Suchergebnisse

Issue 38.4 of the Review for Religious, 1979. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published bi-monthly (every two months), is edited in collaboration with faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Robin 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 5.5802. 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 July, 1979 Volume 38 Number 4 Correspoudence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 4.28; 3601 LindeH Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Journey Into Ancestral Fear Mary Grant, L.S.A. Sister Mary's work in strife-torn Belfast has influenced much of her writing. Last year, Our Sunday Visitor published "'Yes in Belfast" under the title, "Yes Lord," which has proven to be a popular source of meditations for many in the United States. She is also involved in Christian Life Communities. Our correspondence address is through Wilbert Forker; 2 Bristow Park; Upper Malone Rd.; Belfast 9; Ireland. Walking up The Falls, reaching out in my heart to the whole city . one with the countless people who have trod this ground through many centuries . Gathering perceptions: sounds, stir-rings of life, the signs ofdeeperlife. Opening up to the signs of death, decay: the burnt-out chimney, the gaping walls--another life, an-other force . The new trees planted: that they would represent Life--not just trees planted on the green of the dead . Gathering all into a unity, integrating all: "Listen to the cry of Your People, Lord! My heart cries their cry--the cry of a thousand years is gathered into Your Presence. When I came to live in this city first, my immediate reaction to hesitant queries was, "Of Course I'm not afraid!" Then one night I dropped a friend in East Belfast, a part of the city I' wasn't familiar with. I missed a turn and found myself lost. Every tiny street was blocked at the end; every time I turned, my headlights picked up "King Billy" on the walls--and slogans! It seemed.every door opened to see who was in the strange tar: I was seized With nameless terror. I could not get out and ask my way. I felt threatened, trapped, alone! 481 4B2 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 In that night I realized how the fears of our environment had entered into me, despite myself. I understood the fears of those who walked alone at night, defenseless. I understood the fear of many people who had not left their district for years, never entered the "unknown" behind the barriers. Some children have never seen behind the barriers that their parents have erected. How do we learn to break through these fears? How do we become revitalized from the paralysis which hampers us? It is easy to quote. "Per-fect love casts out fear" (IJn 4)! But the truth is that we are a covenant people who have been unfaithful to that spirit of love and community by which all men were supposed to recognize the disciples of the Lord. I believe we have first of all calmly to acknowledge that fact, without blame or judgment on either side. And, equally calmly, we have to go about creating bonds of community. In these last few years we have talked much of justice. Our chief work of justice, though, involves our relationship to this covenant---our relationship among ourselves. What Are the Causes of Oppression Around Us? Reflecting on that night, on the grotesque forms of the unknown, I came to see that fear wears many guises. If we ponder on the question, What are the real causes of oppression around us?, immediately there come the replies: "British domination," Loyalist selfishness," "Social apathy," "I.R.A. Terrorism," "Unemployment," "Subhuman housing," and so forth. These are the likely response of a great number of people, depending on which side of the barriers they stand. ' ~ I'm beginning to be more convinced that the~ real ~answer is our-selves--- our memories, our inability to forgive, to be Christlike; to know what to do and how to be as a Christian in the face of injusticei oppression. Our reaction to oppression has been very different fr6m that of the'early Christians. We look back on our Irish history as a people--checkered, erratic: like many anation. But as Christians; how have we fac(d~it? (I mean aH who call themselveS Christian.) We have retaliated with violence, crude-ness, injustice, in just as bitter a way. Some of us say: "We have not thrown bombs! We don't believe that vio-lence is the answer." But have our hearts changed from republicanism or loyalism to a truly Christian approach to life? These labels really stand for all those people who wish to maintain their status quo, even at the cost of the lives of thej.r brothers and sisters. The death of hope is a high cost to pay for a moment's security behind artificial barriers. You ~Will Find in People What You Expect to Find . ~ Why is the change so difficult to'accomplish? Why-are we still talking about it, rather than simply living in love? I wonder, have we really listened to what the violence is saying? I think it is only the dreadful symptom of Journey into Ancestral Fetir / what is happening to the heart of our people. I hear it as a'scream for help, the screaming of the voiceless. I see it not as someihing we can meet head-on, but amid a persistent reaching out in understanding love of peo-ple's' real needs. I'm convinced of the necessity to get at the cat]se. If not, we'll become submerged ifi the symptoms which will get wors~ and worse no matter how we cover them up. Such encounters with our ancestral depths make it ciear to me that one of the deep-seated causes is the colonizer/colonized mentalities from which springs the. dividing wall of fear, mistrust, suspicion. The ancestral wounds have not healed. A change of mentality.does not happen overnight. It is the growth of a long searching, a patient understanding and a persevering love. Unless we have the cpurage to risk the leap of faith'towards our brother, whoever he is, (and I'm not talking simply about Loyalist and Republican), we cannot hope to begin this change of mentality. And we all need it. ! need first of all to learn to live with myself. I have to' learn to live with my brothers,~my neighbors. Then I can open out to.the wider ~zommunity! The reasons which move people to suc.h positioris are mainly historical. But to grow as a people, to be Christian, we have to reach out across these historical, cultural, spiritual barriers and create a climate of acceptance and understanding of each other. And it musi. be two-way: I must address tile barriers of fear. mistrust, hatred, pride, prejudice within me--overcome them in myself first, and then move outwards. But how many of us have learned to live with ourselves? How many of us have integrated within ourselves the various strands of our ancestry? If I take even the first tentative steps in this process of integration, of growth, I discover that there are no ready-made answers in the movement outwards again towards my brothers. I can only share what I have dis-covered in my attempt to follow Christ. ! discover that I learn all the time, from the people I move among. Yes, God is still speaking today. We need to let him change us! ; His peace will not be found in mass meetings for peace, but in changed lives. While that is true, it is also true that many of the mass meetings for peace do spring from the changed lives of thousands of people, a change which has been taking place ~quietly over the last few years. It seems a change of climate has been growing--a springtime. However, unless it springs from areal change of heart it will die do~wn and get nowhere. I'd fear to think of peace as simply the absence of violence among us. When we experience a comparative lull, as recently we did, how do we read it? Is the lull a nursing of our wounds, a hardening of attitudes? Or is it a time of healing? We have had many violent episodes in the past which eventually died down. But our hearts didn't change. Unless this change of attitude prompts'us to really seek out our brother, to understand him, as he is and not to try to change him, then it is but a caricature of Christianity--you will find in your brother only what you bring, what you are. 41~4 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 /4 Becoming iMore Fully Human The trouble with most of us is that we haven't fully explored who we are. We transfer to our brother a whole lot of that deep subconscious which we haven't faced in ourselves. What is growth, integration, but a process of becoming more truly the person I am not some dream, or ideal, but truly myself. It is not easy to live with a known self, no matter how many angles, or how many depths of light and darkness that self holds. Within the context of what it means to be Christian, I see this growth as a process of Incarnation. Very often we are so close to all that is happening in this .process that we cannot see clearly at all what is .happening while it is happ6ning. Occa-sionally we have to stand back and look from a different viewpoint. Then whole new worlds of meaning light up our horizon. Through a brief en-counter w, ith the East, I myself had some such ~experience. When our separate worlds met (first, second, third), in my being lifted out of my own life experience of p.overty, need, struggle, into a totally "different" world, I experienced "living through Incarnation," not simply looking to it for meaning. I went carrying the burden of this seemingly impossible situation in our country. Would anything the East could teach thl:ow light on that? The situation of other nations was just as appalling. Where might hope be found? I felt saddened by the many who know only a hopeless resignation, and more saddened by those who channel their despair into reckless violence. The presence of Christ assured me that this was only part of the picture, but I had not had the reference ofmy o~vn experience to work on. I had not seen, touched, tasted, so I did not know--I hung on 'to belief. I felt stifled by the polarization of parts of my home-city into ghetto areas which prevents the natural giving and taking in which reaching oi)t and sharing would promote reconciliation. I felt frustrated by the third force which goads each side against the other rather thanwork for peace; The "ancestral fears" of our environment had eaten into us so deeply that I did not recognize them in myself. Yet, in the midst of this atmosphere of defeat, His hope rose up and beckoned more gtrongly, buoying me up. In our sheer need I saw Him at work in broken lives--healing, restoring. But there were so many ques-tions. So much I needed to'learn. In my being lifted out of my own life-exp+ rience of poverty, need, struggle, into a totally "different" world, I felt I lived through this "God becoming man" again. I was not outside, looking on. I became man--human. If I might look for a key word to describe this experience of Incarnation, it might be sharing. Too many have gone from the West to the East to give--to satisfy a nagging sense that "we must do something." We, though, in approaching our hosts with empty, open hearts, found ourselves en-riched beyond measure: reverence for the other; stillness, waiting. Entering into another's reality means going outside the self. Journey into Ancestral Fear Sharing, Not Distributing If we have not gone outside of self, outside "our" great world, we will remain on the level of doing. We will distribute from our bag of tricks and wonder.why, one day, it runs empty and we haven't that -powerful" feeling any more. No, to share speaks of equality. Sharing never makes others dependent, never prevents growth, never closes the door to a return. What else is sharing, but the life of the Trinity of love? Christ prayed that we may be one as They are one. Life is not life at all unless it is shared. To share the ordinary things of life gives me an idea of what it will be like to share the life of God. Have we learned to live a little like our God of Love? Could I truthfully say: "All I have is yours"? (see Jn 17:10). In my eagerness to live for the good of my own people, I learned that I had been affected by the Western sickness of wanting to give all the time. In being thrown back on my personal poverty and powerlessness, I have learned better how to receive--graciously, lovingly. It has opened up a beautiful new perspective in regard to all those whose lives touch mine, whether that might be family, work, community, friends, strangers. To all people, I have learned from the East the meaning of the simple, demanding statement: "I am for you.", Simple realities we take so much for granted have assumed a deeper significance: the really deprived among us are those without hope, those who have not discovered the immense riches of their true selves, those who hide behind barriers of fear, mistrust, hatred; those of us who dare not celebrate a life we feel too fragile; those ofus who have lost the festivity and joy of living. "What does it matter if you gain the whole world and lose your true self?." (Mk 8:36). In being evangelized by those people considered "poor" in the eyes of the world, I have become more deeply human--just as I have received my reality as a person also from those to whom I have been sent here at home. There Are No "Them" and "Us" As He turned to his people he felt great compassion: he wanted to reach out. His very desire for their good healed them--he truly "lived with" their need. There are no "them" and "us"--it is always "we together." He wants to free each one of us from our fears, doubts, hesitations, inabilities, limitations. He wants to launch us on his mission, before his healing power can effectively flow through us. 1 think ! lost any trace of the "Messiah complex," of "giving Christ to the world" rather than discovering him present inall peoples, during that time in the East. This true sharing leads to a deep communion. The bonds of community grow in the measure that we share who we are with all men. How do I approach those on the other side of the barriers in our own environment? Is it from a position of strength toward weakness? Is it from a position of "having it all" and needing to satisfy a nagging sense that "we must do something"? Or do those of us who genuinely want to reach out to others, 4~16 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/4 do so from the reality of being grasped by Christ,freed by him, impelled by his love to proclaim that he is alive today--among us? There is something deep within each of us as human beings that makes us want to live in communion with others. I don't want to approach anyone, or want to break through barriers, with the attitude of "them out there," of "isn't it awful?," of "what can we do about it?" I would rather like to receive all with an empty, open heart, in reverence, in stillness--in waiting, if need be. Entering into another's reality means entering into the "why" of the fears, barriers, defenses. Do I live with a sense of equality among all? When we talk of neighborliness, of friendship across the barriers, could I truthfully say to you, "All I have is yours!"? Only then can we return to each other the festivity and joy of living. How One Man Became Free In the slums of Manila, where 80% of the people live below the poverty line, they spoke with us about the climate of fear and oppression around them. There was no hint of hopelessness--though one often met with a feeling of powerlessness. This was brought home to us as one group told us how they had come across the wife and family of a well-known political prisoner. ~ This manhad been in a position equivalent to the opposition. Since the introduction of martial law he had been in prison, and denied the right to ordinary legal proceedings for a trial. A military tribunal hearing was to begin the following day. His wife pleaded with us visitors to. come with her. With some apprehension as to possible consequences, we did, and' were amazed to find the courtroom nearly filled with priests and sisters morally upholding the prisoner~ The hearings of his challenge to the tribunal was an outstanding example of real strength against injustice. A remark he made during the trial has echoed in my mind through all the weeks and months which followed: My cell door, ironically, has been my door to freedom. Having walked through it, I have lost my fears. It became my door to freedom when I finally acknowledged its threats as the promise of liberation and truth . I cannot yield to you my spirit and my conscience. I am yielding to might but not to right . After four years in confinement, 1 have finally realized that man must fear most the prison of his own making--the prison of fear itself. Freedom From Fear I returned with renewed'faith--God, who has begun this great thing, humanity, and Christianity; will see it through. Sharing in his love for all those whose lives touch mine, I dare to believe that he can use even me to bring life to a world without hope. And, when I am united with you., and you., who believe, the kingdom of God has come among us. "There are no experts, only disciples who learn by doing." ~An'd, when we are given the courage to launch out into (he deep, we don't know where Journey into Ancestral Fear that "doing" will end! When Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, he gave him ~over to the people wh6 surrounded them to be unbound. So, as he raises us, he gives us to each other to continue the unbinding--receiving our reality from each other, giving each other our freedom--in dignity, simplic-ity, beauty, hospitality. "Yes, we are a happy, carefree people, but something is happening to our hearts which we do not understand." The worst form of poverty is to be alive without hope. To be without hope is to be without Him---our Savior. But where He is, there is no fear: "Perfect love casts out fear" (1 Jn 18). I came away from the East free of a fear which had paralyzed and prevented all aspects of my life. And so I understood the fear in our environment here at home. The historic wounds are so deep, part of the very fabric of our lives--so deep we might not recognize ourselves without them. As God touches our beings personally, gradually, gently., leading us toward personal wholeness in him, so he touches us as a people. He, as it were, goes back into history and heals the wounds history has left behind. This is the healing we need as a nation. ~ This freedom from fear enables us to proclaim by our lives: "Serenity--knowing we are loved, assured, at peace with him and our-selves; Stability--God is God, let Him be God. He holds all, hand it over to him. Tranquillity---overflowing from an abiding sense of his presence among US. Capability--his power in our lives, his power overflowing to others. This is our service--to be open to all: the fruit of the Spirit of peace among us. We need to speak for God in these our troubled times as reso-lutely as the prophets of old. We need to proclaim joy, hope, peace in the midst of the many disasters round about. Real hope dawns when there is no other possibility than absolute dependence on God---our foot constantly wearing out his doorstep! The Brotherhood of Man is Possible! Already, as I was learning these truths more deeply, thousands of peo-ple were rising up at home and speaking fearlessly for peace, forging stronger ties towards reconciliation. Since then, freedom has been pro-claimed again and again, echo6d by a thousand voices. In the past, gather-ings in war left bitterness, hatred, division festering in age-old wounds. And then enough people said, "We have been governed by fear" to enable gatherings in peace, and joy, forging links of reconciliation. Yes, I learned how to face our fears, turn my back on them, and reso-lutely turn towards all that builds up a climate of reconciliation, strength-ened not by any ability but by my weakness and dependence on His strength. It was worth going to the other end of the world to learn that alone ! 488 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/4 I have felt great sadness at these gatherings too. How effective they will ultimately be depends on how many present have risen out of their fear, how deeply and how realistically each one becomes peace. Too many are carried along on waves of emotion! Yet the brotherhood of man is possible---even here! The answer to the divisions, exploi/ations, war, hatred, rejection, hunger, fear-in-the-world is our Christ of the Beatitudes, with his call to share. There is only one human family. But if we have never experienced human love, can we offer love, or understand what struggle for another involves, or live a life of communion with God? And how can anyone know love--unless you and I love? In the past I have been constantly strengthened by the beautiful expressions of love and hospitality, of generosity, of sharing that I have known among our people here, daily witnessing to the fact that even in our shattered lives the spirit of love is at work among us. Iam filled with more hope than ever. And I am very, very, grateful at being placed near people in .need--at the heart of my people's search for him; at the point of their desire for him. Life has always been beautiful and full of the surprises of God: that beauty has been increased a thousandfold for me. I feel hope rising in leaps 6f Joy: Expect the impossible! Believe the unbelievable! Proclaim the truth !--For God is with us! Each, returned to his own Galile~i, can proclaim fearlessly that which we have seen, touched, tasted (1 Jn 1:1). He is here. He is with us. Hope makes us live. ForHe is our peace. Sitting It Out With Job: The Human Condition Mary Catherine Barron, C.S.J. Sister Mary Catherine is a frequent contributor to these pages. Her last article appeared in September, 1978. She resides at 91 Overlook Ave.; Latham, NY 12110. For a long time now, he had haunted me, this acerbic little man-- haunted me and annoyed me. He seemed so utterly sore: ulcerous wounds on the outside, bleeding heart on the inside. Who needed it? Who also needed his words--thunderous, vehement complaints~de-nouncing life, God, man. Quite honestly, who wanted to tangle with all this writhing agony? It might underscore the already too familiar. So determinedly, I put him aside and concentrated on other things: the joy of Joseph, the fidelity of Ruth, the.trusting surrender of Esther. But they occupied my time, not my mind. For behind them all, there he sat, that angry, implacable figuremstinking, screaming, wildly gesticulating. Ulti-mately, against my will and better judgment, he antagonized me to his side--flies and all. To be candid, I hate flies. And odors like disease and manure, And unmitigated complaining. And pseudo-sympathy. It all talks and walks like death. So I didn't really like Job in his utter humanity. It was too graphically prophetic. That was the haunting part. The annoying part is that, in spite of all of it, I stayed. So now there are two of us si~ting in the noonday sun--hot and stubborn and mad. Eventually, someone will have to speak. In the end it was Job who broke the silence and cursed the day of his birth (Jb 3:1). 489 490 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 Just like that--for twenty-six verses--spewing out anger. Why was he born? Why couldn't he die? Words filled with dread of the future, sleepless-ness, lament. Grief has a way of doing that, you know. Utter stone., then the crack across the surface. A few heaves--abruptly a mountain becomes a volcano, lava of words and emotion searing out everywhere. Shock on the faces of onlookers st.ampeding to take cover: "Spare us your painful fire, please. Please.'~ While the volcano rages on. And then., the deathlike stillness ¯ . . followed by meaningless words trying to make meaning. A survivor gasps: "Then Eliphaz of Teman spoke: 'If I were as you are, Job . . .' " If ¯ . . if. Through all the wreckage and debris. "If I were as you." if. The irony of those words: Who can be like Job, when one is sound and whole and safe, free from loss, darkness, despair? Speaking out of loved ones alive and farm lands intact, what can such a one as Eliphaz know of unanswered questions, heartrending supplications? For him, do they even exist? Silence. Then, imperceptibly, a stirring from the ashpit, a flicker of the eyelash. Job speaks: If only my misery could be weighed . What wonder then if my words are wild? The arrows of Shaddai stick fast in me . My spirit absorbs their poison (6: I-4). Ah yes--those poisonous arrows of Shaddai; those intimations of doom from Sheol that stick deep. into the soul; the-certain knowledge- that never again will there be innocence and joy. And always there ~are the bitter questions asked over and over of self: Will I be able to go on? Why go on anyway? Where are my friends? Why can't they understand? Fear and loneliness. The Underworld. Someone creeps near to draw out the stir~g, to touch the cracked skin. It is Bildad. He urges humility: You too, if so pure and honest must now seek God, plead with Shaddai (8:4-5). These are soothing words indeed: "ff you are honest." This is an answer with insight!?'Seek God; plead with Shaddai." How is Job to do this when Shaddai has disappeared? Where is God to be found for Job, the sufferer? A lull ensues. The hot breeze blows. Flies buzz. Then a voice. And Job said: Your own hands shaped me, modeled me: And would you now have second thoughts and destroy me? (10:8). The appeal and bargaining begin. Who hasn't done it? Bargaining with self; Sitting It Out With Job: The Human Condition / 49"1 bargaining with God. And the panic: how dare oppose the Almighty's will? How dare question Yahweh God Omnipotent? Suppose I am right? Wha.t difference would it make? Suppose I am wrong? What then? Yet, what is there to lose when one has already lost everything? "Yahweh, give a little happiness before death." Is this too much to ask? Appeal and bargain-ingwwho hasn't done it? .Zophar apparently. For he queries pontifically: Can you claim to grasp the mystery of God, To understand the perfection of Shaddai? It is higher than the heavens; what can you do? It is deeper than Sheol; what can you know? (11:7-8) Truth--unadorned and stark. What can you do? Nothing. What can you know? Nothingwabsolutely nothing. That is the darkness, the pain. Help-lessness in the face of the abyss--the human condition. What can you know? What can you do? Nothing--nothing except to confront Yahweh. Despair--the human condition. Then, convoluting tortuously, comes the rush of Job's words, ejaculated with the vehemence of despair, discharged with the agony of futility, resolute like one,maddened: I mean to remonstrate with God; I will do the talking, whatever may befall me. I put my flesh between my teeth, I take my life in my hands. Let him kill me if he will (13:3-15). The pathos of those words, the frenzy! The "last-chance syndrome." Where have we heard it before? From what corner of the universe has'it n0t cried out? V~e havehea'rd it on the lips of the dying; in the hearts of survivors; from the tomb called old age and rejection; out of the spectral ¯ stare of disease and starvation. Who has not, at some point in life, taken one's flesh in one's hands, remonstrated with God? But Eiiphaz cannot understand. Not yet having plumbed the depths of misery, never having drunk suffering's cup to the dregs, he cannot fathom .the pain that would drive a man to contend with God. He only sees the obvious: anger and rebellion. And sohe says: ~'See how passion carries you away!" Passion--that double-edged sword of grief and joy, the ecstasy and bestiality of man, the most cherished and most despised of gifts. Passion. Who has not longed for its transforming unity? Who has not wept over its fragmenting discord? Passion. I watch him--Job~as he masticates Eliphaz's words. He chews them carefully as one chews a fish with bones. He moves his teeth cautiously around them and just as cautiously his t6ngue. But he will not swallow 492 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 them. He holds them in his mouth, in one corner of his cheek, and stares ahead at emptiness. "Swallow them," I plead silently, urgently, "or spit them out. Don't hold them lest they choke you." But there is nothing-- only that awful bulbous cheek and the empty stare. It is mid-afternoon, the height of heat and sun, reason's siesta time. Perspiration drips. Things swim before the eyes: mirages, desert visions, subconscious creatures from the soul. The universe crumples like a folded fan. The breeze pants hot across inert bodies, creating the sense of being played upon, fretted. And then, heartrendingly Job cries out: He has shattered me! He has pierced me! He has breached me! He has borne down on me! Every fibre of my heart is broken! I weep! I cry out! Still he shoots his arrows into me! I am overcome! (16:17) The Litany of Passion, divine passion. Good old platitudinous Eliphaz has finally hit the mark. Unerringly, unknowingly, Job has be'en ravished. In the nakedness of a cloudless day, we have seen him vanquished, embraced. He gasps and swallows. The lump travels to his throat and lodges. Is it possible that loss is no longer what he wails? Could it be that he and Yahweh are suddenly bartering for surrender? Without moving an inch, Job has traversed a terrain. I swallow too. Silence impregnates solitude. No one stirs. The sun moves impercep-tibly. A shade begins. Coolness trickles down my brow. 'I close my eyes and wipe the damp. I feel like sleep. Or death. I feel like dying, if dying is so much a pouring out. I feel like.sleep if sleep is like release. I feel . Mournfully into the dusk, Bildad speaks, musing: Driven from light into darkness man is an exile from the earth (18:18). "Driven from light into darkness." Like the sun's course. Like the ocean's tide. Like the season's change: Like life's pattern! Dawn, noon, night. High, ebb, low. Fertility, fall, winter. Birth, life, death. "Driven from light into darkness." Man. The mood is infectious. Night hedges in. Animal cries echo. And Job takes up the refrain: God, you must know, is my oppressor and his is the net that closes round me. He has covered my way with darkness. My kindred and my friends have all gone away. The hand of God has struck me (19:6-21). Sitting It Out With Job: The Human Condition / 493 "Driven from light into darkness." And suddenly, like a meteor across the sky, Hope flares briefly: But this 1 know, I, Job, that my Avenger lives, and he, the Last, will take his stand on earth. He will set me close to him, and from my flesh I shall look on God. He whom I shall see will take my part; These eyes will gaze on him and find him not aloof (19~25-27). It is the song of the prisoner, the condemned. It is the avowal of the sick man, dying. It is the prayer of the faithful soul, deserted. "I know that my Avenger lives." His words fall into the air dropping like snow on velvet, glistening and hushed. The moon rises and clouds over; the stars wink and disappear. It is the inky time of night. Absolute aloneness. Total isolation. Simple breath-ing is intrusion. And I think: "Enveloped by the darkness, shall we quietly slip away'?" The eternal temptation of friendship: to quietly slip away. Will he even know we're gone, so absorbed is he in pain? Will he even care, since, in fact, we cannot help? Is there any point to vigils when the heart lies already dead? Truly, how far does fidelity go? How deep does commitment bind? Ironically, Job gives the answer: fidelity is radical. Its presence is an absolute grace; its absence, an absolute sorrow not to be compared. Job has known the calamity of loss, the pain of bereavement, the suffering of illness. Yet, none of these hold the anguish of desertion and infidelity which is the dark night of the soul; the index tingler of Yahweh scraping across the heart; the Ruah, his breath, blowing in the memory, tantalizing, near, but indescribably far away. From this void of absolute emptiness, Job laments in prayer: That heavy hand of his drags groans from me. If only 1 knew how to reach him, or go travel to his dwelling! If I go eastward, he is not there; or westward--still I cannot see him. If I seek him in the north, he is not to be found; invisible still when I turn to the south . For darkness hides me from him and the gloom veils his Presence from me (23:2-17). This is Psalm 139 prayed backwards. Even in desolation, Job is a good Israelite. And how accurately he speaks. When human friends depart, the griefis great, but who can measure the torment which ensues when God withdraws? "Under cover of darkness, Yahweh, have You, too, slipped away?" So I sit and wait and rest. The night leaks out drop by drop. Minutes become ages, then cease. It is the hour of desolation, which is timeless. 4~14 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 Inevitable. "And Job continues his solemn discourse. He says:" Who will bring me back to the months that have gone, and the days when G~d was my guardian; When his lamp shone over my hi~ad~ and his light was my guide in the darkness? I cry out to you and you give me no answer (29:1-4; 30:20). How does one deal with that--the silence of~non-response, the answer of the void? Does one walk away dejectedly or does one catapult into the abyss? There is death either way. And thus, Job carefully considers, examines his days and his nights, probes his heartaches and ecstasies, fingers his hopes and his dreams. Is their memory worth silence or speech, retreat or confrontation? And then with a mighty leap, embodying faith and despairJob issues the challenge, directly, forcibly, to God: Who can get me a hearing from God?~ I have had my say from A to Z; now let Shaddai answer me~ When my Adversary has drafted his writ against me, I shall wear it on my shoulder, and bind it round my head like a royal turban. I will give him an account of every step Of my life, and go as boldly as a prince to.meet him (31:35-40). With this ringing declaration, argumentation ceases; lament is done. "End of the words of Job" (31:40). A tremulous pause. Terror grips. Awe invades. The e]arth turns over and I am sick, my senses reeling. Roaring thunder, thickening night. "My God! My God! We are strangling to death. Our words regurgitate." The desert sand flails. I cover my face; I grovel on the earth; I burrow into the dirt. "And then from the heart of the tempest, Yahweh gave Job his answer" (38:1). In fifty eight questions! And Job replied to Yahweh: My words have been frivolous; what can I reply? 1 had better lay my finger on my lips. (40:3-4) God has a way of doing that--giving questions for answers. He has shown himself divine Socratic: And Yahweh God called to the man: Where are you? (Gn 3:9). Yahweh asked Cain: Where is your brother Abel? (Gn 4:9). YahWeh asked Abraham: Why did Sarah laugh? (Gn 18:13). And the one who wrestled with Jacob said: Why do you ask my Name? (Gn 32:29). And Yahweh answered Moses: Who makes man deaf or dumb, gives him sight or leaves him blind?Is it not I, Yahweh? (Ex 4:12). In fact, all through Salvation History we have been closing our mouths Sitting It Out With Job: The Human Condition / 495 with our fi .ngers~too late. Job is in good company. I relax and come up for air,. And Job gave answer to Yahweh: I know that you are all powerful: what you conceive, you can perform. I am the man who obscured your designs with my empty-headed words. 1 have been holding forth on matters I cannot understand; on marvels beyond me and my knowledge (42:1-3). Humility. Man before the divine. Nature kneeling to Transcendence. The mystery of God. And Job replied: I retract all I have sa!d; In dust and ashes, I repent (42:!-3). The beauty of humanity. Its capacity for enlargement. Its yearning for completeness. Its ability to change. Because 1 knew you then by hearsay, but now I see you with my own eyes (42:5). Knowledge of the heart. Contemplation and surrender. Incarnation re-versed: man entering into God, Peace. My pulse resumes. My heart begins to beat. I can see that I am stained. I can see that I can see.t A mist of rose gathers in the east. A breeze sighs. Or is it Eliphaz? And Yahweh God said to Eliphaz of Teman: 'I burn with anger against you and your two friends for not speaking truthfully a~out:me as my servant Job has done. So now find seven bullocks and seven rams, and take them back with.you to my servant Job, and offer a holocaust for yourselves, while Job, my servant, offers prayers for you. I will listen to him with favor and excuse your folly in not speaking of me properly as my servant Job has done.' Eliphaz of Teman, Bildad of Shuah and Zophar of Naamath went away to do as Yahweh had ordered, and Yahweh listened to Job with favor (42:7-9). So now there are two of us sitting in the morning's dawn, tired, and joyful, and reborn. Someone will have to speakmbut no one does. There is only the echo of a deeper silencemthe silence of refrain: Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Who decided the dimensions of:it; do you know? Have you ever gi~,en orders to the morning? Have you journeyed to the sources of the sea? Which is the way to the home of light? Where does darkness live? Has the rain a father? What womb brings forth the ice? (38; 39) Riddles. Unsolved riddles. Man, and mystery, and wonder. Pain, and suffering, and death. The human condition. Riddles. Unsolved riddles. And 496 / Review for Religious, Volume38, 1979/4 always the eternal unyielding question: "Do you really want {o reverse My judgment and put Me in the wrong to put yourself in the right?" (40:3) I stretch and rise to go. Job never notices. He is wrapt in prayer, I suppose, for Eliphaz, Bildad, and Teman. 