession." On the other hand, "left the community" may simply mean that the sister was granted, an indult of exclaustration, that is, per-mission to live in the world for a time without the religious habit and in subjection to the local ordinary in conformity with the pro-visions of canons 638 and 639. In this case sister remains bound by her vows and the other obligations of her religious profession compatible with her state. She is, for the time being, not subject to the superiors of her own institute, but to the local ordinary in whose diocese she resides, and this even by virtue of her vow of obedience. Consequently, upon .her return to her institute, since she has never been released from her vows, she resumes that rank which she already had when she went out into the world for a time. A novice in a pontifical institutewhich has two full years of novitiate received the habi÷ on August IS, 19S3. During the canonical year the novice spent.twenty-two days in a hospital. Now two questions arise: (I) When does the second year of novitiate begin in this case? (2) What is the earliest date upon which the novice may tak,e first vows? First of all, l~t us recall to mind that' canofi 555; §12, states the foil.owing: "If the 'constitutions prescrib m6re than 6ne ~'ear for the novitiate, the extra time is not required" for the ;¢alidlty of th~ profession, except the constitutions expressly 'd'&la}{ btherwise." Since.nothing was said about such a provision, we may presume 201 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious that the constitutions have no special provision for the validity of the second year of novitiate. What folloWs~ therefore, applies qnly to the licit profession of tb~ first vows after two years of novitiate. :.- On February 12, 1935, the Commission for the Interpretation of the Code "of Canon Law declared that an apostolic indult is re-quired in order that, the canonical year of novitiate mentioned in canon 555, § 1, n. 2, may be transferred to the second year of novitiate according to § 2 of the same canon. In other words, when there are two years of novitiate, the canonical year must be com-~ pleted dur]ng the first year. A canonical, year of novitiate which has been interrupted by a period of more than thirty days must be begun over again. On the other hand, if the novice has passed more than fifteen days but no~ more than thirty days even interruptedly outside the novitiate'house under the obedience of the superior, it is necessary and sufficient for the validity of the novitiate that he supply the number of days so passed outside. This is the statement of canon 556 regarding thi~ interruption of the canonical year. To complete this canonical year the novice .in question, must spend twenty-two complete days extra in the novitiate after August 15. Hence the second year of novitiate cannot be begun until midnight: of September 6-7. This answers our first question. If the second year of novitiate begins at midnight, September 6-7, thenit will be completed at midnight ~f September 6-7 a year later; and the novice may licitly take his vows on September 7, 1955. Superiors cannot shorten the second year of novitiate (Normae of 1901, art. 75), nor can they dispens~"from a'-certain number of days by reason~of power granted to ',them 'in the constitutions; and the reason is that there is no questio~ here o~ a simple disciplinary norm from which superiors may dispense. However, in the present case,.the superior would be justified in.requesting a dispensation from the Holy See so that the novice ~ay make his first profession of vows aftertwo years with his class on A~g(st 15~ 1955. Are indulgences 9ranted ~y the Holy See limited to Catholics of the Latin rite? How may a Cafh01i~ o~ ~he ,~e~'.rit~' share, ih ~hese indul-gences ff they a~e so I[mffed? Do Cafhofic~ off, he Greek r[fe,have the[r own book on in ences? . ": ,: Since indulgences, pertain directly to'the spk~tual good'of souls, 202 July!, 1955 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS they must be intended for all Catholics.¯ In this matter there is no distinction between the Eastern and the Latin churches. As far back as December 23, 16'16, Pope Paul V assured the clergy and people of the Ruthenian nation in communion with the Apostolic See that they share with the rest of the faithful all in-indulgences upon fulfillment of the prescribed conditions (cf. Col-lect. Lacensis, II, col. 600 d). Within recent times a certain bishop of an Eastern. rite proposed the following question: "May the faith-ful of the Eastern Rites gain the indulgences granted by the Supreme Pontiff by a universal decree?" And the Sacred Penitentiary re-sponded in the affirmative on duly 7, 1917 (AAS, IX [1917], 198). Since these concessions refer only to indulgences granted to all the faithful by a universal decree, Vermeersch asks a very practical question (Periodica, IX [1920], 67, 68): "May Orientals by the use of scapulars and blessed beads gain the indulgences of the Latins?" He is inclined to the affirmative opinion, even in the case when 'the erection of a confraternity is required. His opinion is based upon an answer of the Sacred. Congregation of Indulgences which d~- clared it was lawful, for the master general of the Order of Preachers without a special faculty of the Holy See to erect confraternities proper to the Order also in churches of a different rite with the previous consent of the ordinary as among the Latins (S. C. Cong. lndulg., dune 21, 1893). There is no special book of indulgences for the Eastern Church. For such indulgences as have been granted by the Supreme Pontiff to all the faithful by a universal decree they may use the official Latin text issued in 1942 by the Sacred Penitentiary.under the ~itle of Enchiridion Ir~dulgentiarum (2nd ed., 1952). This has been ' translated into English under the official title of the Raccolta or Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences. ~-20-~-" In the case of a small monag:l'i~: chaptei', is it permissible to use fyped slips of. paper for votlncj inlplace 6f hand v~'riffen ones? Some elderly nuns do not ~e~h well:enodcjh:to write, and i~" would 'be very helpful if;they could be cfive~n"the typed namds of all th~ nuns 'enjoylncj ~passlve vblce. 'Our consti÷ufions do not specify "thekind bf ballot to be 'tJs~d b'i,t"onl~, i'hat it is to b~ "~leposffed in :÷heurn.; . .'. To avoid all .confusign~ and any~:pgssible, invalidity of votes because o~ a "lack of secrecy, only blank slips of paper should be.used ,203: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review ~oF Religious in elections, even in the case of a small monastic chapter. When an elderly nun who does not see well enough to write advances to de-posit her ballot in the urn, let her give her blank ballot'io one of the tellers and ask him to write in the name of N.N. Since the tellers are bound to secrecy by oath (Canon 171, § 1) thiff method is proposed by a number of reputable canonists 'such as Schaefer (De Religiosis. ed. 4, p. 242, n. 499, 15), 'Jone (Commentarium in Codicem, I sub c. 169, n. 2, pp. 173-'74), De Carlo (Ius Religi-osorum, n. 125IV, p. 114.), Vermeersch-Creusen (Epitome, I, n. 287) and others. . On account of a very tight schedule it would seem necessary to have Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament on prescribed days during our medi-tation period. Would such a practice I~e considered desirable?. Or would it be better to have Benediction less often and have it outside of medi-tation time?" May a holy hour during which there is exposition of the Bles-sed Sacrament interspersed with vocal prayers and sincjincj be considered as a valid substitute for meditation?' Finally, is it permissible to substitute a second.Mass for par~ of the morning meditation? Geiaerallyspeaking, there should be no conflict between medita-tion period and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The consti-tutidns[ pres~rib'e th~ period of daily; meditation and no superior has the power to dispense in a "~enera! way from this obligation by shortening it. On the other hand, the sisters should not be de-p. rived of the blessing of 'their Eucharistic King on those days when Benediction fs permitted by the local ordinary. Schedules can and sfiould b~ arranged so as to avoid a frequent conflict. In single in-stanci~ s when, o'wing to iin unforseen difficulty, both cannot be had, superiors may dispense from a part of .the meditation period in order to make it possible to have Benediction ~f the Blessed Sac[a-ment. Provided that the holy hour has several periods free for silent prayer, it may be used. for the evening meditation. The chaplain may be ask.ed to provide such intervals for silent prayer. It is hardly c.orre.ct to talk about "substituting a second l~lass for meditation." What the writer has in mind un.doubtedly is the fact that occasional.l~r a "dsiting priest puts .in an. appearance and says Mass during the time allotted to the morning meditation. There is no objection to the religious finishing their meditation during this second.Mass (cf. t~EVlEW' FOR RELIGIOUS XI [1952]-, 3~:~3, q. " 30). , . 20.4 " Religious Clerical Forma!:ion and Sist:er Format:ion Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. [The following article is an address given by Father Gallen at the first Eastern regional meeting of the Sister Formation Conference, held at Fordham University, November 27, 1954. Ed.] thought WE can aptly begin our meeting by borrowing a of P!us XII. There is no doubt that progress has been made in the education and formation of sisters. Our spirit, there-fore, should not be one of discovery and reform but of greater progress. We are to direct our thoughts and efforts, not to the merely necessary or barely sufficient, but to the perfect. The state of perfection implies not only personal perfection but also perfec-tion in God's work. The topic a~signed to me may be entitled, "Religious Clerical Formation and Sister Formation." The comparison is not new. Father Larraona, the Secretary of the Sacred ~ongregation of Re-ligious, stated in 1951 that the teaching apostolate of sisters had a distinctive similarity to the priestly ministry. There is nothing in the Code of Canon Law on the studies or .professional formation of members of lay institutes, brothers, nuns, and sisters. The sarhe silence is verified with regard to non-clerical studies in clerical in-stitutes. The aim of this talk is to give the pertinent legislation, and especially the mind and spirit of the Church, on undergraduate clerical studies of religious men. This is to serve as a basis of con-jecture to the mind of the Church on the education and formation in lay institutes and as a partial foundation for your practical dis-cussions on this same point. My instructions were to emphasize the reasons for the legislation on clerical studies. Since these reasons are not found in the Code of Canon Law but in documents of the Holy See issued before and aftdr the Code, this talk will necessarily be, in great part, a documentation'. I. DURATION OF UND~ERGRADUATE CLERICAL STUDIES Presupposing the completion of high school, canon law com-mands two years of the humanities (first and second year of coi- , lege), at least two years of philosophy, and at least four years of theology for rehgtous dest~,ned for the priesthood. Exact 1y the same norm is .true of diocesan clerical studies. 205 JOSEPH F. GALLEN There is also an added .period of clerical formation immediately after the completion of the seminary course. This period is only of counsel, not of strict obliga.tion.; but it is a counsel strongly urged by Plus XII and the Sacred Congregation of Religious for both diocesan and religious priests. The words of Pius XII to the bishops of the world on this pont are: "We urge you, Venerable Brethren, as far as circumstances may permit, not to rush inexperienced priests into the life of full activity." On the time of this added formation, he states: "Accordingly, We heartily approve the plan. of assign-ing for several years the newly ordained priests, wherever possible, to special houses." "Several years" demand a minimum of two years. The S. C. of Religious had already urged the same practice for religious priests. The undergraduate preparation for the priesthood is thus at least eight years of obligatory study and traini.ng after high school and two years of counselled limited activity and further formation after the completion of the seminary course. The reason for the obligatory duration was expressed in the same words by Leo XIII and the S. C. of Seminaries and Univer-sities: "The preparation for the priestly duties must be long and arduous, since no one becomes familiar with things of such great moment easily or rapidly." The same Congregation also phrased this purpose as follows: "The work of the formation of a worthy ec-clesiastic is arduous and prolonged, but the fruits that are gained are no less useful to the Church and no less consoling to the heart of a bishop." Th~ reasons given by Plus XII and the Sacred Congregations of Religious and of Seminaries and Universities for the highly recom-mended added period of formation are: the dangers that exist at the beginning of the priestly life; the insufficiency of seminary training for the inc'reasing needs of the people; the necessity of training in doctrine, technique, and in the new forms of the apostolate; the need of competent and experienced individual guidance in the min-istry and also in the spiritual lives of young priests: and the need of learning the necessities, dangers, and difficulties of our times. The subjects I would suggest for your though~ and discussion under this betiding are the following: Isn't it in accord with the mind of the Church that the young sister should finish her under-graduate schooling, and training before, beginning to teach? Isn't teaching also a greht work and one that demands.a proportionately long and arduous preparation? 'Is the ill-prepared and unformed 206 July, 1955 SISTER FORMATION teacher in. accord with the 'norm of. excellence of Catholic education stated by Pius XI in his Encyclical on Christian Education and in a letter to his Cardinal Secretary of State: "Catholic establishments, no matter to what grade of teaching or learning they appertain, have no need of. defense. The universal favor they enjoy, the praise they receive, the.numerous scientific works they produce, and par-ticularly the outstanding men of' great learning and exquisite cul- , ture that they contribute to the service of government, to the arts, to teaching, to life finally in all its aspects are more than a sufficient testimonial of their renown." Are religious superioresses guilty of the imprudence that Plus XI censured in religious superiors who wish to abbreviate clerical studies thht they may apply their sub-jects more quickly to the sacred ministry? He declared that the de-fect of such a rapid and inverted preparation can scarcely ever be remedied in later life and that the utility is later proved illusory by the diminished aptitude of the subject for the sacred ministry. I almost sense the familiar rebuttal that springs to the lips of many: "But we need the sisters. What of the thousands of children who must be given a Catholic education?" Let the Holy See an-swer. In an Instruction of April 26, 1920, to the Ordinaries of Italy, the S. C. of Seminaries and Universities repeated a recom-mendation of the. S. Consistorial Congregation that newly ordained priests be assigned as prefects in minor seminaries. One reason for the recommendation was that it would give the young priests one or two years of added study, formation, and initiation in the sacred ministry. The S. Congregation proposed to itself and answered the one di~culty that existed against the recommendation, i.e, the immediate need of priests in the active ministry. The Congregation maintained that this difficulty was outweighed .by the good of giving later a perfectly and solidly formed priest, that the profit of the added formation of one or two years was immensely greater than the good of supplying the immediate necessity, and also that the delay in supplying the immediate needs would be only for one or two years. The system would be in full operation at the end of this time, and the same number of priests would then be assigned yearly to the life of full activity. We can add ,that it appears to be idle to oppose the necessity of teachers against the longer preparation of sisters. The Catholic population in the United States is not decreasing; the de-mand for teachers will no~ decrease in the future. If the longer preparation cannot be given now, when will it be possible to give this preparation ? 207 JOSEPH F. (]ALLEN Review [or Religious We may add here some pertinent and important details of cler-ical studies. Canon law forbids religious superiors to assign any duties to the students of philosophy or theology that would be' an obstacle or impediment in any way to either their study Or classes. Canonical authors are quick to explain that the usual violation of this law is the appointment of such students as 'teachers'or prefects in the schools .of the institute. Furthermore, the Code explicitly grants superiors the faculty of dispensing students from some com-munity exercises, including choir, if this is judged necessary for their advance in study. The length of the scholastic year in clerical studies is nine months, which gives a summer vacation of three months. In a letter of July 16, 1912, to the Ordinaries of Italy, the S. Con-sistorial Congregation decreed that there should be four hours of class daily in seminaries. Four and a half hours daily were permitted only if there was a full holiday each week. These hours were to be broken, not all consecutive. The S. Congregation opposed a greater number of hours as impossible and gave as the reasons: the religious exercises obligatory in seminaries and the interruption of labor and rest necessary to avoid harm to the physical health of the students. Care of the health of the students is to be exercised in all seminaries, and it is at least not unusual for one of the officials to have the spe-cial duty of prefect of health. ¯ Is the life of (he young and sometimes even of the older sister in dark and even frightening contrast to this sensible legislation, regulation, and reasoning of the Holy See? She'is confronted daily with the exhausting task of six or seven hours of teaching young children, of extracurriculaf activities, preparation for classes, several hours of religious exercises, domestic duties in the convent, and some-times of added parochial duties.' She may have to attend classes for her own education on some afternoons and on Saturdays. Her Christmas vacation is frequently¯taken up in great part by a second retreat, and her Easter vacation is sometimes devoted to the annual retreat. In the summer¯she is faced by summer school for her own education, her annual retreat, and sometimes by catechetical schools. In such a regime we can seriously doubt that she.is capable'of being sou,ndly educated' by the extra classes .during the year and the sum-mer school. We can affirm with certainty that sufficient care is not being taken of her physical and mental health and that she is not being given the maternal government demanded by Plus XII. With equal certainty we can hold that her spiritual life is endangered. She is faced by an impossible life. Something has to break; and 208 dulg, 1.o55. SISTER FORMATION experience proves, at least usually, that the first thing to weaker~ in such circhmstances is the spiritual life. II. Pu~post~ OF UNDERGRADUATE CLERICAL STUDIE~ The essential purpose of undergraduate clerical studies is to ed-ucate and train a competent and worthy priest for the sacred min-istry. This purpose was expressed by Urban VIII, in 1624, "that they may later be useful workmen for the Church"; by Benedict XIII, in 1725, "that they may be worthy, skilled, useful workmen"; by Plus X, in 1910, "the formation of a priest worthy of the name." In 1940 the S. Congregation for the Oriental Church made a comparison with regard to this purpose, which we can summa~'ize as follows: If lawyers, civil officials, doctors must study for years and obtain a prescribed degree, if even those engaged in the manual arts must serve a long apprenticeship, certainly the ministers of Christ need a much longer and much more careful formation both because of the sublime dignity of their office and the most important duty of directing souls. Isn't the office of the Catholic teacher also sublime, also most important? That office is to form the mind, the heart, the soul to this life and especially to eternal life. Is the~sister being given a for-mation that is commensurate with her purpose and that can stand unashamed before the preparation required for a lawyer, a doctor, before that demanded and enjoyed by her secular colleagues in the teaching profession? We religious live in the day of a great move-ment in the Church, the renovation and adaptation of the religi6us life, initiated and fostered constantly and intensely by .Pius XII. Doesn't this movement demand that we no "longer look to secular agencies and persons for leadership, that the principle of our life, our work, our advance, our progress be within, not without? If we go into this purpose in greater detail, we realize that cler-ical formation is a training in knowledge and in sanctity. Knowledge is of less import.ance, but it is of great importance. The purpose of the formation in knowledge is not to produce merely a skilled spir-itual mechanic, a man unlettered outside the sacristy and sanctuary. It is the intention of the Church, emphasized by Leo XIII, that the priest be a man of culture, of wide and varied learning. Pius XII stated: "Seminarians are to be formed in piety and virtue and are also to acquire a literary and scientific learning that will later en-able them to exercise an efficacious and fruitful ministry among all classes of citizens. A priest must be thoroughly familiar with 209 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious sacred doctrine but he also cannot be. ignorant of the knowledge possessed generally by cultured men of his own nation." To teach is to transmit culture. This is especially necessary in our country and age when, to paraphrase Pius XII, so many men work at machines and a much greater number think and live as machines. Every Catholic teacher should be distinguished by a strong family resemblance to her mother, the Catholic Church, the mother of cul-ture and the devoted parent of the liberal arts. Is the extension, the summer school, the discontinuous type of education of sisters apt to produce a person of information and methods ~ather than one of culture? Is the attainment of culture generally possible except in a continuous, prolonged, properly directed and properly regulated course of studies? " Seminary training is a preparation in knowledge; but, in the language of Pius XI, it is infinitely more a preparation in sanctity. Canon law sufficiently emphasizes this purpose and demands that common life be observed perfectly in religious houses of study, and this under the most severe penalty of privation of the ordination of the students, that only edifying religious be assigned to such houses, that the superior exert constant and careful vigilance to secure the most perfect observance of the religious exercises, that the students be committed to the care of a spiritual director of outstanding pru-dence, charity, spirituality, and religious observance, and that the professors are not only to be competent but also of conspicuous pru-dence and spirituality. The law on diocesan seminaries is perfectly parallel. The pre-eminence of this purpose does not escape canonical authors, who follow Clement VIII in classify!ng the period of cler-ical studies of religious as another noviceship. However, it is espe-cially in the constant directives of the Roman Pontiffs that the preparation in sanctity receive its adequate expression. Leo XIII and Benedict XV aptly summarized the purpose of diocesan seminary training not as mere observance of regulations, not as a mere mor-ally upright life, but as the formation in the students of the living image of Jesus Christ. In the thought of St. Plus X, the purpose of the seminary is to form the student in priestly sanctity, and the distinction between the priest and the merely upright man should be as great as .that between heaven and .earth. This purpose must be intensified for clerical religious, since Pius XII has clearly re-moved any possible doubt from the proposition that it is the ob-ligation of the religious, not of the cleric, to strive for complete evangelical perfectiOn. 210 July, 1955 SISTER FORMATION Thus the training in priestly sanctity, in the religious sanctity of the religious priest, demands this long noviceship of at least eight years. Plus XII stated to a gathering of members of the Society of 3esus: "As a long space of time is required to establish the sturdy oak, so prolonged patience is always necessary for the formation of the man of God. Therefore, the generous daring of young men that impels them immaturely into action must be curbed. Too hasty activity destroys rather than builds up and is harmful both to the subject and to the apostolic works themselves." In law the sister is no less the woman of God. She shares equally with religious men the obligation and the glory of striving for complete evangelical perfection. Isn't she being rushed immaturely into action? Is it conducive to her purpose of personal.sanctification to hurry a young sister into the life of full activity after only a year and a half or two years and a half of postulancy and noviceship? You must be aware that at times even postulants and second-year novices are assigned to this life of full activity. In the case of the novices, this practice, as customarily carried out in fact, is clearly contrary to an important Instruction of the S. C. of Religious. Are these facts in accord with the principle of Pius XII quoted above? In his Encyclical on Sacred Virginity, the same Pontiff demands the long segregation of the seminary and scholasticate for diocesan and religious priests and then asks the question: "What gardener in planting trees exposes his choice but weak cuttings to violent storms that he may test the strength that they do not yet possess? The stu-dents of the sacred seminary and the scholastics are certainly to be considered like young and weak trees that .must first be planted in places of shelter and prepared gradually for resistance and conflict." Shouldn't our age of the equality of woman have proved to us that she is the equal of man also in weakness? That she too needs a long segregation in the shelter of eternal things before she is strong enough to live eternal things even satisfactorily in the attractions and al-lurements of the things of time? III. ONE HOUSE OF STUDIES IN EVERY CLERICAL INSTITUTE The law of the Code is that every clerical religious institute is obliged to have at least one house of studies for philgsophy and the-ology. It is even somewhat probable that each province should have such a house. The same law is true of every diocese for the diocesan clergy. The reason for this norm is that the popes have identified the necessity of a seminary in every diocese with the necessity oLsem- ,JOSEPH F. GALLEN R~oieua Ioi" Religious. inary training itsklf. We may add that a seminary in every diocese and a house of clerical, studies in every religious institute a~e, gener-ally speaking, more conducive at least to spiritual formation and evidently permit greater control, direction, and supervision. This canonical norm prompts the following subject for your thought: Should not every congregation of sisters have its own juniorate where, immediately after the novicesbip, the young professed com-plete their undergraduate intellectual formation and continue their spiritual formation? An observation must be added here. In com-manding a seminary in each diocese and a house of studies in every clerical religious institute, the Church manifests that she has no excessive fear of educational inbreeding: This .difficulty will be overcome by having the juniorate teachers make their graduate studies outside their own institute. IV. EXCEPTION TO THE PRECEDING NORM According to canon law, if a religious institute or province can-not have a suitable house of studies for philosophy or theology or it is difficult to send the students to their own house of studies, t.hey are to be sent to the house of studies of another province of the same institute, or of another religious institu.te, or to a diocesan seminary, or to a Catholic university. In the same circumstances, a diocese is to send its seminarians to the seminary of another diocese or, if they exist, to the common seminary of many dioceses (interdiocesan) or to the common seminary of one or several ecclesiastical provinces (regional). These canons suggest the following thoughts for your consideration: the sending of the junior professed to the juniorate of another province, or to the classes of the juniorate of another in-stitute, or to the classes of a Catholic college or university, or to those of a diocesan college for sisters, or final!y to a central house of studies for all the provinces of the same congregation. One very important caution may and should be added here. A seminary is not a day school. By a seminary or clerical house of studies, the Church means a house where the students reside day and night. Otherwise, their principal purpose, the continued spiritual formation of the students, would hax~e to be classed as a practical impossibility. If we apply this concept to congregations of sisters, the following conclusion seems to be evident: If congregations send their junior professed to classes outside their own institute, these young-professed should reside in the one house of their own institute, under the direction of a mistress of juniors, whose office is to be 212 ,lulg, 1955 SISTER FORMATION analogous to that of the spiritual director in diocesan seminaries and clerical houses of study. If this is not done, the prihcipal purpose of a juniorate, the continued spiritual formation of the young professed, will also be a practical impossibility. A well-known authority on the law of religious, the Dominican canonist Pruemmer, has a per-tinent thought on this matter: "Experience proves sufficiently and superabundantly that clerical studies suffer when the students are scattered in small houses that serve only secondarily for studies; therefore, they are to be assembled in larger formal houses whose principal purpose is the promotion of studies." We can well add that their spiritual formation suffers even greater damage. V. SHOULD THE JUNIORATE, AT LEAST ULTIMATELY, BE Ex- CLUSIVELY FOR SIS:FERS; OR SHOULD THE JUNIOR PROFESSED BE SENT TO CLASSES WITH COLLEGE GIRLS? It is the repeated and insistent teaching of the Roman Pontiffs and the Roman Congregations, also in our day, that there is no such thing as a mixed seminary, that is, an educational establishment for both seminarians and secular students. The words of Pius XI on this point are: ". sacred seminaries are to be used only for the pur-pose for which they were instituted, the proper formation of sacred ministers. Therefore, not only must there be no place in them for boys or young men who manifest no inclination for the priesthood, since such association does great harm to clerics, but the religious exercises, the plan of studies, the method of government must all tend to prepare the mind of the student in the proper manner for the performance of his divine office. This .must be the sacred law of all seminaries and it admits of no exception." There are eminent canonists who maintain that the seminary is not to be classed as mixed if seculars are co~fined to attendance at the classes. However, the S. C. for the Oriental Church declared in 1940: "The doctrinal, moral and ascetical formation of the students is to be imparted in seminaries, that is, in colleges or houses devoted exclusively to the preparation of students for the priesthood and properly established and directed to this purpose." Therefore, the doctrinal formation also is to be exclusively for seminarians. This principle w'as affirmed more clearly for Italy by the S. Consistorial Congregation in 1912 and the S. C. of Seminaries and Universities in 1920: "Care is to be taken also that the classes be reserved to seminarians or aspirants for the priesthood, since the seminary classes, also of minor sem2 inaries, should have the distinctive spirit and orientation demanded for aspirants to the priesthood." The latter Congregation also gave 213 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reoiew for Religious the essential reason for the principle, w'hich we can sumlharize as follows: As the formatioh of a Catholic must animate every Cath-olic teacher and be the soul of every Catholic classroom, so the for-mation of the priest must animate every seminary professor and be the soul of every seminary classroom; education is formation, not the mere imparting of knowledge; and every class must be a training in both knowledge and virtue. This doctrine of the S. Congregation is certainly not new; it is the basic concept of Catholic education. The reasons for the separation given by popes and the sacred congrega-tions are also: Clerical education is something entirely different from that of the laity and the association of the two is a cause Of loss of vocations, fatal to clerical formation, and the cause of great harm to clerical students. The distinction and separation of ecclesiastical and lay education are to be carefully pondered in the following em-phatic words of Leo XIII: "For this reason the education, studies and manner of life, in brief all that appertains to priestly discipline, have always been considered by the Church as something complete in themselves, not only distinct but also separate from the ordinary norms of lay life. This distinction and separation must remain un-changed also in our times, and any tendency to unite or confuse ecclesiastical education and life with lay education and life must be judged as reprobated not only by the tradition of the Christian centuries but by the apostolic teaching itself and the dispositions of Jesus Christ." Thus the subject for your consideration here is: Should not the classroom for the.young sister also have a distinctively religious spirit and orientation? Should not the religious formation of the sister animate all her teachers and be the soul of every class she attends? Is the classroom of secular girls the suitable place for the education of the young sister just out of the noviceship? VI. FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF JUNIORATES In his Apostolic Exhortation on Priestly Sanctity, Pius XII stated: "What is more, Venerable Brethren, We heartily commend the plans that you will discuss to insure that priests be provided not only with means to meet their daily needs but also with assurances of assistance for the future--as We are happy to see done in civil society--particularly for cases in which they may fall ill, be afflicted with chronic ill health, or be weakened by old age. Thus you will relieve them of all anxiety for the future." If we apply again the principle of comparison, the salary of sisters should be sufficient to 214 July, 1955 SISTER FORMATION provide for their daily necessities, at least all ordinary medical care and old age. It should also provide, at least in good part, for their for-mation. It is inherent and essential in every centralized religious in-stitute that there should be an annual tax on every house for the general and provincial expenses, and a very great part of such ex-penses is the education and support of subjects in the states of for-mation. This tax is a necessary item of thelbudget of every convent, and the income of any convent of a school or institution that does not belong to the institute is to be derived at least principally from the salaries of its sisters. VII. EDUCATION AND FORMATION OF SU~'BJECTS APPERTAINS TO THE INTERNAL GOVERNMENT OF [ITHE INSTITUTE The canons on clerical houses of studyi apply to all clerical re-ligious institutes, even if diocesan. These danons nowhere prescribe. any intervention of the local ordinary; but, on the contrary, they place houses of study under theauthority If the superiors and the general chapter of the particular institute.~l The reason is evident. The education and formation of subjects ih any religious institute, pontifical or diocesan, clerical-or lay, is a!matter that by its very nature clearly appertains to internal government, that is, to the authority of the superiors of the institute. ~he admitted concept of internal government in canon law is that it incl.udes not only the general relation of subje:ts to superiors but also the admission of subjects into the congregation and to the Iprofessions, their educa-tion and formation, appointment to various!offices' and employments, and transfer from house to house. Externallauthority and other per-sons outside the institute may and have h~elped; but the right, the obligation, and the rest{6nsibility for the e~ducation of subjects fall on the superiors of the congregation. I belileve it is necessary to em-phasize this point. In this matter higher religious superioresses are too prone to wait for those outside the institute to take the initiative, whereas they themselves have the responsibility for action. As a brief conclusion, we Imay approp~nate a thought of Pius XI: "There is perhaps nothing that the Church has promoted through the course of the centuries more tactively, maternally and carefully than the suitable training of he~r priests." In our own country, where Catholic educa}ion is so Important a part of the Church and of Catholic life and where sisters are so essential a part of that Catholic education, there is perhaps nothing that we should promote more actively, generously, and prog, resmvely than the proper education and formation of the sisters. " 215 Reviews INTRODUCTION TO THEOLOGY. Theology Library, Vol. I." Edited by A. M. Henry, O.P. Translated from ÷he French by William Storey~ Pp. 306. Fides Publishers, Chicago, 1954. $5.95. This is the first of a six-volume Theology Library, presenting a complete theological synthesis based on the Summa of St. Thomas. The translation of the other five volumes will appear during the next two years. The complete work, the result of eight years of collaboration by forty-one Thomistic theologians under Dominican inspiration, envisages as its audience: priests wishing "to continue to grow in the subject of their specialty"; religious seeking to pene-trate still more the subjects they teach in religion class: the laity in search of a systematic theology fo~ apostolic or professional reasons. Father Putz, in the introduction to Vol. I, after noting a gap be-tween the Latin manuals used by seminarians and the simplified textbook of religion courses, expresses the ~bope that the Theology Library will fill this.gap. Father Henry, the General Editor, prom-ises us no mere rehash of St. Thomas when he announces: "Each contributor has tried to rethink the questions and to present them under a form and in terms, nay, even in categories which are ac-cessible to the modern reader." This is, indeed, a bold promise, one whose fulfillment, especially in what concerns "the categories of the modern mind," will require that rare combination of a thorough knowledge of St. Thomas and of modern thought. Readers, then, will be justified in insisting upon some visible efforts at bridge-building between Thomas' mind'and that of today. Until the other volumes have appeared, one cannot determine how far the Theology Library suits the level of the audience en-visioned. To judge by the first volume, those who have had no formal training in thedlogy will find it very difficult to get the de-s