1 shake out my robe, flex my toes inside my sandals. I start across the sand. The dusty road coils away and flows into the sky; the air trembles with the weight of birds; the grasses caress the soil. Love and infinity. Providence and care. The human condi-tion. I plod on down the road, humming as I go: Has the rain a father? What womb brings forth the ice? 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 Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: I Robert M. Doran, S.J. Father Doran delivered three lectures at Creighton University last year as part of a Spiritual Enric.hment Program. This isthe first one in article form. He resides in the Jesuit Community; Creighton University; 2500 California Street; Omaha, NE 68178. Christian Spiritual Transformation: Self-Transcendence and Self-Appropriation This is the first of three articles on the subject of Jungian psychology and contemporary Christian spirituality. The present article will focus on the latter of these two items, on Christian spiritual transformation as this is understood at the present moment in the life of the Church. By concentrat-ing on two terms frequently employed in the works of Bernard Lonergan, self-transcendence and kelf-appropriation, I hope to provide a context for the next two articles, which will deal more extensively with Jung. This first article will treat, first, Christian spiritual tranformation as self-transcendence; second, Christian spiritual transformation as growth in self-knowledge orself-appropriation; third, the levels of consciousness that can be discovered when one enters on the way of self-appropriat!on; and fourth, the relation of feelings and symbols to these various levels or dimensions of consciousness. This fourth topic locates that element of our interior lives in regard to which Jung's insights become pertinent for our spiritual self-understanding. I have discovered that any such treatment of Jung as the present one eventually brings me into that form of discrimination which, in Ignatian 497 4911 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/4 spirituality, is called the discernment of spirits. Jung is a religiously contro-versial figure. Not only does my own treatment and evaluation of Jung tend to arouse rather than quell the arguments that surround his person and his work, but, more significantly, my critical response to Jung always ~arries me to the heart of the Christian exigence to differentiate the true call of God from the subtle attractions of the force~ of evil as these two contrary tendencies compete for the allegiance of men and women involved in the renewal of the contemporary Church. Why this is so will hopefully be-come clear in the subsequent articles, especially in the final one. But perhaps I can offer now some indication of the difficulty. First, then, Jung ih a religiously controversial figure. The religious significance of his psychological insights is variously interpreted. John A. Sanford and Morton Kelsey are two well-known authors who have drawn on Jung to promote and understand Christian self-discovery.~ On the other hand, James Hiilman has. maintained that Jung's guidelines to "soul-making" are of a completely different order from the well-known paths to spiritual transformation in Christ and from the insights of the other major religious traditions of the world,z Martin Buber entered into direct conflict with Jung, claiming that the psychology of individuation and Yahwistic faith are diametrically opposedorientations.of the human spirit.3 Jung him-self, as we shall see, gives some indications of his own that the process of individtiation will lead the cognoscentes to the position of being able to dispense with all forms of traditional religious involvement; but he also attempted to offer his psychology as an aid to the pastoral care of souls.4 What 'is one to make of these differences and ambiguities? Obviously, some framework must be found to enable us to enter on the kind of process that Lonergan calls dialectic and foundations: the process, namely, in which we not only assemble and review alternative interpretations, but also evalt~ate and compare them, reduce their affinities and oppositions to their underlyin~ roots,.determine which, if any, of.these roots stand in dialectical ~See, for example,~John A. Sanford, Dreams: God's Forgotten Language (Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1968); Healing and Wholeness (New York: Paulist Press, 1977); Morton Kelsey, Dreams: The Dark Speech of the Spirit, A Christian Interpretation (New York: Doubleday, 1968); Encounter with God: A Theology of Christian Experience (Minneap61is: Bethany, 1972). 2See James Hillman, The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972). I quote from p. 21: "The spiritual-director models of guru, rabbi, oflgnatius or Fenelon, of Zen master, are only substitutions on which we lean for want of surety about the true model for psychology." 3See Edward C. Whitmont, "Prefatory Remarks to Jung~s 'Reply to Buber,' " in Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology andJungian Thought (1973), pp. 188-195; and C; G. Jung, "Religion and Psychology: A Reply to Martin Buber," ibid., pp. 196-203. 4Compare C. G. Jung, "'Is Analytical Psychology a Religion?" (notes on a talk given by Jung, in Sprihg, 1972, pp. 144-148) with Jung's "Psychotherapists or the Clergy," in C. G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1933), pp. 221-244. Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: I / 499 opposition to one another in such wise that only a radical transformation of the basic horizon can achieve reconciliation, and, finally, choose that basic horizon and those resultant positions and interpretations which we will make our own.5 Such a framework is what I hope to offer in theopresent article. Secondly,- my own judgments and decisions regarding the potential spiritual fruitfulness of Jung's work are themselves controversial, at least in the sense that they will please neither Jung's detractors nor his enthusias-tic followers. For I will sharply differentiate the process of Christian self-transformation from the way to individuation that .lung maps out for us. But I will also insist with equal force that there is much that we not only can, but indeed must, learn from him in developing both a theology and an ascesis of" spiritual transformation in the context of the contemporary world. Thirdly, the only final arbiter of the kind of discrimination that I find necessary is what we have come to call the'discernment of spirits.lung's theological A.mbiguities, and thealternative interpretations and evaluations that are offered of his work, are symptomatic of an underlying spiritual conflict that can be mediated only in the context of the dialectic ofgrace and of sin, of the Standards of Christ and of Satan. David Burrell has indicated correctly that one cannot fail to meet God if one goes on the inner journey to individuation.6 But one will also meet much.that is not God, and that is even opposed to God. Not only does Jung not help one to discriminate these forces as they operate in one's psyche, but he also contributes to and even encourages the confusion'that can be experienced in such moments that call for discernment, and thus mires one in the conflictual forces that wage an ultimate battle in the depths of one's psyche. Jung's work, if left uncriti-cized, leads one into a psychological cul-de-sac that can assume demonic pi'oportions. Christian Spiritual Transformation As Self-Transcendence ~ ' There are many diverse and quite useful approaches to the understand-ifig'of spiritual transformation. I have chosen to focus on two terms that have been developed by Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan's thought has achieved a great deal of notoriety due principally, it would seem, to its difficulty. I have no intention here of repeating the subtle intricacies of his full argumentation. I will rather present in what I hope are quite under-standable tdrms (he results of that argumentation, and will deal with more 5Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), Chapters Ten and Eleven. 6David Burrell, Exercises in Religious Understanding (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), p. 221. 500 /ReviewforReligious, Volume 38, 1979/4 subtle points only to the extent that they are necessary to clarify my basic position.7 I choose Lonergan's approach to the issue of Christian spiritual trans-formation for several reasons. First, it is the approach with which I am most familiar and the one that 1 personally have found most helpful. Secondly, Lonergan explicitly takes his stand in human interiority. And, when we are talking about either spiritual transformation or Jungian psychology, we are talking about the realm of interior experience, about the data of conscious-ness, about such events as insights, judgments, decisions, and, as we will see, dreams. All of these happenings are items that we experience. But we experience them interiorly. None of us has ever seen an insight or a feeling. But I trust, too, that none of us would claim that he or she had never experienced a feeling or an insight, never judged that some proposition was true or false, never made a decision. Moreover, I hope that we all know the experience of wanting to understand, wanting to be reasonable in our judgments, wanting to be responsible in our decisions. For it is in the realm of that desire, and in being faithful to that desire, that Lonergan locates what it is to be an authentic human person. But our experience of these events and of this desire occurs, not in the realm of outer sense, but in the domain of human interiority. It is in interiority that, through these events of understanding, judging, and deciding, we "process" reality. Sensations come in; language goes out; but between sensations and language there is, as Lonergan has formulated it in some recent lectures, the mysterious "little black box" of our interiority. The workings of that little black box are the domain that we concentrate upon in Christian spiritual theology, in Jungian p§ychoiogy, and in any attempt such as the present one that would relate spirituality to psychology. I should mention, in addition, two other advantages that accrue from employing Lonergan's framework for understanding interiority? First, his stress, as I have already indicated, is on human desire, and desire is the area of our being that is illuminated by the explorations also of the great depth ps~ychologists, including Jung, Secondly, and most importantly, Lonergan emphasizes that spiritual development is not something that oc-curs in some realm that is isolated from the insights that we have into the events of our everyday life, from the judgments that we make as to the truth or falsity of the most mundane propositions, from the anxieties we feel and the decisions that we make regarding our orientation and actions as beings-in- the-world. God's saving purpose is a will to save the world itself, to redeem the time of our lives, as Eliot would put it. It is not a dimension of 7There are, of course, dangers in such a procedure, for the reader can easily take the results of Lonergan's explorations as a series of concepts that could dispense one from the task of insight into oneself. There are no short-cuts to the self-appropriation to which Lonergan invites one. But precisely because there are no short-cuts, I can only ask the reader interested in pursuing the process to go to Lonergan's works themselves. Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: reality that is totally extrinsic from the events of understanding, judging, and deciding, that we experience every day. On the other hand, our relation to God is not to be collapsed into a secularistic denial of the supernatural character of grace. Rather, grace is offered in its supernatural character within the events of our everyday lives. So the perspective offered by Lonergan is neither a fundamentalism or extrinsicism that denies the this-worldly character of our lives, nor a secularism or immanentism that ne-glects the absolutely transcendent origin and finality of the relationship to the divine in which we stand at every moment of our lives. What, then, is Christian spiritual development? Lonergan's treatment of this question is provided at the end of a lengthy analysis of human cognitional and moral development that concludes with the realization that the flowering of human potential, the sustained development of the human person, the solution of such social ills as injustice, alienation, and the dominance of totalitarian aspirations in both~the West and East today, are impossible on the basis of human resources alone. We are confronted with a problem of evil in our development as human persons and in the social organization of human affairs. This problem is rooted in our very constitu-tion as human subjects, in our finitude, in the tension between our always limited possibilities and our aspirations to transcend these limitations. I will not go into the intricacies of Lonergan's analysis of the roots of moral impotence. Suffice it to say that he argues persuasively that we are faced with a problem of evil that we are powerless to resolve. If there is going to be a solution to the problem of evil, it must come in the form of redemption. Either there is a divinely originated solution to the problem of evil, or there is no solution at all. If God exists, if God knows of our plight, and if God is good, then there is a divinely originated solution that is offered to our freedom, one that we can accept or reject, and that, if we accept it, will involve us in a whole new area of growth and transformation, an area which we would not even know in any explicit way if God had not come to meet us. This distinct area of development is related to our cognitional and moral development. It is not the product of our knowing and our choosing. It is not something that we vainly imagine, or that we produce by wishful thinking. Rather, it is offered to our knowledge and our freedom as agift. And, if we accept it, it transvalues our values, and provides a new context for Our knowing~ a new atmosphere or environment that enables us to be truly intelligent in our questioning and genuinely reasonable in our judg-ments. This new context is faith, which Lonergan defines as "the eye of love," the eye of the love that is ours, that is the atmosphere in which we live, when we know ourselves as unconditionally loved by, and rooted in, the love that is God's alone.8 8See Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (paperback edition, New York: Harper and Row, 1978), Chapters Eighteen and Twenty; Method in Theology, Chapter Four. 51~2 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 The divine solution to the problem of evil, then, is God's gift of his love that is poured forth into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.~ Our desire for this love is a natural desire: with Thomas Aquinas, Lonergan insists that we have a natural desire for the vision and love of God.t0 He insists, too, that our subjectivity is mutilated or abolished, unless we are stretching forth towards God: There lies within [our] horizon a region for the divine, a shrine for ultimate holiness. It cannot be ignored. The atheist may pronounce it empty. The agnostic may urge that he finds his investigation has been inconclusive. The contemporary humanist will refuse to allow the question [of God] to arise. But their negations presuppose the spark in our clod, our native orientation to the divine." , Being in love with God, then, is for Lonergan the basic fulfilment of the deepest human desire, that desire that he calls "conscious intentionality." That fulfillment brings a deep-set joy that can remain despite humiliation, failure, privation, pain, betrayal, desertion. That fulfillment brings a radical peace, the peace that the world cannot give. That fulfillment bears fruit in a love of one's neighbor that strives mightily to bring about the kingdom of God on this earth. On the other hand, the absence of that fulfillment opens the way to the trivialization of human life in the pur.suit of fun. to the harshness of human life arising from the ruthless exercise of o, power, to despair about human welfare spnnging from the conviction that the universe is absurd.~ God's love is offered to all men and women at every time and place. This universality of God's self-communication (a notion that he has in common with Karl Rahner) Lonergan speaks of in terms of God's inner word, the word that God speaks in the solitude of our hearts, drawing us to himself. But this love is also embodied, incarnate, revealed for all to see, in the outer word of the life, preaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus.~.'~ "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all men to myself.''~4 The disciples of Jesus through the centuries constitute that community whose task it will.~ be until the end of time to give explicit witness in external words and deeds to the offer of divine love as the only resolution oLthe otherwise hopeless human dilemma of personal incapacity to grow, of social injustice and alienation. As another superb contemporary thinker. Eric Voegelin, has labored for thirty years to argue, no social order that is not permeated with the love of the unseen measure that Christians call God can be just or humanly fulfilling.~5 In language current among those who have followed 9Rm 5:5. ~°See Lonergan. "The Natural Desire to See God." in Collection: Papers by Bernard Loner-gan (New York: Herder and Herder. 1967), pp. 84-95. t~Lonergan. Method in Theology, p. 103. ~21bid. p. 105. talbid., pp. 112-115. t4jn 12:32. ~sSee Eric Voegelin, Order and History, four volumes to date (Louisiana State University Press, 1956-1974). Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: l / 503 recent deliberations Within the Church, faith and justice are inextricably linked in the mission of the disciples of Jesus in the world.16 Christian spiritual transformation, in this context, is thus a matter, first~ of a process of conversion that involves a growing intimacy with the source and fountain of redemptive love, an intimacy that takes the form of being evermore patterned after the example of Christ; and, second, of a growing commitment and ability to participate in the mission of Christ, which is also the mission of that community.whose task it is tb render explicit to the whole world the fact that,.in Jesus the Christ, God has definitively revealed the saving action that he is always working in the world. To be in love with God is also to be sent by God. To grow in the love of God is also to grow in participation in the mission--the saving and revealing mission---of Jesus. Christian spiritual growth thus involves a number of elements: a) One comes to a developing familiarity with God, so that one is able ever more readily and ever more easily to find him and to participate with him in his redemptive work after the pattern of Christ, the suffering servant of God. b) One grows in the ability to discern precisely what it is that God wants of oneself and of one's community, and in the willingness to do what it is that God asks, confident that what one is doing is not one's own work but God's. c) Summing up all of what this development involves, one grows~in self-transcendence. This is the first key term that I take from Lonergan. One grows in self-transcendence, until, in the saint, there is reached a point of the union of one's own understanding, reason, and desire with the knowl-edge and love of God, a union that can only be broadened and heightened, deepened and enriched, but not gone beyond; and a point of self-abnegation and humility that rejoices in sharing the lot of the poor, despised, and humiliated Son of God himself, in his mission of establishing the kingdom of God on earth. Christian spiritual transformation is a matter of continual conversion to self-transcendence, within the community of the disciples of the Lord that is the Church, until there is reached the point where one's understanding, one's judgments of fact and of value, one's desires, and one's choices, while not ceasing to be one's own, are a participation in the understanding, the judgments, the desires, the choices of God himself, working in and through oneself and one's community, to continue and to spread the redemption of the world that only God can effect. If, then, we are talking about Christian spiritual development as a trans-formation of our insights, our judgments, our desires, and our choices, we ~6See the document of the 1971 Synod of Bishops, Justice in the World. See also the Docu~- merits of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, and especially Decree 4, "Our Mission Today." 504 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 /4 are speaking of it as fundamentally a transformation of our interiority, of our basic horizon. The difference that God's solution to the problem of evil makes in the social world, in the world of economics and politics, in the world of institutions and organizations, is a function of the difference it makes in persons, in the unity of personal consciousness, in people's vision and choices. Christian spiritual development, considered most radically; is a transformation of one's understanding and of ~)ne's willingness, so that these two are brought into harmony and cooperation with God's redemp-tive purpose in Christ Jesus and through the community of his disciples. The transformation, once again, is in the direction of self-transcendence, so that, by accepting God'.s offer of both salvation and vocation, one becomes ever more God-centered and Christ-centered in one's apprehensions of value and in one's decisions, in one's pursuit of meaning and truth, and in one's affective engagement with other persons in the dramatic situations that constitute the stuff, the setting, the stage, of one's own personal story and of history itself. Christian Spiritual Transformation as Self-Appropriation Now, besides serf-transcendence, there is another term that Lonergan uses when he speaks of development. That term is self-appropriation. Self-appropriation is a matter of self-knowledge, of self-discovery, of self-understanding. One can bE quite self-transcendent, quite loving and generous, quite genuine in one's relations with others, quite sincere about wanting to understand things correctly, without being very adept at intri-cate and precise self-knowledge.~ One can be, in Lonergan's terms, quite religiously and morally converted without being intellectually converted. 18 Intellectual conversion is a matter of knowing precisely what one is doing when one is pursuing understanding, reaching for truth, trying to decide in responsible fashion. Many people genuinely try to understand, and succeed in doing so, without being able to say precisely what they are doing when they understand, .how their insights are related to their sensations, their questions, their beliefs, their .images, their concepts, their feelings. One can also be quite religiously and morally converted without being what I have called "psychically converted.''~ Psychic conversion is a matter of know-ing what one is feeling, of being able to tell one's story, and to tell it as it is. One,can have a quite genuine and even beautiful life of feeling without being able to tell what he or she is feeling, how this feeling is related .to that, how both feelings are related to the objects they intend, how one's feelings 17See Lonergan, Insight, p. 475. 18On intellectual conversion as self-appropriation, see Lonergan, Method in Theo!ogy, pp. 238-240. ~gSee Robert Doran, Subject and Psyche: Ricoeur, Jung, and the Search for Foundations (Washington, D. C.: University Press of Ainerica. 1977), especially pp. 240-246~ Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: I / 51)5 are related to one's images and symbols, to one's questions and insights, to one's beliefs and ideas. In other words, one can have a quite profound and genuinely self-transcendent interiority without being able to articulate one's inner life with any notable clarity and precision. We all know wonderful and holy people who are quite unsophisticated when it comes to self-knowl-edge, or who will put their self-knowledge in very common sense terms-- people who make at times heroic decisions, but who, when asked why they made this or that decision, or what went on in their minds and hearts which led them so to decide, can answer only, "I don't know; it just seemed to be the right thing to do." Such genuine self-transcendence without self-appropriation is by no means to be disparaged. It is the condition of most good and holy men and women down through the ages, the source of most that is good in human history. But there are factors at work, especially in our age, that seem to indicate that self-appropriatiot~, in addition to self-transcendence, is becom-ing ever more necessary if one wishes to choose responsibly, to judge reasonably, to inquire intelligently, or just if one wishes to know what God wants and does not want. Perhaps there was a time when common sense wisdom and homespun practicality were enough for most people. Perhaps, too, there was a time when the only addition to common sense that some people needed was a good dose of theoretical understanding that was basically in harmony with the Gospel. But there are a number of indications that would seem to argue persuasively that we are now living in a world where self-transcendence, backed up by a common sense framework, or even by a cogent and brilliant theory, is simpl~, not enough; where religious and moral conversion must be complemented by intellectual and psychic conversion; where self-transcendence must be aided and helped, complemented and augmented, by self-appropriation, by precise and even technical self-knowledge, by an ability to articulate just what is going on in one's "little black box." If this be the case, then spiritual transformation today is a matter not only of growing self-transcendence, but also of ever more precise and technical self-knowledge. What are some of the indications that would back up this conviction that I share with Lonergan? Let me talk first about the insufficiency of common sense, and then about the ambiguity of theory. And let me do so within the context of the Church's recent pronounced recognition that the promotion of justice is a constitutive element in the preaching of the Gospel. The paper that issued from the 1971 Synod of Bishops, "Justice in the World," and the statement of Pope Paul VI, Octagesima Adveniens, mark the beginnings, I believe, of a substantial leap forward in the Church's social, political, and economic insight and praxis. One of the few public statements that Pope John Paul I had a chance to make was to the effect that we need a new and worldwide economic order. The achievement of that 506 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/4 order, I believe, is going to demand that we take our stand, and that we enable others to take their stand, not on practical common sense, and not on theory, but on the self-appropriation of our interiority and especially of our orientation to value. Why do I say this? Well, let us treat common sense first, however briefly. One of the cha~'acteristics of practica.I common se.nse is that it not only is incapable of.treating complex, long-range, and ultimate issues and results, but also that it resentfully brushes aside and ignores any attempts to raise questions that are concerned with such issues. It has the world's work to do. and it cannot be bothered by questions that would take time away from doing that work.z° The person exclusively operating from prac-tical common sense is concerned only with "getting the job don~i." Every-thing else mo.tivation, rationale, social organization, interpersonal communication--is oriented to that end. The question of whether the jo.b is worth doing at all. or whether the most expedient way of. doing it is also the most authentic way, is,a bother, yes, but more than that: it is a threat, a subversive question t, hat could overturn the ~ntire project. Rejection pre-cisely of such kinds of questions is what is responsible for the fact that our objective world-situation today can be characterized in terms of opposed totalitarianisms: the totalitarianism of the multinational corporation, pred-icated on the assumption of the need of automatic progress and expansion; and the totalitarianism of the communist state, rooted in the assumption that class conflict can bring the social o, rder into harmony with what is right.2~ Both myths neglect the fact that there are religious, personal, and cultural values that must be pursued in an integral fashion if there is to be a just social order that really provides for the basic needs of all the mem-bers of a society. In both systems, however much theory may. be involved in their establishment, we see operative the bias of practical common sense against the kinds of questions that must be asked if the job is to be done, not only expediently, but also humanely, genuinely, authetically. The ques-tion of integrity is. not just overlooked, but actively repudiated and re-pressed. _ Nor is theory sufficient to reestablish the significance of that question. For there are theories that support the question, but there are other theories that discredit it. The theories of B. F. Skinner or of orthdox Freudian psychoanalysis are just as coherent, just as thorough, just as all-encom-passing, and, for many,just as convincing, as are the theories of a Christian philosophy and theology. The Church's reliance on theory as the ground of praxis arose in the Middle Ages, more specifically with scholastic philosophy. One of the interesting things about that period, though, is that there were not many ~°See Lonergan, Insight, pp. 225-242. ~lbid. Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: theories from.which to choose, and there was not all that much to be learned in order to piece together a convincing theory. Even the disputes in the world of.theory did not touch, as they do today, on the really basic issues, such as the existence of God, the fact of revelation, the ethical end of the human person, the value of a virtuous life, and so on. Right down into the Renaissance, there was so little to be learned that it was possible for one person to be at once an artist, a natural scientist, and a man of practical affairs and we have Leonardo da Vinci to prove it. The need for specialization to master one tiny dimension of reality is a distinctly modern phenomenon. And while one is spending most of one's time specializing in one's own area, one's contemporaries are adding theory upon theory in their specialized domains. And these theories sometimes contradict one another on the most fundamental issues, on issues that every developing adult must confront. But how is one to take a stand, if one has to devote all of one's energies to his specialization? There are issues on which we must judge and on which we must decide if we are to live a human life. Yet there is simply too much to be learned before we can judge and decide.22 Unless we find a ground beyond theory--for it will not do just to fall back on common sense--our situation becomes one of hopeless relativism. It is my contention that this ground-beyond-theorydies in the self-appropriation of human interiority. This point about the need for,a quite technical self-appropriation can be developed at great length; we do not have space to do that here. The point I wish to make in the present context ,is that only through such self-appropriation can one discover the precise relation that obtains between re,!igio~us, personal, and cultural values on the one hand, and the social value of a just economic and political order on the other hand. And one needs to discover these relations, not simply in the abstract, as through some theory of value ,"but in the concrete order in which one is called upon to judge, to decide, and to act. And so I return to my general statement: Christian spiritual transformation is a matter of self-transcendence that, at a certain point, calls fo'r a movement to self-appropriation. Christian spiritual development is a matter of ongoing cbnversion, and ongoing con-version means today not only religious and moral, but also intellectual and p~sychic conversion. The Levels of Consciousness There are five levels of operations that one discovers when one enters upon the project of the self-appropriation of interiority.2"~ Inner and outer sensations, memories, andimages constitute the level of empirical presen- 22Lonergan, "Dimensions of Meaning," in Collection, pp. 252-267. 23On the levels of consciousness, see Lonergan, Method in Theology, Chapters One and Four. Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 tations. These empirical presentations are organized by understanding, which is a second level of consciousness. For example, if you are reading without any understanding of what I am saying, you are operating at the first, empirical level of operations. If you are reading and understanding what I am saying, your understanding is organizing the empirical presenta-tions into some kind of intelligible whole. You are processing what you hear by the operations that go on in your "little black box." You are operating not only at the first, but also at the second level of o~perations. If, moreover, you not only understand what I am saying but are also trying to judge whether it is correct or not, you have added a third level of operations, where we either assent to, or disagree with, something we have understood. These three levels of operations are what make us to be human knowers. Lonergan calls these levels experience, understanding, and judgment. But we are not just'knowers. There are times in our lives when, after we have made a judgment, "This is t~rue," a further question arises, "What am I going to do about it?" Then we have to decide. And decision constitutes a fourth level of operations. Finally, there is another whole dimension of interior reality that is not dealt with by speaking of the empirical, intelligent, rational, and decisional levels of consciousness. There is a fifth level of consciousness that is a matter of being addressed by and in relation to God. There is the experience of mystery. There is the reality of falling in love with God. There is prayer, worship, mystical experience, the dark night of the soul, the living flame of love, the search for and discovery of the holy, the gift of the divinely originated solution to the problem of evil. Religious self-appropriation, obviously, is a matter of articulating what is going on at that fifth level of consciousness. The means of discovering oneself in one's relation to God are many: there are spiritual direction, retreats, various methods of keeping a journal, and so on. But what is important for us also to appr6priate is the manner in which experience at that fifth level of consciousness has an effect on other levels. The influence of God's grace moves downward in our consciousness. It changes our values (fourth level), so that it provides us with entirely new orientations for our decisions, and enables them to be more self-transcendent. It changes our view of the world, our vision, the way we understand and judge things (second and third levels), and provides us with a determination to under-stand thoroughly and to judge reasonably; and it brings about a harmony and peace at the level of inner sensation, a peace that "the world cannot give," so that our inner being and our bodies rest securely in the love of God. Symbols, Feelings, and Drama Such is the pattern of interiority that is discovered when one enters upon the way of self-appropriation: five levels of consciousness, each related to Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: I / 509 the other, whether we move from~below upwards, or from above down-wards. And now, finally, we are able to locate with precision the region where Jung's discoveries become significant for spiritual development, especially for self-appropriation. For all of the operations that we are talking about--sensing, imaging, remembering (first level), inquiring, understand-ing, putting our understanding into words (second level), reflecting, weigh-ing the evidence, judging (third level), deliberating, deciding, acting (fourth level), praying, worshiping (fifthlevel)--all of these operations are per-meated by feelings. We have feelings about the objects of all of these operations. The operations themselves are always dramatic. When you try to understand, it is because you are confused. When you succeed in un-derstanding, the confusion ceases and you experience satisfaction, maybe even excitement. When you want to know whether you understand cor-rectly, it is because you are not satisfied with just a set of bright ideas; you want to get things right and not just go about spouting opinions. When you have to make a decision, the drama of the situation stands out clearly. Some decisions can be agonizing. All decisions have a great deal of affectivity accompanying them, for we are dealing in decisions with questions of value. And value is something we feel before ever we judge about it or act on it.z4 Finally, fifth-level religious experience has those peculiar sets of feelings that we call "consolations" and "desolations." In sum, we are not just structured conscious operators. We are~also the subjects of a drama, pre-cisely in and through these operations. There is a story to our operating, because there are feelings that permeate all of those operations. Let us focus a bit more on this drama, because it is more complicated than I have so far indicated. In addition to the desire to understand, there is also aflight from understanding (second level). I can flee insight just as passionately as I can pursue it. Moreover, I can resist the truth just as strongly as I can intend it (third level). I can try to escape responsible decision and live a life of ease or of drifting or of hiding my talents, just as persistently as I can conscientiously examine every situation to find the best course of action (fourth level). I can flee contact with God just as passion-ately as I can seek to find him and do his will (fifth level). ~ There are feelings that permeate not only genuine performance at each of the five levels, but also inauthentic actions at each step of the way. The ultimate drama of my life, in fact, is this drama of authenticity and inau-thenticity. The authentic person is the person who pursues understanding, who seeks truth, who responds to what is. really worthwhile, and who searches for God and his will. The inauthentic person is the person who flees understanding, who runs fi:om the truth, who resists further questions 241bid., pp. 31-33. 