Issue 52.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1993. ; Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone:314-535-3048 ° FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° 5001 Eastern Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus ~nailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1993 Review for Religious review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Ass#tant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Sefin Sammon FMS Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1993 ¯ VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 6 contents 806 feature Religious Life and Conversion Language Dennis J. Billy CSSR provides a language of conversion so that religious might more readily integrate their individual lives with their corporate existences. 817 828 835 842 spirituality Are We Relating to God in a New Way? Gerald M. Fagin SJ proposes five polarities which are always present in our spiritual lives. Desire, Asking, and Answers A. Paul Dominic SJ emphasizes the importance of praying from our desires by exampleg from the Bible. Companionship Spirituality in Ruth Judette A. Gallares RC explores covenantal faith through the symbol of companionship portrayed between Ruth and Naomi. The Spirituality of Surrender John P. Mossi SJ proposes three models of a spiritual surrender-ing as a means of coming home to God. 849 865 ecumenism The Ecumenical Vocation of Religious Jeffrey Gros FSC highlights the importance of ecumenical for-mation and collaboration for women and men religious. The Religious Call of Ecumenism Jude D. Weisenbeck SDS suggests ways in which the needs of the ecumenical movement can well be met by the resources of religious communities. 802 Reviezv for Religious 870 875 ministry Frustrations--Jesus' Ministry and Ours James Martin SJ seeks a fresh perspective on dealing with frustra-tions arising from ministry to the poor. Jesuit Spirituality and Catholic Higher Education Claude N. Pavur SJ stresses the importance of an Ignatian spiritu-ality, invigorating the efforts of educators in the Jesuit tradition. poverty 886 Option for the Poor: God's Pedagogy Marcello Azevedo SJ analyzes the meaning and life-applications of the phrase "option for the poor" in terms of our faith. 893 Who Evangelizes Whom? The Poor Evangelizers John F. Talbot SJ explores the evangelizing potential of the poor. 898 a life of promise Two Cheers for Celibacy William McDonough clarifies the meaning of prie, stly celibacy by combining Robert Bellah's use of institution and Thomas Aquinas's moral vision. 911 Charismatic Renewal and Consecrated Life 920 Susan Rakoczy IHM reflects from a r~ligious-life experience of twenty-five years on the blessings of the charismatic renewal in regard to consecrated life. Death as a Community Event Annette Frey SC shares the stqry of a friend's illness and death as an integrating factor in community life. departments 804 Prisms 927 Canonical Counsel: Lumen Gentium's Chapter 6: Religious 933 Book Reviews 951 Indexes to Volume 52 November-December 1993 803 prisms ~oho are the people by whom you have been most influenced? Many of us must at one time or another have tried to answer this question for ourselves or at the inquiry of others: Precisely which people have strongly influenced my life? Some may quickly name their fathers and mothers; others go on to name favorite teachers or special friends. Still others may name people in world affairs or in the worlds of sports, the arts, or medicine. Probably not very many of us spontaneously turn to the men and women whom the church has declared holy and named as outstanding members of the communion of saints. Yet the reason why the church calls our attention to these people is to allow us to see in other followers of Christ what we hope to become. Just as the church of the Eastern rites emphasizes icons that give us a glimpse of the world of the holy, so the Latin-rite church proposes the study of the lives of ~aints so that we may be inspired by them and formed and then moved along a path of holiness as Jesus' apostles. Perhaps at one time many of us did not appreciate how the more medieval theology of mediators needed updating like so many timebound ways of expressing our faith and its practices--the process mandated by Vatican II. Now it seems that we stand more ready for and in need of the kind of influence which our fellow Christians, can-onized and otherwise esteemed, can exercise in ore: lives. No longer do we, almost superstitiously, look to Mary or other chosen saints for special favors. Instead we take our direction from the Vatican II understanding and descrip-tion of Mary's place in the communion of saints under the 804 Review for Religious specially privileged titles of mother and first disciple. And so we look to our favorite men and women saints particularly in their relationship to us as brothers and sisters and as our fellow disci-ples. If Christians in general are exhibiting a greater need for this kind of influence in their devotional lives, even more might men and women religious look to the holy ones special to their con-gregations for living the kind of discipleship charismatically appro-priate to their following of Christ. ~;Vhether it be the contemporary retelling of saints' lives or recapturing their spirit in new artistic portrayals or recovering prayers of theirs that are appropriate to our times--there still are ways for holy men and women to touch us in our daily living. We may more readily find light coming to us in dark moments of our experience from the uncovered lamp of these human lives than from any theoretical studies or documents. We may also find ourselves more energized for entering into the evangelizing mission of Jesus through the radiance of their inspiration and example. Probably even more surprising than our slowness in naming saints as major influences in our lives is the not infrequent omis-sion of even the name Jesus. As we enter into the Advent and Christmas seasons, maybe more fully than Jesus being "the reason for the season," we might say that the reason for the season is for us to remind ourselves that Jesus is the unique influence upon our lives all year long. Jesus is the one who has influenced how we live, how we pray, how we interact, how we die. Jesus is the one who calls us to a way of following; Jesus is the Teacher, and we all remain the lifelong learners, the ones in continuing formation. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves another question. Is it true that for us not to name Jesus as the great influence of our lives is more than just a memory slip? Does our answer uncover for us that our everyday, busy lives are being spent on behalf of lesser gods than the God Incarnate? The question is worth more than a Christmastime reflection. That the peace and grace of God, Emmanuel, be richly yours is the wish of all the staff of Review for Religious. David L. Fleming SJ November-December 1993 805 DENNIS J. BILLY Religious Life and Conversion Language The crisis faced by many of today's religious goes beyond the breakdown of their founding myths and the resulting lack of purpose in their corporate existences. While many (I daresay most) are at least peripherally aware of having lost in recent years something of great importance for their lives as professed religious, they usually have no idea whatsoever of how to retrieve it or what to put in its place. Nor are they very articulate about just what it is they have lost and why precisely they want it back. Confronted by their own aging, a steady flow of ygunger members from their ranks, and fewer and fewer vocational prospects, many have become disillusioned and desire some sort of immediate respite from their mount-ing misfortunes. They pursue it in any number of ways. Some display a nostalgic desire for the not too distant past--"the good old days," as.they are called, which were probably never quite so good as they now seem. Others resign themselves passively to their "inevitable corporate extinction," an increasingly attractive choice for many. Still others sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of confusion and doubt about the relevance of religious life in the postmodern world--which does nothing but com-pound an already complex and. difficult situation. Regardless of the motivations behind them or their point Dennis J. Billy CSSR is author of the recently published Evangelical Kernels: A Theological Spirituality of Religious Life (Mba House, 1993). His address is Accademia Alfonsiana; Via Merulana, 31; C.P. 2458; 00100 Rome; Italy. 806 Review for Religious of origin, none of these responses are adequate to the crisis at hand. In order to move forward, today's religious must choose a path other than that of denial and escape. At this critical point of their history, what they need is a language of conversion that will enable them to give an honest account of themselves, will help them to integrate their private lives with their corporate existences, and will show them how they, as a group, can con-front the cynical doubts that writhe beneath the surface of their professional respectability. Conversion Language A language of conversion must speak to both the mind and the heart. It must make sense to.people in a way that will satisfy their intellectual longings. It must also motivate them to exanaine their situation in life with renewed strength and vigor--as if with dif-ferent eyes. More importantly, it must reshape their interpretation of experience so that, through the action of divine grace, they see their denial for what it is and then find it possible to realign their personal powers of commitment with those of the religious insti-tute to which they belong. Only from such a realignment will dusty and creaky institu-tional structures and the people who stubbornly inhabit and main-tain them have any hope of being refurbished for a brighter future. Failure to achieve this renewal of human heart and human social structure will result only in more of the same problem: individ-ualism amid corrosive social ills; continuing loss of confidence in and commitment to one's religious community; the persistence of the "double life" syndrome that has plagued so many first-world congregations since the Second Vatican Council. By most assessments, the very future of religiou~ life is at stake. The thesis is clear: the circular relationship between individ-ual and corporate change must come to the fore in any further dis-cussions about authentic conversion, particularly with respect to those who have dedicated their lives to following the evangelical counsels. "The whole cannot be understood without its parts; nor the parts without the whole." This fundamental problem of inter-pretation-- the so-called hermeneutical problem--lies at the root of the present crisis in religious life. To deal with it effectively, a language of conversion must address both the individual and the November-December 1993 807 Billy ¯ Religious Life and Conversion Language group, as well as their ongoing mutual relationship. It can do so, however, only if it encompasses (1) a sound Christian anthropol-ogy that stresses the dignity of human persons on every level of their existence, (2) a persuasive philosophical link between the personal and the corporate wholes, and (3) a recognition of its own inherent limitations with a corresponding openness to the re-creative presence of God. Without these important ingredi-ents of change, no language of conversion, regardless of how elo-quent or comprehensive it may appear, will be adequate to the enormous task at hand. A Sound Christian Anthropology The connotations of the phrase "a sound Christian anthro-pology" need some explaining. An "anthropology" may be described as a specific and coordinated assessment of human exis-tence. It is "Christian" insofar as it receives its inspiration from the insights of Christian traditions. To the extent that there are numerous interpretations of the meaning of Christianity, there are also varying Christian anthropologies. In this essay, a "sound" Christian anthropology is understood as one which integrates four fundamental dimensions of human existence: the physical, the rational (or mental), the spiritual, and the social. All of these are found ih the teaching of St. Paul and are made explicit in the juxtaposition of his doctrine of the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12- 31) and the tripartite understanding of the person found in such verses as this: "May the God of peace make you perfect in holi-ness. May he preserve you whole and entire, spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body (soma), irreproachable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Th 5:23). Together these verses express the Pauline understanding of the complexity of human existence and qualify as a solid basis for further theological reflection. Of what do these basic dimensions consist? People's spirit (pneuma) is the deepest part of their being. It yearns for God with unutterabl.e groanings (Rm 8:23) and has the potential to be lifted up into intimate communion with the very Spirit of God. Ever elusive and difficult to describe, it is that aspect of human exis-tence which affirms each human person as capax Dei, that is, capa-ble of God. People's soul (psyche), by contrast, is their animating principle of life. It encompasses, not only the rational, but also the emotive, nutritive, and reproductive sides of human existence. 808 Review for Religious Rational activity, the soul's highest and noblest function, enables people to wonder about the meaning of life and to think criti-cally about its problems. People's bodies (somata) are the material extension of their existence. Unlike the Pauline term for "flesh" (sarx), which has close associations with a life of sin leading to death, soma can be used for good or for ill and is hence a morally neutral concept. Finally, people's social dimension is a constituent part of their anthropological makeup. A human per-son. arises out of and exists in a social context and cannot be understood apart from it. For Christians, the primary social arena in which they live out their lives is that of the Body of Christ as it exists in its various expressions such as the family, the parish, the diocese, and the church universal. The interrelated nature of these various dimensions of human existence cannot be stressed highly enough. Spirit does not exist apart from a person's body, soul, and social relationships-- nor vice versa. Not one of them can be separated and treated in isolation from the others, as if a person were an arti-ficial composite of four disparate parts. A continuous and unbroken anthropo- For Christians, the primary social arena in which they live out their lives is that of the Body of Christ as it exists in its various expressions such as the family, the parish, the diocese, and the church universal. logical relationship exists among all of them. So strong are these bonds that not even death can sever them completely and pre-vent their ongoing functioning. To do so would mean the ulti-mate dissolution of the human person and the corresponding passage from being to nonbeing which the Christian faith so strongly rejects as a possibility of human destiny. That is not to say that a certain priority of relationships does not exist among these various anthropological factors: spirit relates to soul as soul to body. Balanced and healthy relationships among these affect the way in which a person interacts with others. A sound social environment, in turn, produces profound healing effects on a per-son's bodily, spiritual, and mental well-being. This circular rela-tionship is important for understanding the present crisis of religious life, which now can be understood as involving not only November-Deconber 1993 809 Billy ¯ Reli~ous Life and Conversion Language the vast array of dysfunctional social structures, but also a deeper relational imbalance operative on the most basic levels of human existence. Linking the Personal and the Corporate Social structures are both products of the mind and a means through which human intelligence and human spirit are shaped. ' When functioning according to justice, they give all people their due and educate them in virtue. At other times they work to the benefit of a privileged elite at the expense of an oppressed under-class. The interests of justice are not adequately served when existing social structures help to perpetuate a mentality of control that legitimizes the unjust treatment of other human beings. Such structures are sinful and need to be changed. When they are not (as can be the case in religious life), it may very well be simply because those involved feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the task before them. Such feelings can easily lead people to a sense of helplessness or even indifference about their ability to influence their surrounding social structures. An implicit dualism then arises in the private and social spheres of religious life: individuals grad-ually lose ownership of their ruling structures; the latter go on unchallenged more out of a paralyzing lack of interest than any-one's stubborn resistance to change. One way to overcome this implicit dualism is to introduce the related concepts of microcosm and macrocosm into the cur-rent vocabulary of religious life. Rooted in the primitive Greek idea of the human person as a small-scale model of the cosmos, this distinction was eventually adapted by Plato as a way of describing the relationship of individuals to the society (see Republic, 441c). According to this adjusted version, the underlying structure of human society is nearly the same as that of the human soul. The rational element corresponds to the republic's govern-ing class; the irascible (or spirited), to its martial orders; the con-cupiscible, to its productive masses. As "the human soul writ large," society offers individuals not only a particular place in the " social hierarchy, but also the opportunity of seeing themselves projected onto the collective whole. Individuals find their reflec-tion in the whole; the whole, in the individual. Plato's application of the microcosm/macrocosm distinction is not relevant in all its details to religious life in its contemporary 810 Review for Religious ¯ Western setting. His assertion, however, of an underlying struc-tural continuity between individuals and the society to which they belong has much to its credit: (1) it preserves the circular rela-tionship between individual and social functions; (2) it allows for certain structural similarities between human beings and their primary social environment; and (3) it maintains the distinctive-ness of individuals in the face of the larger community. When combined with the Christian anthropology outlined in the pre-vious section (as opposed to the Platonic one with which it is nor-mally associated), this seminal idea can help individuals in today's religious communities to regain their sense of identity with the larger whole. The analogy would go something like this: both the human person and the religious community possess spiritual, mental, physical, and social dimensions. The relationships among the various dimensions within the human person are proportion-ate to those in the religious community (for example, human spirit / human soul = community spirit / community soul, and so forth). Cross references also remain proportionate, but only with regard to corresponding terms (that is, human spirit /communal spirit = human soul / community soul, and so forth). In all cases the rule of proper proportionality applies (a/b = a'/b'). The strength of this approach is that it maintains a fundamental continuity between the underlying anthropological structure of individuals and that of their religious community. And it is able to do so even when taking into account the limitations of the language it uses to describe the quiet, abiding presence of God in the life of the . community. The Silent Presence of Grace One of the underlying dangers in the current discussion about the future of religious life is the tendency to substitute lengthy theories for the simplicity of God's intervening grace. Uneasiness about their present situation in life has led many religious into a quest for the perfect plan that will explain in fine detail (1) why they find themselves in their present situation, (2) how they can get themselves out of it, and (3) where they should be going. Search as they may, they will inevitably end up frustrated. No magic elixir of man-made theories can satisfy expectations of such exalted heights. To achieve its ends, a theory of refounding or revitalization must place God, not itself, atthe center of attention. November-Deconber 1993 811 Billy ¯ Religious Life and Conversion Language To do so, it must first recognize that conversion on any level--the personal, the communal, the societal--comes directly from God's own initiative. And since God is not limited to the narrow confines of human theorizing, the theory in question can propose nothing but one of many possibilities of how God's transforming action may occur. By placing itself on the periphery (not at the center) of divine action, such a theory acknowledges its inherent limita-tions and places itself more readily at the disposal of God's re-creative activity. "The wind blows where it wills" (Jn 3:8). The movement of God's grace is capable of transforming both individuals and the social structures they inhabit. What God does or how is not always discernible to the human eye. What is important in any of life's sit-uations-- and, in this case, in the present crisis facing many reli-gious communities--is that people (both as individuals and as a group) expand their awareness of God working quietly in the cir-cumstances of their daily lives. Where is God in the present cri-sis facing religious life? What is God saying in the graying of once thriving religious communities, in their steady loss of younger members, in their failure to attract vocations, and in their overall decline in numbers? Why does God permit the cur-rent lack of identity and firmness of purpose which characterizes so many of today's religious communities? Where is God lead-ing them--if at all? And to serve what purpose? When sincerely reflected upon, such questions lead people either to affirm or deny God's active involvement in their own life and in the life of " their religious community. The answer, however, may not end up in the shape of a simple yes or no. In a matter of faith, a believer's response must involve more than a facile determination of whether God is with this particular community or has abandoned it. Such a reply may evade the issue altogether. An authentic outpouring of God's grace will foster a deep sense of listening in the life of a religious community. Most peo-ple, religious included, are more ready to give their own opinion than to hear that of another. They are usually so heavily interested in what they themselves have to say that they talk past those around them or, at best, tolerate what is said until the next oppor-tunity arises for them to speak. What passes for conversation is often nothing more than a continuous chain of vaguely connected monologues. Such is not the case with God, the preeminent lis-tener, nor should it be the case of those stirr.ed by the free gift of 812 Review for Religious grace. Those who listen carefully--to their own hearts, to those around them, to the needs of the community, and to those outside the community--are able to discern more clearly the voice of God in their own lives. When they nurture this quiet witness of faith, religious create a space in their community where others know that their presence will be gratefully recognized and their stories listened to with interest. To empty oneself so that others may be heard is an important quality in authentic Christian living. The language of conversion cannot be spoken, let alone heard, apart from the re-creative silence of God's transforming grace. R.eligious and the Language of Conversion The rudiments of an authentic language of conversion are now in place: a sound Christian anthropology, a way of bringing together individuals and corporate wholes, and a recognition of God's creative initiative in the process of conversion. The inte-gration of these elements and their use as an active, functioning language will enable religious to find greater insight into their present difficulties and will lead them to a deeper awareness of the proper course of action to be taken. To further advance this claim, a number of observations are in order: 1. A language of conversion such as the one suggested above will challenge religious to remove the "problem solving" glasses that regularly color their current outlook. Rather than poring over "what must we change in order to secure our institutional viability," they will focus on questions about the authenticity of their reli-gious lives. A religious community, in other words, turns its life more completely over to God, not out of any ulterior motives (for example, to get more vocations, to stem the exodus of disenchanted members), but simply because that is what God asks of them. 2. Religious need to examine, in their common spiritual out-look, the relationship they maintain between "being" and "action." Informed by an anthropology that draws strong bonds between the bodily, mental, spiritual, and social dimensions of human exis-tence, they will be more apt to be sensitive to how their actions-- both private and corporate--are expressions of who they are and sensitive as well to how their actions affect their being as human persons. 3. Religious must articulate in their daily lives a deeper appre-ciation of the basic human elements of community living. November-December 1993 813 Billy ¯ Religious Life and Conversion Language Membership in a religious congregation involves more than mere physical presence. It also entails a shared commitment to common goals and values, a general sense of how these ends are to be achieved, the fostering of community spirit, and a network of sound spiritual and social ties. Since these elements are them-selves all intimately related, care must be taken that members manage to relate well on all of them. Structures must be set in place to facilitate this process. 4. Particular emphasis should be given to the community's spiritual well-being. Just as the spirit is the deepest part of the human person--that part which yearns for God and which affirms oneself as capax Dei--so too is it the truest, most authentic part of the religious community. When the spirit of a religious commu-nity suffers, the other dimensions cannot help being affected. Efforts must be made to heal the wounded spirit of religious com-munity life. Among other things, this will mean working through such difficult issues as human intimacy, vocational crises, mourn-ing the loss of members, and dealing constructively with members who display dysfunctional and addictive behaviors. Only through healing of the spirit of religious community life is there any hope of recovery. 5. One way of healing a community's wounded spirit is for its members to reserve time and community space for genuine listening. By being attentive to the words of others--the stories they tell, the experiences they wish to share--people enter into the thick of life and allow for the possibility of God's presence to break into ordinary daily events. When a religious community fosters this attitude of respect for the need of people to share themselves openly without feeling threatened, it begins to go beneath the superficial ways of relating by which its members all too often relate hardly at all. One of the great sins of religious life is that people can live together for years and barely know each other. 6. It is also sad that a person can live the religious life for yea~rs without ever developing a close relationship with God. Addressing this problem, the language of conversion places God at the center of attention. The whole purpose of life, and of reli-gious life especially, is for a person to enter into a deep and last-ing friendship with God. This purpose must not be lost sight of in discussions about the future of religious life. Religious vow to live the evangelical counsels in order to walk more closely along 814 Revie~ for Religious the way of the Lord Jesus. They do so, if for no other reason, in order to enter more closely into union with him and the One who sent him. 7. People cannot know God, however, if their spirit (or the spirit of the community, for that matter) does not commune with the Spirit of God in the quiet groves of contemplation. Many religious, unfortunately, have forgotten all about what it means to seek the Lord in prayer. Having lost the incentive to pray, they merely go through the motions of living out their evangelical commitments; their lives, as a result, can easily become devoid of all meaning. Religious need to see through the self-deceptions that have gradually led them to compromise their vows. To retrieve the meaning of their religious life, they must return to a balanced regimen of prayer whereby they can gather in God's name and continually invoke the divine presence. 8. Finally, no one undergoes conversion outside a specific community environment. Religious must develop a keen sense of boundary definition that will enable them to distribute their time appropriately between their own religious community and the people they serve in the apostolate. While benefiting from the authentic sharing that goes on within their communities (an essential priority of a well functioning community), they must take care not to become inordinately introspective and so lose all desire to reach beyond their immediate circle. The apostolic orientation of all religious communities (even those with a strictly contem-plative lifestyle) must always remain a primary concern. With this orientation religious supported and energized by their communi-ties will be able--both individually and together--to do great work for both the church and for society at large. Just as the spirit is the deepest part of the human person-- that part which yearns for God and which affirms oneself as capax Dei--so too is it the truest, most authentic part of the religious community. Conclusion The present crisis in religious life is largely a lack of balance between the individual and the community. In many respects the November-December 1993 815 Billy ¯ ReIigious Life and Conversion Language crisis is a scaled-down version of the age-old philosophical prob-lem of the one and the many, an issue which has always lurked behind the scenes of Western philosophical thought and which remains, even today, largely unresolved. In recent years the pen-dulum has swung from one extreme to the other, with the indi-vidual being either submerged in the collective (as was often the case before Vatican II) or much removed from it (as has often occurred since the council). While nearly everyone agrees that a healthy balance needs to be struck, there is little consensus con-cerning just what must be done to achieve it. These pages have used certain categories from the Western religious and philosophical traditions in an effort to nudge reli-gious communities gently toward a prudent--even though pre-carious- balance. The categories include (1) a Pauline anthropology that emphasizes the four basic dimensions of human existence (spiritual, mental, bodily, and social), (2) a philosophi-cal link between individual and corporate wholes (the micro-cosm/ macrocosm distinction of the ancient Greek philosophers), and (3) a deepened awareness of the inherent limitations of lan-guage (and by extension all theories) with a corresponding focus on the creative initiative of divine grace. While none of these cat-egories are entirely disregarded in current discourse about reli-gious life, rarely have they been used in conjunction with one another and certainly not in what has been termed "a language of conversion." By assimilating these categories of conversion, religious can begin to change some of their dysfunctional ways of relating and nurse some of the open wounds that their communities now endure. First of all, they must get beyond claiming that the call to conversion extends only to individuals and not to the social struc-tures they inhabit. An awareness of the circular relationship between the human heart and the human social structure is ~un-damental to any serious discussion of religious life's future. Without it the dissatisfaction of many of today's religious with their institutional structures will continue to grow. 816 Review for Religious GERALD M. FAGIN Are We Relating to God in a New Way? When I entered a Jesuit novitiate thirty-five years ago, I was introduced to a way of relating to God deeply rooted in the tradition of the church and in the Society of Jesus. It was a way of experiencing God and of responding to God that was shaped by a clearly defined theological understanding of God, the church, and the human per-son. What characterized that spirituality was what char-acterized the spirituality of most Catholics, both lay and religious, in the years before Vatican Council II. What has emerged in the last twenty-five years is a new way of relating to God, a spirituality rooted in a plurality of the-ological understandings of God, the church, and the human person. We might describe it as a shift in model or simply as a shift from one pole of the necessary tension in our spiritual lives to the other. What is important is that we describe and understand what has happened, for too often a lack of understanding has led to confusion, guilt, and quarreling among Christians. I offer five tensions or polarities that are always pres-ent in our spiritual lives. What has happened in lived Christian spirituality can be described in terms of these tensions. spirituality From Objective to Subject-Centered The spirituality of thirty-five years ago was an objec- Gerald M. Fagin sJ, professor of theology, can be addressed at Loyola University; 6363 St. Charles Avenue; New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. Noven~ber-Decen~ber 1993 817 Fagin ¯ Are We Relating to God in a New Way? tive spirituality measured in terms of laws kept, mortifications and virtues and devotions practiced, prayers said, and Masses attended. A typical day in a novitiate was structured around an early morning Latin Mass, an hour of meditation, the rosary, the stations of the cross, examination of conscience, spiritual read-ing, and an instruction on religious life. The spiritual life of the Catholic laity was measured and identified by similar norms and practices. This way of life was supported by a clearly defined Catholic culture that gave Catholics a sense of identity rooted in unambiguous doctrinal and moral teaching and distinct rituals and practices. It was the world of the Baltimore catechism, Friday abstinence, fasting in Lent, First Friday and First Saturday devo-tions, benediction, indulgences, and St. Jude devotions. It demanded discipline and obedience and self-sacrifice, but it offered clear expectations and a structured and measurable way of living out a committed Christian life that led to sanctity. Such objectivity is an essential element in any relationship .to God. Rituals, practices, and devotions are at the heart of a gen-uine experience of God and a faithful response to God. We need clear guidelines and traditional structures if we are to be account-able and if we are to guard against the kind of subjectivity that is open to deception and divisiveness. What has emerged, then, is not a total rejection of this way of relating to God, but a new emphasis on the human person as a free and developing subject in the spiritual life. This subject-centered spirituality is a spirituality measured in terms of people's inner growth and actualization, the quality of their prayer and personal affective development. The spiritual life is described in terms'of a growth in trust and love and openness and freedom and sensi-tivity to the Spirit. Religious experience rather than religious practice is central to this approach. The focus is growth in peo-ple's personal relationship with God and on God's call addressed ¯ uniquely to individuals in their specific life circumstances. In con-sidering fidelity to God, the language of conformity and obedience to rules gives way to discernment and dialogue. Prayer becomes less a meditation on the truths of Christianity and more a lan-guage of the heart, an affective prayer that centers on God's ini-tiative more than our initiative. The role of the spiritual director puts less emphasis on teaching and guidance and more emphasis on facilitating the directee's relationship with God. The didactic gifts of the director become less important than a listening and 818 Review for Religious discerning heart that can clarify the movement of God in the directee's heart. Thirty-five years ago my spiritual director asked me about my fidelity to my spiritual exercises, the subject matter of my meditation, and the resolutions from my latest retreat. Today my spiritual director asks me about the movement of God in my heart and the consolation and desolation that are the signposts of my discernment. The presupposition is that God is at work in the individual soul and that this movement of God can be observed and discerned. The shift to a subject-centered spirituality is clearly seen in the rediscovery of the directed retreat. Conference-style or preached retreats focus on a common teaching or subject matter for reflec-tion. Everyone responds to and prays over the same material, often more doctrinal than scriptural, and not selected as a specific response to the needs and grace directions of the individuals. The subject matter of the directed retreat is each individual's experience of God, the movement of the Spirit within that person. Scripture is chosen to focus and highlight the graces of the retreatant. There is not one set program for everyone. It is pre-sumed that each person will experience and respond to God's grace in an individual way. Underlying this shift to the subject is a different under-standing of revelation. Revelation is imaged not primarily as propositions to be affirmed but as God's self-communication. Revelation is not first a series of statements about God and the human condition, but a series of experiences of God that reveal who God is and how God deals with us. Jesus is the fullness of God's revelation so that our faith life is a response to someone rather than an assent to propositions. God's self-revelation in Christ calls us to a new relationship with.God. Experience, both individual and communal, precedes articulation; and our rela- This subject-centered spirituality is a spirituality measured in terms of people's inner growth and actualization, the quality of their prayer and personal affective development. November-December 1993 819 Fagqn ¯ Are We Relating to God in a New Way? tionship with God begins in an experience of God that then finds words in doctrines and expression in rituals. From Perfection to Process The novice of thirty-five years ago set out on the road to per-fection. Every imperfection was to be weeded out, every virtue practiced. The ideals were clear, even if unattainable. The goal was set: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." The perfec-tion model envisioned our spiritual lives as a striving for an ideal, a state of perfection that was never attained. Too often our spir-itual lives were evaluated in terms of our failures to reach the ideal or the degree to which we had failed to attain perfection. As in the objective model, the focus was on an observance of laws and duties. Novices were told, "Keep the rule and the rule will keep you." This approach tended to be legalistic and Pelagian and to generate undue fear in our relationship with God. We were always aware that we were not measuring up to the ideal. No matter how fervent our spiritual lives and how detailed our obser-vance, we remained unworthy servants who had yet to reach per-fection. We placed much more emphasis on what we had failed to do or achieve than on the level of our desire and hope and love and our moments of fidelity. This perfection model focused on the goal, not the process to the goal. God's love and affirmation were often thought of as the reward for our completing the process, for our faithful observance. A corollary of the shift from objective to subject-centered is the shift from this perfection model to a process model in our relationship with God. The process model envisions our spiri-tual lives as a journey that can be measured not only in terms of how far we have to go, but especially in terms of how far we have come. Besides sorrow for our failure to attain perfection, there is gratitude for all that God has accomplished in us, the work of God's grace in our lives. Our spiritual lives are viewed as a rela-tionship with God that grows, not as a project that needs to be accomplished. Such a model is sensitive to the adult stages of growth in the human process. Conversion is emphasized as an ongoing process of discovering and purification and commitment. Creative fidelity in the midst of new challenges and opportunities replaces perseverance in a static commitment. The love of God is experienced in the midst of the process as an abiding source of 820 Review for Religious support and inspiration. God loves us where we are and invites us to a fuller life. We find God, then, where we are and not where we would like to be. We pray out of our present experience, not out of as-yet-unrealized goals. At the root of this shift from perfection to process is a renewed understanding of grace. Grace is defined not primarily in ontological terms and categories, certainly not as a quantity to be gained and lost by observance or lack of observance. Rather it is understood as a growth in a relationship of love with some-one, a growth into a richer and fuller life. Our relationship with God is an invitation to friendship and intimacy with God, a gift of new life. God's grace is the giving of Godself that transforms us and empowers us to live God's life. From Private to Communal The novitiate of thirty-five years ago was highly structured and programmed. With rare exceptions, everyone followed the same order of the day, listened to the same conferences and instructions, and even read many of the same books. The reality of large numbers of novices made personal attention less available, even though the novice master was concerned for the well-being of each novice. At the same time, the spirituality proposed was very individualistic. People's relation with God was private and expressed in personal devotions and practices. They found God in the solitude of their'own heart and gave little emphasis to a com-munity of shared faith and communal discernment. There was a strong sense of corporate identity, but one's own spiritual life was private and to be shared only with a spiritual director or supe-rior. The support came from the awareness that everyone was praying at the same time in private, not from any ~hared sense of what was happening in the prayer of individuals. This personal piety that privatized one's relationship with God followed upon an understanding of the church as an insti-tution from which grace flows from the top through a hierarchi-cal structure to the individual. God spoke through superiors and religious leaders, not through the members of the community. Sacraments too were privatized. They were channels of individ-ual grace and a personal relationship with God. Confession was an experience of forgiveness of my sins with little