510 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 /4 about his or her decisions, and who tries to escape God. And those feelings never go away. They are present in the entire drama. They are precisely what make it so dramatic. What. then. are feelings? Feelings are energy-become-conscious. Feel-ings are a~matter of psychic energy. Feelings are the basic sensitive compo-nent of every human operation. Feelings make of spirituality a story. To know one's feeling is to begin to tell one's own story. Feelings are the drive and momentum of the life of the human spirit. Feelings join the spirit to the body in a conscious unity. There is one further aspect to this matter. Feelings always enter con-sciousness through being connected with some representation. Now, the, most basic form of representation lies in symbols. A symbol, Lonergan says, is an image of a real or imaginary object that evokes a feeling or is evoked by a feelingZS; what this means is that there is never a feeling without a symbolic meaning; never a symbol without a feeling. To name one's feelings is to discover the dynamic images, the symbols, that are associated with them. To have insight into one's feelings is to understand the symbolic association. To tell one's story is tomarrate the course of one's elemental symbolizing. And where does one's elemental symbolizing occur in its purest form, untainted by the biases that. in waking life, can lead us to distort our story? The place of elemental symbolizing is in our dreams. It is in the dream that we first are conscious, and it is in the dream that we find a "story" going forward that we cannot distort without being aware that we are doing so.z6 If we want to know our -story" the story of insight, the story of judgment, the story of decision, and the story of prayer--we can find it in our dreams. There is a psychic conversion that puts us into contact with that story. It affects us deeply once it has occurred. For it enables us to judge ourselves in our waking life as authentic or inauthentic in our pursuit of understanding, in our.seeking of truth, in our decisions, and in our search for God. In the next article I will situate Jung's psychology of individuation within this context of the discussion of self-transcendence, and, especially, of self-appropriation. In the third article, though, I will use this same frame-work to criticize .lung's psychology. For Jung did not have an accurate understanding of the structure of our operations as human subjects~ur understanding, our judgments, our decisions, and our search for God. His basic philosophical and theological standpoint did not take its stand on a notion of authenticity as self-transcendence. And this basic flaw renders his contributions to Christian spiritual .development very ambiguous until these contributions are transposed into some such context as I have tried to indicate in the present article. 251bid., p. 64. 26See Doran, "Dramatic Artistry in the Third Stage of Meaning," forthcoming in Lonergan Workshop 11, edited by Frederick Lawrence (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979). "Matchwood, Immortal Diamond"-- Reflections on Death and Resurrection John Renard, S.J. Father Renard is on the faculty of St. Louis,University. A previous article of Father Renard was entitled "Islamic Spirituality" which appeared in the November, 1978 issue. With:the bitter:sweet clarity that came to him in his illness, ~ohn Donne wrote, "Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down.''~ The poet expresse_s a wisidom most of us would rather flee than surrender to; bui our flight from mortality is not always and necessarily a flight toward immortal-ity. Ernest Becket explains the dynamic of the "Jonah Syndrome" by saying that the fear of life often menaces human beings as relentlessly as the fear of death. The "Jonah Syndrome" involves escape from both the apex and the nadir of human potential. It issues in a frantic sear.ch for control of one's destiny to the smallest detail; it deems abstinence from the heights of ecstasy a fair price to pay 'for a shorter fall; it shuns the awesome lest it happen upon the terrible,z Both extremes of the fear ~eem to be rooted in a dread of extinction, whether as annihilation wrought by weakness confronting the ultimate ~This and all other selections of poetry quoted in this paper may be found in the.Norton Anthology of Poetry ('Revised, New York, 1975). "Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness," p. 251. 2Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York, 1973). Term coined by Abraham Maslow; pp. 48 ft. 511 512 /Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/4 power, or as humiliation wrought by shame in the face of the ultimate glory. I would like to explore both of these aspects of the "Jonah Syndrome." First we will look at the extreme that presents itself more immediately, and which is a more readily recognizable feature of human experience. In that context we will talk of two preeminent characteristics of the experience of Weakness, Shame, and Mortality. Then we will turn to the experience of power, glory, and immortality. In both instances our guideg will be the struggle of great poets to comprehend, the insight of Paul into the incompre-hensible, and the example of Jesus' surrender to the "impossibility" of a life lived across the full spectrum, from being to nothingness and back. Weakness, Shame, and Mortality At the beginning of his chapter on "The Terror of Death," Ernest Becket quotes Sigmund Freud: Is it not for us to confess that in our civilized attitude towards death we are once more living psychologically beyond your means, and must reform and give truth its due? Would it not be better to give death the place in actuality and in our thoughts which properly belongs to it, and to yield a little more prominence to that unconscious attitude towards death which we have hitherto so carefully suppressed? This hardly seems indeed a greater achievement, but rather a backward step., but it has the merit of taking somewhat more into accou.nt the true state of affairs,a Two factors seem most to contribute to a sense of impotence and of the inability to achieve quite enough in one lifespan--and hence to the half-wish for immortality. They are, first, the feeling of time's inexorability, and, second, the conviction that to make a lasting name for myself I must make it for me alone, me the autonomous, me the independent. These twin cliffs of mortality both spell weakness and shame, for the sheer faces of time and of di~sire for self-fulfilment cannot b~ scaled head-on. Nevertheless, the summit is not entirely unattainable. It merely requires the acceptance of "time" and the rejection of encapsulation in oneself. John Donne writes in his "S.atire on Religion:" He's not of none, nor worst, that seeks the best, To 'adore, or scorn an image, or protest, May be all bad; doubt wisely; in strange way To stand inquiring right, is not to stray; To sleep, or run wrong, is. On a huge hill, Craggrd and steep, Truth stands, and he that will Reach her, about must, and about must go, Ahd what th' hill's suddenness resists win so; Yet strive so, that before age, death's twilight, thy soul rest, for none can work in that night. Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge, too "Matchwood, Immortal Diamond" / 513 The mind's endeavors reach, and mysteries Are like the sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes.4 The poet does not advocate pretending the mountain does not exist, nor does he counsel over-confidence as to its vincibility. He does suggest that the most important of attainments are precisely not those which can be attained, but rather those which are allowed to be apparent. It is a question of not denying the obvious, but' also of not taking the obvious for granted. Donne suggests further that mysteries are the very stuff of this life: one had best confront them now, for they set at death's twilight. Time itself is not the poet's nemesis here; the prospect of an untimely death is. As we shall see in the second section of this paper, John Donne found a solution to the problem of time's "unperturbed pace," in his hope of resurrection. As other poets attest, however, not everyone escapes the conviction that time is a vacuum. ,' The Emptiness of Time Many a great poet has written of the vain struggle to deny the marauding burglar of time access to his house. Scarcely a Shakespearean sonne~ but talks of Time's "fell hand," and his "bending sickle's compass," and of the "best jewel from Time's chest., hid." Time is "sluttish,'~ "wasted," "balmy.''5 The young John Milton reflected, "How soon. hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!" Time was for him, along with the will of heaven, his guide toward his mortal end.6 John Keats, also twenty-three, wrote in a similar vein of his fears that he might "cease to be before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain." His fearful reflections led him to stand alone on the shore of the wide world till Love and Fame sank to nothingness in the face of Time's inevitability.~ At twenty-seven, W. B. Yeats wrote "The Lamentation of the Old Pen-sioner." The aged and discarded man sits sheltered from the rain under a tree and reminisces about how he had once held the center ~f attention in fireside chats "Of love or politics, ere time transfigured me." Though young men once more prepare for combat, the pensioner's "contemplations are of Time thht has transfigured me." Though no woman now turns to look upon him, 'he summons up remembrances of loves past and concludes, "I spit in the face of Time that has transfigured me.''s In his magnificent "Fern Hill," the thirty-two year old Dylan Thomas wrote of his heedless youth when: Nothing i cared, in the lamb-wfiite days, that time would take me Up to the swallow throng.ed loft by the shadow of my hand, 'tNAP p. 246. 5Sonnets 64, 116, 65, 55, 106, 107, NAP pp. 212 ft. SNAP p. 323 rNAP p. 700 SNAP p. 918 514 / Review for Religious, Volume38, 1979 / 4 In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him (Time) fly with the high fie!ds And Wake to the farm forever fled from the childless 'land~ Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though 1 sang in my chains like the sea) ,~ Thomas compressed an entire lifetime into the image of a day, born with the birth of the sun and dying forever under an ever-rising moon. Time was his master: the poet both knew it too,well and, denied it. He was green, but dying; fettered, but singing as though free as the sea. ~ The Fullness of Time Jesus, too/was keenly aware_through his life of the. imminence of an auspicious, even ominous, hour. John's Gospel portrays Jesus early in his public ministry as conscious that hishour would come soon, but had not yet (Jn 7:6 and 30). His later recognition that "the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" occurs at.the theological, literary, and even geo-graphical center of John's Gospel (Jn 12:23). It is preceded immediately by. the raising of Lazarus and Mary's anointing of Jesus for burial, .and it is followed immediately by the analogy of the grain of wheat that ~must die. in order to give life. In the Synoptics, too, this crucial hour's striking marks the turning point in Jesus~ life, the fullness of his time. In the Synoptics, however, the theological, literary, and geographical pivot is signalled by Peter',s confession.of Jesus as the Christ and Jesus' decisive reorientation for the journey to Jerusalem (Mr 16:13if; Mk 8:27ff;, Lk 9:18ff). Mark, Matthew, and Luke indicate that it is Peter who is troubled, most of all, by Jesus' prediction of his death, and who tries to dissuade Jesus from his intended course. John, on the other hand, more insistent than the SynOptics on Jesus' awareness of his "tim~ and hour," emphasizes Jesus' own anguish that his time has now come: "Now is-my soul troubled. And what shall Isay? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, for this purpose I have come.to this hour's' (Jn .12:27). It is an hour of glor.y, but not for Jesus "personally." It is the hour in which his Father's name will be glorifie~l again (Jn 12:28), At this juncture we turn to the second factor that .makes human mortality seem so impotent and dishon6rable--the forever frus-trated yet die-hard desire to make a name for oneself alone. Making a Name: The Delusion of Self-Proclaimed Glory Several years ago a cartoon in a national magazine depicted a handsome young couple in togas seated in an idyllic lakeside glen. The young man gazes into the mirror-smooth lake, and the lady asks, "Is there., someone else, Narcissus? . Everyone," notes Ernest Becket, "enjoys a working aNAP pp. 1166-7 "Matchwood, Immortal Diamond" / 515 amount of basic narcissism,"~° which amounts to a drive for self-protection and self-creation. The more that drive becomes the central life project, however, the moreoenslaving and suicidal it becomes. Chapter two of the Letter to the Philippians is the New Testament's most remarkable.state-ment of Jesus' surrender of his own name for the glorification of his Father's name.~::'He did not count equality with God a'thing to be grasped., but emptied~ ~himself, taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, death on a cross': (Ph 2:6-8). By "becoming sin who kflew no sin" (2 Co 5:21), Jesus engaged in the ultimate ec-stasy. He rejected the Godly power which alone is immune to the need for striving, in favor of human weakness with its constant struggle for freedom. He rejected the Godly glory which alone is~truly autonomous and peerless, in favor of the shame of common slavery. Power and glory in God are Godly; in human~beings they are merely the produc't of self-aggrandizing,, narcissistic wishfulness. Power and glory in God are His awesomeness and attractiveness; in human beings~they are a pathetic grasp-ing after invulnerability and control, needlessness and Unrelatedness, free-dom from risk.~ That, in the. words of Shakespeare, amounts to "Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame. . lust in action. In his choice of slavery and emptiness Jesus had even to divest himself of the faintest hope that it would all' have world-redeeming consequences. He had to abandon himself unreservedly to the powerlessness and anonym-ity of the human condition. The colossal irony of his surrender is that, because Jesus forsook his, own name and status, "God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that atthe name of Jesus,every knee should bend., and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Ph 2:9-11). A classic of Chinese tradition called the Tao te Ching spe.aks simply and insightfully of the nature of this paradox: Reality is all-embracing. To be all-embracing is to be self-less. To be self-less is to be all-pervading. To be all-pervading is to be transcendent.~3 Paul elucidates further~ the'implications ~of Christ's self-lessness ~or us. Thb',~ib~e~'ness of self-~areservation must "yield to the folly' of the Cross, "For~tlie. fo61ishness~ of God is wiser than humankind, and the Weakness of l°op. cit., p. 22 ~For further excellent discussion of power and autonomy, see John Dunne's The Way'of All the Earth (New York, 1972), pp. 4-26. ~aSonnet 129, NAP 216 ~aChang Chung-yuan, Tao: A New Way of Thinking (New York, 1975), p. 42. 51!5 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/4 God is stronger than humankind." Self-proclaimed power and glory must yield to a confession of "shame and confession," as in the meditations on sin in St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises, for "God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are" (1 Co .1 and 2, quoting 1:25, 27). Jesus' own acquiescence in the arrival of his "hour" and his preference for namelessness led him to the folly of the Cross, that our "faith might rest not in human wisdom, but in the power of God" (1 Co 2:5). And all the heavenly host shouted: "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and giory.~. And the four living creatures said, 'Amen'" (Rv 5:12, 14). Power, Glory and Immortality If reflection on the ravages of time and change is a common theme in the great poets, musing on what may lie beyond death are no less prominent. "Death once dead," says the Bard, there's no more dying then.''14 Shake-spearc's is a rather cold resignation in that poem. A more hopeful note is heard in Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality": 0 Joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive.15 Another facet of "nature's memory" is the subject of "The Root Cellar'" by the twentieth-century poet Theodore Roethke. Observing nature's stubborn refusal to become extinct, he tells of how in a lowly earthen dungeon all things strain after survival. In that cellar "Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath."16 In "The Far Field," Roethke writes of how "All finite things reveal infinitude." I am renewed by death, thought of my death, The dry scent of a.dying garden in September, The wind fanning the ash of a low fire. What I love is near at hand, Always, in earth and air.1~ The same W. B. Yeats who had written about the Pensioner who spat in the face of Time, later wrote a play called The Resurrection. The p~lay climaxes with a song about the demise of the ancient rites at~the appearance of the Risen Christ who now stands on the stage. The song is a different kind of reflection on how the passing of time exhausts human power and glory to make way for Christ's power and glory: t4Sonnet 146, NAP :p. 217 ~SNAP p. 603 ~6NAP p. 1131 ~TNAP p. 1138-9 "Matchwood, Immortal Diamond" / 517 Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day.: Love's pleasure drives his love away. The painter's brush consumes his dreams; The herald's cry, the soldier's tread Exhaust his glory and his might: Whatever flames upon the night Man's own resinous heart has fed.Is Few poets have prayed in our tongue more fervently than John Donne. In the"Holy Sonnets" Donne vacillates between terror in the face of death and the hope that death will lose its sting and concede victory to the Resurrection. "Thou hast made me, and shall Thy work decay?" he asks his Lord.~° Ever awareof his need to ask forgiveness, the poet exhorts the angels to trumpet into resurrection all mortal humanity "At the round earth's imagined corners.''2° Donne then becomes a seventeenth century Paul in one of his best known sonnets: Death, be not proud, though some have call6d thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so; For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee dO go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou 'art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy' or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swellst thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally ' And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.2~ For the original Paul, all that the poe.ts have hinted at, pined for, groped after, and, perhaps, found, is embodied in Christ as image of the invisible God. Christ "reflects the glory of God" and "sustains the universe by his word of power" (Heb 1:3). By that word we are "strengthened with all power, according to the glory of his might" (Col l:l l). The "small breath" of the earth in Roethke's "Root Cellar" is the treasure we carry "in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us." We carry in our bodies "the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in oOr bodies" (2 Co 4:7, 10-11). Our universal experience of being "thrown down" in the wasting of our outer nature can-not quench'Wordsworth's "embers" of renewal in our inner nature (2 Co 4:16). It is merely a thorn in the flesh, a reminder that God's "power.is made ~SNAP pp. 927-8 19Sonnet I, NAP p. 248 2°Sonnet 7, NAP p. 249 ~Sonnet 10, NAP p. 250 51~1 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 perfect in weakness." For that reason Paul could happily boast of his weakness so that the power of Christ might rest on him (2 Co 12:9). The exultant herald's cry and the victorious soldier's tread exhaust their power and glory. Christ's defeat on the cross manifests his all the more, "For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God." As a result, Christ now deals with us not in weakness, butin power (2 Co 13:3-4). Paul therefore prays that he be able~ to accept his humanity and its impo-tence, in order to~ know Christ and the, power of his resurrection, which will "change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by,the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself" (Ph 3:8-H, 21). The Apostle prays for,us, too, that we might share in that power and glory and life. Speaking of his own suffering as the glory of the Ephesian Christians, Paul prays That acc6rding to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power interiorly through his Spirit. ; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend., the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, to him be glory . (Ep 3:13-21). Paul further clarifies the nature of the revivifying power of Christ's love as he describes the different degrees of glory proper to the various earthly and heavenly bodies. Using the same metaphor of sowing and growth suggested in Ephesians in the words "rooted in love," the author writes in 1 Co 15:42-3: "What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in shame, but raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, but raised in power." The full mystery and many-sided paradox of how weakness becomes power; shame glory, and mortality immortality is beautifully summed up in John Heni'y Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermon entitled "The Cross of Christ, the Measure of the World." Newman says that the Cross has brought together and made consistent all that seemed discordant and aimless. It has taught'us how to live, how to use this world, what to expect, what t~ desire, what to hope. It is the tone into which all the ~trains of this world's music are ultimately to be resolved.22 To resolve th~se discordant strains, Chris~ endu,red,every paradox. To teach us how to live with ambiguity and in~.security, Christ put mystery in place Qf what we would otherwise try to solve as a mind-teasing puzzle. To unburden us of the curse of the Law, Christ became accursed o~n the Tree. To obtain for us that which we most grasp at, Christ unhanded ~l~i. To transform our folly into wisdom, Christ became foolishness. To free us from sin, Christ became sin. To loose the bonds of our servitude, Christ became 22Parochial and Plain Sermons, London, 1875, Vol. 6, p. 85. ° ~ "Matchwood, Immortal.Diamond" / 519 a slave. To empower our impotence, Christ became weakness itself. To ransom us from bankruptcy, Christ became poverty. To glorify our dis-honor, Christ became shame. To fill our vacuum, Christ emptied himself. All of which prompted G. M. Hopkins to write in his poem, "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection": "In a flash, at a trumpet crash, ! am at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and this Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, is immortal diamond.''23 23NAP p. 905 Now Available As Reprint An Apostolic Spirituality~for the Ministry of Social Justice by Max Oliva, S.J. Price: $.50 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 St. Luke's Use of the Temple Image Frank X. Reitzel, C.R. Father Reitzel is a member of the Congregation of the Resurrection who has spent most of his active years in his priesthood teaching English literature at the high school, university and seminary levels. He has also done considerable work in counseling, spiritual direction and retreat work. Presently he is on a sabbatical leave doing research study at the Gregorian University in Rome. His address on leaving Rome will be: Resurrection College; Westmount Road North, Waterloo; Ontario, Canada N2L 3G7. Father Reitzel hopes that the present article will form the chapter of a projected book on the concept and image of the Temple as a means of prayer. Part I he Odyssey is most often mentioned as the classic example in literature of the use of thenliterary device or symbol of a journey within which to frame a story. It is important, however, to remember, that every journey has a goal or end to be attained. For Ulysses it was to return to his homeland and there to lay rightful claim to his kingdom, his queen and his home. The traditional name for such a story is epic. St. Luke's Greek cultural back-ground is sufficient evidence on which to base a presupposition that he was familiar with this story form of a journey ending in a kingdom reclaimed. Both his Gospel account and The Acts of the Apostles have epic qualities built on the basic image of a journey. The intention of this paper, however, is to focus attention on the goal of that journey, the Temple at Jerusalem, as Luke uses it in his Gospel in order to show that an awareness of this image can aid a reflective and prayerful reading of the text of the third gospel. The journey theme and the Temple image are equally evident in Acts; but I shall refer to these only in passing. 520 St. Luke's Use of the Temple Image / 521 The Journey It is now generally accepted that the journey theme is an important factor, in the literary structure of Luke's version of the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In every epic the arena of the journey is vast, sweeping from one end of the known world to the other; for Jesus it really begins in heaven and ends there. The action that takes place on earth within the limits of time and space tells of his journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem. At Jerusalem is the focal point and goal of the journey, the Temple. By using principles of literary criticism we can discover that Luke has artistically placed his references to the Temple at significant places in his narrative. I suggest that the position of these references clearly and deliber-ately divides the text of the Gospel, for artistic and meditative purposes, into a five-part structure that is similar to that of classical epics and dramas. Paradise Lost, for example, is constructed in twelve books or movements in which the poet John Milton retells the tragic story of the loss of paradise by Adam and Eve. The number twelve, referring to the twelve months of the year, symbolizes a full-life span or a life's journey. In his second epic, Paradise Regained, Milton uses the more compressed five-movement structure to tell the story of.Christ's cosmic struggle with Satan. In every case the artist freely chooses what he considers to be the proper and fitting frame for his work or story. In order to enhance his retelling of the inspiring story of Jesus that had been-handed on to him Luke employs a similar five-part structure. Later, in his account of the beginnings of the Church, he describes the missionary journeys of Peter and Paul in a two-part structure similar to that of many modern dramas. Moreover, in both works Luke uses carefully placed refer-ences to the Temple at Jerusalem as a central image which unifies the structure and the story of the Gospel as Luke presents it to us. An aware-ness of this image and its function can aid us in using Luke's Gospel as a guide to prayer and a means of personal growth. Reliable Scripture scholarship has shown that the author of the third Gospel was a man of Greek birth and culture who wrote for a Greek Christian audience. Like Paul (arid like ourselves) Luke had not been a contemporary eye-witness of Jesus. He had learned and been inspired by the story of Jesus as he had received it from the apostolic eye-witnesses such as Peter. He wrote to Theophilus, to persons of similar culture and background, that is, to all those like Theophilus in the world. But if we are his audience why does he use the center of Jewish worship as one of his main images? The Temple Image Temples have played a pa.rt in almost every culture; but they differ in one significant feature from the Temple at Jerusalem. A temple for all 522 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/4 pagans (gentiles) was a holy place; it was the house of the gods. But for the Israelites, Yahweh, the One True God, actually manifested his presence in his chosen dwelling place on Mount Zion. The Israelites were prepared and they were often called upon to protest that belief with their lives. They did not just casually believe this--they knew that God dwelt in their midst. No matter where he might be, the devout Israelite could face east to the Temple and enter into prayerful communion.with his God; he could experience an immediate and personal realization of the presence of Yahweh. The ideal, of course, was to make the journey to Jerusalem and there actually present oneself to God, as he had. commanded: "Three times a year all your men-folk must present,themselves before the Lord Yahweh" (Ex 23:17)? Similar references to. this belief and practice in the Old Testament are numerous. The visions of many of the prophets took place in the Temple. It was there that Isaiah (Is 6) and Jeremiah. (Jr 1) w.ere commissioned by God to go forth on their prophetic journeys to .his people. The prophet Amos had condemned the unjust and unprayerful uses that some people made of the place of worship, emphasizing, thereby, that God',s presence, not the bricks and mortar, was of importance. Whenever his people turned to false gods and rejected him, Yahweh abandoned them and their Temple. Each time in history that the bricks-and-mortar temple was destroyed it graphically symbolized Yahweh's displeasure with his ~.people and his ab-sence from them. Through the psalmist as through the prophets, Yahweh insisted that the Temple was sacred because he chose to dwell there. He promised to be with his p.eople as long as they were faithi'ul to him; if they betrayed him, he would withdraw his presence and the Temple, no longer sanctified, would be destroyed. That history and thai faith, were a part of the Judaeo-Christian heritage handed on to Luke. That is evidenced by the fact that his Gospel ends,with the statement that praying and worshipping in the Temple at Jerusalem continued to be a normal practice of Christ's followers after the ascension. And at the beginning of Acts Luke indicates that the same mentality and practices continued to prevail. The disciples, he tells us, went up to the Temple each day at the prescribed liturgical hours to pray (Ac 2:46; 3:1). A shift was beginning to evolve, however; Luke says that for "'the breaking of the bread" they met in private homes. They were Christian-Jews; though a gradual change was "taking place in their worship, they had n6t broken away from their Hebrew. Temple-centered roots. That break would Occur later. But at the time of Luke's writing the Temple was still regarded as the House of Prayer, the place where God made himself manifest among his l~eople. ~Biblical quotations in this article have been made from The Jerusalem Bible (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1966); and from The R. S. 'V. Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, by Rev. Alfred Marshall (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons Ltd. 1978). St. Luke's 'Use of the Temple Image / 523 The Literary Structure It is perfectly acceptable in literature to use poetic devices to emphasize certain features of the text. Luke artistically uses repeated references to the Temple.in order to draw the listener or reader to a more reflective and prayerful attention,to the words and the story action o,f his Gospel. Luke's story of Jesus of Nazareth, which has as one of its themes the struggle between good and evil, is based on a five-part.division. An aware-ness~ of this structure and its main themes can assist us in a reflective and prayerful reading of this account of the gospel. It is important to note that this dramatic and reflective outline (given below) does not run counter to nor violate the exacting topical outline that exegetes suggest for study of the text. This literar~y and meditative approach emph~asizes the dramatic quali-ties of the cosmic struggle between Christ and Satan and recognizes the artistic unity in Luke's use 9f the Temple as a focal image. An Outline For Meditation For careful study of the text, commentaries generally outline Luke's Gospel in the following way:2 ~ (1) The Prologue 1:1-4 (2) The Infancy Narrative 1:5--2:52 (3) The Preparation for Ministry 3:1--4:13 (4) The Galilean Minis~try 4:14---9:50 (5) The Journey Na~ative .~ 9:51--19:28 (6) The Jerusalem Ministry 19:29--21:38 (7) The Passion and Glorification 22:1--24:53 ¯ This can be a valugble g~u.ide to discover what Luke tells us about Jesus, his teaching and 'his ministry. It acknowledges the importance of the jour-ney, but only as a pan,of the outli.ne rather than as a theme throughout the entire gospel. According to his introduction, however,. Luke wrote for a prayerful and reflective audience in an artistic way so as to spark the imagination, the feelings,jthe.heart of his readers and to focus attention on the Person of Jesus in order to open their ears and eyes to respond as fully as possible to the message of the Lord as Luke presents it to them. Jesus taught his disciples that his 'message is best heard in prayer and the graces to respond to it best received in prayer. For such a prayerful consideration and use of Luke's text of the gospel I suggest the following outline. PROLOGUE: 1:1-25 ' (a) Introduction: why and to whom he writes. (b) Milieu: time and pl~ce. 2James A. Michener, The Source (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1967), p. 266. 524 /Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/4 Zachariah; the Temple scene, in the sanctuary. ACT I: Infancy: Prepare for life. Begins in the Temple: Pre-sentation. Introduces John the Baptist; then Jesus. Closes with the Temple scene. ACT II: Preparation For Mission: ~ Mission, decision, conflict. Career of John the Baptist; genealogy of Jesus. The temp-tations, ending with the Temple image. A hint that Jesus and Satan will meet again. ACT III: Journey and Ministry: Jesus, led by the Spirit, begins his journey toward Jerusalem; He commences his public teaching. A special mention of the Temple (18:10). The section closes with Jesus taking possession of the Temple. ACT IV: Temple and Contest: Jesus teaches daily in the Temple. His enemies plot to kill him. Example of the widow's offering. At night Jesus withdraws from the Temple to the Mount of Olives. 