sense of reconcil-iation with the community. Eucharist focused on the offering of November-December 1993 821 Fagin ¯ Are We Relating to God in a New Way? Christ's sacrifice and my reception of Communion, followed by my private thanksgiving with .Jesus. Often Eucharist was a pri-vate Mass with a single server symbolizing a broader community that was not evidently there. All of this, of course, reflected a the-ology of church and sacrament that shaped and reinforced a sense of a private relationship with God. A communal model, on the other hand, emphasizes that we encounter God in community. It respects the personal and unique aspect of one's relationship with God and the areas of religious experience that are shared only with a spiritual guide or a close friend, but it images our relationship with God in the context of a community of faith. The Spirit speaks through all, and we grow in our faith life with, in, and through others. We are one body. We are branches on the same vine. Shared prayer and communal dis-cernment are important means of developing our relationship with God. This derives from an understanding of church as pri-marily a community of believers called together in faith. The church is an institution with visible structures and offices, but it is first the gathering of disciples that find and celebrate God's presence in their midst. Liturgy is experienced as ecclesial, as the coming together of God's people to hear the word in common and share the meal of the Reign of God. Jesus is present, not only in the consecrated bread and wine, but also in the assembly. We find Jesus in the community. Sacraments, then, are experienced as communal moments Of celebration that bind us together and deepen our corporate identity as the people of God. Christians share a common story of salvation and live out that story as mem-bers of the one body of Christ. That sense of a common story deepens our awareness of God's self-revelation to us in commu-nity and our need to listen and respond as God's people bound together by a covenant relationship. From Dualism to Wholeness From its earliest days Christianity has struggled with a dual-ism that put a wedge between the spiritual and the physical, the body and the soul. Gnosticism, Manicheanism, and Jansenism are only historical surfacings of a constant and strong undercurrent of thought that considers the physical to be evil and the source of temptation. Not surprisingly, the novitiate of thirty-five years ago put little emphasis on emotional growth and psychosexual devel- 822 Review for Religious opment. The prominent role of physical penances and the pro-hibition about novices touching one another dramatized not only a needed asceticism, but also a distrust of anything relating to the human body. Holiness was often identified with a flight from the body and from the emotions. The body was seen as a hin-drance to the spirit, and the emotions were dismissed or sup-pressed as irrelevant and debilitating. Reason and volition were the only reliable means of directing our spiritual lives. Discernment was reduced to a rational process or replaced by. logical analysis. Faith was seen primarily as an act of the intellect and holiness as an act of the will. In the end, the spiritual life was often per-ceived as set apart in a higher realm divorced from the growth of the whole person. Contemporary spirituality is more clearly holistic. It respects and encourages the growth of the whole person. The process of human-ization is an integral part of spiritual develop-ment. Spiritual maturity presupposes a certain psychological health as a foundation. The role of affectivity and an appreciation of our phys-icality become important elements of our growth to spiritual wholeness. Discernment is appreciated as noticing and evaluating the affective as well as the rational movements of God within the soul, sifting through experiences of consolation and desolation. Faith is the response of the whole person to God's self-revela-tion. A renewed value is given to human desire as a place where God touches and inspires the soul and calls a person to fuller life. Contemporary spiritua~ty knows well that something of this holis-tic approach can be found in a fresh reading of many of the mys-tics and spiritual classics, but modern awareness and appreciation of the complexities of the human person have insisted even more that holiness is a developmental process of integrating all aspects of the human person. The shift from dualism to wholeness is rooted in an under-standing of the human person as a unity rather than a duality of spirit and body. Psychology and religion can work together to transform and sanctify every dimension of the person. The Enneagram, Jungian personality types, dream analysis, Intensive Journaling--all these and more can enrich our appreciation and Christians share a common story of salvation and live out that story as members of the one body of Christ. November-December 1993 823 Fagin ¯ Are We Relating to God in a New Way? understanding of the human psyche and be positive helps to our spiritual growth. There is, of course, an element of truth in the dualistic approach. Physical and even psychological wholeness are not indispensable to Christian holiness. God can and does work through our brokenness. The ideal of self-actualization and human growth must always be relativized by the gospel call to self-emp-tying surrender. On the other hand, the dualistic approach, when taken to an extreme, can produce an impoverished human per-son insensitive to the riches of imagination and affect in relating to God and other people. In such a case, little or no value is given to the affective movements of the heart in the search for God. The ordering of affectivity is reduced to the suppression of affec-tivity, and an ascetic ideal is proposed that allows little room for human emotion. From Other-Worldly to This-Worldly "Just a little while and then eternity." These words attributed to St. John Berchmans set the tone for my novitiate experience thirty-five years ago. At the heart of the relationship with God was a call to renunciation of the material world. The world was a place of temptation and trial. We were pilgrims on a journey to salvation in the next life. Sanctity demanded detachment from the world. Matter was evil, the source of sin. Penance was a way to punish the flesh and control its appetites. The novitiate was in an isolated place far from the allurements of the world. There were no newspapers or magazines or movies or TV. The harshest judgment passed on any novice was that he was "worldly." At the root of this approach was a negative vision of the world as cor-rupted by sin. Flight from the world was the road to sanctity. Even apostolic religious orders tended to propose monastic ide-als that emphasized separation from the world. A special impor-tance was given to the words of Seneca (Letters, no. 7) quoted in the Imitation of Christ (I, 20): "As often as I have been among men, I have returned less a man." No one can deny the truth in this approach to the world. Growth in a relationship with God demands a radical detachment and renunciation. We live in a world of obscured values and dis-torted perceptions, a world infected with sin that stands in oppo-sition to the values of the reign of God. The world is groaning for 824 Review for Religious redemption, and Christianity must stand as a countercultural force in a broken and wounded world. Contemporary spirituality, however, takes a more positive view of the world, seeing it as the product of God's love and the locus of God's redemptive presence. The Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World) proposed a world-affirming vision that recognized the value and autonomy of human society and culture and that took responsibility for the world. A renewed theology of creation takes seriously Genesis's declaration of the goodness of creation and the dignity of humans as images of God. Such a creation-centered spirituality rejoices in the world as a gift.from the hands of a loving God. Our relationship with God is expressed in a concern for the earth and a sense of stew-ardship for the resources entrusted to us. The reign of God is already a reality "bud-ding forth," and our human efforts are an essential element in building the final reign of God. God, then, is found in human experience and human achievement, and this world becomes a sacred place for encountering God. A genuine apostolic spirituality recognizes that we work out our salvation by involvement in the human struggle for justice. The desert invades the marketplace and the monk speaks a prophetic word in the city. The reason for the shift to a this-worldly spiritua'lity is, then, a more positive view of the world and a renewed understanding of salvation. An important corollary of this new understanding and appre-ciation of the world is a reevaluation of the relation between reli-gious life and the lay vocation. In the other-worldly view of the Christian life, monastic spirituality was considered normative, and so the life of a single or a married person in the world was necessarily a less radical commitment to a relationship with God. Lay spirituality was at best a watered-down adaptation of the higher calling of religious life. Vatican II, by contrast, speaks of a universal call to holiness. All Christians are called to the per-fection of charity and commitment to Christ. Religious life and the A genuine apostolic spirituality recognizes that we work out our salvation by involvement in the human struggle for justice. November-December 1993 825 Fagin ¯ Are V~e Relating to God in a New tVay? lay vocation are two different ways of responding to the radical gospel call to discipleship. At best one can speak of religious life as a more explicit and unambiguous lifestyle that witnesses to the common vocation of all Christians. Conclusion The tensions just described are an enduring part of our rela-tionship with God. Our spirituality will always be a balance between objective and subjective, perfection and process, private and communal, dualism and wholeness, other-worldly and this-worldly. As Richard McBrien has pointed out frequently, Catholicism is not a matter of either/or but of both/and. There is no question of rejecting one way and replacing it completely with another, but rather of claiming a new richness that respects the older way and opens new ways of living our Christian lives. My novitiate experience of thirty-five ye~ars ago focused almost exclu-sively on the objective, perfection, private, dualistic, and other-worldly dimensions of our relationship with God. Contemporary spirituality has swung the pendulum dramatically to the other pole. The challenge is to move beyond a reactionary position and to integrate the truth of the previous way of relating to God with a new and rich experience of God and the human person. The swing of the pendulum, as we have seen, comes from a new under-standing of revelation, grace, and the church and of the human person, the world, and salvation. Developments in theology and new dimensions of religious experience continue to enrich one another and open new possibilities in our relationship with God. Each age in the life of the church struggles to define Christians' relationship with God. Christian spirituality is a lived experience shaped by life, culture, and theology, but above all by the graced invitation of God. I conclude by suggesting four char-acteristics of a Christian spirituality that is responsive to the invi-tation and challenge of the contemporary world. We need an incarnational spirituality that finds mystery and the sacred in the midst of a radical affirmation of the giftedness of the world, that finds God not only above us but also with us. We need a holistic spirituality that integrates more fully into our spiritual growth the nonrational dimensions of our person, fostering a healthy sense of sin and forgiveness and respecting the human psyche's limitations and possibilities for growth in God's life. We need a 826 Review for Religious prophet# spirituality that integrates the mystical and the political and sees a passion for justice and solidarity with the poor as inte-gral to contemplative union with God. We need an ecdesial spir-ituality that lives out our relationship with God in the community of disciples, harmonizes discernment and religious authority, and responds to the call to ministry that baptismal grace enables us to hear. In the end, Christian spirituality will always remain a response to the gospel call to conversion and discipleship. In every age it promises a growth in a personal relationship with God and demands a commitment in the context of a community of faith, but in the midst 6f these constant elements Christians will con-tinue to be attentive to the movements of the Spirit in their lives and to explore new ways of relating to God. Holofrosts The offerings to God this winter's morning Are holofrosts, not burnt but frozen;fruit Of the vine hangs shriveled as nuggets of ice, The works of human hands .are noughted out By whiteness of snow. Offering God of his own From the elements given us, we lift up As gifts at his altar: his earth, air, Water, hard-touched by December, challenging Us to be devout in our changing seasons Of spring-weather faith, frost-withered doubt. Nancy G. Westerfield November-December 1993 827 A. PAUL DOMINIC Desire, Asking, and Answers porayer, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, is the articulation of ur desire before God.~ That is the way we teach our chil-dren their first practical lesson in religion: we teach them to ask God for what they want. As people grow in spiritual life, they can never outgrow the spirit of their beginnings, if for no other reason than that the highest reaches cannot exist without the low-est attainments. There is reason, then, not to abandon altogether the early, petitionary stage of spiritual life, but to continue to experience its varying moods and movements. Here biblical personages at once spiritual and earthy can be illustrative and illuminative. The recorded experiences of Hannah, David, and Job are relevant. They are all apparently of marked spirituality, notably above the ordinary. Yet in their dealings with God they do not remain always ethereal. Possessed of human desires, too, as down-to-earth people, they approach God openly with the desires of their heart. That is to say, they are simple enough not to be shatmning but to move with the tide of their life. Spiritually oriented people will neglect this basic lesson only to their cost. Not much is known of Hannah, surely; but the little that is known of her reveals her womanly spiritual fiber. Her husband, Elkanah, less known than herself, is religious too, but in the usual way, performing the regular practices like yearly pilgrimage. Perhaps part of his routine spirituality is his seeming resignation A. Paul Dominic SJ, author of God of Justice (Bombay: St. Paul Publications), is well known to our readers. His address is Satyodayam; S. Lallaguda; Secunderabad 500 017; India. 828 Review for Religious to God's disposition regarding Hannah's barrenness. But Hannah herself would not be resigned to her situation. She burns with desire for a son as much as, or even more than, she is resentful and in distress because of the taunts of the other wife, who is not bar-ren. All this compounded desire of her heart she pours out to her God, completely oblivious of her surroundings, and she keeps on beseeching him for a son till--that is the important point here-- she is assured that she will get what she has painfully longed for. She has not supplicated in vain. No wonder she knows peace in her heart. David is great in every way, in particular in his spiritual gifts. He attains spiritual heights on certain occasions when God sur-prises him with choice favors. But he also knows low spirits and even falls. Then he prays, staying where he is. One such occa-sion is when he realizes that he has to pay for his adultery by the death of the child of adultery. Though he owns his sin, still he wants the son his sin produced. How he prays for the life of the child, struck by God with a grave illness! He pleads with God for his child, fasting and lying on the ground for days together. He prays with all his energies, hoping against hope till he realizes that the child has died. He has supplicated in vain and still, sur-prisingly enough, seems to find unusual peace in his heart. Job is an exceptional figure who manages a happy blend of his wealth in the world with his godly life. If he has enjoyed all the prosperity in the world, still he seeks and humbly keeps his integrity before his God. Such a man, however, meets with one disaster after another. Even then he allows no curse to cross his mind or lips; on the contrary, he walks humbly with God, bless-ing him still. However, in the prolonged anguish of his final dis-aster, made worse by his three friends preachifying to the effect that every sufferer must be necessarily a sinner, he is stung to the quick and so driven to defend his honor. He argues with them point by point, personally convinced that there is no sin that would explain his suffering. In between he puts the matter before God, too, quite unafraid, now lamenting his plight, now com-plaining to him, now appealing to him, now reasoning with him, now challenging him, then yearning to reach him, all the while wanting to vindicate his stand that he is innocent, whatever the traditional doctrine of retribution may be. He has supplicated alone and in company, aloud and in silence, passing through the struggle of it all, only to be surprised at the end by the mysteri- Nove~nber-Decen;ber 1993 829 Dontinic ¯ Desire, Asking, and Answers ous and yet overwhelmingly peaceful vision of God clearing up all the aggnizing questions and difficulties. The three biblical episodes ~nay be compared to one another as regards three elements common to them. First, the three pro-tagonists experience an urgent desire. Second, they take it up in their prayer, making it indeed their whole prayer, however long drawn out it may be. Third, they attain something positive. First, then, they are alike in experiencing desires, however various the desires may be. Hannah desires a son. Her desire is natural, normal, proper, appropriate, and worthy inasmuch as she wants only the full enjoyment of her marriage as willed by God right from the beginning. David desires that the son of his passion, born of another man's wife, should live and not die. His desire, too, is natural and normal and yet perhaps not especially worthy, if only because the circumstantial will of God is for the child of adultery to die. Job desires an answer to the puzzle of his unde-served suffering. His desire, too, is nor~nal and natural and yet only dubiously proper against the background of the common traditional belief that every suffering implies some sin in the suf-ferer. While Hannah's desire is in every way agreeable, David's and Job's are not particularly so. David resists the apparent mind of God regarding the fruit of his sin, and Job's honest and frank desire is naively bold because it seems to put God in the wrong. Second, however one evaluates the three desires, they are nevertheless real and candid; the persons know and feel their desire as only they can. They find it so urgent that they do not fight shy of voicing it before other "people and even before God. They do not simply pray about it, but make it their sole and con-stant prayer. Without any distracting self-consciousness, they sim-ply present themselves before God as they experience their desire consuming them, not minding or caring whether they might come across to casual observers as strange or surprising or suspect. Possessed by their sole burning desire, they beseech God persis-tently without any thought of circumspection or shame or seem-ing propriety till something good happens to them--which leads to my third point. In Hannah's case, what happens is just what she has desired and prayed for. She gets a son and calls him Samuel since, as she says, "I asked Yahweh iCor him" (i S 1:20). In David's case, what happens is just the opposite:of his lingering desire and prayer. His ill-gotten child whom he wants to see saved dies of illness. But 830 Re'view for Religious David--note well--comes alive after the whole ordeal of pray-ing, pining, and fasting. He bathes, anoints himself, dresses up, goes to the sanctuary, then sits down to a meal, and finally even consoles his forlorn Bathsheba. In Job's case, what happens is not just what he agonizingly wanted to find, for he finds far more than he has dared ask. He has asked only for a vindicating proof of his undeserved suffering, but he is given to see God himself, the answer of all possible problems and puzzles. It may appear at first sight that the prayer arising from and suffused with unquenchable desire turns out to be a success