1:26-2:52 3:1-4:13 4:14-19:48 20:1-21:38 ¯ Act V: Conflict: 22:1-24:52a Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Signal phrase: "Satan enteri~d." Judas goes to the priests. Trial; condemnation; death. Veil of the Temple is torn. Resurrection and ascension. EPILOGUE: ~ 24:52b-53 The apostles begin their journey in the Tem-ple. The Good News for Prayer In my outline of Luke's gospel, I have indicated that each of the major divisions end witha'specific use of the image of the Temple. In every case of these references the use flows smoothly and naturally out of the thought and action of the story. Artistically, the Temple image serves the same purpose as a major refrain in a symphony or opera; the audience hears it in the background and is reminded~of a principal character or of the primary theme of the work. Like an organist, Luke is able to play on three manuals at once. He uses the image of the Temple, repeated at significant moments in his text, to weave into a unity the principal themes of the life story of Jesus of Nazareth. St. Luke's Use of the Temple Image / 595 The Temple image establishes the goal of the journey theme and gives it a continuity throughout the whole of the gospel as Luke presents it. Moreover, this image repeated at important instances in the narrative emphasizes and gives a continuity to the main theme of the story of Jesus: his life, death and resurrection. In the course of his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus makes allusions to and direct prophecies, of his death, and resurrec-tion, such as: "The. Son of Man" he said "is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the , third day" (Lk 9:22). But it is the carefully placed references to the Temple that hold this theme of death and resurrection before our eyes throughout the text of this gospel. For at the end of each major section, designated in the outline above, when reference is made to the Temple something ends and something new begins; death and resurrection are symbolized. In the end the Temple of brick and mortar would be destroyed, as Jesus prophesied, to be replaced forever by the eternal Temple of the Risen Christ. Evidence in Greek Terms The literary prologue (1:9-25) ends with the priestly action of Zachariah in that sacred area of the Temple, the sanctuary, while the people wait outside praying. The events recorded in this episode are interpreted as a signal of the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New. It is significant that in the Greek text Luke uses the specific term "sanctuary" or "holy place" (naos) three times in this prologue as his reference to the Temple: (1:9;22). He does not use this term again until after Christ,s death on the cross when he, tells us dramatically, with the tearing of the veil of the "Temple" (naos), that the old has ended and the new has begun~(23:45). There are, however, some instances in the course of his narrative in which Luke makes reference to the Temple or to the sanctuary :with a more general Greek term "the house of God" (oikos theou), because the refer-ence at such times is not essential to the narrative structure. When, for example, Jesus speaks o.f. the prophet "who was murdered between the altar and the sanctuary" (Lk I1:5 l), Luke uses the Greek term, "the house of God" (oikos theos). When, however, the reference is made to the Temple proper and is essential to the narrative structure, he uses the precise Greek term the Temple (hieros). This is the word which he uses at the end of each of the major sections that I have designated as acts in the above outline, as well as in the last verse, the literary epilogue, of his gospel account. Accord, ing to scholars3 Luke.was following a reliable tradition in his use of these 3The Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, Roland E. Murphy (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 119, 44:19. (For subsequent notes this will be referred to as JBC.)--There is a°good outline of Luke's Gospel for meditative reading in The Gospel According to St. Luke. ed. Alois St6ger (London: Burns & Oates, 1969), two volumes. 526 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 Greek terms,, and should not be accused of inconsistency. Of importance in the present consideration,~ however, is Luke's use of the term "the Tem-ple" (hieros), with all its sacred and imaginative connotations from the Old Testament as well as its Christian ,associations with the life of Jesus. This is the" term which Luke uses when he refers to the Temple scene (2:46) with which he completes his narrative o'f~the infancy of Jesus. Simi-larly, he ends with this same Temple image what | have designated as Act II, which describes Jesus' preparation for his mission:" Jesus rejects the third temptation 6f Satan who had led him "to the pinnacle of the Temple" (4:9) and begins his public ministry. With one special excepiion (18:9-14), Luke does not use this precise term for the Temple again until the ehd of the third'section of his narrative (indicated as Act III)when Jesus enters the Temple and forcefully takes possession of it as his Father's house (19:45-46). In e~,ery case when Luke uses this term; we notice that there is an end and a beginning; the life-death-resurrection theme is symbolized in the Temple. At this part of the narrative (19:48) the actual suffering and death of Jesus are imminent, for the growing opposition of his enemies has become a calculated decision to destroy him. Throughout Act IV Jesus teaches daily in the Temple area (hieros); but at night for his own safety he withdraws to the Mount of Olives. He continueS to use the Temple for his mission, but he has begun to abandon it; it is no longer a place of safety for him. In Act V, his rejection of the Temple of bricks and mortar is completed in ~he violent tearing of the veil of the Temple (23:45) to signal the beginning of the reign of Christ. In the epilogue, Luke tells us that the apostles went to the Temple after the ascension of Jesus to await, in, prayer, their call to journey and mission. Each dramatic section of this outline of'the action 0f Luke's gospel closes with a precise use of the image of the Temple which, I ~uggest, holds up before the reflective reader the main theme 'of the life, death and resurrection of the story of Jesus. A reflective and careful exami-nation of even a few' of these sections will bear this out. The Prologue As Prayer ' Luke says that although his readers are familiar with the story of the life bf Jesus, he intends "to write an ordered account." I Shggest that his purpose is to write :an artistic and' meditative account of the Gospel in order to lead his refiders to prayer and a deeper consideration of the events o~ that story. The prologue (as I have designated it, verses ! to 25) can be used as a unit for prayer which inv~olves the whole person of th6 reader. For study purposes exegetes rightly identify as prologue 6nly the first ~our°verses~, because theseare writtenin very stylized and formal-Greek. That is proper to a formal introduction; but a literary prologue, besides'addressing the work to the~hudience, also links it to the past and gives.th'e~ audience some hints of the principal themes in the action that is to follow, The formal introduction, that is the first four verses, appropriately ,addresses the St. Luke's Use of the Temple Image / 597 Gospel to Theophilus anti to everyone who professes a love of God. Verses 5 to .7 make the link: this is not going to be. a Gr~eek story, but one set in Israel. The first personages to whom we are introduced are two of the finest people that culture and religion produced: "Both were just in the sight of God and scrupulously observed all the commandments and observances of the Lord" :(1:6). Every word of this quotation is rich in history, meaning and imagery. The word "just," often translated as "righteous," "worthy," -"virtuous," is a summary of the history of God's dealings with the Hebrew people. We should also be aware of the suggestive power of names such as Zachariah: "His name means 'Yahweh has remembered'.TM A note of tragedy is sounded with the words that Elizabeth was barren; but the author hastens to set his scene for the main action and to suggest his main themes. It is the solemn hour of, w9rship in the sacred dwelling place of the True God. It is one of the great moments of Zachariah's priestly career; he has been chosen by lot to offer the incense in the sanctuary. While the faithful outside continue in prayer, Zachariah is plunged into a deep mystical ex-perience. Luke's mention of the angel Gabriel (1:19) is regarded as a signal that the new age is about to begin? The same angel had commanded the prophet Daniel to tell his people that their exile and oppression were at an end and that a messenger would come to herald the advent of a new era (Book of Daniel, chapters 9 and 10). By drawing attention to several pa~al-lels between Zachariah's experience and that of Daniel (such as the evening hour of prayer and their being left speechless6) Luke implies that God is about to fulfill his promise and begin that new era. With this incident in the Temple Luke also symbolizes the coming to an end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New. This. of course, will be developed and made increasingly more clear as the narrative unfolds. For the moment, this is the hour for which the whole world has been waiting. God is about to enter into the history of man. By closing the prologue with a reference to the Temple (l:.22).Luke esta~blishes a pattern for his symbolizatio.n of a life-death-resurrection t.heme which will be repeated throughout the gospel-story at the end of each significant dramatic section. Use of Imagination in Prayer A studious reading of the Gospel is important to avoid mere flights of 4Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. ed. Gerhard Kittel; trans. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. E~rdmans Publishing Co. 1965). For "hieros" see 111. pp. 221-247. For "naos". IV, pp. 880-890. (Subsequent references m these notes will be to Kittel.)~Klaus Baltzer, in "The Meaning of the Temple in the Lukan Writings.'" Harvard Theolog!cal Review (Misso~ula. Montana: Scholars' Press) 58 (1965), pp. 263-277. regards Luke's use of terms for the Temple as "inconsistent." 5JBC, p. 121, #44:27. 6JBC, p. 121, 4#44:28. Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979 / 4 fancy, and the use of a good commentary can be of invaluable help. But,a prayerful approach through the use of imagination and other faculties will prevent the opposite errbr of regarding the Gospel as a mere intellectual exercise book. St. Luke's Gospel is a prayer book of the highest merit. But we must bring to it our whole selves as human beings; all our senses and faculties must be employed in our praying. The passage designated as the. end of Act II (2:41-52) is an exemplary unit of action and dialogue which can be momentarily lifted out of the context and used for meditation which involves our whole person in it. ThE opening sentences immediately direct our thought and imagination to Jerusalem and draw us into the journey of Jesus. "Every year" and "Passover" should be equally significant words to us as they were for the people of Jesus' own day. The first activity"is in the world of human, every-day affairs and should alert us to the fact that prayer begins and take~ place in the world of events, circumstances, and persons in the course of our daily lives. Hence, we take our place among friends and acquaintances, with Jesus and Mary. We, too, are going up to Jerusalem, to the Temple, for a joyful celebration. The text, of course, leaves the details of the visit to our imagination. Our prayer at this level might valuably draw us to dwell upon 'what happened at the Temple when Jesus celebrated his entry into adulthood. However,~that can only be surmised; we should not allow our-selves to be sidetracked by it. The text urges us to follow more closely; it puts the emphasis on what occurs after the ceremony of Jesus' Bar Mitz-vah, The return trip to Nazareth is usual and all that might be expected after aj0yful visit to the Temple. Again, it is the world of everyday experience. Jesus was not with his parents, but "they assumed he was with the cara-van." They were conscientious parents and looked for him. No panic is suggested in their action: "They sought him among acquaintances and relations." Where else would one look for a normal twelve-year-old boy who had just experienced the excitement of receptiofi into adulthood? However, "when they failed to find him," anxieties

Issue 36.1 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Braiding, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright @ 1977 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: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U,S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor January 1977 Volume 36 Number I Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW I~OB R~L~GXOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to B~vi~w Foa R~LmlOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. Review for Religious Volume 36, 1977 Editorial Offices 539 North Grand Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63103 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read, Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Review ]or Religious is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November 6n the fifteenth cff 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 Microfilm; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright (~) 1977 by Review ]or Religious. Sand Traps for Renewal Programs Francis Blouin, F.I.C. Brother Blouin, who has written for REVIEW FOR RELI~31OUS before, has recently completed six years of service as provincial, an,d is presently enrolled in a full-time doctoral program in theology at Fordham University. He resides at 93 Park Terra'ce West; New York, NY 10034. ' For more than. ten years now, most of the communities of religious in the United States have made valiant efforts to be attentive to the injunction of Vatican II, Renew Thyself. Considerable energy, valuable time, impressive sums of~ money were expended in a host of activities and programs, in seminars and renewal sessions, in chapters and mini-chapters, in experi-mentation and adaptation. Many congregations which have .not initiated . renewal programs are either dead or dying; however, those that are involved in renewal efforts are not necessarily alive and well. Though it is impossible accurately to evaluate this determined effort, I would like to reflect in the following pages upon some Of the factors which might,have vit.iated the .dreams and the programs so optin~istically conceived and so enthusiastically endorsed. This exercise might ,appear quite negative, but it can help direct our thinking-in an area of renewal that might offer more chance of success, or discover a few,.of the reasons why some pro-grams have produced disappointing results. During the past six years, I was involved in a number oLrenewal pro-grams and was an active member of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. The following reflections are based in great part upon my. personal observations and my prolonged discussions with superiors, of men.~ My"con-tacts with~religious superiors of women lead me to surmise that the results of their renewal activities are quite similar to those of men religious, though somewhat more encouraging. 4 / Review [or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 I would classify the sources of tension and frustration in the renewal effort under six headings: 1) Con,versiOn o] Heart; 2)Interiorization of Re-ligious Values; 3) Psychological Factors; 4) American Success Ethic; 5) Influence of Mass Media; and 6) Fragmentation. Conversion of Heart I am absolutely convinced that the most significant factor for the failure of many renewal programs was the fact that too often renewal efforts were based upon external programs which did not lead to a true conversion of heart. We cannot convert ourselves, let alone convert others. Yet we know that the Lord is ever calling us to greater love and fidelity and asking us only to remove the obstacles to his presence. In some religious communities in the 50's and 60's, community prayers were too often a ritualization of set formulas rather than an encounter with the living God present to all life. The prayer life of many religious was based upon an inadequate spiritual formation without sound scriptural basis. Furthermore, most religious were encouraged to develop a certain discretion, even circumspection, in speaking of their God-experiences. Spon-taneous shared prayer was seen as a threat to spiritual modesty and some even hesitated to speak freely and openly to their spiritual director (when they had one!). Thus, prayer was often considered a community activity rather tha~n a personal encounter with the Lord. Unfortunately, some of the religious who were most faithful and regular to the traditional forms of prayer were adamant against any change or adaptation and thus created a negative tension, while some of the most dedi-cated individuals openly questioned the need for prayer, further discrediting the God-encounter. In the 60's, when many communities granted religious considerable freedom in their prayer life, many religious simply ceased to pray rather than replace community prayers by longer, more intense periods of individ-ual prayer. Pragmatic, work-oriented Americans had been educated to recite prayers, to chant psalms, to meditate cognitively, but had been given woefully little education in contemplation and little incentive to be open to this vital form of prayer. They had been so active doing that they forgot that prayer was: .waiting, receiving, listening, centering, contemplating, creating a void, being open to the small still voice within, being present to a Presence. While they scurried from program to program and from .activity to activity, they'forgot to sit attentively and listen to the Lord speaking within. Man~y communities ~are now re-directing their renewal efforts, and it is this new orientation to a more contemplative stance that is giving new reason for hope. Communities that are still discussing "whether one should pray if one doesn,t feel like praying" or "whether one's work is one's prayer" are not in process of renewal: they are dying. Sand Traps Ior Renewal Programs Commuriities lose their raison d'etre unless they are gatherings of men and women of God whose lives find their meaning and sustenance in a personal relationship to Christ and provide moments and occasions of con-version of heart, an ever-to-be-renewed process. .,~'Without' personal prayer, a deeply religious life ~simply cannot develop, because no one can be a witness to Christ unless he knows Christ personally.'" ~ lnteriorization of Values A value has little influence upon a person unless it has been interior-ized: adequately formulated, clearly understood, generously accepted. Yet it is the unusual person who has interiorized his true values early in life. A significant number of religious entered religious life at an early age and quite often during their initial formation period, they were asked to conform to certain standards or to adopt definite procedures, more through trust in a person or a Rule, than through a reasoned, logical.process. "They were not to question why, they were to do ~and die." There are no shortcuts to an authentic religious formation which is a life-long process of growth in the understanding, acceptance and love of gospel values. Values cannot be legislated or decreed. They must be freely accepted after a long process of reflection and contemplation. It-is evident that this was not always done. Some religiou.s were willing to conform to set values when the external structures and the social climate supported and re-enforced these values/but they later discarded the same values be-cause these had not been properly interiorized. Long-established practices were~ often quickly abandoned because no rationale had been given for them. To try tO return to a system of regimentation.would be futile. "Religious life.with its demands of chastity, poverty, obedience and perpetual commit-ment can only be understood by a fully adult person . There are certain things, such as the need for affection, the security of a home, certain en-gagements and above all an affirmed need for independence, which a person cannot renounce too soon without doing himself harm., for a minimum of human maturity.is necessary to enter the religious life, and this minimum . may be long in coming,''~ Religious must .!iv, e in authentic freedom, the gospel freedom which is "not the power to choose between several possibilities, but is the reasoned ¯ decision, springing from the person's inmost depths, which causes him to follow at any price tl~e course that appears to be God's will. It is not a question of 'do as you please,' 'do what appeals to you,' but 'do coura-geously what you know your God has called you to accomplish.' This free-dom is linked with the inner power that enables each person to fulfill himself 1Ladislas Orsy, Open to the Spirit, p. 245. . ~Ren6 Voillaume, Con]erence o! Religious Superiors, Feb. 1970. 6 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 in terms of his truth, by. making a choice that is absolutely Consistent with his fundamental calling.''3 . This is the freedom that will give religious the desire, the conviction and the strength to live the gospel values of simplii:ity, poverty, celibacy for the kingdom, a life of contemplation and service, a life that is attentive to the call of the Spirit. The example of all revolutions certainly must have taught us that free-dom has to be learned. Tillard states that "it is essential to ~ve all members of the group an education in freedom; that is the first task of authority, the initial effort that 'precedes its fruitful ~xercise.''4 If values must be interiorized through a long reflective process, then it is useless for ~religious communities to attempt~ renewal through legislative reforms or by the imposition of new structures: The most important role of superiors is to establish in the community conditions that will. permit a true conversion o/. heart, encourage religious to~ deepen and strengthen their personal convictions, and promote~an atmosphere that will facilitate a true encounter,with each other and with the Lord. Psychological Factors ~ ~ During the p.ast ten years,~religious educators have generally stressed the values of openness, flexibility, adaptability, creativity, confidence, per-sonalism, sharing; and the initial formation programs areofrequently offered in one's normal milieu," This is quite different from the policies of the early 60's when Cardinal Suenens could state that the Church kvas in a period of "immobilism"; religious communities were strongly affected by this attitude. Religious educators stressed the values of conformity, perm.anence, stability, humility, obedience, self-denial; and religious formation was re-enforced by long periods of isolation from normal environments. Religious perfection was often considered conformity to set norms as proposed by the rules of the order. This radical change of attitude towards religious :formation is one bf the most significant develoPments of the past fifteen years. Formatioia is now seen ~is an on-going' process of growth,~ an ever-to-be-renewed activity e~nd-ing only at death. To have ceased to grow is already to have died. However, it was totally unrealistic and overly optimistic Co presume that religious who spent long years of their lives in a different value System, who were rarely e~ncouraged to share deeply, who were isolated at an early age, who were~often the victims of poor psychological practices, would b~ able to 'assume this radically different stance withrut deep anguish. That.many leaders greatly underestimated the difficulty of this adaptat~on and this over-sight partly explains the confusion and disarray of many renewal prograrias. :'I. M. R. Tillard, A Gospel Path, p. 73, Lumen Vitae Press, Belgium 1975. 4j. M. R. Tillard, ibid., p. 199. Sand Traps [or Renewal Programs / 7 It is a .credit to religious that so many were able to adapt and re-orient their thinking without major difficulty. I. would dare say that mhny religious communities are now plagued by the after-effects of .unsound and poorly adapted initial formation programs. I also believe this partly explains'why so many religious have a poor self-concept, have difficulty sharing at a value level, do not easily adjust to new situations. They were educated to stability and permanence when "one must now accept the. radicality of change, change that must go°right down to the roots . Change must be built into our systems so that they incor-porate flexibility and adaptability . The asceticism of today is to accept the agony of change. That's the discipline. It means study, dialogue, meet-ings, discussions, until you're sick of them. When you're sick, get healed and go back to the discussions.":' Religious communities should be. composed of individuals whom the love of Christ has so moved that they have given themselves 'totally to his cause and have united to transmit this love to others. They share their faith and their~ love and together build a community of believers, a com-munity of Christians. This can only be achieved in a real dialogue of love. American Success Ethic "There is nothing that succeeds .like succ6ss," and in the,50's and 60's, American religious wet6 "winners." They were highly respected, they en-joyed a privileged pbsition~in~ the ~urch and in society, their fiaembershilJ was increasing, and they .directed large, well-reputed institutions. They wanted to succeed, and they worked long hours for causes th~y esteemed yery highly. Too often however, they gauged their success according to human criteria rather than gospel values or by the authenticity of their witness to the Good News. One does not become a religious for human motives, but there is no doubt that success, respect, prestige, influence were definitemorale boosters for. pragmatic Americans. Because of past recognition and achievements it is now more difficult for religious to. accept rejection, failure; disalSproval, scorn. When. their apostolic work is questioned, their institutions closed, their values rejected; their ranks depleted, they become disheartened unless they remember that they _are simply being treated like the Mhster who was scorned, rejected, crucified. ~ Religious were so closely tied to their institutions that at times they confused means with ends, forgetting that they were first and foremost messe0gers of the gospel rather than professional workers. "To the degree to which an end is spiritual, the means employed to attain it are always inadequate. In fact, when speaking of a spiritual end, it is preferable today ~Fr. Cassian Yuhaus, C.P., Con[erence to Religious, Winslow, ME, Nov. 1975. Review [or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 to avoid the word 'means,' for to our contemporaries the word evokes an action which obtains exactly the effect envisaged,''6 This period of confusion and turm6il may become for religious a period of great creative tension. Though their lives and their activities a~re in-carnated in a specific work-situation which may project few signs of human success, their gospel vision will enlighten an apparently hopeless situation and give their religious consecration its full depth of meaning. "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest . Anyone who loves his life will lose it; anyone who hates his life in this world° will keep it for eternal life" (Jn 12:24-26). Now more than ever it is necessary, for religious to ponder the gospel message of failure, of inefficiency, of rejection, of death,,as well as the com-plementary message of success through failure, of life through death, of resurrection through annihilation. Father Pasquier states that: "It is impossible to bein communion with another before we have experienced our own poverty and our limitations. The quality of presence to others entails a risk of rejection. It is a risk that religious are called to take and from which they should not be sheltered by their vows.''7 Religious are now in the privileged position of experiencing their poverty and their weakness and are thus better able to commune with the weak and the rejected as well as with the strong and the respected. Influence of Mass Media Whether religious realize it or not, many have been gravely affected by the historical process of secularization. Some religious are now totally in-serted into a professional work-environment and they may have accepted almost imperceptibly many of the secular values so effectively propagated by mass media. The message of self-and~sense-gratification is in direct op-position to the gospel imperatives. , Self-denial and personal ascesis are in such ill repute that some religious have unwittingly accepted many of the pseudo-values and prevalent sophisms adroitly disseminated by our sense-sated society. It is never a pleasant prospect to accept experientially the reality of Christ's call to self-denial, but to speak seriously of renewal in religious life and ignore the injunction~ "Let him who wants to be my disciple, deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mt 16:24), is nonsense. Very often religious simply do not realize the extent to which they are C'R6gamey, L'exigence de Dieu, p. 86, Quoted by Voillaume, Conlergnce o] Religious Superiors. :Jacques Pasquier, O.M.I., "Conference~on Spiritual Leadership." Sand Traps ]or Renewal Programs / 9 victimized by .mass media or subtly controlled by their professional en-vironment. Religious strove so strenuously for so many years to be fully integrated into the American culture that they forgot that by their religious consecration they had vowed to be "counter cultural." Some have suc-cumbed to the temptation of living a progressively more affiuent life-style or have been blinded by the glitter of wealth and the prestige of social status. It is useless to speak of renewal until the stark gospel message can once more be heard over the din of television commercials. "Where supposedly committed persons~seem to enjoy all the good things of life, the witness value is destroyed and not unusually, the whole person's sense of vocation along with it. He has fallen into the mistake not simply of imagining that things and experiences can make him happy, but that fulfillment or happi-ness itself can be directly sought.''8 Ordinary professional and religious obligations ,are certainly the main ingredients of a life of ascesis, yet Father George Maloney, S.J., in a course on prayer at Fordham University dared state: "It is impossible to make significant progress in prayer unless one is willing to practice ascesis with aggression." He was simply echoing St. John of the Cross: "Contemplation or detachment or poverty of spirit . are almost one and the same thing.'"' A life of authentic poverty, of generous service to others, of sensitivity to the Spirit, of loving celibate commitment, of creative solitude, of constant attentiveness to the Lord, are not possible unless one willingly accepts" the Lord,s clear challenge to self-denial. Many renewal efforts have come to naught because religious refused to pay the price. ~ Fragmentation I previously mentioned that' some of the values that are now cherished by certain religious communities are those of flexibility, openness, adapiabil-ity, creativity, personalism and I also indicated that most communities now permit a wide choice of apostolic works: All these positive values are to be respected, but if they are taken separately without consideration for stabil-ity,: permanence and community commitments, they can lead to a fragmenta: tion of the group, a qoss of identity with the community and an impover-ishment of the sense of missi6n. For a religious, "to do his own thing" or "to go his own way" may be an, acceptable temporary solution to a difficult problem, but it will rarely be satisfactory in the long run. Many communities have a number of religious "on the fringe" members who are hardly associated with the larger group either in body or in spirit. If this trend becomes .generalized, it could be disastrous for the communities. SRichard Jo Kropf, "Radical Commitment and Fulfillment," Spiritual LiJe, Summer, 1975, p. 91. ~'John of the Cross, Dark Night, I, Chap. 4, par. 1. Review [or Religious, V~lume 36, 1977/1 "A community cannot exist long in the Church, unless it is dedicated to giving collectively.''1° Furthermore, it. is not sufficient for individuals to 6e renewed. The whole community, or a significant number of members, must make deter-mined efforts at renewal. 'In every community there are a number of re-ligious who have: come alive during the past years, but sometimes these members are stymied or frustrated by a lethargic~ apathetic group. "For a revitalization to occur, transformation must go beyond the personal. It must penetrate and reshape the. social reality of the community. If the cen-tering of personal-transformation is ekperienced~:by a number ~of people within the community, then a network can emergd through which that trans-forming experience is '~ustained, supported, enhanced. As the sharing of transformational experiences and awareness deepens and intensifies, there emerges a group with a shared vision and codamitment~.~This group becomes a revitalizing force dedicated to building more rewarding community ex-periences and recovering the gripping attraction to living according to Christ's conditions.for .evangelical discipleship.'''1 When this revitalization occurs to'a significant number of people in the cbmmunity great things~ begin to happen, a new life pulsates through the group and a spirit (Spirit?) comes alive in the community._ Possible Orientations It is impossible' for me to indicate what could or should be done by each community to promote a true renewal. Let me simply raise a few ques-tions that may suggest some possible orientations in groups seriously dedi-cated to renewal. l. Are the difficulties~experienced by many communities in organizing community discussions that are a true faith-sharing,due mainly to psy-chological factors, poor knowledge of group dynamics, or weak religious motivations? What .specific steps have been. taken by your community to facilitate this meaningful exchange? 2. Is it POssible for ygu, for your community to live with insecurity, contradiction, rejection? IS this contrary to the gospel teaching? 3. How does your co,,mmunity determine the priorities of personnel, of time~, of resources in selecting an apostolic work? If apostolic choice is left to the individual, what efforts are made to determine a priority .of ac-tivity? 4. Has your community ever tried to gauge the ~impact of mass media upon community values? How many religious in your community are slaves to the "one-eyed monster?" a~°Ladislas Orsy, "Talk, given to Conference of Major JSuperiors,:' America, August 8, 1970, p. 59. ~Lawrence Cada and Raymond iZitz, REVIEW FOa REL~OOS, Vol. 34, No. 5, p. 716. Sand Traps ]or Renewal Programs 5. Is contemplation a common and regular form of individual prayer in your community? What is the attitude of the community towards this form of prayer? ~ 6. Do you define yourselves in terms of your work or in terms of your status? What conclusions can you draw from this? 7. What percentage of the religious in your communities have partici-pated in some more prolonged renewal program within the last three years? five years? eight .years? What does this indicate about your group? 8. Is the life-style in your communities consonant with a religious com-mitment to poverty? In what way? 9. "Christian leadership is accomplished only through service. This service requires the willingness to enter into a situation with all the human vulnerabilities a man has to share with his fellowman" (Henri Nouwen, Wounded Healer, p. 77). Does this quotation quite adequately portray, your district and com-munity leaders? 10. What is the community attitude towards tension? When is it a positive sig9 of growth? When is it a negative factor in the community? 11'. Do community discussions occasionally lead to specific decisions which can be implemented? Why is it so difficult to reach a consensus when specific proposals are suggested? 