for Hannah, a fail-ure for David, and a mere struggle for Job. But further reflection would show that the reality or radicality of their experience is not that simple. The feverish desires of David and Job may not have ended in natural, ordinary, and expected satisfaction as in the case of Hannah. But they too have their definite, unmistakable denouement, with their desires set at rest. Indeed, they attain what may be called the res-olution of their desires, a positive ending to their experience of desire in and through and by means of prayer. Here is a lesson for life. Despite the obvious differences in their desires, Hannah, David, and Job all end up with positive experiences through prayer. Their prayer experience has some-thing in common: making their desire transparent to God or, bet-ter, living their desire before God in all its urgency. The experience of any urgent desire is itself a sort of struggle till its ful-fillment. This is only accentuated when the fulfillment of desire depends, not on oneself, but on the good pleasure of another--in the present context, God. So Hannah prays in an unusual manner, speaking under her breath, giving room for suspicion that she is drunk. So too does David, to the surprise of his officials, covering himself with sack-ing, lying on the bare ground and keeping a strict fast. So too does Job, confounding and shocking his onlookers by his unortho-dox stand that, though he has been afflicted with the worst of Despite the obvious differences in their desires, Hannah, David, and Job all end up with positive experiences through prayer. November-December 1993 831 Dominic ¯ Desire, Asking, and Answers sufferings, he cannot be accused of having really sinned. Even if he occasionally concedes, for the sake of argument, that he has sinned, he challenges God outright: "Suppose I have sinned, what have I done to you?" (Jb 7:20). But the burden of his prayer runs now and again in such words as these: "I shall say to God, 'Do not condemn me, but tell me the reason for your assault. Is it right for you to injure me, cheapening the work of your own hands and abetting the schemes of the wicked?'" (Jb 10:2-3). He ends his apologia daringly with no apology whatever: "I have had my say, from A to Z; now let Shaddai answer me" (Jb 31:35). How acute must be the struggle of the man who, in his dire straits, makes bold to speak to God without mincing words about what he wants. If Hannah and David, too, definitely pass through quite a struggle in their prayer seeking what they want, theirs would seem to be nothing compared with the struggle of Job for God's own vindication of his innocence. Generally speaking, the struggle experienced in prayer as peo-ple keep on imploring God for what they want is proportionate to the intensity of their desire. The surpassing struggle Job goes through in his prayer reveals how hard he desires. There is, if one may put it this way, truth in his desire. That is to say, his desire is so true and so truly possessing and consuming him that he needs must seek its fulfillment by every means possible, even if it should entail a gigantic struggle. Here may be raised a very important question concerning prayer. If people pray and complain that they do not get an answer to their prayer, it may be asked whether their prayer arises out of truth, the truth of their desire in the sense suggested above. People may be accustomed to and satisfied with bland preferences, with mere velleities, and thus ,nay not have true desire even if they know, or seem to know, what they desire. Certainly velleities are palt~ desires. It is worth noting in this context that Job with his ruling desire and passionate prayer is a fictitious figure, unlike Hannah and David. From this may one not infer that people like Job are seldom found in real life, that rarely are real people moved by strong, ardent, fervent, and in a word true desire? But without desire there can be no prayer, for desire is part and parcel of prayer. St. Thomas said so (as I have indicated above), and St. Augustine had said something similar much ear-lier. Writing to Proba on prayer, he pointed out that, if the Lord wants us to pray even though he certainly knows independently 832 Review for Religious our wants and needs, it is because "he wants our desire to be exer-cised in prayer, thus enabling us to grasp what he is preparing to give.''2 He added: "We pray always in faith, hope, and love, with uninterrupted desire. Btit at certain hours and seasons we also pray with words. We use these signs of realities to rouse our-selves, to become aware of the growth of our desire, and to strongly move ourselves to increase it . What do the Apostle's words, 'Pray constantly,' mean, if not that we must constantly desire. ?-3 Of course, one may remark quite correctly that in the context Augustine had in his mind a constant desire for the blessedness of eternal life. One may observe just as correctly, however, that what we do in prayer--namely, exercise our desire--may reach out not only to eternal life, but to present life as well, with aH that we want here and now. Anyhow, the very prayer that Jesus taught explicitly is not confined to holy desires connected with God and his kingdom, but, in the phrase "daily bread," makes mention of ordinary human desires and material needs. The Lord's Prayer certainly includes the gamut of human desires, from the lofty to the lowly. Other teachings of Jesus on prayer also focus on desire expe-rienced and expressed before God. The parables of the importu-nate friend and the widow (Lk 11:5-8; 18:1-8), for instance, emphasize the keenness of desire without which prayer would flag and falter. Apart from desire there can be no meaning in prayer of peti.tion; and it is this sort of simple, straightforward prayer that Jesus mostly speaks of. His injunction regarding effec-tive, infallible prayer is to "ask. search., knock" (Mr 7:7); and this really means that one should go on asking and searching and knocking with the growing impulse of intense desire. This real-ity of glowing desire may throw light even on the basic require-ment-- namely, belief or faith--in all such prayer. For instance, in the saying of Jesus that "everything you ask and pray for, believe that );ou have it already, and it will be yours" (Mk 11:24), the action of belief is as much an activity of desire as it is anything else.4 When belief comes into play in prayer, it invariably brings desire into the foreground, the desire which was already there in the prayer right from the start. All this is not a matter of theory but of practice, as may be seen in dealings of Jesus wifla people to whom he grants favors. In the case of the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus senses right from November-Decentber 1993 833 Dominic ¯ Desire, Asking, and Answers the beginning how badly she desires the healing of her daughter. His apparent reluctance to accede to her request only brings out all the more her desire, at once insistent and persistent, regard-ing her daughter's welfare. He takes note of it and refers to it with pleasant surprise when he finally' gives his word of favor to her request (see Mk 7:24-30).s Just the opposite is the story of the sick man at the Pool of Bethzatha (Jn 5:1-6). When Jesus sees him and knows how long he has been ill, he asks him, "Do you want to be well again?" It is a surprising question at first, but on reflection very revealing. Jesus cannot heal the sick man unless he first desires it. As the man had been ill for so long, perhaps he no longer has any desire for healing. It is precisely to awaken this desire that Jesus puts the question to him. Today, too, neither Jesus nor his Father can hear any prayer unless it arises in real desire and is poured out in ardent desire and sustained in unabated desire. It matters how much and how far we desire whatever we desire. As I conclude, I find myself won-derii~ g if social activists have an idea how much they can effect by prayer that is sharpened by the "violence" of desire. When I say violence here, I am thinking of that intriguing logion: "The king-dom of God has been subjected to violence and the violent are tak-ing it by storm" (Mt 11:12). Notes ~ See Simon Tugwell, Prayer in Practice (Springfield, Illinois, 1974), p. 75. 2 See The Divine Office, vol. 3 (London, Glasgow, Sydney, Dublin, 1974), p. 662. 3 Letters of Saint Augustine, ed. and trans. John Leinenweber (Liguori, Missouri: Triumph Books, 1992), p. 172. 4 The Markan version lends itself to such an interpretation, unlike the Matthean parallel 21:22 with its connotation of faith as a matter of not doubting about what is prayed for. s Here again Mark is different from Matthew. Mark tells the plain story of the woman with her heart's desire whereas Matthew stylizes it in terms of faith (Mt 15:21-28). 834 Review for Religious JUDETTE A. GALLARES Companionship Spirituality in Ruth Te Book of Ruth is one of the immortal love stories in the ble. It takes as its characters and events ordinary people and mundane life situations to which we can easily find parallels in our world today. The book's primary purpose, however, is not to entertain and delight its audience with plot complications, sus-pense, and a satisfying denouement, but to hold up to its readers and listeners authentic models of covenantal faith? What is this covenantal faith, and how does companionship enter into its perspective? What does the spirituality of compan-ionship teach us in our experiences of change, life transitions, and emptiness? To glean some answers to these questions, it is beneficial to allow to sink into our consciousness Ruth's words to Naomi, her mother-in-law, which have become an immortal prayer of companionship. Let us look at her words within their context as summarized here. During the time of the judges, Elimelech of Bethlehem, together with his wife Naomi and his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, migrated to Moab to escape a famine in Judah. Elimelech died in Moab. His sons married two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. The two sons also died, however, leaving two childless wid-ows with their widowed mother-in-law. Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem, and her daughters-in-law, set off with her. While they were on the road, she urged her daughters-in-law each to return to her mother's house, for she was unsure of what future Judette A. Gallares RC is involved in spiritual direction and retreat work in the Philippines and conducts courses on biblical spirituality and spiritual direction for lay and religious formators. Her address is Cenacle Sisters; 217-G.D. Jakosalem Street; Cebu City 6000; Philippines. Novetnber-Deconber 1993 835 Gallares ¯ Companionship Spirituality in Ruth they would have with her. Orpah sorrowfully returned to her fam-ily, but Ruth clung to her mother-in-law in spite of Naomi's prod-ding that she follow Orpah's decision. Instead, she responded in these words: Do not press me to leave you and to stop going with you, for wherever you go, I shall go, wherever you live, I shall live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I shall die and there I shall be buried. Let Yahweh bring unnameable ills on me and worse ills, too, if anything but death should part me from you! (Rt 1:16-17). Realizing that Ruth was determined to go with her, Naomi stopped urging her. Both went on their journey until they reached Bethlehem. Migration was rather typical of ancient Palestine. Families often migrated because of the frequent occurrence of famine in the area. The country of Moab, with a narrow strip of well-watered and fertile land running north and south in its center, was an attractive refuge, and so Elimelech, Naomi, and their two sons migrated there. This scenario is familiar even today. To escape economic dif-ficulties caused by drought or increased militarization in third-world rural areas, people flock to the cities and towns seeking either the pot of gold or refuge from military oppression. Professionals continually migrate from third-world to first-world countries in search of better opportunities even though, regret-tably, this slows down socioeconomic development in their own countries. Migration for the sake of survival and a better life is an undei'- standable occurrence in any generation and culture. Biblical lit-erature records a number of such departures. We recall Joseph and his famil)) moving to Goshen (Gn 47:27) and a widow fol-lowing Elisha's advice and moving to the land of the Philistines (2 K 8). So Elimelech's decision to leave Bethlehem of Judah together with his family is understandable. To alert us immediately to the development and historical probability of the story, the author also gives the characters names which in Hebrew have symbolic meanings. Elimelech means "my God is king"; Naomi means "pleasant"; the two sons' names, Mahlon and Chilion, .mean "sickness" and "wasting," respectively.2 After they have settled in Moab, death strikes the male members 836 Review for Religious of Naomi's family. Elimelech dies first. Naomi is left with her two sons, who later marry native women. But after ten years the sons also die without leaving any sons. Naomi, a widow of advanced age with no sons but only non-Jewish and childless daughters-in-law, is therefore destined for a life of destitution and social oppression. In her emptiness and poverty, Naomi decides to return to the land of her birth because the famine there is over. Perhaps she thinks her own townspeople will be kinder to her in her poverty than if she were to remain in Moab as a widowed foreigner. Her two widowed daughters-in-law initially go with her, but she urges them to return to their own families. She just cannot impose her desire and longing for her own land and people on her already suffering daughters-in-law, nor can she deprive them of the small consolation that their own homeland would provide them. Besides, she knows that it would be much more dif-ficult for them, being foreigners, to remarry in her homeland than in theirs because Hebrew laws discourage marriage with foreigners.3 Here Naomi is projected as a practical person. She uses the time, not for grieving, but for doing something in a situation that needs a practical solution. Naomi's use of the unusual phrase "mother's house" is to be noted, for a house is usually designated as one's father's.4 Some com-mentators believe it is used to symbolize or to emphasize the absence of men in the women's lives.5 From another perspective it can also be seen as words of consolation to the suffering women, for the word "mother" evokes images of the love, care, and nur-turance one would long for in a time of brokenness. Orpah heeds Naomi's advice and returns to her people: Ruth refuses. Mthough the motif of ~mptiness is strongly accentuated here, by Naomi's saying that her womb will have no more sons, we see that she is not totally bereft, for Ruth would cling to her and not allow her to return to her homeland alone. Responding to her mother-in-law's pleading send-off with words of loyalty and devotion, Ruth vows to accompany Naomi through a per-ilous journey into an uncertain future. Migration for the sake of survival and a better life is an understandable occurrence in any generation and culture. Novevnber-Dece~nber 1993 837 Gallares ¯ Companionship Spirituality in Ruth Ruth pledges covenant fidelity and claims as her own Naomi's place, people, and God.6 In her beautiful and moving response, Ruth clings not to a past but to a present--not to a male through whom she may achieve power and access, but to a female, one who needs her, one for whom she will provide protection, care, and access.7 Ruth thus gives to her mother-in-law the only thing she possesses, her very self. Even if society destines both of them to a life of extreme poverty as widows, they still have each other. We can still see this kind of attitude among simple poor families. They are extremely loyal to their own members and sacrifice for and protect one another in good times and in bad. Together the two widows now turn their faces resolutely toward Palestine and the city of Bethlehem. The distance between Moab and Bethlehem is only about 120 miles, but this stretch represents a long, fatiguing, and dangerous trek in this period, especially for two women who have neither money beyond their barest needs nor protector.8 It is this journey through barren places that will perhaps bring them closer to each other and cause them to cling more closely together for protection, comfort, and support. Covenantal Faith amid Emptiness in Life Transitions The contrast between emptiness and fullness runs through the entire book. This is seen, not only in the setting itself, but also in the lives of the women characters. The famine or the emptiness of the land that sets the story in motion drives Naomi's family to seek greener fields. Leaving one's country and culture as Naomi did is an experience of emptying, an experience of loss: food, rela-tionships, property, land. It is a recurring motif in the life of Israel and throughout salvation history, beginning with God inviting Abraham to leave his clan and his ancestral home for a promised land. In Abraham we see that God's promise and blessing are indissolubly bound up with a departure, an emptying of anything that prevents one from setting out on an adventure with God. For Naomi, however, Moab turned out to be a place of empti-ness, not a land of promise. There she lost not only her husband but her two sons as well. Her emptiness seemed irreparable, her life hollow deep within. These words of the psalmist could have echoed in her heai't: "How could we sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land?" (Ps 137:4 NAB).)It would be difficult indeed for 838 Review for Religious anyone in Naomi's predicament to sing a song to God amid feel-ings of alienation from God, life, others, and even self. Grief has a way of devouring our spiritual life, leaving us in the desert to feel parched, empty, depleted, lonely, and alienated. Naomi could attribute the cause of her incurable emptiness only to God: "Yahweh's hand has been raised against me." Thus, only God also could fill it. Beyond her empty feeling and sense of God's absence is perhaps a fragile hope that God will also cause her misery to cease. Perhaps this was in her mind and heart when, "having heard that Yahweh had come to help his people by giving them food, Naomi prepared to return home." Her poverty and her emptiness are so basic that they can be intimated by an unadorned reference to food. Beyond a need to fill her physical hunger, she perhaps has a keen desire to reconcile herself with the past, to catch a glimpse of home and of who she is meant to be. John Dunne once wrote9: At every turn in the road a new illuminating is needed to find the way and a new kindling is needed to follow the way. Dunne seems to speak here of moments of transition in one's life when one needs to search within to find illumination or guid-ance to continue going forward on the road to life. This search involves returning to the past, to one's home and roots and being reconciled with them. Naomi, in her poverty and emptiness, thinks of home not only as a place where she could experience God's blessing again' (having heard that Yahweh had come to help his people), but also as a place where she can find peace and acceptance of her painful situation ("Do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for God has made life bitter for me"). Her words reflect a deep longing that is present in every human heart. A part in us is always yearning and quietly crying out for the true homeland where life is no longer painful and unfair,l° Undoubtedly Naomi's two Moabite daughters-in-law are also experiencing emptiness and grief at losing their husbands. In their loss their initial response is to cling to what is familiar (to continue living with Naomi and to remain in her clan) even if it does not seem to give them any kind of future. Orpah is practical minded in dealing with her emptiness. In spite of the pain of saying good-bye to Naomi and Ruth and to matters that have become famil-iar to her, she heeds Naomi's advice and returns to her mother's November-December 199~ 839 Gallares ¯ Companionship Spirituality in Ruth house. Perhaps she feels hopeful that life can still offer her a future in her own homeland, and perhaps she, like Naomi, has a renewed glimpse of home and the possibility of who she can still become. Companionship in Time of Transition On the other hand, Ruth clings to her mother-in-law and takes the risk of embracing, her, her land, and her God even if the future is uncertain and seemingly bleak. Although she too is going through ~ransition, she offers Naomi her presence and com-panionship. She feels for her mother-in-law because she too knows the pain of loss and the difficulty of adjusting to a new reality. But, unlike Naomi, she is not allowing this life transition to dis-courage her or to embitter her. For her a return to her mother's house has seemed to be a movement away from what and who she is meant to be. Instead, she follows the movement of Israel's first patriarch by leaving her homeland and venturing into the unknown. Like Abraham she departs from her homeland and empties herself of anything that prevents her from setting out on an adventure with Abraham's and Naomi's God. But, unlike Abraham, she does not perceive the God of Israel as giving her a promise and a blessing. She has none of these assurances. She leaves relying only on Naomi's God and the strength of her love for her mother-in-law. She deals with her emptiness by further emptying herself s~ she can embrace totally the God of Abraham, of Naomi, and of Israel. She lets go of the past in order to embrace the future with great faithfulness. And in these b~autiful words which have become an immortal prayer of fidelity, ~he accompa-nies Naomi through her life transition: Wherever you go, I shill go, wherever you live, I shall live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I shall die and there I shall be buried. Let Yahweh bring unnameable ills on me and worse ills, too, if anything but death should part me from you! (1:16-17 NJB). As we have seen, biblical fidelity recalls the faith of Israel that began with the departure of Abraham and led to the Mosaic covenant with God. It remembers the unique friendship estab-lished between God and Israel that is echoed in the entire Book of.Ruth and is exemplified by Ruth and other people in the story. 840 Review for Religiot~s At the heart of this covenant fidelity is the people's faith that Yahweh is the God of life who calls them to greater life. In the language and setting of today, faith calls us to face the light and to choose life. It enables us to look upon each letting go with optimism and prepares us to face other more painful relin-quishments that commit us more fully to God's service. It enables us to catch a glimpse of who we are meant to be. As with Ruth and Naomi, faith urges us to move forward and embrace the God of life. Notes L Alice L. Laffey, "Ruth," in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 553. 2 Ibid. 3 Intermarriage was prohibited, not on ethnic grounds, but to avoid religious syncretism and to foster the worship of Yahweh (see Ex 34:15ff). See Madeleine S. Miller and J. Lane Miller, Harper's Bible Dictiona,7 (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1973), p. 422. 4 Ibid. s Ibid. 6 See Laffey, p. 555. 7 Ibid. 8 Edith Deen, All of the Women of the Bible (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1983), p. 84. 9 Quoted byJoyce Rupp OSM in Praying Our Goodbyes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press, 1988), p. 77. ~0 Ibid, p. 24. Novonber-Decentber 1993 841 JOHN P. MOSSI The Spirituality of Surrender Losing, whether it is losing a friendly bet, an important argument, or a business contract, is a difficult pill to swal-low. We detest losing. The same is true for tiny diehard sports fan who endures a hometown rout. We walk away replaying the game, blaming the unfair referees, or creating strategies that "would have" favorably altered the score. When the defeat entails greater stakes, there is higher resis-tance to a surrender. To address a serious problem like addiction is personally painful. Implicit in such reality is a pervasive sense of failure. One has lost control over life's direction. The only way to regain control is to surrender what has not worked and seek a new way. This process is replete with difficulty. This article will examine the spirituality of surrender as a means of comin.g home to God? Surrendering to God will be looked at in three ways. The first involves an understanding of how surrender is operative in twelve-step recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. The second involves a look at the life of Ignatius of Loyola and the surrender components of the final prayer of the Spiritual Exercises, the "Suscipe," or "Take and Receive." The third considers Jesus' act of surrender on the cross in Luke 23:46. Each of these three different "ways" of surren-dering involves putting our ultimate identity and confidence in God. John P. Mossi SJ, a member of the Religious Studies Department at Gonzaga University, facilitates courses in pastoral counseling, spiritual mentoring, addiction and pastoral approaches to recovery, and Catholicism. His address is Gonzaga University; Jesuit Residence; Spokane, Washington 99258. 842 Review for Religious Let Go, Let God At Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or twelve-step recovery retreats, the expression "Let go, let God" is often used. These four important words constitute the core spirituality of A.A. and similar recovery programs that have adapted the twelve steps to their particular addiction. "Let go, let God" is an invitation to surrender one's umnanageable life to God. "Let go, let God" is a gentle conversion reminder, a kind of mantra, which assists us both to admit the addiction and to hand it over along with its various forms of com-pulsions to God. The long form of the prayer would be something like "Let go of alcohol (or whatever the specific substance or non-substance addiction might be) and let the hand and grace of God guide my life." The prayer is not magic. Saying "Let go, let God" does not instantaneously bring about recovery. Its first purpose is to assist the recov-ering addict to keep to the daily partnership task of surrendering the addiction to God. The second purpose of "Let go, let God" is. to be a prayer of liberation, to call on the greater power of God to help one escape from destructive lifestyle patterns. In this way the creative resources of the individual and the action of God are focused on together. The prayer also serves to silence those addic-tion- related inner-committee tapes and voices of doubt, loneli-ness, fear, and caustic shame that can interfere with a person's slow recovery. These, too, need to be handed over to God. I have the greatest admiration for all who enter the surrender process of a twelve-step program. For many, it is the difference between death and life, the difference between barely existing as a human and participating in community, between dysfunction-alism and experiencing the serenity that only God gives with amazing grace. The first three steps of Anonymous programs set up this "Let go, let God" dynamic. The language of the twelve steps is straight-forward and simple. This is part of their wisdom and wide appeal. The steps make sense to a lot of people. Since A.A. began in 1935 at Akron, Ohio, Anonymous recovery programs have multiplied to treat various forms of addiction.2 These include Narcotics "Let go, let God" is an invitation to surrender one's unmanageable life to God. November-December 1993 843 Mossi ¯ The Spirituality of Surrender Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous, Workaholics Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, M-Anon, and Adult Children of Mcoholics. Let us examine these first three steps. 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol [or the other specific addiction], that our lives had become unmanageable) The first step is crucial. You admit you have a serious prob-lem. There is no denial of the fact. The blunt reality is your life is out of control, in fact, unmanageable. Furthermore, you are powerless to do anything about it. At Anonymous meetings, this first step is handled in an up-front manner. When members speak, they state their first name and their addictiveness: "I'm John. I'm an alcoholic." "I'm Susan. I'm a recovering overeater." In formal religion we might refer to this acknowledgment as group confession. In recovery programs it is simply admitting what can no longer be denied. Step one is an honest, vulnerable beginning place. Owning and naming the unmanageable addiction is essential to the surrendering process. When one is aware o£ a specific uncontrollable disease, one can effectively pray "Let go." But to whom does one surrender? Steps two and three look at the second part of the mantra: "Let God." God is the significant associate in restoring harmony. To appreciate the spirituality of the twelve steps, it is important to reflect that the existence and action of God are mentioned seven times in the twelve steps. The par-ticular addiction is only mentioned once, and that is in the first step. The activity of surrendering one's addiction and life to God becomes the spirituality cornerstone of the remaining steps. 2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.4 Step two admits the need of an outside corrective authority, a Higher Power, to bring about a stability in one's life. This is the first glimpse of light that invites God in as the restorer of sanity. There are two other important spirituality elements opera-tire in the second step: (i) the belief that a Higher Wisdom exists and (2) a disposition of humility on the part of the believer. These two qualities counterculturally work against the arrogance of the ego that craves to cling to the addiction. Step two indicates that the recovery process entails an attentive listening to a new Teacher, which means that the addict has to take on the attitude 844 Review for Religious of learner. There is a major shift in trust: from addiction to God. 3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.s Step three is where the capitulation actually occurs. First, a concrete decision to surrender has to be made. Second, this deci-sion is total. It includes the will making conscious choices, and it affects one's entire being and journey. Third, the whole person is placed in the care of God according to the individual's faith back-ground. The spirituality of "Let go, let God" is a conversion process. Conversion of its nature has two basic movements: the surren-dering of the compulsion, shame, and destructive addictive pat-terns which reduce freedom; the turning to the care of God and the Holy Spirit to be one's permanent resource of wisdom and identity. Matthew 11:28-30 speaks of a "letting go, letting God" pro-cess: "Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.''6 These three verses contain the confirmation signs that accompany a true surrender. A learning will occur, the process will be gentle and humble. Rest will be experienced. A new relationship arises, a companionship with the Master, which will be nonaddictive, easy, and light. The Surrender of Ignatius of Loyola Another way of surrendering one's life to God comes from the spirituality of Ignatius's surrender as expressed in his prayer the "Suscipe," or "Take and Receive." On his pilgrim journey Ignatius was called to surrender on several notable occasions. The first was during the defense of the city of Pamplona, Spain. In 1521 Ignatius, wounded by cannon shrapnel, reviewed the illusions of his life as sober death approached. But he did not die. His long convalescence became a conversion process. He gradually yielded up his stubborn self-preoccupation, bravado, and ambition and began to discover a new self in God.7 The spirituality record of Ignatius's surrender to God is found in his classic work, the Spiritual Exercises. Today, 450 years after its first published edition, it is still considered a significant theo-logical work noted for its integration of Scripture, guidelines for Nove~nber-Dece'mber 1993 845 Mossi ¯ The Spirituality of Surrender discernment, sense of mission, and themes of justice. The Exercises' developmental stages of growth in discipleship and intimacy enable a person to come home to God. The last prayer of the Exercises is called the "Suscipe" or "Take and Receive." I invite you to spend some time contemplating the components of this prayer. What is Ignatius, the once vain soldier-at- arms, now a mystic, asking us to do? Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will-- all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.8 The "Suscipe" is a deceptively profound prayer. It invites us to acknowledge the primacy of God in our totality; it answers the humbling question "What aspect of our being is not a gift of God?" In the light of this answer, Ignatius invites us to surrender all to God. The last part of the prayer is a seeking of the purer gifts: "Give me only your love and grace. That is enough for me." Ignatius does not compromise in the process of "letting go of self and letting God in." I recall a forceful experience in praying the "Suscipe." It hap-pened fifteen years ago during a retreat. I attempted to pray and could not. I realized I had not surrendered anything, certainly not my liberty, memory, understanding, and will to anyone, much less to God. I told my director that I could not pray this prayer at all. As a consequence, I seriously questioned remaining a Jesuit. The director gave sage advice. He invited me to return to the chapel and pray the "Suscipe" with my own words in my own way. I prayed, "Lord, I give you my sins which I know so well, those many areas of my life where I am not obedient, poor, and chaste. I give you my pride, my negativity, my hatred and vin-dictiveness, my compulsive rebellion and addictiveness to self. I am overly familiar with these dark recesses. And I truly need to sur-render these to you. Send forth your Holy Spirit to guide, anoint, ¯ and heal with a love that I am most in need of, your grace." 846 Review for Religious Like an ambush, the opportunity to surrender can appear at unlikely moments. Do not let the occasion pass by. The benefit of letting God in always outweighs whatever is surrendered. Jesus on the Cross We turn to the spirituality of Jesus and the particular way he has taught us to surrender. He, too, had to face a special moment of surrender. His prayer in Luke 23:46 is a powerful expression of letting go: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.''9 Here on the cross Jesus is still the master teacher. He models for us how to pray and hand over our daily experiences and our life to God. Notice the key elements: (1) The prayer is addressed to the Father; (2)Jesus urges us to surrender, to commend, to let go; (3) Jesus specifies what is to be handed over. He gives what little is left, his spirit and last breath. In the daily minor or major surrenders of our own pilgrimage, we can pray in the spirituality of either the twelve steps, Ignatius, or Jesus. Specify in the "Let go, let God" mantra and the "Suscipe" whatever needs to be named and yielded: "Let go of addiction and manipulation. Let God in." "Take, Lord, my dis-honesty, my hurts, my doubts and sinfulness." God can handle and work with these blighted areas quite well. Adapt the prayer of Jesus to your immediate concerns: "Father, into your hands I commit my grief, my sense of failure, my disappointment, my pettiness and vulnerability." Commend these regions of brokenness to the higher compassion and under-standing of God. It is clear that not only our joys but also our sorrows must be offered to God. Our ability to be powerless allows God to meet us and tenderly heal us on our journey, embracing us as we truly are. Moreover, the art 6f surrendering involves a lifelong process. Some days we succeed better than others. If we post-pone learning the spirituality of surrender, we will face it unpre-pared at death, when .the surrender is sudden. Perhaps we can learn to surrender to the care, to the heart, of God in advance. Notes ~ For more information on this topic, see Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 162-181. Nove'mber-December 1993 847 Mossi * The Spirituality of Surrender 2 Ernest Kurtz, Not-God: A Histo~7 of Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, Minn.: Hazeldon, 1991), pp. 37-57. 3 Anonymous, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1952), p. 21. 4 Ibid, p. 25. ~ Ibid, p. 34. 6 The New Jerusalem Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1985). 7 St. Ignatius' Own Story, trans. William J. Young sJ (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1956), pp. 7-27. 8 David L. Fleming SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980), p. 141. 9 The New Jerusalem Bible. Retreat: A Flight The gulls are going wild over the waters; dipping, zooming, swirling over the wild waters. Far away, at horizon's edge, two ships imperceptibly inch against a purpling sky. I look up and see clouds playing charades before my eyes; straight out, the waves, wind-tossed, chase the dunes relentlessly. It is December at Mantoloking, and my Advent prayer has taken off with the clouds and the winds and the waves. I surrender, like a Maid of long ago to a time of begetting: in Mary, a Word made Flesh. in me, a sign become Faith. each a way of holding Beauty as a born-for-us Savior in a free-for-all world where the gulls (and my heart) go dipping, zooming, swirling with the wild of wonder. Anna Marie Mack SSJ 848 Review for Religious JEFFREY GROS The Ecumenical Vocation of Religious When Pope John emphasized the unity of the church and its openness to the world in inaugurating Vatican Council II, few realized the cost that such conversion would exact. Some felt euphoria, expecting the whole Roman Catholic Church to be zealous for reunion among Christians and hoping for a quick resolution of the theological, sacra-mental, and historical problems dividing the churches. Others, even some receptive to conciliar reform, had the superficial expectation that ecumenical openness would settle for a warm but noncommittal outreach, diminishing hostilities but not calling for the radical conversion and institutional reform outlined in the conciliar decree on ecumenism. The last twenty-five years have been a reward-ing and challenging pilgrimage for the Roman Catholic Church and for its Christian partners on the road toward full visible unity. Those who would consider the ecu-menical movement dead have not been following the lit-erature nor have they felt spiritual bonds of communion becoming stronger as many ofhers have. The Holy Spirit has been very much at work, but not all have yet been vis-ited with the gift of conversion. It is small wonder that, as the Roman Catholic Church assesses its ecumenical involvement and charts its course for the future, its Directory for the Application of Principles Jeffrey Gros FSC works in the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. His address is 3211 4th Street N.E.; Washington, D.C. 20017-1194. ecurnenJsrn November-December 1993 849 Coos * The Ecumenical Vocation of Reli#ous and Norms on Ecumenism (June 1993) gives special emphasis to ecumenical formation.