12. Are religious in your community personally affected by the plight of the 450,000,000 people in the world who are on a starvation diet? What specific activities have been taken by your community to alleviate this situa-tion? 13. Do religious in your community have the freedom to challenge each other to fidelity to sacred promises publicly expressed? If not, what does this indicate? - 14. Do your communities have an effective way of evaluating~the initial formation program? 15. Are long-term institutional: commitments still possible or desirable? How are these to be implemented if everyone is free to choose his own apostolic activity? , Let me conclude by a quo.tation from Father Ladislas Orsy: "Since re-ligious life is the existential gift of God, any question about the future of religious life is a question about the future ~of God's abundance in the Church, about the dynamic action of the Holy Spirit among his pebple-- thus it is not, subject ~to human power. If God gave this gift in the past, he is not likely to deprive, his Churcl~ of it in,the future.''~ V-'Ladislas Orsy, op. cit., p. 21. Seven-hundred-and-fifty years later: Reflections on the Franciscan Charism Eric Doyle, O.F.M. Fr. Eric Doyle, O.F.M. teaches at the Franciscan Study Centre, Canterbury CT2 7NA. Kent, England. This year marks the seven-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi at the Portiuncula on October 3rd 1226. The sources for his life record that larks gathered on the roof above where he lay dying and sang sweetly as he welcomed Sister Death into his life? No one would deny that on that Saturday evening in 1226 a most holy man, a truly human man and a faithful disciple of Christ Crucified passed over to God. And the earth was made the poorer for that passing. Already in various parts of the world there have been courses of lec-tures and celebrations to mark the event and there will be quite a few more before the year has ended. Eulogies will be made in many languages and no doubt St: Francis from his place in heaven will hear himself hailed again as "Patron of the Environment" and "Patron of Ecumenism." The anniversary provides a good opportunity for a Franciscan to reflect on the order's efforts to come to terms with the demands to rediscover its own charism made over the last decade or so since the Second Vatican Council.-Though my ~primary concern is the First Order of Franciscans, and specifically the Order of Friars Minor, I think these reflections will have some relevance for the Conventuals, the Capuchins and the various branches of the Third Order Regular as well, for it is the same charism aSee "Legend of Perugia," 110, in St. Francis o] Assisi. Writings attd Early Biogra-pities, English Omnibus Edition o] the Sources ]or the Li]e o] St. Francis. Ed. by Marion A. Habig. Franciscan Herald Press, ChiCago 1973, 1085-1086. ~ . , Reflections on the Franciscan .Ch~arism / 13 which ultimately inspires them all. These reflections may have even wider relevance. Orders which lead the so-called "mixed" life share many of the same problems in facing the demands of renewal. The Question of Poverty These pages contain no detailed analysis of poverty. In the case of an order which has been so intimately assdciated wiih the profession of pov-erty, this calls for a word of explanation. For the Franciscan Order the question of poverty is ambiguous. It can be a very complicated question and it can be a very simple question, according to the approach one takes to it. For the order as it is de facto organized in the world, poverty is a complicated question. It cannot be examined or discussed in any realistic or satisfactory way if it is isolated from the findings of biblical exegesis and the understanding of poverty in the bible, from a study of all the ele-ments contained in the idea of evangelical perfection which relati;cize the place of poverty in the life and writings of St. Francis, 'from the question about the extent and effectiveness of apostolic activity; and from the de-mands made on the order to find resources to cope with and provide for the numbers who seek to enter it. No one would deny that the Franciscan Order should bE involved in work among the poor. At the theoretical level this is almost a truism for. the Franciscan. At the practical level, however, it is no easy matter to de-termine who precisely are the poor today. While the term certainly covers the homeless, th'e destitute, the oppressed and the exploited, it may also be used to describe countless millions all over the globe who ar~ spiritually impoverished. But even when we have arrived at a moderat~ely sa!isfactory answer to the question': Who are the poor?, we find at once that there are required no mean resources, for example, to have a friar trained to be a ~ompetent and reliable apostle among social outcasts. For the order to providd re-sources to train a friar as a professional social worker is a deeply Christian work and a tremendous act of service to the world. : On the°'~other hand, the question of poverty can be very simple. If a person reads the accounts of the early history of the order and is convinced that the poverty which St. Francis and his first companions embraced is the unique charism of the order, and feels assured that he is called to do the. same, then that person must go and do likewise and thus institute a new branch of the Franciscan Order in the world. The same obligation, it seems, would rest upon a professed friar who became conscientiously convinced that the order has sacrificed an essential element of its charism and mission to the wrrld in abandoning the poverty of St. Francis. He would be bound quite simply to leave the order as it is and to establish another form of the Franciscan life. It would be pointless to ask him where he would go, because, from that moment onward, total ' 14 / Review [or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 abandonment to divine providence would be of the structure of his voca-tion, and he would literally have to wait for something to turn up. What he certainly cotild not do would be to stay in the order as it is now consti-tuted, passing away his days in criticizing it and growing old in bitterness, while living by its resources and in its security. Perhaps at the very outset we ought to familiarize with these difficulties all who seek to join us. They would then be able to make such considerations a conscious factor in their decision to join us or not. We should also make sure they know by experi-ence that the gospel spirit of St. Francis does live on in the order, despite the fact that his povertyis not observed. I do not wish to suggest that the order as it now finds itself can'simply ignore the question of poverty. In .fact it has not ignored it over the last decade. There have been many attempts to come to terms with it at the practical level. But it remains problematic.~ However, the issue cannot be discussed in these pages, nor can a.ny assessment be made of the at-temp~ s to come to terms with poverty, firstly, because it would take far too lorlg and, secondly, because while it isundoubtedly an important issue, it is not, in our opinion, the most important issue for the life and mission of the order. There are more vital matters to be considered to which we now shall turn: Rediscovery of the Origi'nal Charism, The Second Vatican Council called all religious to rediscover the par-ticular charism given to the Church in the grace of their origins and to renew and adapt their life according to its form. By a proces.s of discernr ment in the light of the gospel and according to the signs of the times-- that is by Word and wprld--religious were required to define the specific ahd permanent acquisition made by the Church in the life and work of their particular order. ~Th, e FranCiscan~ Order, like every order, belongs to the Church. Only in virtue of its ecclesial character can it be understood in its specific genius at any moment of its higtory and as a renewal movement at its origins. Apa.rt from the Church, the Franciscan Order is ultimately meaningless. St. Francis himself was not only a man of the gospel, but also and by that very'fact, he was a man of the Church. Therefore, the attempt by any order 6r congregation to discover its own particular grace is not anexercise in self-analysis, but a profound act of service to the Church. The call to rediscover the original charism ~raised ~t once a question for the Franciscan Order which .has not yet been satisfactorily treated. The question is this: Is the original charism to be sought uniquely in the period between the oi'al approval of the Rule by Pope Innocent and the death '-'We have touched onosome, of these problems in "Reflections on the Theology of Religiou.s Life," REv~:w FOR RELICIOOS, vol. 32, n. 6. Nov. 1973, 1254-1256. Reflections on the Franciscan Charism of St. Francis (1209-1226), or is' it to be sought throughout the first cen-tury of the order's history from the approval of the Rule to the death of John Duns Scotus (1209-1308)? This is not just an academic question, but a matter of some concern to any Franciscan conscious of the profound contribution made to the development of Christology by the Franciscan School, in the first century of its history, The order has beew far :to6 pre-occupied in its renewal program with the period up to the death of St. Francis. This is an unjust .and uncritical restriction of the content of tile Franciscan charism. Of course, the call to rediscover the charism required of us to return to St. Francis himself. About that there is no argument. The complaint being made here concerns the well-nigh exclusive preoccupa-tion with the early years of the order's life, which drasticallyotruncates the order's charism. Many reasons might be suggested to explain this restrictive version of the charism. I wish to single out,the one which bears most responsibility. It is romanticism. Romanticism has exercised far too much influence on judgments of the order's history since the death of St. Francis. It has given the order a bad conscience, especially over the last eighty years or so since Paul Sabatier's views became common patrimony? What we can describe in general terms as the "Fioretti-picture" of the early years, has exercised inordinate influence over the general public and over the scholarly fraternity, particularly its non-Catholic representatives. We need to be on our guard in the presence of romantics. Their understandable sadness at the way the order developed can have the most extraordinary effe°ct on how they .read the sources . ,~,J When the, Franciscan Order, for example, in late fourteenth-century English history is described.by students of Wyclif, Chaucer and Langlan~d ,as "decadent" I have often concluded that we really ought to read in many cases no~t "decadent" but,"different"--that is, different from the little band of beggars which landed at Dover in September 1224 and different from the early days at Rivo Torto. Disapl;ginted and sad romantics are a dangerous breed. The "romantic myth" has had profound .though subconscious influence on the order, It has subtly brainwashed~ us into believing that if only we could repeat as " closely as ,possible the form of life which .S~. Francis led, if only we could do away with the ~whole intellectual edifice which the orde{ constructed for itself, then we would be true and authentic Franciscans. From these remarks it will be clear where we intend to place the locus of the original Franciscan charism. According to our view the original charism is to be sou.ght in the period~from the approval of the Rule in 1209 up to the death of John Duns Scotus in 1308. To return to the sources means, for a Franciscan, a return to the first hundred years of develop- :~Vie de S. Francois d'Assise, l~dition drfinitive (Paris: Fischbache'r, 1931). 16 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 ment in doctrine and life. The fullness of the charism is to be found there and not exclusively in the life and teaching of St. Francis. It is quite legiti-mate, in function of. this, to consider the Franciscan charism under two headings: form of life and Christological doctrine. The first concerns the evolution of the order's life in the thirteenth century. The second concerns the development of the Christology in the Franciscan School in the thir-teenth century. The results of historical analysis show that the form of Franciscan life changed radically from what St. Francis had intended and that the Christological doctrine of the Franciscan School remained totally faithful to his original Christocentric inspiration. The ,Form of Life The foundation of the Franciscan Order in the thirteenth century marked a new stage in the history of the religious life in the Wefftern Church. While it. is clearly the case that St. Francis intended to establish an order in the commonly accepted sense of that term, it is equally clear that he was conscious of its radical newness. According to his intention, the order was to be a brotherhood of itinerant apostles--whether priests or manual workers, or, as we should say today, professional men--who would go into a society that was still Christian and also go out to foreign lands among the ~Saracens, to spread the gospel of peace and reconciliation by the ministry of the Word and the apostolate of presence. For a period of time that intention was realized. Whenever the friars met they showed that they were members of the same fraternity and they offered one another mutual help and support. At the end of their day's work they returned to their small communities to be refreshed bodily and spiritually, to pray together, and to draw strength from their fraternal cele-bration of the Eucharist. Thus renewed and restored, they were able to return to their mission of sharing with others what they themselves had re-ceived so generously from being together in the "local church" 6f their own community. As is universally ~recognized, this did not remain for very long the pat-tern of life of the order. Due to internal tensions and from ~xternal pres-sures from the demands of the apostolate at the time and from the wishes ~f the Holy See, the order was compelled to take a line of development which° radically changed what St. Francis had intended and what the original form of life had been. There are those who look upon this as a Salutary de-velopment, precisely because it took place ultimately under the authority and guidance of the Holy See. While this attitude demands sor~e respect, it also creates difficulties in ,deciding which has priority between the poles of institution and charism. In responding to the call to rediscover its original charism (and it was the institution which gave the call) the Franciscan Order found itself in a slightly embarrassing position. As it retracted the steps of its development Re[tebtions on the Franciscan Charism / 17 through a very checkered history back to the thirteenth centur);, it discovered that.~it was largely due to the institution that an important element in its charism :h~id been lost. The loose structure of its form of life had been heavily instituti6nalized and the fraternity had been "monastified" and "hierarch-ized" almost beyond recognition. Institution and Charism From the outset there has been tension in the Franciscan Order between charism and institution. St. Francis himself, who is always proclaimed as a most obedient son of the Holy Roman Church, managed to get his own way with the wily and astute Pope Innocent IIl. One wonders what would have been the outcome if the pope had refused him permission to live his very distinctive interpretation of the Gospel. Perhaps he would have be-come a hermit. To the end of his days, in any case, he remained convinced that what he desired his order to be was completely at one with the will of God." The turn of events in the thirteenth century gaye the order a very dif-ferent character from that which it possessed in its early decades. The con-stitutional development from the late 1230's up to the Chapter of Nar-bonne in 1260 is the history of a gradual "monastification" of the order. This cannot in justice be laid exclusively at the door of St. Bonaventure, for the winds of change had already been blowing for nearly thirty years when he was elected Minister General." By the end of the thirteenth century the order had been substantially altered, due in 'large measure to the institu-tional Church, for what were undoubtedly the most laudable ends. Of course, there were also internal reasons for the change and it would '1See Lawrence C. Landini, The Causes o] the Clericalization O[ the Order o] Friars Minor 1209-1260 in the Light o] Early Franciscan Sottrces (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1968). We have given rio consideration here to St. Bonaventure's theology of history nor to his eschatological interpretation of the life of St. Francis. These highly developed aspects of St. Bonaventure's thought played no significant part in the order's self-understanding and program of renewal during the past decade. For this reason we have not touched on his solution of the "Franciscan Question." This omission, therefore, should not be understood as a value judgment. Our concern is ¯ with those aspects of the original charism which have been re-discovered and, with varying degrees of success, reduced to practice, and with other aspects which deserve further consideration, which ought to influence the o.rder's continuing renewal. St. Bonaventure's eschatological interpretation of St. Francis is, in our view, the most satisfactory solution to the problem about th~ order's relation to St. Francis. It is, however, not only, satisfactory; it is" also fully consonant with the way the early sources present him and the ~rimitive community. It has most relevance in any dis-cussion of Franciscan poverty, for it raises the question not only whether the order can or cannot observe St. Francis' poverty, but whether or not it is even meant to observe it. To assess St. Bonaventure's place in the development of the order in the thii'teenth century, without taking into serious account his theology, of history and his eschatological interpretation of St. Francis, leads to profound misunderstanding of that development and commits injustice against St. Bonaventure. Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 be unhistorical to place responsibility entirely on the Holy See.-It is no idle speculation to ponder what the order might have been, had it not experi-enced the process of clericalization in the thirteenth century and had Friar Elias not alienated so many while he held office. But in the final analysis, one is compelled to conclude that the Holy See can hardly be :said to havi~ done all in its power to preserve what St. Francis so plainly intended. This was the result of tension between charism and institution. The Church ha~s known this tension in varying degrees of intensity ever since the New Testament, and perhaps." never so acutely as over the last two decades. Tension arises precisely because both institution and charism proceed from the grace of God. Charisms are given to the Church for the sake of the institution; the prophet is alw~iys sent to renew the institution. The sad story is, however, that so often the institution resists the charism because'it threatens the established order; it leads out into the unknown and the uncharted. The temptation for the institution is always to neutralize a charism by institutionalizing it. This is not done maliciously or even con-sciously. But it is done and it is done effectively. The intentions of St. Francis could not easily be categorized. They were not neat and tidy, cut and dried, but on the contrary, like himself; paradoxical and a fraction complicated. I have never believed that this passionate, romantic and ambitious young man was ever as simple as some of his biographers have inade out. Of course, he did not have a legal mind; he had the soul of a poet'sand poets are notoriously difficult to pin down. In his own head ior perhaps better: in his own heart) everything was crystal clear: he. wanted to 'live the life of the gospel according to the form that God 'had revealed to him. One can sympathize with Rome, ithei:efore,t whose genius has always been principa!ly of the legal order. How does one categorize an intention that expresses itself in a Rule for itinerant apostles which is identified with the gospel, and in another for hermitages that al-lows for a change of rbles between Martha and Mary according to what seems best for the moment? Aspects of the Charism Rediscovered In going back to its original inspiration, the Franciscan Order knew in its heart that,~it simply could not recreate in our time the full intentions of St. Francis. However, it has mandged to reintroduce some of the essential elements of his charism, and what it has done is a sple6did achievement. 1. Over the last ten years the order has "de-monastified" itself and restored in principle its truly fraternal character. It is now more obviously an Order of Friars, some of whom are engaged in priestly work, others in manual work inside'~and outside the order and still others who Are engaged in professional work. There is a deep consciousness of what it means e~xistenti~ally to be a Franciscan friar. This consciousness is growing alsace and it will ultimately be in complete possession. Reflections on the Franciscan Charism / 19 2. There has also been a gradual "de-clericalization" of the order. This does not necessarily mean a reduction in the number of priests (though this will happen, I think) nor does it imply, nor should it ever have im-plied, an anti-priest complex, The order was unfortunately plagued .with that complex for a period after the Council. To be a priest does not neces-sarily mean to be clericalized. There are many young priests, middle-aged p~iests and elderly priests in the order who are most certainly not clerical-ized; but then there are some who .are. Clericalization creates an elite and a,:caste system. There is no true place for an elite or a caste system in the Franciscan Order, nor, for that mat~.er, .in the Church at large. The Church knows no hierarchy of persons but acknowledges only a hierarchy of func-tions and at its pinnacle is service. Moreover, authority has been restored to its original role, according to the understanding of St. Francis, as a ministry and service to the friars. This has had its influence also on the gradual abolition of hierarchical structures from the order. 3. Experiments of living the Franciscan life in small communities have proved in the main successful and have undoubtedly enriched the quality of community life. This has been one of the most significant contributions of all our efforts to restore the fraternal character of the order. There have been losses, excesses and mistakes. But these are negligible when compared with the gains, the openness and the insights we have harvested. Franciscan life in small communities or groups has. proved to be far more demanding on the individual friar than it ever ~was in the heavily structured .forms of life we knew for so long, Our experiences have taught us that life in small communities requires a high degree of human and Christian maturity: For life thus lived is a creative process, not a structured, unchanging pattern into which one is fitted. 4. Many of these small communities have been established in the center of towns and cities where the realities of modern living, its pressures and demands may be witnessed and experienced at first hand. A number of friars in such communities have taken up ~work in social organizations often not' instituted by the Church nor directly connected with it. These developments have given concrete expression to other aspects of the original charism and primitive form of life. Unlike~the older monastic orders, the friars settled in the heart~ iof towns and cities where they were brought face to face with the social evils of the time: As a result, the Franciscans were closely con-nected with the foundation of medieval guilds, the ,distant0ancestors of the modern trade unions. They supported the organization of workers into guilds. which protected the legitimate material interests of the workers and fur-thered their spiritual lives. Some of the charters of these guil~ls were drawn up in the refectories of the friars or on the altars of their churches. Later on, in the fifteenth century, the iniquities of t~sury led the Franciscans to establish the Montes Pietatis--an institution which guarantees them a place for all time in social history. All these developments may be traced back 20 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 to St. Francis himself who, from the outset of his conversion, was involved in caring for lepers, one of the greatest social evils of the Middle Ages. The modern form of the apostolate of presence: living at the heart of urban life and working from within non-ecclesiastical social structures, is really a reduction to practice of The Canticle o[ Brother Sun 'and of St. Bonaventure's beautiful work On Retracing the Arts to Theology. For the Franciscan there is no distinction between the sacred and the profane. The problems of what is described as secularization prove for a Franciscan to be false problems~ This is now simply man's world and man is made in the image of Christ and Christ is the image of the Father we cannot see. The Spirituality of St. Francis The rediscovery of the basic elements of Franciscan spirituality has been the most rewarding of all. A comparative study of the spirituality of the Conciliar documents and the writings of St. Francis shows how incredibly modern this very medieval man turns out to be. His spirituality is simply Jesus Christ. The thoroughly biblical and sacramental, above all eucharistic, char-acter of his piety and holiness make it clear that it was our spirituality and practices of piety that had to be brought up-to-date, renewed and reformed, not his! There is nothing nauseating about his spirituality, nothing repulsive about his piety. There° is not one line, not one word, in the expressions of his evangelical holiness that need be changed, corrected or expunged. He loved the God-Man in all his poverty and humanity, in all his kindness and suffering. He loved him absolutely, without qualification. He loved Christ not only with his whole heart, but with his whole soul and mind and strength. His conversion was complete because it was born of love. Every-thing he said and sang, everything he desired and longed for, his every though and deed, came from and led back directly to his love of Jesus Christ. The most distinctive feature of his holiness is its tenderness. And it bears that feature because he was a passionate man. He did not extinguish in himself the fire of passion; he redirected it by grace into the love of Christ, where it burned more ardently in the all-consuming flame of the love of Christ's heart for the Father and for all creation. Our renewed understanding of the totally Christocentric spirituality of St. Francis has Shown the order that in its common life of prayer it does not need a multiplication of devotions and practices of piety. To: be faithful to the spirituality of St. Francis requires of the friars to live and work, to think and pray;" after the example of the life Jesus led on earth, by the power of his glorified existence with the Father, in the beauty of his vestiges and images in creation, according to the message of his Word, through his selfless love in the Blessed Eucharist and together with his brethren in the Church. All of which may be summarized by saying that we must live by his threefold presence in our midst; his verbal presence (the proclamation Reflections on the Franciscan Charism of the gospel, among us); his sacramental presence (preeminently the eucharistic celebration); his mystical,.pregence (the community of believers which gathers to proclaim and celebrate his victory over death and his faith-ful witness' to love). The Tension That Remains "~ None of these changes according to~ the form of the original charism has been achieved without suffering and bitterness; This is the sad side. to the history' of renewal and reform in the Church generally. However, it was an inevitable and predictable concomitant to the renewal from the begin-ning and it is,'rooted in the tension between institution and charism. The movement for reform initiated by the Council brought to the surface two diametrically opposed views of the Church which have been labeled, not satisfactorily though not unjustly, as reactionary-conservative and liberal-progressive. The fears of the former soon turned to suspicion; the enthusi-asm of the latter speedily became intrlerance. And for a time the .result was deadlock and suffering on both sides. Tension between institution and charism can be healthy and construc-tive. It can also be deadly and,destructive if attitudes polarize. As an out-come of the changes in the order's form of life there was a polarization of attitudes. Two basic attitudes emerged which differed radically about what had taken place and" what were being predicted as the .lines of future development. The attitudes correspond to the labels reactionary and liberal. The tension between these polarized attitudes 'is by no means as acute now as it was five years ago, but it is still present. From a state of complete in-ability to communicate, a modus vivendi was eventually found, based on an unspoken and precarious truce to steer clear of all that might open the wounds. Now, thanks to more openness ~on the one side and.greater tolerance on the other, the truce has given place to a willingness to dialogue and the gigns areothat the tension will become creative. Up to the present, however, while having had some creative and productive effect, it has been largely negative and counter,productive. Two "orders" have been existing side by side in the one order. But now the signs are that they are growing towar~s unity once more. This tension continues to exist in varying degrees of intensity through-out all the provinces of the order. To a greater or less extent it concerns every aspect of the charism in relation to our form of life and every attempt to reduce it to practice. But the deepest tension has been caused by the opposing views on what may be described as the order's apostolate of presence. The one view maintains that it is our vocation to engage in priestly ministerial work, in charitable works centered upon our friaries ~and in domestic works within the friaries, which latter ensure that they remain habitable and in good condition, so that the former works may be carried 22 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 on with competence and efficiency. To these works the major part of the order is now committed and thi~ commitment has come to pass by the demands made upon us and the indications given to us by °the institutional Church, whether the Holy See or the diocesan bishops. These works; it is argued, have been assigned to us by the 'authority of the Church and there-fore they are clearly what we are meant to do unde'i: God: Furthermore, they put us in direct contact with the evolution of the order as this took place under the guidance of the Holy .See in the thirteenth century. This is a version of the adage, "Roma locuta est"; it gives priority to the institu-tion. It maintains that priestly work is the ~paradigm of the Franciscan apostolate. This view is prepared to admit that some friars might well work in other forms of the apostolate which are .neither priestly nor ministerial nor centered upon a friary. These forms of the"apostolate, however, have significance only insofar as they~ proceed ultimately from the priestly min-istry and eventually lead back to it. The other view maintains that it is our vocation to spread the gospel message by our presence in the world. This can be fulfilled in a large variety of ways; by priestly ministerial work and charitable works centered upon our friaries; by priestly ministerial work and charitable works not centered upon our friaries; by domestic work inside and, outside our friaries; by professional work outside the friaries in ecclesiastical institutions-or non-ecclesiastical institutions~ by taking up salaried trades and professions out-side ecclesiastical institutions. This view, it is argued, is in direct continuity with the earliest years of the order's history and is a version of the saying of St. Francis that the Holy Spirit is the Minister General of the Order; it gives priority to the original charism. It holds that there is no special paradigm for the Franciscan apostolate and that the order must balance the demands made by the institution with the clear requirements of the charism, even if this means that we may have to sacrifice some of the areas in which we are exclusively committed to priestly ministerial work. Due to circumstances we could neither foresee nor control, these two views eventually reached the compromise of co-existence and then entered into dialogue. The circumstances which brought them together were the overall decrease in numbers of those entering the order, the high figure of those who left the order and an extraordinary awareness of the original charism among the majority of those who seek to enter~the order. This last phenomenon is remarkable, Its major effect has been that entrants to the order express their vocation simply in terms of wanting to be friars with-out further qualification.This is a reliable sign of how the future of the order will evolve. Christology and the Franciscan School . Earlier in this paper we insisted that the original charism of the order is to be sought not exclusively in the life and teaching of St. Francis but Reflections on the Franciscan Charism in the whole period that extends to the death of Duns Scotus, the last of the major representatives of the Franciscan School of Theology. We must examine the reasons which jrstify this position. During the period up to the death of Duns Scotus theologians of the order worked out a doctrine of the person and work of Christ and of his l~lace in the oikumene and cosmos that is as beautiful as it is original and as inspiring as it is profound. It stands out as a remarkable contribution to the development of Christology in the Church. Any study'or presentation of the original F.ranciscan charism that limits itself to the life of St. Francis not only misrepresents that charism, but also does disservice and injustice to the Church by depriving her of what,belongs to her by right. The Christo~ logical teaching of the Franciscan School is as much an essential element of the Franciscfin charism as is the fraternal character of the early order, ,the apostolate of presence, the Rule o/ 1221, the Rule ]or Hdrmitages, The Canticle of Brother Sun and the Rule of 1223. What Fr. Zachary Hayes, O.F.M. has written about the philosophy of education in the spirit of St. Bonaventure, may be applied without qualification to the Christological doctrine of the whole Franciscan School: : Those of us who stand heirs to that tradition have a weighty obligation to ~ee that such a tradition be not lost and that it be brought to bear in our world today. That it should have.come to be deposited with such clarity and power in the order that claims the poor, s~mple man of Assisi as its founder will no doubt puzzle those who tend to limit the meaning of that order in an unhistori-cal and arbitrary way. That its outstanding spokesman should be a Franciscan does not make it the private possession of the order. For what the order car-rieshere as in an earthen vessel is a treasure for the whole of the Church and a heritage for mankind as such. Certainly the order would be unfaithful to its tradition and remiss in its obligation to the Church and the world if'it were not to thke up" this tradition anew, in a creative way, in"a world for which one of the,most pervasive and potentially destructive idols is the ideal of rational control.'~ The Constitutions of the Order The General Constitutions of the order published in 1953 state in Arti-cle 238, par. 6:~.~'In the philosophical and theological faculties the lectors shall earnestly endeavour to follow the Franciscan School; they shall hold in high regard the other Scholastics, especially the Angelic Doctor, .St. Thomas, the Heavenly Patron of,Catholic Schools.''° Despite this exhorta-tion, however, the order as a whole has not endeavored as earnestly as it might have done to follow its own school. The manuals of philosophy and z",Toward a Philosophy of Education in the Spirit of St. Bonaventure," Proceedings ol the Seventh Centenary Celebration o/ the Death o] Saint Bonaventure (The Fran-ciscan Institute: St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1975), 26-27. 6The Rule and Constitutions o] the Order o] Friars Minor (Rome, 1953), 100. 24 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 theology, ,which were the staple intellectual diet of most of the houses of study in the ordei'~ were composed chiefly by authors of the Thomistic tradition (not always the same as the tradition of St. Thomas!), who tended to reduce the contents of the Franciscan tradition at best to footnotes and scholia, at worst, to being adverse to the thesis advanced. The high place accorded to St. Thomas in Catholic theology and the fact that he received honorable mention in the Code o] Canon Law made him the touchstone of orthodoxy and the gauge of true Catholic doctrine. The second title given to him--the Common Doctor--resulted in every other doctor becoming for the most part decidedly uncommon. In comparing the Dominican and Fran-ciscan Orders we find that the former exalted St. Thomas and tended to forget St. Dominic; the latter exalted St. Francis and tended to forget St. Bonaventure. Thus it is that we speak of the Thomistic School, not the Dominican School; of the Franciscan School, not the Bonaventurian School. This latter designation has further significance, as will be seen below. , In the Revised General Constitutions promulgated by the Minister General in December 1973, it is stated.in Article 20, par. 1: "Mental prayer should be based on the writings and example of Francis and on the teaching of the Franciscan masters. Nevertheless, each friar is free to choose the method~of prayer that suits him"r; in Article 170, par. 2: "Theological edu-cation should be encouraged in the order with special care. The greatest at-tention shouldobe given to the preparation of expert teachers of theology who will administer spirit and life after the intent of Francis and the other masters of the order"; ibid., par. 4: "Where there are no houses of study of the order, students should be given lectures on the~history and teaching of the Franciscan School"8; in the Introduction to Chapter Six: Formation to Franciscan LiIe: "Franciscan pedagogy, according to a thought-plan (dialec-tic) which continually renews itself, takes as its greater and most difficult task to bring together the divine with the human--a process begun by St, Francis and set in logical order by the Masters of the Franciscan School, a process rightly styled "thought in acting"--in other words, love.''° It is to be hoped that the spirit behind these statements in the new Constitutions will prevail over the strange indifference to the Franciscan theological tradition that has characterized the order in modern times and that it will eradicate the dull anti-intellectual element in the order which re-sulted from that fatal romanticism mentioned earlier. This anti-intellectual element has been making itself felt ifl'various parts of the order over the past few years. Its root lies in a subconscious belief that there is something rThe Plan ]or Franciscan Living. The Rule and General Constitutions o[ the Order of Friars Minor (English-Speaking Conference of Provincials: Pulaski, Wisconsin, 1974), 70. ,~ Slbid., 147, 148. °Ibid., 129-130. ~ Re~qections on the Franciscan Charism not quite authentic about a learned Franciscan or a Franciscan who wishes to devote his life to study. The popular picture of the Franciscan friar has had a surreptitious influence on the order. The Franciscan is expected to be a jolly friar, simple to the point of lunacy, preferably rotund in shape and bald into the bargain, rfiddy-face.d and definitely not learned, who trips through the world hoping to get a good dinner, but happy to sing to the sun if he does not. This picture is reproduced each year on hundreds of Christ-mas cards all over the world. (I have made a collection of the more amusing ones!) The irony of the popular picture is that it bears no resemblance what-ever to the first Franciscan, St. Francis himself was a man of joy, but in "no sense could he be called jolly; he had the simplicity of the dove but also the cunning of the serpent, just as the gospel says; he was a small man, thin and emaciated; not bald, but shaven-headed; his skin was delicate and his flesh very spare;1" though not learned in a bookish sense, he knew French, wrote tolerably good Latin, composed a very beautiful song and was ac-quainted with the intricacies of the cloth trade and he had some idea about building. His attitude to learning is at best ambiguous. In any case he ad-vocated reverence for theologians and Scripture scholars and he warned even those who work with their hands not to allow their work to extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion. Despite Masseron's .fear that if St. Francis were to return to earth today, he would probably consign a Franciscan bibliography to Brother Fire,ll I am convinced that he would not destroy the sermons of St. Anthony, the works of St. Bonaventure nor the third book of Duns Scotus' Commentary on the Sentences. The Development of Christology ,. It is noteworthy and encouraging that the Renewed Constitutions ex-plicitly link the teaching of the Franciscan masters of St. Francis himself. Specifically, the Christological doctrine of the Franciscan School took its origin from the insight of St. Francis into .the absolute centrality of the Word-made-flesh. His spirituality was centered totally on Christ. He gave concrete expression to it in devotion to the Crib, to our Blessed, Lady-- precisely because she made the Lord of Majesty our brother, to the Passion and Cross, to the Word of God in Scripture and to the Blessed Eucharist. To read of the imprinting of the stigmata on his poor body comes hardly as a surprise after a life spent in total conformity to the Gospel Christ. His initial encounter with Christ issued in a desire to imitate the life of a0See the description of St. Francis given in I, Cel. 83 in English Omnibus Edition o[ the Sources, 298-299. 11Alexandre Masseron, The Franciscans. Tr. W. B. Wells (New York, 1932). 4: "What would St. Francis, if he returned to earth today, have to say to anyone who was rash enough to show him a Franciscan bibliography? Is it not to be feared that 'our Brother Fire' would be charged with settling the fate of a work of such un-wieldy uselessness?". 26 / R~view lor Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 Christ in its every detail, to follow in the very footsteps of Christ:To follow the footsteps of Christ was for' Francis to take the Way that leads back to the Father. Though his heart and soul were .centered on the poverty and humility of Jesus in the New Testament, whereby the Rule and life.of his order became, synonymous with observing the gospel, there is no exclusive concern with the so-called,"simple" Jesus of history in the life and writings of St. Francis. He embraced a life of poverty in imitation of Christ who "is the glorious Word of the Father, so holy and exalted, whose coming the Father made known by St. Gabriel the Archangel to the glorious and blessed Virgin Mary, in whose womb. he took on our weak human nature. He was rich beyond measure and yet he and his holy Mother chose poverty.''1"-' This humiliation which the Word of the Father freely chose for our sake, is daily renewed on our altars: "Every day he humbles himself just as he did when he came from his heavenly throne (Ws 18: 15) into the Virgin's womb; every day he comes to us and lets us. see him in abjection, when he descends from the bosom of the Father into the hands of the priest at the altar?'1,~ There are three texts in the writings of St. Francis which in our opinion contain the seeds of the future development of Christology in the Franciscan School. If these were all he had left us, they would be more than sufficient as the foundation of the Franciscan School. The first is to be found in the fifth Admonition: "Try to realize the digqity God has conferred on you. He created and formed your body in the image of his beloved Son and your soul in his own likeness (see GO 1:26).''~4 The second is in the first paragraph of his Letter to All Clerics: "Indeed in this world there is noth-ing of the Most High himself that we can possess and contemplate with our eyes, except his Body and Blood, his name and his words, by which we were created and by which we have been brought back from death to life.''~'~ The third is found 'in the Letter to a General Chapter: "Kissing your feet with all the love I 'am capable of, I beg you to show the greatest possible reverence and honour for the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ through whom all things, whether on the earth or in the heav-ens, have been brought to peace and reconciled with Almighty God (see .Col l:20).v~ There is a fair amount of deep theology in the writings of St. Francis, but nowhere is this more clearly attested than in these texts. Their depths and the implications they contain will be obvious to any student of St. Bonaventure or Duns Scotus. With regard to the first text, we may ask if St. Francis meant to say that the body of the Word Incarnate was the lz"Letter to all the Faithful" in English Omnibus Edition o] the Sources, 93. a3"First Admonition," ibid., 78. ~4English Omnibi~s Edition, 80; .a~lbid;, 101. ~qbid., 104. Re[tections on the Franciscan Charism blueprint used by God in the creation of Adam? He states explicitly: "He created and formed your body in the image of his beloved Son." The Son as Son has no body; it is the Son as Word-Incarnate who possesses a body. Whether or not St. Francis was aware of the implications of what he wrote, these lines evoke at once Duns Scotus' doctrine of the ~absolute primacy of Christ. Furthermore it would not be difficult at all to trace St. Bonaven-ture's entire theology of creation and incarnation ~back to the two latter texts .we quoted. St. Anthony, St. Bonaventure and Duns Scotus 1. The Christological teaching of the Franciscan School found its earli-est expression in the setmons of St: Anthony of Padua. Already therein we find contained the doctrine of the primacy of Christ, for which Scotus is so justly acclaimed. St. Anthony shows a preference for the symbol of the circle of egression and return of which St. Bonaventure made such pro-found and superb use in his theology of the Word and creation?r 2. It is, however, St. Bonaventure himself who gave the most complete theological formulation to the Christological insights of St~ Francis. He is the mystical theologian par excellence of the Franciscan Order and in him the~ School reached the high point of its development, He belongs to the tradition.in the Church which has its origin in the Greek and Latin Fathers, according to which the work of the theologian and the ministry of preach-ing are understood to be.no more ~than different modalities of one and the selfsame service of the Word of God, Every concrete form in'which St, Francis expressed his devotion to the poor and humble Christ, is paralleled by a mystical work in the Bonaven-turian corpus, For example, to the crib at Greccio corresponds the beautiful work On the Five Feasts of the.Child Jesus; to St. Francis's reverence for the Blessed Eucharist corresponds the work On How to .Prepare for the Celebration of Mass18; to his devotion to the Passion and Cross of Christ correspond St. Bonaventure's The Tree of Life and The Mystical Vine.l'J St. ~Bonav.enture's !heology of the Word may be summarized as follows: the Word is the inner expression of the Father and the world is the outer expression of t_he Son. Creation gives outward expression to the inner Word of the Father, With the advent of man, the Word of God 5s spoken in a ~rSee V. Schaaf, 'O.F.M., Saint-Antoine de Padoue. Docteur de I'Eglise (Montreal: Editions Franciscaines, 1946); T. Plassmann, O.F.M., "St. Anthony the Theologian;" St. Anthony o] Padua Doctor o] the Church: Universal Souvenir o] the Commemora-tive Ceremonies (Washington, D.C., 1946), 49-70. J. Heerinckx, O.F.M., "Antoine de Padoue," Dictionnaire de Spiritualitd~ 1, 714-717. a,~The Works o[ Bonaventure. Tr. Jose de Vinck. Ili: Opuscula, Second Series (Pater-son, N.J., St. Anthony Guild Press, 1966), 197-214; 215-238. V.qbid., I: Mystical Opuscula (Paterson, N.J., St. Anthony Guild Press, 1960), 95- 144; 145-205. Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 radically new way, for it now opens the possibility of the most perfect out-ward expression of God's inner Word in the Incarnation of the Word: the Man, Jesus of Nazareth. By the enfleshmcnt of the Word, the words already spoken by God in every creature throughout all creation can be heard un-ambiguously for what they are: revelations of God. As the Eternal Word is the Center of the Trinity, so the Incarnate Word is the Center of every-thing outside the 'Trinity. Nothing can be known unless it is known through Christ. At every level and in all orders of reality Jesus Christ is Mediator. To have true knowledge of God, man and the cosmos we must take faith as our starting point. From this we may then proceed to reason in order to know whatdt may discover about God, man and the cosmos.-"° This latter aspect of St. Bonaventure's world view has a relevance today which it would be difficult to overestimate. It concerns particularly the separation between philosophy of God and theology in Catholic institutes of education which has had deplorable effects on intellectual formation.'-'1 A return to the con-creteness of St. Bonaventure's method will teach us to distinguish, but not separate, a philosophy of God from theology. The correct method is to treat the theology of God first. After St. Clare I know of no one who loved St. Francis more than St. Bonaventure did. His sermons on St. Francis show him to have agonized in loving astonishment at what God had done in the person and life of the poor Francis of Assisi.~'-' Everything St. Bonaventure strove after in his study of the Word of God he found realized in St~ Francis. Of all the vir-tues which St. Francis possessed, St. Bonaventure avowed that he admired most his poverty and humility. He laid.down at the feet of St. Francis the powers of his brilliant mind and the rich treasures of his wide and deep learn-ing. Thus it was in his own act of humility that St. Bonaventure proved that after all a learned man can be holy and be saved! ,~ 3. In the teaching on the absolute primacy of Christ, Duns Scotus put the final touches to the Christological doctrine of the Franciscan School. The '-'°For recent presentations of the Christology of St. Bonaventure see the important studi+s by Zachary~Hayes, O.F.M., "'Revelation in Christ," Proceedin~,s o[ the Seventh Cehtenary Celebration o] the Death o[ St. Bonaventure (The Franciscan Institute: St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1975), 29-43; "The Meaning of Convenientia in the Meta-physics of St. Bonaventure," Franciscan Studies, vol. 34, Annual XII, 1974, 74-100; "Incarnation and ~.reation in the Theology of St. Bonaventure," Studies Honoring Ignatius Charles Brady. Friar Minor. Ed. R. S. Almagno, O.F.M. and C. L. Harkins, O.F.M. (The Franciscan Institute: St: Bonaventure, N.Y., 1976), 309-329. See also Ignatius Brady, O.F.M., "St. Bonaventure's Theology of the Imitation of Christ," Proceedings of the Seventh Centenary Celebration o[ the Death of St. Bonaventure (The Franciscan Institute: St. Bonaventure, N.Y. 1975), 61-72. '-qSee: B. J. F. Lonergan, S.J., Philosophy o[ God and Theology (The Westminster Press: Philadelphia, 1973). :zSee his five sermons on St. Francis in Opera Omnia IX (Ad Claras Aquas, 1901), 573-597. We are preparing an edition and translation of these sermons. Relqections on the Franciscan Charism / 29 Incarnation is not occasioned by sin, though sin affected its modality. Scotus is not indifferent to evil and sin in the world, nor does he merely juggle with hypotheses. But the destruction of sin and evil is no more than a moment in God's movement out of himself towards the world, to unite all creation in the Love that is forever. The most recent and famous formulation of this doctrine has been made by Teilhard de Chardin in terms of an evolving cosmos. °Speaking of the Scotistic doctrine with Padre Allegra, Teilhard ex-claimed:"' v'o"l~a," la th6ologie c'osmique; voile, la th6ologie de l'avenir"--a cosmic theology, a theology of the future. Because of the unambiguous value it places on creation, one can readily understand why this,, doctrine is so attractive to the French Co.rnmunist philosopher, Roger Garaudy.'-''~ These brief reflections on the development of Christology from St. Fran-cis himself to the School which has from him its name, make it clear that Franciscan Christology is a structural element in the original Franciscan charism. If it is ignored .or neglected, then the charism itself is impaired. Charism and Ongoing Renewal As the order moves on towards the beginning of the third millennium of the Church's history, it will continue to adapt and renew itself accord-ing to the spirit of its original ,charism. In the process of on'going renewal the following aspects of the charism will need to be giveo more serious con-sideration: 1. Public witness--minimum structure." The "monastification" of the order was an undesirable development, not merely because it led to a dull uniformity and reduced individuality to a minimum, but also because it .imposed,a superstructure of organization on the order's life which virtually abolished one of the most characteristic aspects of the Franciscan charism. This is the genius of living a publicreligious life in the Church (St. Francis founded an order) with a minimum amount of structure (St. Francis was conscious of its original newness.). It is among the order's most attractive and, at the same time, most deman.ding characteristics. It is attractive be-cause it manifests the freedom won for us in Christ Jesus; it is for the order a sacrament of freedom from the :burden of the Law. It is demanding because it places firmly on the shoulders of each member of a community full re, sponsibility for every facet of communal life. Community life is an ongoing process, created by the uniqueness and originality of its several members and it issues in a unity which is something more than the mere sum total of the individuals. In such a process no one can shirk responsibility without setting back this process and thus injuring community life. An important area in which this aspect of the charism should exercise maximum influence is formation. The whole process of formation must have 23See Eric Doyle, O.F.M., "John Duns Scotus and the Place of Christ," The Clergy Review, vol. LVII, Sept. 1972, 667-675; Oct. 1972, 774-785; Nov. 1972, 860-868. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 as its "chief aim the active reception by each friar of total responsibility for 6ur way of life, where the duty of each is to help the others to glow in wis-dom and maturity before~ God and man. The capacity and willingness to ¯ accept this responsibility may be taken as the touchstone of suitability for this way of life. 2. The Rule for Hermitages:'''~ Thomas of Celano in his Second Life tells us that St. Francis "wanted his brothers to live not only in the cities, but also in hermitages." This element of the charism has had effect in some provinces and it is recommended and encouraged in the Renewed Constitu-tions."-'~' It is clear from the short Rule for Hermitages that St. Francis .wished his order to lead not only a "mixed" life'--that is, one devoted to prayer and the apostolate---but to hold within itself at one and. the same time the two distinct expressions., of the.religious life: the active and the contempla-tive: The contemplative life he intended as a permanent feature of the order's existence in the world. It is interesting to recall in this context that both the Rule of the Friars Minor (for itinerant apostles) and the Rule of St. Clare (for enclosed contemplatives) are identified with life according to the Holy Gospel. In our opinion the notion of a "hermitage" should not be confused with a. "house of prayer." Houses of prayer, to which friars may resort for shorter or longer periods of recollection, do not fulfill adequately what St. Francis appears to have intended. It seems that he wanted the contemplative life to be a permanent feature of the life of the First Order. If our view here is correct, then there should be a place in the order for the exclusively contemplative life. On this understanding a "hermitage" and a "house of prayer" are quite distinct notions. The former should be employed uniquely to describe a community of friars dedicated exclusively to the contemplative life. The feature's that would distinguish a Franciscan contemplative community from the older monastic forms of the contemplative life would be precisely the minimum structure and the far smaller number in the community.-Whether the number would have to be restricted to three or four, as is mentioned in the Rule [or Hermitages, is a matter that calls for further discussion. It may not be possible for every province of the order to have'a hermi-tage (or hermitages) as a permanent feature of its life. Perhaps, therefore, hermitages could be instituted at the inter-provincial level and be made open tO international membership. Such contemplative communities in the order would give fine expression to this. element of the Franciscan charism. The reference made above to the Rule of the Poor Clares recalls what St. Francis wrote down in the Form of Life for St. CIare: ~'I desire and promise you personally and in the name,~of my friars that I will always have the same loving care and solicitude for you as for them." Their way of life "-4English Omnibus Edition of the Sources, 72-73. '-'SThe Plan ]or Franciscan Living, Articles 28-31. Reflections on the,~Franciscan Charism / 31 was very dear to St. Francis both because he loved St. Clare and because he himself was strongly attracted to the contemplative life. The First Order today should show the same loving care for the Poor Clares and there ought to be more frequent and closer contact between the first and second branches of the order. By so doing we would be more faithful to St. Francis and we would be helped considerably to.discern our own charism more clearly. 3. The Rule of 1221.""-~ Although the Rule of 1223, which gave the FrancisCan Order its legal" basis, and the Rule of 1221, which never re-ceived papal approval, both contain the spirit of St; Franci.s, it could be argued that the latter is a finer expression of that spirit than the former. This is not to deny that the Rule of 1223 is more a spiritual document than legal code. Nevertheless, it is just that one step removed from the earliest expression of the form of life and, therefore, just that little further from the original charism. .,, In terms of continuing renewal, the directives of the seventh chapter of the Rule of 1221 raise important questions for ,the future development of the order. The chapter is titled: "Work and the Service of Others." It con-cerns the friars who are engaged in the service of lay people and those who already have a trade when they join the order. The chapter lays down: "Everyone should remain at the trade and in the position in which he was called." This one sentence alone gives rise to a serious question about what attitude the order ought to adopt to a person seeking admission to it who is already qualified in a trade or profession. It is not a question about whether the order .should,allow a plumber or a doctor to continue as a plumber or ¯ doctor after an initial period of formation; it is rather a question of Whether or not the order is obliged to allow a plumber or a doctor to return at least for a certain time, to his previous work, after the period of formation. Priests who have joined the order in the past have continued to exercise their priestly ministry to a.limited extent during the period of formation and it has always been assumed that. they will go back to its full exercise after formation. There are many, many more professions ands:trades which are as equally compatible with the vocation of being a Franciscan friar,as is the ministerial priesthood. Before the oral approval of the Rule in 1209, St. Francis had already assured the Bishop of Assisi that he and his companionS would earn their living and have recourse to begging only when it was absolutely necessary. Some of them worked as laborers in monasteries and private houses; others took care of lepers in the lazar houses; others helped farmers in the fields. In the early years after the,approval of the Rule the friars were given to preaching, praying and manual work. The statement made at the Madrid Chapter in 1973 concerning the vocation of the order today, gave definite approval to this aspect of the "-'~English Omnibus o] the Sources, 31-53. 32 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 original charism as contained in the Rule of 1221. The statement empha-sizes: For recent times, our participation in the general evolution of religious life and the influence of certain other communities,have led us to the rediscovery of an aspect of work as it was understood by ~Francis. New forms of work and a variety of occupations are now being undertaken by our friars. Min-istry, our own works, and domestic tasks within our friaries legitimately oc-cupy the majority of our friars, but it is becoming more frequent to find friars engaged in salaried trades and professions within enterprises and institutions which belong neither to the order nor to the Church. An orientation of this kind appears to us to be in line with our vocation; by it we are a part of society in a special way, working for its upbuilding and we are brought closer to those who live. by their work. While placing us squarely on the road to the future it brings us back to one of the institutions of our origins.zr This new type of work is itself the apostolate: the apostolate of presence by silent witness. We must not forget, however, that this form of the apostolate is not easy. It demands that a friar put into practice the unsystematic though profound theology of work scattered throughout the writings of St. Francis. Thus: pay is not to be the motive of work, nor should the friars become the slaves of work or of gain. Work is to be undertaken as a contribution to the final form of creati6n, carried out under the supreme lordship of God; it is to be sanctified by being brought back to its right relationship with God. It is not, nor can it be, for the friar an end in itself; it is a means of exercising the apostolate of peace and reconciliation in the midst of the world. It requires above all of those who engage in it, that they be contem-platives. Before actio.n there has to be what St. Bonaventure calls sursumac-rio-- that uplifting activity which is contemplative prayer. Further developments of this kind of work may well bring about a de-crease in the number of priests in the order. At the same time it must not be ignored that those engaged in the apostolate who are not~priests (for ex-ample, nuns°and brothers) often find that there are circumstances where it would be a definite advantage to be a priest. In fact, experiences of this kind have often led~non-ordained apostles to seek ordination to the priest-hood. 4. St. Francis the Deacon:'-'~ St. Francis never became a priest. One often hears that the reason for this was his deep humility; he felt himself unworthy of so sublime a dignity. This explanation, however, is not to be found in the sources; in fact there appears to be no mention of the matter at all. In any case our concern here is not with the reason why he did not become a priest, but with the [a.ct that he was a deacon. "-':General Chapter Documents, Madrid 1973 (The English-Speaking Conference of the Order of Friars Minor; 1974), 68. '-'sSee I, Col. 86 in English Omnibus Edition o[ the Sources, 301: "The saint of God was clothed with the vestments of the deacon, for he was a deacon, and he sang the holy Gospel in a sonorous voice." Re[tections on the Franciscan Charism / 33 The re-institution of the order of permanent diaconate is one of the most encouraging results of Church renewal. The diaconate in the Church is directly derived from, and immediately related to, the episcopal office. It concerns the Church's mission to the world in.the very concrete form of the corporal and sp)ritual works of mercy and of work for reconciliation, justice and peace. These works pertain to the essence of the apostolic office. It is, therefore, theologically incorrect and quite unsound to understand the diaconate merely in terms of assistance to the priestly ministry; nor is the diaconate adequately presented exclusively in terms of liturgical functions. In practice at the moment, however, the actual form of ministry exercised by permanent deacons is, in the vast majority of cases, only a lesser form of the priestly ministry. This is true throughout the Western Church. On the missions it has been ~made a substitute for the priesthood, and the permanent deacon is in fact a "mini-priest?' With the exception of saying Mass and ad: ministering absolution, he does everything that the priest does. The diaconate has become also a substitute for a married priesthood. In ,many of our city and towm parishes in the Western world, the ministry of the permanent deacon is in fact no more than that of assistant to the local priests. In all these cas~s, therefore, 'the priesthood is the determining factor in the per-formance of the office of deacon. It would be a pity if this were to become the exclusive form of the diaconal ministry. The permanent diaconate in the Church proclaims that the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and work for reconciliation, justice and peace are not merely the special concern of individuals who may feel called to per-form them. They belong to the episcopal office, because the bishops must have anxious care not only for all' the churches but also for the whole world. Ordinatioh to :the .permanent diaconate graces the man called to this work with the authority and power of the apostolic mission to the world, In virtue of this sacrament the deacon is sent by the bishop publicly in the name of Christ to work; for example, in the field 0f communications, as a counselor, a welfare officer, a doctor or a nurse. The. Franciscan Order is committed by its very existence to work for reconciliation,., justice and peace. It would be most fitting for the order to incorporate the permanent diaconate, as here understood, into its life and mission and to offer this as an option to those wishing to join the order. It would manifest that work other than priestly'ministry is not merely the hobby or pa~rticular preference of an individual, but a part of the Churcl~'s ¯ mission to the world. It would contribute also towards restoring the diaconate to its fuller ministry. 5. Christology of the Franciscan School: Every friar should receive a thorough grounding in the doctrine of the Franciscan School. Christology is at the heart of that doctrine from which has developed a distinctive anthro-pology, .!he values of which center on freedom, the primacy of the will and charity, and the dignity of the individual person. In order that this rich 34 / Review Jot Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 heritage be not lost; it is of paramount importance that studies be encouraged ever more keenly in the order. One acknowledges with gratitude .the re-newed interest in Franciscan studies brought about by,~the establishment of the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University, New York. More friars should .be encouraged to devote their lives to the production of good texts and critical editions of the authors of the Franciscan School. It must be impressed on them that this is not a waste of time nor merely the pri-vate interest of the scholarly "types" which the order can tolerate, but a splendid contribution to the understanding of a tradition which belongs, to the Church and mankind at large;. ~ The~Future of the Order and Its Vocation The future will see a more balanced proportion between, the number of priests and non-priests in the Franciscan Order. The indications are that throughout the world the order as a whole will continue to decrease in numbers. There will be many more small communities. In fidelity to its many-faceted charism the order will have to learn to hold within itself a great pluriformity of~ life-styles and, work. The former will have to contain the widest variety from the contemplative to the actix;e' life.~ The latter will have to.embrace every, form from strictly priestly.work to the apostolate of presence and silent witness in salaried trades, and pro-fessions. Every friar on the apostolate will have to be prepared to preach, teach or' share with others, in whatever ways are opened up, the riches of the order's Christological tradition, particularly the teaching on the centrality of the Word and the absolute 'primacy of Christ: By so doing, the order will contribute to the fruitfulness oLthe encounter and dialogue between East and West, from which will result a spirituality for the post-modern world. The East has developed towards an extreme spiritualistic interpretation of man and the world; the West towards an extreme materialistic interpretation of man and the world. There are~ however, strands in the tradition of both East and West, which point the way to a real unity and balance between these extremes. It is not too much to suggest~that the theology of the:Fran-ciscan School and the spirituality of St. Francis belong to these strands in the West. This theology and spirituality lead one to a material spiritualism or spiritual materialism, to a holy worldliness or worldly holiness. It is along these lines that spirituality in the future will develop. In conclusion we wish to make a brief comment about a very important matter. It concerns a fair number of those friars who have left the order and have taken up other walks of life. In traveling around one frequently comes across ex-friars who long to share again the spirituality and atmosphere which formed them and left a deep impression on their minds and hearts, and who desire to participate once more in some way directly in the order's mission to the world. It is not that they are unhappy in their new. way of life or regret having married~ These longings and desires are th~ outcome of a~ Reflections on the, Franciscan Charism / 35~ renewed and deeper appreciation of Franciscan values which their new life has brought home. to them. Specifically, 'it is married rife which is most fre-quently mentioned as the cause of this. There is a very positive impulse behind these desires which one discerns as the Ho!y Spirit of God. Serious thought and prayer must be given to working out how these desires might be fulfilled, It must not be presumed a priori that we can do nothing for them. One suggestion would be the institution of a new [ormof the Third Order which could be so established as to meet both desires mentioned. It could exist in very close liaison and cooperation with the work of the First Order, for this latter is mature enough to embrace an added element in its. pluri- ¯ formity. In this way the order would be helping to prepare for the eventual re-deployment of so much energy, goodwill and holiness in the apostolic mission of the Church. Now Available As A Reprint Centeri. g Prayer-Prayer of Quiet by~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S~.O. Address: ¯ Price: $.50 pier copy, plus postage. Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand St. Louis,, Missouri 63103 To God Via Per Patricia Lowery, M.M. Sister Lowery's article, "The Suffering Servant and the Wounded Healer" (May, 1976) was well-received by our readership. She continues to reside at: Madres de Maryknoll; Casilla 491; Arequipa, Pert]. Editor's Note: I asked Sister Patricia to write an article on her reason for remaining in Pert] even as a suffering servant. In response to read.er-reaction, she had earlier written an article with fuller information about "The Fraternity of the Sick," but I judged the present article to be of haore immediate im-portance. The other article will be published later. The following passages from her covering letter will "flesh out" the article which follows. She writes: "I guess it is not such a great thing that I stay in Pert], but some people without a missionary vocation might think it is. 1 am not exactly 'all crippled up,' but Rheumatoid Arthritis affects all the joints, and, whatever the degree of deformity, there°is always pain . Some people, I think, Would be taking it easy in my condition, but because my spirit is always 100 miles ahead of my body, I need to romp around. I do it in Pert] because the pace is slower, I have the freedom to invent' my own aids to independence, and most of all because it is 'home' for me .I hope what I have written will serve as an inspiration to someone else." When I left New York harbor destined for Pert] on the f~ast of St. Rose of Lima, I instinctively felt that I was making.a journey that would shape my life. Twenty-five years later, as I reflect on the events of those years, I know it to be true. As I stood at the rail, face to face with the ocean, the fact that I was going to a strange country, to a-mission that was as yet an empty lot, to work with people I did not know and whose language I could not speak, seemed not to frighten me. I was too caught up with the journey itself. With Sister Madaleva's "Travel Song" in my heart, I was blinded by' enthusiasm! 