~ Indeed, the ecumenical movement has been so successful that a whole genre of literature has emerged, resulting from the ecumenical dialogue, that calls for both spe-cialized study and incorporation into the spiritual life of all Catholics, including religious. Twenty-five years ago it was pos-sible to be ecumenical merely by being open to and supportive of the general conciliar position and by praying for the unity of the church. Today ecumenical commitments have become a richer and more complex spectrum. Most religious-formation programs gave emphasis to ecumenism a decade or two ago. They need evaluation today to see if they continue faithful to the develop-ments of this part of Catholic identity. In the new Directory there is for the first time a specific section devoted to institutes of con-secrated life and societies of apostolic life, not only laying out principles, but also proposing delegates and commissions for ecu-menism at the highest levels in religious institutes.2 This Directory is a help towards renewal. It covers such top-ics as the basis in Catholic theology for ecumenical commitment; the structures in the Catholic Church--including religious com-munities- to support the ecumenical commitment; ecumenical formation of the laity and the clergy, and within specialized min-istries and institutions; spirituality as it pertains to common bap-tism, marriage, and sacramental sharing; and cooperation and common witness. After a short introduction this essay will be lim-ited to some rather general comments on two issues: ecumenical formation and collaboration. Religious have been instrumental in Roman Catholic ecu-menism- such pioneers as Congar, Tavard, Rahner, and Dulles. Some religious communities have prayer and work for the unity of the church as their charism, like the Graymoor friars and sis-ters and the Paulist fathers? Others have set up special supports for the ecumenical movement, like the Jesuit Society of Ecumenists and the Benedictine centers at Collegeville, Chevetogne, Turvey, and Niederaltaich. Outreach programs to incorporate lay people in, for example, Jesuit, Mercy, or Lasallian spirituality and apostolates have been thoroughly ecumenical in their membership and formation. Schools, hospitals, and other institutions animated by religious in leadership positions have pioneered the ecumenical program of the Catholic Church. Among diocesan ecumenical officers are many religious. Where 850 Review for Religious shared mission is a priority, the baptismal basis and commitment to full ecclesial communion are central to the common forma-tion of the fellow Christians who are brought into collaboration with Roman Catholic religious according to their particular charisms. These developments, like the other elements of renewal, have been adapted according to cultural context and the quality of vision provided by ecclesiastical and religious leadership. The Context Certainly many bishops and religious superiors will use the occasion of the publication of the Directory as an opportunity to train specialists in ecumenical leadership, much as retraining in canon law developed after the publication of the 1983 Code.4 As in biblical, social, and liturgical renewal, expertise is necessary in ecumenism. It is essential, however, that all religious, lay, and clerical members of the church be formed ecumenically as part of their spiritual and apostolic life. The Second Vatican Council clearly asked Catholics to reach out in love to all other Christians with a charity that desires and works actively to overcome in truth whatever divides them from one another. For the council, Catholics are to act in hope and in prayer to promote Christian unity. They will be prompted and instructed by their faith in the mystery of the church, and their ecumenical activity will be inspired and guided by a true understanding of the church as "sacrament or iristrumental sign of intimate union with God, and of unity of the whole human race.''s In this sho~'t essay attention will be called to the ecumenical dimension of Roman Catholic spirituality and identity in its pres-ent challenges. Among the institutional supports to religious involved in the ecumenical movement is the National Ecumenical Consultation of Men and Women Religious. This .group's publication of Religious for Christian Unity as an ecumenical resource and direc-tory and its sponsorship of a national ecumenical conference under the theme "Toward a Communion in Faith Life and Witness" are indications of a certain maturity.6 Although there has been an international ecumenical consultation for twenty years, the United States consultation is only nine years old. It is sponsored in part by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. With the publication and the November-December 1993 851 Gros ¯ The Ecumenical Vocation of Reh~ous May 1993 conference, the specific ecumenical contribution of religious begins to have a higher profile. For the first time, the Directory proposes a structure within religious congregations to assist in the ecumenical activity of com-munities at all levels: It is very opportune that the various institutes of conse-crated life and societies of apostolic life establish, on the level of their central authorities, a delegate or a commis-sion charged with promoting and assisting their ecumenical engagement. The function of these delegates or commis-sions will be to encourage the ecumenical formation of all the members, aid the specific ecumenical formation of those who have particular offices, and act as advisors for ecu-menical affairs to the various general and local authorities of the institutes and societies, especially for initiating or carrying forward the activities described [in the Directory].7 This initiative will elicit considerable work on the part of major superiors, general councils, and chapters. The implications of this proposal will need to be developed in writing for the var-ious institutes. For this project the Directory will be useful. Elements of the Ecumenical Spirituality At the root of loyalty to Christ's will for the church and for church unity is the process of conversion, personal and institu-tional, s There are cultural dispositions that make the formation for such a conversion more or less easy. Of course, a prayerful open-ness to the Holy Spirit's action in the church, in other churches, and in fellow Christians is foundational. Because ecumenism with all its human and moral require-ments is rooted so profoundly in the mysterious working out of the providence of the Father, through the Son and the Spirit, it reaches into the depths of Christian spirituality. It calls for [a] "change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians. ¯ ." Those who identify deeply with Christ must identify with his prayer, and especially with his prayer for unity; . . ¯ those whose lives are marked by repentance will be espe-cially sensitive to the sinfulness of divisions and will pray for forgiveness and con, version. Those who seek holiness will be able to recognize its fruits also outside the visible boundaries of their own church.9 However, studies of seminary formation that were made by 852 Review for Religious diocesan ecumenical officers demonstrate that the most effective ecumenical formative experience is growing up in an interchurch family. Other elements that contributed most to the ecumenical dimension of priestly formation in the United States are (I) internship with an ecumenically effective priest, (2) ecumenically effective spiritual directors, (3) internships with an ecumenically informed non-Catholic minister, and (4) experiences in ecu-menically mixed clinical pastoral education programs. All of the seminaries report that the ecumenical dimension is fully inte-grated into the curriculum. The Directory will be helpful for eval-uating these claims. As sketched out by the council, the elements of Roman Catholic participation in the ecumenical movement include (1) the ecumenical dimension of spirituality, (2) theological dialogues leading to deeper understanding and toward full church unity, (3) collaboration in common witness and service, and (4) internal renewal of the members and structures of the church in response to ecumenical commitments. Attention needs to be given to each of these dimensions in initial and continuing formation and in the ongoing life of a religious community or parish. Ecumenical Spirituality for the Church An ecumenical spirituality is at the center of every aspect of the renewal of religious and lay life in the church. Without con-version to Christ's will for the church--in this case its visible unity and Roman Catholic contributions thereto--any theologi-cal, institutional, or educational progress towards full commu-nion will be superficial. If, on the other hand, Catholics are fully committed to all to whom they are bound by real, if imperfect, communion in baptism and to Christ's will for the visible unity of the church, then no setbacks on the road toward that unity will discourage them or make them complacent about divisions: The ecumenical movement is a grace of God, given by the Father in answer to the prayer of Jesus and the supplica-tion of the church inspired by the Holy Spirit. While it is carried out within the general mission of the church to unite humanity in Christ, its own specific field is the restoration of unity among Christians. Those who are baptized in the name of Christ are, by that very fact, called to commit themselves to the search for unity?° Noventber-Decevnber 1993 853 Coos ¯ The Ecumenical Vocation of Religious While individual religious and some communities have given considerable leadership to church reform in general and ecu-menism in particular, identity problems also affect the relationship of religious and the church. The Nygren/Ukeritis studies show that United States religious have "a stronger ecclesiology than Christology." ii This is not surprising, given the Roman Catholic The vast amount of ecumenical literature that has emerged in the last thi'rty years can help people renew their understandings of sacramental faith together. understanding of spirituality. I would understand this conclusion to mean that Christ is experienced more sacramentally, communally, and in mission than in indi-vidualistic or contemplative encounters. Such a focus on community can mean two things, as a resource for Catholic ecu-menical commitment. In one instance it can mean a more closed and sectarian approach, where primary religious identity and meaning come from the proximate religious community, its institution~ and ministry, rather than from Christ's wider will for the church and the world. Needless to say, this provides a weaker basis for ecu-menical conversion and formation. On the other hand,this ecclesiocen-tric spirituality could indicate that the experience of Christ is primarily in the call to community in the church, in the wider Christian society, and in the whole human family. At this stage in the reporting of the data, "ecclesiology" is yet to be defined. Be that as it may, the fully Catholic religious sees his or her sacramental life as yet defi-cient, short of the full communion of all Christians around the eucharistic table. The data from the same study shows religious to be "clear in their lowered respect for the magisterial authority of the church and the U.S. hierarchy in. general.''12 These words, negative as they sound, may however be interpreted as a critical fidelity to the Holy Spirit's call to the church for its renewal. A higher ideal for the church, its renewal, its leadership, and its eventual unity may not be so much "lowered respect" as elevated expectation and longer-range vision. The movement toward Christ's will for a united church is a critical fidelity for all of the churches involved in the ecumenical movement. 854 Review for Religious The vast amount of ecumenical literature that has emerged in 'the last thirty years can help people renew their understandings of sacramental faith together. The agreements on "justification by grace through faith" with the Lutherans, for example, provide an important contribution to faith development, self-under-standing, and spiritual direction?3 These documents will not reach their full fruitfulness unless they transform the prayer life, litur-gical celebration, and community understanding of the churches that produced them: Catholics should also give value to certain elements and goods, sources of spiritual life, which are found in other churches and ecclesial communities, and which belong to the one church of Christ: Holy Scripture, the sacraments and other sacred actibns, faith, hope, charity and other gifts of the Spirit. These goods have borne fruit for example in the mystical tradition of the Christian East and the spiritual treasures of the monastic life, in the worship and piety of Anglicans, in the Evangelical prayer and the diverse forms of Protestant spirituality. This appreciation should not remain merely theoreti-cal; in suitable particular conditions, it should be completed by the practical knowledge of other traditions of spiritual-ity. Therefore, sharing prayer and participating in some form of public worship or in devotional acts of other Christians can have a formative value when in accord with existing directives.14 Religious have a unique role in translating these intellectual con-tributions into popular piety. Indeed, several ecumenical books on the Blessed Virgin have already provided an invaluable resource, as can be noted by the many languages into which they have been translated,is The lives of ecumenical figures from Luther to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from John WeslEy to C.S. Lewis, have enr.iched the spiritual reading of a generation and made the divisions both more clear and more subject to the healing power of the Holy Spirit. The modern availability of the spiritual classics from the full range of ecumenical sources, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican has enabled all to be enriched. The living presence of fellow Christians with whom we share Christ--in a variety of traditions, but with a common will to be obedient to Christ's call to visible unity--is a rich complement to the liturgical, bio-graphical, and literary gifts we receive from one another. Like the charisms of the various religious communities and their November-December 1993 855 Gros ¯ The Ecumenical Vocation of Religlous founders, each church brings to a united church gifts we dare not lose as we reconcile our divisions. More particularly, giveR the legitimate variety of charisms and of the work of monasteries, institutes of consecrated life, and societies of apostolic life, it is very important that "all communities should participate in the life of the church. According to its individual character, each should make its own and foster in every possible way the enterprises and objectives of the church," including the "ecumenical field.''~6 In addition to personal and communal ecumenical spirituality, an "ecumenical hermeneutics of piety" will need to be developed as we move forward towards full communion?7 Indeed, as the "lineamenta" document for the 1994 synod notes, the baptismal consecration, beyond the narrow borders of the Roman Catholic Church, is the criterion for our communi-tarian outreach: As a reflection of church communion, the community is not a unit closed in.upon itself. Rather, it is open to the multiplicity of relationships with others which are provided by prayer, apostolic service, and collaboration with other members of the church, all of whom share in the same bap-tismal consecration and are called to holiness and mission in the variety and complementarity of each vocation. In its communitarian aspect, the role of the consecrated life is to offer to all members of the people of God the supreme value of the charity of Christ's disciples, lived in perseverance in fraternal communion.~8 Likewise, the agenda of the synod is very explicit about the spe.cificity of the spiritual calling: Those in the consecrated life have a special role in this ecu-menical task, in dialogue with the spiritual experiences akin to those of other churches and Christian confessions, in a spiritual ecumenism of conversion, prayer, dialogue and mutual edification, always in kedping with their proper iden-tity in the faith and their charism?9 Formation for an Ecumenical Spirituality While prayer and ecumenical openness are central to the ecu-menical vocation of Catholics, including the religious communi-ties, this spirituality also has specific intellectual content. It is a truism that one cannot be an effective ecumenist from any tradi- 856 Review for Religious tion without being firmly grounded in one's own faith and iden-tity. 2° However, 'the intellectual content of the ecumenical move-ment, including Roman Catholic principles and history within that movement, is an essential component for the formation of any ministry in the church, lay, clerical, or religious. In addition to the foundational principles enunciated in the conciliar and postconciliar docu-ments, 21 there has been a rich harvest of dialogue agreements.~ All of these texts are resources for spiritual and intellectual " renewal, requiring the same level of delib-erate systematic effort as did the early days of the biblical and liturgical renewal. Until leaders in our institutions, dioceses, and religious communities become well formed in these matters, their spirit will not be able to come alive in our Catholic life. Indeed, these dialogues and the researches and methodologies that stand behind them transform not only our appreciation of our own Catholic faith, but also of the changes necessary if our insti-tutions and practices are to be converted to reach the ideal we outline with our ecumenical partners. As was noted above, the curricula of seminaries have been transformed by the ecumenical movement. Those who receive their training in ecumenical con-sortia are probably the most sensitive to the ecumenical dimen-sion, but no one taking a Catholic scripture course can be ignorant of the full integration of Catholic and Protestant biblical schol-arship since the council. Similarly, any competent liturgy or sacramental-theology course will be informed by the vast literature that has come from the World Council's "Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry" processz3 over the last decade and from the bilateral agreements of a wide variety of churches. Soteriology, spiritual development, and eccle-siology are all informed by the Lutheran/Catholic work on grace cited above. Ecclesiology will include not only the principles of Catholic ecumenism, but also the work done in the World Council and in various dialogues on such topics as the local and the uni-versal church, religious liberty and proselytism, and papal pri- One cannot be an effective ecumenist from any tradition without being firmly grounded in one's own faith and identity. November-December 1993 857 Coos * The Ecumenical Vocation of Relig4ous macy and infallibility. The Directory gives helpful detail for plan-ning both clerical and nonclerical religious formation.24 For the first time a section in this Directory sets the stage for the work of ecumenical formation among religious: While the concern for restoring Christian unity involves the whole church, clergy and laity alike, relig

Issue 4.3 of the Review for Religious, 1945. ; MAy !'5, 1945"' ' ",, ris in rl÷|ncjs~ ampere " ~ ~v~ ~ '~ f~ -";~ ,~ ¯ 7ESUS CHEST IN ~THE WRITINGS OF R~MI~RE--.~" ~,7- '-~ "~ Dominic U~ger,.6.F.M~Cap: . ~. sMEDITATION, . BOOK~ , FOR MINOR~. ~S~MINAKIES Vo1. IV, No~ .3~ ~'/Publish~d 3~onthl¢; Jan~arg, Mar~h,'Mag July'September~and No~ember a~ ~h~ Cdlieg~iPres~ 606 H~ms~n Street, T~peka K~ns~s ~b~ St. Mar7 s College St. M~gs w~th ecclesiastical approbatton. Entered as~second class matter-Januar~ 15 1942 . at thvPost O~ce Topeka Kansas underthe act of ~arch 3+ 1879~' ~'~ *~ . ?"Edit0rih1.Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Au~usfifie Ellaid,. S.J., Getaid"Kelly, S J.~: Editorial-Secretary. Alfred F. Scfine~der S J ~ . : Coplright 19~ b7 Adam,C. Ellis: permission is hereb7 grantld for quotations 3"~" of reasonableTl¢ngth,, provided due credit, ,be given this review" and the' author. -("Subscription price: 2 'dollars a,year . ,? . . ~ " ~ ~rmte~ m.U.S;t~; .- ~ . . J' / 89)~.~, ~' Our deification is as certain ds the dogma of the divinity ~;, . bf Christ/of which it is the complement. oit is novmereiy "for itself-that ~l~e:'holy Hiamanity of Jesu.s" has ~e~ei~;ed, tfie ,,_ ~f-ul:nessof the di~Jinity through the personal union with the °~.~ -Wbrd,, bu~ als0.to make all humanity divine b~ granting'a :ihareiof Hii plenitude to all whowish to receige, His ~' ~ 'muni~tion. ~ Wh.en God ~redestined His own Son to be the :i'~7 ._ ¯ S0~a 0[ l~a~ry, "He p~e ~destined us t,o become His ~ad0pfed:sons ,b~y' union~with His onb/-begotten Son. (Ephes!gns~l:5). In becoming incarnate the" W;~d "of Gbd communk~(ed ¯ ~H.is di~iinity inca very personal manner to one soul and one ~ ,body in Christ. But his limitless love, embracing th~ whol~ _ world, mad~ it poss!ble for all,o .men toshare in-tha.tpartici- , . patton of the divine¯life. "His (Christ's) InCarnation ~a~ , -- no other end or aim, than to c6mmunicate His divine" life. ~ - to us: , ,~ . - But if-the'fulness 6f the diyinity!belongs.~shbstantially to.Jesus .- ~ Christ gl0ne (C01. 2:9), all who are united to Him by holy ba'ptis~rri .~'becoNe parta~kers in this fulness each according to his measure (John- ~ ~1:16),.: .-.,Ali o~iaer individual -natures belonging, to o~hd ia~e ~.~ Adaha shall be called, to unite themselve~ to-tBi~ privilqged nature, and to recei~'e by t'his union a very real communication,of its divine~iife. ¯ There shall be but one only, Go~d-Man: but" all men who. shal1~ be ~DOMINIC- UNGER~ Son of the~Heayenly :~E~th~r; but~all those.,who shall be willing-t~ receive~ thii~only Son shall becomethereby thd adopted sons of His Ffither add shall adqfiire - ,g s~rjct, right to share in H)s heavenly inhe/i(affce. "-(Tbe" Ap6stlesbip oLPr~g~r,,~p. 138: and The Laws o~ Prodidence, p. 90.)- ~ . ,"L It is possible for Christ to b~ the Head ~f all men and to i m~ke'~hem divine becahse.He is personally' unit~d"with Go~ ahd because He possesses the fulness of divine life. which He " fofcef~!y stated b~.Father Ram~{rd:- ~ . ~ Jesfis Christ is, therefore,.3n a ver~ real sense, the Head of huma~ ity ~nd of tile w~ole spiritual creation: .for from Him alone~do~s thd 'divine li~e ~our itself forth on angels and men, as really as animal lif~? ~s~reags' fr6m'the h~ad into every ~a[t pf our body." From Himhnd ~'flom Him alon~ proceed all supernatural acts which are d~ne 'io-heaven arid earth. We capnot acquire the least ;merit, do the least ~c~i'on,.conceive the least" thought,pronounce the least w~rd. in the supernatural order, if these different ~mov¢ments are not in-~ur hearts. *~througb~ an ~mpul~e'of His Divine~ Heart. This adorable ~art is 'for: all h~manity, in the order of grace, what ~he sun,.in ~fie physical okder, is for the earth and th~ 6ther planets which'gravitate~around it. - ~- The fact that Christ h~s, made it possibld --;_re~el~eHls o~n Bo'dyafid Blood in~the Eucfiari~t is ~an?- argument that He ifitend~d usto be divine. This union of -man~ith