36 To God Via Per~ / 37 "Know you the journey that I take Know you the voyage that I make The joy of it one's heart would break. No jot of time have l to spare Nor will to loiter anywhere SO edger am I to be there. What thatothe way is hard and long What that gray fears upon it throng I set my journey to a song. And it grows happy, wondrous so Singing I hurry on, for Oh! It is to God, to God I go. I am still singing that song, for my journey has taken me steadily toward God, accompanied now by many frierids and the voice of ,the quena (Indian flute), whose music calls to mind all that I have liv.ed, loved and learned in Peril. A Life of Fulfillment Recently, a visiting sister from the United States asked me what satis-factions I had after working twenty-five years in Perti. I could not answer that question directly because .I had not thought of my years in Perti in terms of "satisfactions," but. rather, more comprehensively, as a lifetime of fulfillment. I feel that I came to Peril almost as a child, unsure of many things, and here I grew up, formed 'in the school of joy; struggle, suffering, achievement and love. My teachers'were often uneducated people whose only book was the testimony of their lives. I knew, sowehow, that in such a book were contained the lessons I wanted desperately to learn. There was conflict, though, because I was supposed to be the teacher, prepared as I was for that profession. Later in novitiate work, I assumed the role of spiritual guide only to find that the insights of the Peruvian girls with whom I lived were much more "real" than my own. In pastoral work, too, I had to learn to accelSt people as they are, in the context of their cul-ture and reality, and to set aside my well-prepared o~ganizational plan. It was only when I found myself on a level with so many others (brought together through that universal mystery of suffering) that I began my real ministry~ This shared experience taught me to be present to others as a friend, learn from them, be at their side rather than "ahead" of them, to understand and appreciate them--and m~self as well. I sincerely feel that over the years the gift of happiness and fulfillment has been given to me by people who are themselves still oppressed by in- . justices and hunger for bread and who carry man-made burdens. In humble gratitude to them, I take my stand with all those who fight for liberation, human dignity and the precious gift of personal fulfillment. A Vocation to Stay As a Maryknoll Missioner, my heritage includes devotion to the Church, Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 love for people of all cultures, simplicity, loyalty, generosity, adaptability, joy in hardships and faith in God. My earliest years at Maryknoll were filled with hearing about, and meeting, great men and women who, sustained by those virtues, ventured to "fields afar" even before I was born. Their unassuming lives spoke to me of humifity, courage a,ad joy, virtues that stood by them. as they fought the good fight, faced imPrisonment and even death for the people to Whom they were g(nt. All this was part of their missionary vocation. ~ Therefore, it seems strange to me that anyone would ask why I, who am only semi-incapacitated by a physical'iliness, would remain on a mission where few resources are availi~ble. Actually, it never occurred to me to do otherwise. Having received very good medical attention and knowing how to take care of myself, there seems little else to do but wait until science discovers a'cure. B~t one can waist anywhere. Bishop James E. Walsh, M.M., whose story is well known in the United States, made a statement in 1951 regarding his decision to remain in China in the face of imprisonment (which he actually suffered for twelve years). From among his valuable insights, ! will quote a few which I can apply to myself: Vocation: Our vocation is not simply our occupational work. The teaching, preaching, village visiting we usually do, it is something much deeper, per-mahent, indelible. It does not change if our work is imped(d, if we are in. prison, or for any other reason. One of the necessary conditions to carry it out properly, I think, is to accept in advance every trouble and contingency in connection with it that Divine Providence puts in our way. If we start to pick and choose for ourselves; it is very hard to tell if we are carrying out our vocation or running away from it . The only safe rule for a man with a mission vocation, .I think, is to adhere to the clear indication of God's will (his appointed place where he finds himself) and to make no changes of his own volition. .4ch°vity: Enforced inactivity is a term that needs some distinguishingl Activ-ity does not depend on the place; it depends on the man. Suffering patiently bourne is activity, so is prayer, so is any kind of mental work--things that can be done, one WOUld think, in prison as well as anywhere. What is really meant is a change of activity. This is something of a hardship to many men, I confess it---especially to those who are lacking in the. faculty of imagination. However, we can all learn something new, or at least wecan try tO do so. If an examp!e of prison life will help the Church in China, as. I. believe any suffering undergone for Qod will do, then we are just being given another sort of activity for a time. There is no question of ~complete inactivity, I believe."r Encouraged, therefore, by the tradition of my elders as well as by the example of many valiant companions of today, I choose to stay in Pert~ because: 1Zeal For Your House by James E. Walsh, M.M., Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. (Hunt= ington, IN; 1976), pp. 140-141. To God Via Per~ / 39 --it is my vocation; ---I believe in Christian witness (no matter what else I may or may not be able to do) ; --although it is the nature of the missionary vocation to move on when when the. local Church has come of age, I feel that Peril is still in the growing process and needs to feel solidarity with the universal Church; --it builds morale both for the people and the missioners; (to celebrate a "staying-here" rather than a "going-away" makes everybody happy); --God has directed my life in such surprisingly beautiful wa3;s that I fear if I "pick and choose for myself," I may miss out on something he has in store for me; --finally, I would feel reluctant to break the bonds of friendship built up over the years. Yahweh's feeling toward his people has rubbed off on me: How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I part with you, O Israel? (Ho 11:8) While my sentiment for Peril runs deep, I k~aow that missioners are sent to people rather than to count.ries. In the case that ,I were to find my-self in another situation, my ministry to people need not change: Pockets of Hope In my small circle of the poor and the sick, I se.e signs .of Christi.an witness which prove that what we have been able to build in the hearts of people has already outlasted our institutions and monumental structures. Christian values like kindness, service, patience, humility, thoughtfulness and friendliness mark people as being followers of Christ. In my own ex-perience, especially since I have been sick, I have been deeply moved by the unexpected and touching concern shown for me.by those who carry heavy burdens and, apparently, have nothing to give. It prompts me to look into my life, and give of its essence as well as its superfluity. Because of my involvement with the "Fraternity of the Sick," I have come to realize the truth, that through baptism (be it of water or in the fire of suffering), the humblest among the people of. God are called to be ministers. In the past, because of concentrating only on our own call to ministry, we religious have tended to over-look the vocation to service being lived out all around us. Only with our encouragement can these ministers come to take their place as true servants of the Church. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain if only we can set aside our fears and believe that: As one lamp lights another, nor grows less So nobleness enkindles nobleness. (Lowell) Founding "Founderology": Charism and Hermeneutics Francis E. George, O,M.I. Father George is Vicar General of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. This article is based on a conference given in Rome at the beginning of a three-week congress, April 25-May 15, on the charism of their founder, Eugene De Mazenod, ,He resides at the Curia Generalitia O.M.I.; Via Aurelia, 290; 00165 Roma, Italy. The renewal of religious, institutes means getting in touch with several "charisms." We can distinguish the charism of the religious life as such, individual charisms and the cha.rism of a founder and of his institute. Religious life as such is a gift of the Holy Spirit, a" grace given to the entire Church, enabling it to follow Christ ever more closely (Lumen Gentium,~ 44). There is also.the "charism" or individual grace of each member of a religious institute. The Spirit calls each of us by name, and this individual vocation is a source of the richness that religious institutes have recently begun to acknowledge more openly and appreciate more warmly. But the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council spoke of the "original inspiration behind a given community" as one of the principles of ongoing renewal of religious institutes (Perlectae Caritatis, 2), and the "spirit" of a founder has' its source in a grace (charis) given to him. Like all.grace, it is a personal gift; but by reason of his founding a public institute in the Church, this grace has far-reaching public consequences. Those who are his followers adopt a stance, a viewpoint, in some way derived from or inspired by his thought, his work, his graced life. It becomes possible there-fore to speak of a "collectNe charism," a view proper to a group. The charism of a religious institute, as such has been defined as "a grace given Founding ~'Founderology'" / 41 by the Holy Spirit to a religious institute to help it to carry out its proper mission.''~ Each religious foundation began with a group who shared a common spirit. This spirit, rooted in grace, enabled them to lead a common life and attempt a common task: How can a religious institute today know if it still has this original spirit? Is there a method which can help a religious community get in touch with the founder's spirit and live it authentically? Historical Approach to Charism There are two methodological approaches to charism (the spirit of the founder and his followers) which, taken singly, . might ,lead to an impasse. The first approach is historical. Starting with the historical reality of a founder, his life and work, we can try to see him as a kind of model, some-what separate from us in time, but still providing us with a clear and even a detailed picture of the life we should lead today. "Fidelity to the founder's spirit" then means handing on this model, essentially unchanged, to future generations of religious. They, in tur6, will interiorize it and make it vital thr~ough their lives and works. The difficulty with this ap~proach is that it "often assumes a "funda-mentalism" based on texts or on events, accepting as normative many models which are irrelevant to contemporary life. While seeming to empha-size the historical reality of the founder, this approach, taken by itself, is really a means of escaping from history. It makes the founder's ideas become ah ideology, protecting a community's present institution,'ilizati6n but divorced from the contemporary responses to problems the founder him-self was concerned about? On the practical level, "copying" the founder cannot serve as a guide for present decision making. Few people, and certainly not most religious founders, are so .self-consistent in act that it is not possible to find his-torical precedent in their lives for al}nost any a~tion. Almost any par-ticular decision can thereby be justified by saying we are "imitating the founder." The ideological nature of this approach, used alone, becomes clear. Experiential Approach to Charism The second approach "begins with contemporary experience. Looking at an institute's life and ministry today, the members discern what are the values and the motivation inspiring them. A synthesis of this group "spirit" is articulated and accepted as normative. Certain similarities with the XTeresa Led6chowska, O.S.U., A la'r~cherche du charism de I'institut (Rome, 1976), p. 14. "Ideology, as used here, means ideas which serve as weapons or cloaks for special interests. This usage is common., in .the sociology o~ knowledge and derives from Karl Marx via Karl Mannheim. 42 / ,Review ]or Religious, VOlume 36, 1977/1 spirit of the founder are either° found or are-read back into his life, but the important thing is to avoid withdrawing into the cocoon of the ~insti-tute and away from contemporary events and problems. If historical similarity.to the founder is lacking, this must be accepted" as a part'of his-torical development itself, the price ,paid for being truly in and of our own time. ~ The difficulty with this approach, considered in itself, lies in its easy acceptance of the zeitgeist as almost uniquely normative. The founder himself tends to become instr~umentalized, brought'in .whenever he can be used to justify current thinking and activity; and conveniently forgotten at other moments. Eventually, it would be hard to find any specific content at all to the so-ca.lled charism of the institute. If the first approach merely "copies" the founder~ the second tends to replace him. Hermeneutic Approach to Charism Is ~here a third approach,~incorporating the best Of the two sketched above? Perhaps a iook at hermeneuticg ~igl!t help to put'together a meth-odology which neither copies a founder nor replaces him but rather inter-prets him for Our time and for generations of religious yet to come. Hermeneutics Heymeneutic~, the science of interpretation, has its theolggic)d roots in the discussion of the historical Jesus and his relation to the Christ of faith? ]~he~gradual dissociation of religious, beliefs from historical'dvents had its beginnings in the late"l 8th century work of Lessing and has its best known twentieth century explication in the work of Rudolf Bulimafin. Hermeneutics as such, h~owever, is .a" theologically neutral ente'rRr~ise, concerned with the understanding of expressions of life as fixed in writing2 As a method, hermeneutics demands first of all exegesis, the careful establishment Of what the author ~f a text consciously meant to say in his writing. Next, h~rmeneutics tries intelligibly to span the historical distance between the text and our present reading of it by studying the author's con-text of understanding, including both his presuppositions (what he took for granted) and his horizon (what he was up to and how he did it). Finally, a third area of understanding must be made explicit. If the text is to be adequately interpreted, there is needed also a critique of the reader's context, the presuppositions .he brings to his reading, what is mean- .~See P. Grech's rrsum6 o[ the question in, "Jesus Christ in History and Kerygma," A New Catholic Commentar.v on Holy Scripture, Reginald G. Fuller, General Editor (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1969), pp. 822-837. 4See Berriard Lonergan, Method in Theology (N.Y.: Herder & Herder, 1972), pp. 59-64 and 153-173. Founding "Founderology" / 43 ingful in his understanding and life~ The interpreter's own subiectivity is utilized as a principle of interpretation. The challenge of hermeneutics lies at least partially in finding a context of understanding which incorporates both the explicit intentions of the author of the text and his cont6xt of understanding, along with the context of the reader or interpreter. ~ ,, Charism Interpretation In charism interpretation, the object of interpretation is not directly a single text or group of te£ts but rather a group-spirit which has its. origin in a particular historical person. Nevertheless, three areas of understanding, anaiogou~ to those necessary for textual interpretation, can be seen to be necessary: for an appreciation of a founder's spirit. First, we must understand what he personally intended and chose. A study,~ of his own writings and the decisions of his life is therefore necessary. Secondly, we must understand the founder's historical context, his horizon .of meaning and ,action .as a~man of his age. Accepting a spurious. contemporaneity, overlooking, for example, authoritatian presuppositions ~which.~.are now unattractive, would only falsify our interpretation. Thirdly, we must understand our own presuppositions and 'our own historical context. The general horizon of modern consciousness accepts unquestioningly that finitude is the vantage point of all, thinking and that ,,there are no privileged viewpoints. Nobody today, for example, believes he can know the mind of God or his will in the same rather absolute way peo-ple thought it possible to know them before the mediating structures :broke down. This contempor.ary tentativeness :can readily degenerate into a super-cilious attitude, debunking, every human thought "and value; at its best, however, it reminds us that we, too, are not necessarily smarter than peo-ple were in the founder's time. We just have a different pbint of view; and we must therefore work all the harder to understand the founder's context of meaning and action. Interpretation as. a. Communitarian. Activity But these three areas of understanding do not of themselves give us an interpretation of a founder's spirit. They prepare the task of' interpretation, but the actual interpretation must be~done in community~ Interpretation takes place in community nc;t only because community is a constitutive part of the life of most religioias institutes, but also because :interpretation is, of its very nature; a communitarian activity. ~ Community of Interpretation Interpersonal" Structure Interpretation is a communita~-ian activity because it is a joining, a communion, of three poles: the interpreter, the sign or object interpreted, 44 / Review [or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 and the person(s) for whom the interpretation is intended, or the inter-pretee( s)? By way of example, one can imagine an international conference during which speeches are translated simultaneously. The speaker's words are the sign or object interpreted, the translator is the interpreter, and those who do not understand the speaker's language are the interpretees. Together they form a community of interpretation, Without one of the three, but espe-cially without the interpreter, no community exists and the conference be-comes impossible. To push the example a bit further, one can imagine a particularly abstruse speech which makes little sense even to those who understand the language in which it is given. Then another sort of inter-preter is called for, perhaps a teacher or clarifier, who creates community between speaker and those spoken to. What might happen Should even the speaker not understand his speech? Then probably the situation calls for that sort of interpreter called a psychiatrist,'who can explain the speaker to himself. In any circumstance, the act of interpretation means that someone interprets something to and for another. The "other'-' might be the inter-preter himself at a different time. Everyone has had the experience of puz-zling through a conundrum and finally "interpreting" it to himself --- but even in this case there are three logically distinct subjects of the relationship: interpreter, interpreted and interpretee. Interpretation, then, is always a communitarian activity. Temporal Structure Chronologically, the interpreter can be placed in the present, the' inter-preted in the past and the interpretee in the future. The community of in-terpretation is a temporal community, in the sense that something in the past is interpreted by someone now for someone else in the future. The ac-tivity of interpreting, then, creates a community of memory and of hope. It brings together, in the present, both the past and the future. Again, an example might help. It is fashionable today to speak of "owning" one's own behavioi'. A person self-consciously appropriates in the present some act of his past so that it fits into his future. A self-image is an interpretation. When others share the individual's self-interpretation, community with them is possible. When all place the same interpretation on a past event and look forward to a common future, a larger community is possible, There is a Christian community, to use another example, because in the present we all interpret the past Christ-event in such a way that we look forward to his future coming in glory. Those who do not look back to Jesus '~This analysis of interpretation depends upon the work of tl~e American philosopher Josiah Royce, The Problem o] Christianity (N.Y.: Mac"millan, 1913), vol. ii, Lectures ix through xiv. ~ Founding "Founderology'" / 45 of Nazareth as Lord and Savior or do not look forward to the Parousia are not members of the Christian community, There is no common interpre-tation. Every community is a gathering of many separate persons into a commonly held memory and a commonly shared hope. In this sense, every community is a community of interpretation. In the community of interpretation which is a particular religious insti-tute, the members interpret in their time the.spirit and acts of their founder, a person now dead, to their future selves and to future generations of re-ligious, They say what they understand the founder to be, thereby establish-ing their community with him and enabling him--and them--to join those who will consider their interpretation in the future. This future considera-tion, of course, will be another interpretation in another present for another future in which they are past. Religious Community of Interpretation The Founder:s Concerns The relation of interpretation has a triadic personal structure (interpre-ter, interpreted and interpretee) and a triadic temporal structure (present, past and future). But the abstract framework explored so far is true of every act of interpretation and of every community of interpretation. Is there a specific 'contribution a founder makes to the community of interpretation which is his religious, institute? Obviously; if we are able to speak of a charism proper to an institute, then the object interpreted, the signs of God's grace which are the founder's words and acts, must provide the content which his followers interpret in the present. The founder raises concerns in the hearts and minds of his followers and these concerns specify religious com-munities .of interpretation., so that followers of Francis of Assisi are different from followers of Francis de Sales, Each religious, each community, each institute can produce a list of those concerns which were closest to its founder's heart. The founder I know best, Eugene De Mazenod,* was a diocesan priest who brought together a small mission, band to help re-evangelize southern France after the destruc-tion of parochial life in the French Revolution, Heavily influenced by the writings of St. Alphonsus Ligouri and by the example of St. Vincent de Paul, De Mazenod chose as a motto for.his missionaries the words of Isaiah echoed in Luke's Gospel: "He has sent me to preach the .Gospel to the poor; the poor have the Gospel preached to them." A practical leader rather than a speculative theorist, he saw his group develop slowly in response to many different needs in many different situa-tions. In some respects he seems to be a not very original man, yet certain *Eugene De Mazenod (1782-1861), ~ounder ~f the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and Bishop of Marseilles. ' He was beatified on Mission Sunday, October 19, 1975. 46 / Review [or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/1 personal concerns return constantly in his letters and his.life, An authentic Mazenodian community of interpretation, therefore,, would have to harbor at least the following four concerns:, 1 ) ~a concern ]or the poor: who are they; what language do they speak; what are their needs and their ways of understanding themselves? This was a constant ,concern of ,De Mazenod from the days of his first preaching in" the Provenqal dialect to his final instructions to his missionaries in Africa, Asia and North America ~ 2,) a co'ncern ]or the Church as universal: De Mazenod's own conver-sion to Christ crucified and his .love ~of Christ as universal Savior prompted both, his missionary zeal and his love of the pope as universal pastor; a vision of Christ's universal salvific action as sacramentalized in the Church must be somehow present to De Mazenod's interpreters. 3) a concern ]or ministry, and specifically for preaching Christ 'cruci-fied, in local circumstances: religious foundations were frequent in nine-teenth century France, but when another founder spoke~t6.De Mazenod of the need to go to all of France, De Mazenod insisted'on,first making Christ present in Provence, in the circtimstances he knew best. ,.A universal. Vision was coupled with a concern for local effectiveness, even as.the congregation itself became global. 4) a. concern ]or the quality of copnmitment bf the community itself: De Mazenod called his followers not to,share his opinions nor even only to share his work but to share his commitment, a commitment finally expressed in religious vows. Other areas of concern could certainly be raised. Concern for the way in which Mary is part of the Oblate spirit as exemplar:and guide is forced on De: Mazenod's institute by its very title. Concern for the proper under-standing of mission or of evangelization is also important~ But De Mazenod in pr~actice preached to and served and lived with certain grotips of people. Without living contact with analogous groups today, his spirit will escape his followers. ~ For the purpose of this paper, De Mazenod is only an exam

This essay continues with a discussion concerning the intersection between indigenous technological adoption/adaptation and the range of perspectives with respect to local communities' use of technology in general. Analytical instruments will be presented at the end of this article. First, however, the reader will have the opportunity to examine the 'views' of outsiders with respect to the debate surrounding sustainability, environmental management and territorial ordering. Responses to an on-line survey concerning the above issues together with my own comments, will add to the discussion. ; Gestión ambiental; Ordenamiento Territorial; Sostenibilidad; TIC; Usos ; 1 TECHNOLOGY IN NORTHWEST AMAZONIA (NWA) VIEWS OF VIEWS: SUSTAINABILITY, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND TERRITORIAL ORDERING A contribution to a Political Ecology for Northwest Amazonia1 This essay continues with a discussion concerning the intersection between indigenous technological adoption/adaptation and the range of perspectives with respect to local communities' use of technology in general2. Analytical instruments will be presented at the end of this article. First, however, the reader will have the opportunity to examine the 'views' of outsiders with respect to the debate surrounding sustainability, environmental management and territorial ordering. Responses to an on-line survey concerning the above issues together with my own comments, will add to the discussion. Aims Initially there were two aims behind the construction of a website. One of was to overcome impediments to my personal mobility and direct access3. ICT facilitated communications with other interested people and helped solicit their views on indigenous management of the forest and their opinions with respect to the process of territorial ordering in Amazonia. The other aim was to serve the process of opening up political opportunities for NWA's inhabitants. Grassroots organisations all around the globe were (and are) establishing links through ICT. The indigenous peoples of Amazonia may attempt the same and this experience could, in the future, be an instrument of education for NWA. The introduction of such technology among indigenous peoples, if possible, will have impacts, which will to be judged as positive or negative, depending of the political interests of the observer and the moment of observation. It is argued here, that despite there being no indisputable positive or negative effects of technological transfer, it would be contrary to indigenous people's rights to self-determination to prevent the promotion of ICT among them. We wish to question conservative forces: if governments, corporations, NGOs and even international drug dealers and terrorist groups are using ICT to fortify their political positions, why should indigenous peoples be denied access to it? The access (or lack of it) of grassroots organisations to ICT facilitates (or impedes) the 1 The author wishes to thank: Jim Connor and Mark Bennett of Imperial College, the former for his advice on the use of Arcview-GIS and the latter for helping to write the cgi-script form for the website. Thanks are also due to: Stuart Peters from the University of Surrey for training in Web- Page design; Adriana Rico from Páginas.Net for valuable advice during the design process and Alvaro Ocampo for a detailed critique of Kumoro.com before it went live. I also wish to thank the Board of Puerto Rastrojo Foundation, which gave me permission to use their vegetation map as a base for the Yaigojé vegetation map that appears on the web-site. Finally thanks to all the people that took the time to fill out the on-line survey. Their contributions made this chapter possible. 2 This discussion was introduced in "Technology in Northwest Amazonia: Sketches from Inside" (Forero 2002b). 3 A restriction of one of the scholarships the author was granted as well as guerrilla incursions at the time, prevented the author from going back to NWA. 2 development of their rights to be informed (and educated) in accordance with the actual historical context of a globalising corporate economy and cultural hybridisation. For indigenous peoples, as well as for other ethnic minorities, financial resources to set up ICT are extremely limited compared to those of corporations, governments and even NGOs. The establishment of an ICT network for indigenous peoples' organisations in NWA remains a Utopia. But without a Utopian vision there is no aim for social mobilisation; this is something that was underlined by responses to the on-line survey. Fieldwork in NWA involved the author in the territorial ordering process, helping with the formation of indigenous people's organisations, and getting involved in communities' economic and educational projects. My work in NWA can thus be characterised as participatory action research (PAR) and one way of continuing to engage in PAR without going back to the field was to set up a website, wait for an opportunity to share my experience with the people of NWA and promote projects that would allow them to take over the website and use it for their own projects4. Deconstruction of an Internet generated discourse Elsewhere the author has dealt with descriptions and deconstructions of discourses of indigenous and institutional organisations, be they NGOs, churches, governmental or international. This process of deconstruction has included the author's own work among indigenous organisations and NGOs, which was one of the aims of "Indigenous knowledge and the scientific mind: activism or colonialism?" (Forero 2002a). I wish to explain the inclusion of governmental and non-governmental organisations within the category 'institutional'. There are great differences as well as important coincidences in governmental actions and the work of NGOs in developing countries due to the limited nature and poor quality of State-driven action in such nations. E.g. in Colombia, COAMA, the largest NGO network in NWA, has been involved in the political administrative reforms, and served as a consultant in matters of education, health and sustainable production. Furthermore, COAMA staff accompanied indigenous peoples in all these processes and without their intervention it is doubtful that many of the indigenous political organisations of Amazonia would ever have succeeded in their quest for legal recognition5. NGOs and governmental institutions may pursue similar political aims and share administrative structures. Inasmuch as small organisations are successful, (and usually this success is a result of strong personal commitment to a cause and personal knowledge of all members of the organisation), they tend to obtain more funds, which in turn forces them to become increasingly bureaucratic. As 4 At the time of writing (May 2002) the author was preparing to visit NWA at the invitation of indigenous leaders, including the Co-ordinator of an education committee who wanted to discuss the roll of ICT in education. 5 See Forero, Laborde et al. 1998 and the interview with the director of COAMA Martín von Hildebrand, in The Ecologist 2002 (Vol. 32 No.1-February). 3 organisations grow, individual members have fewer opportunities to get to know each other personally and maintain an accordance of principles, aims and political means. This is not to say that NGOs are condemned to be inefficient bureaucratic institutions, (which is not uncommon among developing countries' governmental institutions). But it is important to draw attention to the risk that when resources are pumping in and recruitment is growing there is more chance of becoming detached from grassroots sensibilities with respect to issues and less chance of correctly interpreting local developmental idioms. Views of Indigenous Environmental Management The design, production and publishing of a website on the development of a political ecology for NWA, taking the Yaigojé Resguardo as a study case, may seem a very simple task with little impact. But it proved to be a very delicate matter that involved exhausting work. The production of a map of the Yaigojé Resguardo, (which was to be included on the website) has been explained elsewhere, although it is worth mentioning something about the methodology involved. The author accompanied shamans (who were selected by indigenous leaders from the Apaporis) on several trips in which all the recognised sacred places of the Apaporis River and some of its tributaries where identified. The shamans learn the names of the places during their training. These names are recited in myths, chants and spells. The shamans carry, as they say, the map within themselves. It is impressive to see these men point to a place and give its name without hesitation. It is like this even when they have never been in that place before. It is impressive that this orally transmitted geography corresponds so precisely to the physical aspects that start to become relevant for people who, like the author, have different epistemological instruments for their interpretations of the world. While visiting the sacred places shamans spoke of trips they had made previously. In the case of shamanistic trips, visits did not actually involve physical journeys, but what were referred to as trips en pensamiento, en espíritu (in thought, in spirit). While accompanying them I recorded the geographical co-ordinates using a satellite guided geographical positioning system (GPS). The geographical co-ordinates thus generated were converted to plane co-ordinates and a map was generated using AUTOCAD software. Translations, drawings and reflections about this map-making process are included in a MSc thesis of the University of Warwick (Forero 1999). The work I will describe now, although partially derived from my work with the shamans is distinct in character and intention from that reported in Forero (1999). The use of technological gadgetry allowed me partially to reflect the Tukano world in a way that non-indigenous people could understand. And although this was a significant and, I believe, useful undertaking the real knowledge of the territory lies within the shamans with whom I worked. The fact that the 'indigenous territorial' aspects of the website are illustrated with maps is a by-product of the technology. A more significant value of the work (and the reason behind the shamans' wish to become involved in mapping) is that the maps were going to provide evidence for the legal process through which the ACIYA 4 indigenous organisation would claim rights over lands outside the recognised Resguardo Indigenous Reserve (Forero, Laborde et al. 1998). This work was successful and an extension to the Resguardo was indeed granted. Work on the website began by making a provisional outline of the desired end product. The original plan included six pages: Introduction (Home), vegetation map, traditional territorial map, discussion (an introduction to the political ecology of the Yaigojé Resguardo), bibliography (for those looking for references to NWA and the Yaigojé in particular), and a questionnaire that would generate the information from which this chapter has been developed6. The contrasting discourses obtained from the questionnaires Although I shall refer to percentages in this section, there is no intention of making any predictions based on statistical analyses. Neither is it suggested that the analysis of questionnaires can provide an objective account of outsiders' opinions with respect to the politics of the environment and people of NWA. The following notes are not representative in that sense and such was never the intention of the exercise. What is intended is that the reader gets an insight into the perceptions of survey respondents. What is important in a qualitative data analysis, like this, is to present differential tendencies. If discourses are constituents of reality then the confusing scenario of political confrontation in NWA should be linked to the visions and perspectives of all of us, including the views of people that have never been in Amazonia but nonetheless hold an opinion. And, if there is a marked difference between indigenous and exogenous perspectives with respect to sustainability and environmental management in Amazonia, which relates to whether people have visited NWA or not, this should be reflected in the answers to the surveys. The information generated from the on-line survey was collected between May and December of 2001. Eight hundred invitations were sent through e-mail. They were sent mainly to academics and organisations working on indigenous issues, conservation or sustainable development in NWA. One of these invitations reached COLNODO7 and the ICT network asked if we wished to submit the website in a weekly contest for the best new website, which we did and subsequently won! This meant that COLNODO subscribers were notified and invited to visit the site. But we have no idea how many hits were derived from COLNODO invitation. What we know is that during these 8 months we received 51 completed survey forms. This is a 6.4% response rate to the original 800 invitations8. 6 The survey form is in Appendix 1and, a summary of the technical work involved in the construction of the web-site is in Appendix 2. 7 "COLNODO is a Colombian communications network serving organizations dedicated to community development. It is operated by the non-profit organization called Colombian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations for Email Communication" (http://www.colnodo.org.co/summary_english.html). For a critical review of COLNODO work the interested reader could consult Gómez, R. 1998. 8 This response rate is rather low relative to postal questionnaire surveys, but we are unable to assess it relative other on-line surveys. 5 For the purposes of the analysis respondents (R) were divided into two groups: those claiming to have visited NWA (VA – 29% of R) and those claiming not to have visited the region (NVA – 71% of R). With respect to occupation, 68% of R come from the academic sector, including five anthropologists (almost 10% of R) all of whom had visited NWA. In contrast, although there were the same number of environmental managers as anthropologists answering the questionnaire, none had visited NWA. With respect to gender, the percentage of male (53%) and female (47%) respondents is similar across both VA and NVA groups. In terms of age, there were four groups: 1) 18 to 24, 2) 25 to 34, 3) 35 to 50, and 4) over 50. For R the percentages were: 8%, 47%, 35% and 10% respectively. The majority of respondents belong to the second group, between 25 to 34 years of age. However with respect to age groups the composition of VA and NVA groups differs: 56% of the NVA group belong to this second age cohort (25-34), while the majority of the VA group (47%) is between 35 and 50. Additionally, 13% of the VA group are over 50. 61% of the NVA group are between 18 and 34 years of age, while 60% of those that have visited Amazonia are over 35. A comparison of age among the survey respondents thus shows that those that have visited Amazonia (VA) tend to be older than those that have not (NVA). To distinguish among the views held by survey respondents we have to present the responses to each of the questions of the survey. We have made some associations of responses with the intention of outlining the different tendencies that we identify, but the reader might identify others. Before we do so a word about the view of respondents with respect to the website itself should be said. Website evaluation An evaluation of the web-site made by users was included in the questionnaire. Respondents were asked to rate the site between four categories: poor, fair, good and excellent. These categories were chosen as follows: 0, 2, 32 and 15 respectively. Two of the respondents did not offer a rating for the site. Additionally, respondents had the opportunity to suggest improvements. Some respondents suggested changes in design: modification of fonts and colours (some changes had already taken place). There were those who asked for more pictures, a photo album, more links and the construction of a chat room. With respect to the content, some wanted more ethnographic data, another more on political ecology, others asked for better visibility of the maps, while others called for additional links to related sites, and/or more information in general. One suggestion was to make the website less personalised, while another expressed interest in knowing more about the author's research project. Others asked for an enhanced bibliography. Some changes had already taken place by the time these comments were analysed but further changes are still being undertaken at the time of writing. With respect to the questionnaire, two people suggested larger windows to facilitate vision and to be able to comment largely, in contrast, another suggested encouraging more 'yes/no' responses. An important suggestion was: "Perhaps it is now appropriate to include some questions on communication 6 and information flows" (S52). Although not sought explicitly, information was gathered with respect to the use of ICT in the territorial ordering process of Amazonia. One of the respondents suggested that in future the website should be used by indigenous peoples of the Yaigojé. This has been the intention of the author, which has made a visit to Yaigojé (summer 2002) with intention to advance in that direction. Access to ICT for the indigenous peoples of the Yaigojé Resguardo is very limited but present. Future modification of the site will respond to indigenous peoples' feedback. During the visit few indigenous people gave their opinions on the website but several discussions on the roll of ICT in developmental processes took place9. Q1 - Are development and sustainability compatible? A clear response to Question 1 was that this depends on the definition of both terms: "It is impossible to answer this question as it is, as both terms are open to interpretation… " (S26). The question could have been and was read as: Is sustainable development attainable? Respondent S26 continued: "I think sustainable development is possible but hard to achieve in an environment of often conflicting interests and values (economic vs. environmental vs. cultural.)… " One respondent (S22) did not answer this particular question, and two others seemed to be confused (S38 and S41). Forty respondents (78% of R) answered that they were or could be compatible, although there are differences in the way they perceived this compatibility. Development first There were few respondents that failed to question the meaning of 'development' as concept or practice: the developmental project. These responses somehow postulated that certain environmental concerns should be acknowledged and dealt with in order for the development processes to continue: "Yes… . Development as the integration of western technologies or increase of income per capita, can be carefully done by implementing appropriate technologies into the productive activities of the communities. Sustainability defined as a continuous productivity level over the long term." (S2); "Yes. It is only a question of integration of environmental considerations in all we do and adjustment of behaviours accordingly." (S12); "Yes, because there can never be sustainability without development. People have, first to develop for them to have a sense of sustainability." (S13); "Yes, I do. The point is how you can reach a determinate "state" of development without undermining financial, ecological and human capacities in a determinate site (or taking into account their characteristics)." (S40) SD: human - environmental security There were others that perceived the compatibility or the possibility of sustainable development as the chance to diminish human/environmental security risks: "Yes of course in the long run - otherwise life is not possible." (S18); 9 The author is currently preparing a report that will summarise some of these discussions. 7 "Yes. Both are necessary for the survival of the area." (S21); "Si. Solo las acciones en el hoy nos pueden garantizar acciones en el mañana. (Yes. Only by taking action now we can guarantee we could act tomorrow)." (S23); "Yes, development should always be sustainable otherwise there are costs that are not taken into account. i.e. cost of pollution" (S39); "We don't have any choice. We have to make development and sustainability compatible as it's the only way we can survive and at the same time preserve the earth for future generations." (S42) Pessimism, in the sense that without SD life will no longer be possible, was to be repeated in the responses to all of the survey questions. Sustainability is an aim The majority of the respondents that believed development and sustainability to be compatible or capable of becoming compatible, were also of the opinion that the goal of sustainable development had not yet been achieved. Some of them discussed requisite conditions for achieving sustainability. They either underlined the importance of accepting sustainability as a guiding principle for development policy and interventions or/(and) exemplified ways in which sustainable practices might be instituted: "They have to be. I think they are because they have to be. I am optimistic that eventually it will be seen as natural to have sustainable development, but the problem is when this attitude kicks in." (S3) "Depends on how you define the two terms. If you mean that human quality of life can improve while maintaining the natural resource base, I think this is possible but very difficult to achieve." (S5) "Yes, but development in qualitative and not in quantitative terms." (S8) "Yes… there can be sustainable development in an ecological sense of the word - which means installing 'best ecological practice' in planning development." (S24) "No solo lo creo sino que estoy seguro que ambos pueden ser compatibles. Un desarrollo sin considerar ciertos indicadores de sustentabilidad/ sotenibilidad no es posible o viceversa. Uno y otro deberan de ir al parejo tratando de limar los conflictos que a menudo surgen cuando se pretende no un desarrollo pero un crecimiento economico sin considerar la parte social/cultural o ecologica. (Not only I believe that the two can be compatible, I am certain. Development without considering certain indicators of sustainability is impossible or vice versa. Both should go hand in hand, trying to solve the social, cultural and ecological problems that often arise when economic growth rather than sustainable development is the goal)." (S 25) "Sim, no alto rio Negro onde trabalho a ideia e essa: implementar um programa regional de desenvolvimento indedgena sustentado. (Yes, in the Upper Black River, where I work, the idea is precisely to implement a regional programme for sustainable indigenous development)" (S29) "Yes they are. The problem is with the material and energy growth and its compatibility with some environmental standards, like critical thresholds and so on." (S35) "Yes. The only way is by avoiding rapid over-development and having good planning."(S37) ".El concepto de desarrollo sostenible lo veo mucho mas como algo a lo que se quiere llegar, es una nocion implementada por parte de las politicas gubernamentales y ong's donde lo que se 8 procura con estos es el aprovechamiento al maximo de los recursos con un minimo impacto ambiental y social. (I see the concept of sustainable development as goal towards which we heading. It is an idea implemented through governmental and non-governmental policies which aim at maximum exploitation of resources with a minimum of environmental and social impacts)." (S48) "Yes, because they represent the best option to keep for human life." (S51) The need for local definitions Among the respondents that considered sustainability and development compatible if certain conditions were met, there is group of responses that emphasised the need for local definitions of 'sustainability' and 'development', or 'sustainable development': "They can be compatible providing that development is targeted at the right level i.e. small scale and in-keeping with the natural resources and environment." (S5) "Depende de las condiciones y del desarrollo para quién? Por lo tanto el desarrollo es sostenible si es buscado y logrado por la misma comunidad local (It depends on the conditions and on the question 'Development for whom'? Development can only be sustainable if it is sought and implemented by the local community itself)" (S20) "Yes but mainly if made through indigenous methodologies in their territories in Amazonia" (S27) "Yes. There is work done in northern Scandinavia where the "sammi" (lapps) have been given economical support and encouraged to create their own parliament. They have programs protecting their way of life, language and customs. The Norwegian broadcasting company NRK sends news in the language and coastal dialects. All this, at least for Norwegian sammi (lapps) has been key factors in late developments where communities have developed economically achieving great sustainability, contributing, not only to their well being, but to the sustainability of the inhospitable sub-artic regions." (S31) "Yes - but only if there is an 'appropriate' deployment of tools, techniques and processes of development in line with local community needs." (S52) Semantics and the economic imperative Interestingly, one respondent was very pessimistic about the possibilities for sustainable development even when it was sought and pursued at the local level. This respondent brought into the equation the idea that people are driven by monetary benefits to deplete their environment, even though they know that such practices are unsustainable: "To a certain degree, yes. I think that monetary considerations will always outweigh humanitarian concerns and it is very hard to convince people who are seeking a living from sometimes-meagre resources that it is in their own good to give consideration to long-term sustainable use of their resources. It is usually easier and cheaper to move on to the next area when one area has been depleted." (S17) This last argument derives from a rationality that considers poor people to be collaborators in their own misery. In this particular response there was no questioning of the developmental project or the social structures within which people are stimulated to act regardless of the future; but it did address 'monetary considerations' as the driving force. 9 Those responses that argued that the concepts are incompatible claimed an intrinsic contradiction in "sustainable development": "Development of any kind cannot sustain anything." (S4). Instead of blaming the people (needy or not), the proponents of incompatibility pointed their fingers at 'the system'; contemporary capitalist structures, the current developmental project and the prevailing economic model are seen as unavoidably contrary to sustainable practices: "No because development is premised upon economic gain, and capitalism is inherently unsustainable" (S10); "The problem with sustainability is that the economic model is not compatible with social, economic and ecological aspects at the same time and proportion. The neo-liberal model promotes the economic aspect leaving as secondary the social and ecological." (S19); "No, because development does not imply a recognition of limits or the necessity to preserve the natural and human resources used to achieve it. It is an economic concept, which has bases in the apparently unlimited uses of resources… " (S47); "… Si lo entemos [desarrollo] como crecimiento economico, por supuesto que no son compatibles. Ya que el crecimiento economico, tal y como lo plantean los economistas, excluye de raiz criterios sociales, culturales y ambientales requeridos para la sustentabilidad." (If we understand development as economic growth, of course they [sustainability and development] are not compatible. This is because economic growth, as economist have brought it up, excludes from its bases the environmental, cultural and social requirements of sustainability)" (S34) S.D. inconsistent with the present There are less radical rejections of the compatibility, which do not portray sustainable development as a contradiction itself but rather as inconsistent with current economic and ecological trends. The point such respondents make is that the necessary conditions for sustainable development are currently, rather than inherently unattainable: "… The current model of industrial development, where 'development' means material economic growth, is unlikely to be sustainable on a long term basis for the majority of the world population." (S1) "Present development of our world is clearly not sustainable" (S33) "Yes, they are compatible. But in a different social and economic order, not in the one the world is living now… " (S36) "Yes, if we change the way development is understood, for instance, development is associated to living styles resembling to those Europe and USA have, which are a lot related to consumption. But we could live in a healthier and more compatible way with our environment if we change our pattern of consumption and the generalised idea of development nowadays, it would be turning it into "only use what I need and get from nature, exclusively this, not until I just can't get anymore from it", 'cause I over pressed the place, to obtain more benefits. So, at last, this could be possible but in the long term, I hope not when there's nothing left to do." (S45) 10 Greening politics Some responses expressed doubts about the compatibility of sustainability and development. These doubts arise from the apparent use of "sustainability" as a green rhetoric, the aim of which is the continuation of projects that degrade the environment or human rights: ". usually development translates into cutting down natural habitats without regard to "sustaining" cultures" (S32); "In theory 'yes' but much depends on the definition of the terms and societies' acceptance of equal human rights and obligations to others." (S7) "Los conceptos de desarrollo y de sostenibilidad resultan ser bastantes amplios y ambiguos. En la mayoria de los casos cuando se plantean proyectos de desarrollo se trata de relacionarlos directamente con proyectos que resulten ser favorables para el medio ambiente. Como si un concepto llevara implicito otro, sin embargo creo que lo que se esta haciendo desde hace algunos años es precisamente disfrazar los proyectos de desarrollo para que sean aprobados bajo el nombre de mantenimiento del medio ambiente." (The concepts of sustainability and development are very ambiguous. In the majority of cases, there is an attempt to portray development projects as environmentally friendly[, a]s if one concept implied the other. However, I believe that what has been happening for the last few years is a camouflaging of development projects, in order to get them approved under the heading of environmental management) (S48). Reflections on responses to Q110: If "all development is not 'absolute' but will have a beginning and an end" (S24) then, "[d]evelopment of any kind cannot sustain anything." (S4). The impossibility of re-establishing high quality energy after it has been transform into low quality energy (or entropy) is a characteristic feature of closed systems, this would leave us with a world in decline where there is no possibility of sustaining anything. It could be argued that this is the case, as we cannot even guarantee perpetual solar energy flow. But this is perhaps taking the concept of sustainability too far, leaving us with no possibility for discussion. The central political discussion arising from the different responses revolves around the contradiction between those arguments of compatibility that leave the development project unquestioned and those that reject any possibility of compatibility because of a profound questioning of development. Between the two, the picture is blurred, undefined, open and elusive. There does not appear to be any significant correspondence between the two opposite groups of respondents in relation to whether they have been in Amazonia or not. Three out of five of the respondents claiming that there is absolutely no compatibility between development and sustainability have been in Amazonia; but so have two out of four of the respondents that left the development project unquestioned. However, it may be of some significance that none of those that accepted 'sustainable development' are related to social sciences. Those respondents with academic backgrounds in the social sciences all fit into groups 10 A schematic summary can be found in Table 1, Appendix 3. 11 that see sustainable development as a principle, something to be defined locally or as a reformist greening of politics. None of them were found in the group arguing for absolute incompatibility. The middle ground, where the picture is most blurred, came from the majority of respondents by whom it was argued that sustainable development may be possible but that they were unsure about how it might be achieved. Although these responses varied from those expressing suspiciousness (those pointing out the rhetoric of sustainability) to hope: "They have to be. I think they are because they have to be". This acceptance of a possibility of sustainable development, despite the semantic contradiction and current political rhetorical manipulation of the term, reflects a process of thinking and acting that is deeply rooted in Utopian beliefs. This 'sustainability' will happen in the future, in another time, when local communities take control of their lives and their resources, when environmental protection is taken seriously, when today's actions reflect our responsibility toward the future, etc. According to one of the respondents even continuous increases in productivity will be possible, when the proper technology has been developed. Q2 - Is there a relationship between indigenous reserves (IR) and protected areas (PA)? In Colombia IR are called "Resguardos Indígenas" or "Resguardos de Tierras". The term resguardo, literally means protection. Its meaning is not too different from that given to natural conservation areas of different grades: áreas protegidas, protected areas (PA). Both, IR and PA, emphasise the need for an area to be specially protected. Some of the respondents of this question pointed out an implicit relationship between IR and PA perhaps departing of this meaning: "… In a general sense, indigenous reserves are protected areas; they are protected from outside influence for the benefit of the indigenous people… " (S1); "Yes there are relationships. Both have natural systems and environmental quality that requires some level of conservation and protection" (S9); "Yes , for obvious reason. Because the protected reserves are a birth child of indigenous reserves and because we do not want to lose the nature environment the relationship should be maintained." (S13); "Yes, indigenous reserves are protected areas" (S28) As in the case of Q1 (Do you think that development and sustainability are compatible?) some respondents pointed out that it would depend on what we understand by the two terms: "Depends on the sort of protected area or what we mean with protected area… " (S25). "There could be" (S38); "It could be, but I am not sure" (S46); "… this has to be context specific" (S1). Five respondents simply said "yes" (S37, S18, S22, S43, S50) and one simply said "no" (S15). However many of the respondents did go on to qualify the relationship in some way. 12 Harmony or the need for it Some of the affirmative responses portrayed indigenous peoples as the guardians of the environment while others offered concrete examples of this viewpoint: "Si. Las culturas indigenas han demostrado que sus culturas han vivido armonicamente con su entorno durante miles de años" (Yes. Indigenous peoples have demonstrated that their cultures have lived in harmony with their environment during millennia). (S23); "Empirical evidence through statistical analysis has shown (particularly in Colombia in the north west region of the Sierra Nevada) that there is a direct relation between conservation and indigenous reserves. So, the answer is "yes, I do think so". (S40) There were those that referred to the need for a harmonic relationship because: 1) the environment should be protected for the benefit of indigenous peoples: "… indigenous reserves are related with spaces or areas that the government leaves for indigenous people and protected areas are where the local authorities or government provide the ($) resources in order to protect them" (S19); "Existe una relación, historica y cultural, respecto a su territorio, esto debe ser respetado y protegido para las mismas comunidades indigenas" (There is an historic and cultural relationship with respect to their territories. This should be respected and protected by indigenous communities for their own sake (S20). 2) the protection is fundamental for biodiversity conservation: "… Podria ser que se proteja un area porque existe cierta flora o fauna que esta en peligro de extincion. Por ejemplo, muchos animales que viven en la selva solo se aparean una vez al año en cierta temporada y si estos son interrumpidos por presencia humana su decendencia podria verse aun mas en peligro de extincion… " (It may be that an area is protected because there are endangered flora or fauna. For example, there are many rainforest animals that mate once a year or seasonally; if they are interrupted by human activities their progeny could be further endangered) (S25); "… development there should be restricted for the sake of conservation" (S33) 3) sustainable practices could be developed based on indigenous peoples' experiences: "Yes. By protecting areas where almost all indigenous people are more and more confined, there will be a way to preserve indigenous experiences in order for these experiences to contribute to a sustainable development." (S11). Utopia There were also those sorts of answers that reflected a feeling of hope or a sense of Utopia, in which a harmonic, positive relationship was acknowledged as desirable but not yet achieved: "I imagine IR to equate with PA in some way. Perhaps naively. IR is implicitly protected from external development forces, but not necessarily internal." (S3); "There can be. If people are continuing a way of life that has been sustainable in the past and are able to develop sustainably (… ) there is no reason why both should not coexist." (S6); "Most indigenous reserves must be also protected areas. How to effectively do it? I don't know." (S36); "In countries with mindless and irresponsible politicians and business people, it should be mandatory that 'indigenous reserves' must be synonymous with 'protected areas'. (S42) 13 Contamination and cultural imposition Some respondents signalled the risk of contamination, this is of indigenous peoples being influenced by a mestizo culture and therefore driven to break the presumed harmonic relationship with the natural environment. This may be seen as a lost opportunity, that of the rest of humanity to learn from indigenous experiences or, that of given indigenous people to assert managerial control: "Yes, as indigenous populations tend to live in harmony with nature these areas tend to require protection from the outside world. (S12); "… I also think it is difficult to put it into practice since indigenous people want to be part of the economic system and therefore there is a risk of depletion. Anyway who is better to protect certain areas than the people who have lived there for hundred of years!!!" (S39); "Yes, in fact, so far as I know, many of our indigenous people live in these protected areas, where most of them have been able to live in a sustainable way, I say most of them, because others are affected by the mestizo men that live nearby or want to get something from that place due to its economic importance, affecting these natural areas." (S45) It was pointed out that both types of jurisdiction, IR and PA, derived from a cultural-historical process, in which self-determination was not accounted for: "Yes, a very imperialistic one - especially in the Americas (including Canada). It is an old regressive link between the two, in the 60s and 70s this paternalistic viewpoint saw indigenous culture as static --which is wrong!" (S24); "Yes, they both seem to be defined by the ruling 'white' government." (S26) A respondent that had visited Amazonia (VA) added that there is resistance to this imposition, at least as far as indigenous peoples of Colombia are concerned: "yes-especially when indigenous management systems are practised in spite of the models of dominant society in Colombia" (S27). Similarly, another VA respondent suggested that in Colombia there are no friendly relationships between IR and PA: "It depends from country to country, but in Colombia no" (S10)! Analytical responses The analysis provided by some of the respondents tended to localise the relationship: to put it into the historical process. The analysis underlined the main problem for a "non-confrontational" relationship between IR and PA regimes. As they are designations that came about without public participation and from a rationality that is especially alien to indigenous peoples, when IRs and PAs overlap, competition for management arises. These type of answers either acknowledged that the relationship happens through overlap, or mentioned the difficulties of hitting indigenous rights and conservation target simultaneously: "Freedom of choice for all people, in terms of lifestyle, cultural heritage can translate into giving management control to indigenous people in protected areas. However the balance between sustainable economic development for indigenous people and at the same time protecting the environment is a difficult topic to discuss at a macro level. Individual environmental and socio-cultural circumstances need to be fully accounted for and explicitly articulated." (S7) "Yo creo que existe una relacion estrecha entre reservas indigenas y areas protegidas alrededor del mundo. Ya que estas dos figuras juridicas en muchos casos (p.e. Colombia) se encuentran translapadas." (I believe there is a close relationship between indigenous reserves and protected areas around the world. It derives from the fact that in many cases these two jurisdictions overlap) (S34). 14 "There is a relationship when they overlap, which I think happens often." (S44) "Los resguardos y las reservas indigenas han tenido la tendencia a considerarse y definirse como areas protegidas, sin embargo me parece importante tener en cuenta que al establecer los limites territoriales entre los resguardos quedan zonas intermedias que no pertenecen necesariamente a algun resguardo, y esto hace de un modo u otro que tambien se presenten roces con diferentes actores. Por la misma razon que al no estar circunscrito en un resguardo aparentemente se consideraría como un area no protegida… " (It has been the tendency to consider the resguardos and indigenous reserves as protected areas. However, I think it is worth considering that when the resguardo boundaries are established, there are zones in-between not ascribed to any resguardo. And this makes it somehow possible for different [political] actors to get confrontational. This happens as a consequence of the non-ascription of the in-between zone, which is not considered as protected area… ) (S48) However it came about and assuming that both jurisdictions are somehow competing, some respondents argued that IR should be more effective, as it gives responsibility to the people for their own lives: "Yes, although I think indigenous reserves serve to protect the environment/area better. This is because they are protected by local people who value the resources and use them in a traditional and more sustainable way. Protected areas can be designated/run by Governments and this can remove the responsibility from the indigenous peoples." (S5); "Yes. I think that indigenous reserves do offer more protection than protected areas because it gives local people more incentive to use sustainable practices. They can see it being in their own interests" (S17) In contrast, one respondent argued: "Maybe there is, but I don't believe in reserves" (S35). And a second respondent (VA) added that poverty have driven indigenous peoples to behave unsustainably: "I think it is possible. However, some indigenous areas are completely degraded because they are selling their natural resources to survive." (S53). This response (S53) is related to one of those made to Q1: "To a certain degree, yes. I think that monetary considerations will always outweigh humanitarian concerns and it is very hard to convince people who are seeking a living from sometimes meagre resources that it is in their own good to give consideration to long-term sustainable use of their resources. It is usually easier and cheaper to move on to the next area when one area has been depleted." (S17) Both answers (Q1-S17, Q2-S53) echo a neo-Malthusian argument. It implies that a 'tragedy of the commons' is happening in Amazonia and elsewhere as result of overpopulation. The politics involved "No. Indigenous reserves and protected areas (for nature conservation) are two different political land use strategies. If the government is assigning an Indian reserve then they should respect the use the indigenous people are making of the terrain according to traditional use or to improved technologies. Areas for Nature conservation must be treated separately and with a different priority. We cannot make the indians responsible for the disappearing of the diversity. The government has to be responsible by applying appropriate conservation and management regimes" (S2) This response makes an argument for the need to differentiate between IR and PA as diverse political strategies that pursue different aims. The first would aim to 15 comply with Indigenous Peoples Rights, particularly that of self-determination. The second political strategy would aim at biodiversity conservation. The respondent acknowledges indigenous social change as indigenous management depends on both, tradition and technological improvement. Interestingly, the analysis provided does not try to conceal the confrontational nature of the relationship; nor does it neither place much hope in conciliation. On the contrary, it advocates for a distinction. If there is some hope or sense of utopia in the response it comes from solutions provided by technological improvement. Which is something this particular respondent had already stressed in Q1: "… . Development as the integration of western technologies or increase of income per capita, can be carefully done by implementing appropriate technologies into the productive activities of the communities. Sustainability defined as a continuous productivity level in the long term." (S2) Non-conclusive comment-Q211 Nowadays, the establishment or enlargement of IRs (Resguardos in Colombia) and PAs requires the interested proponents to follow long protocols, the fulfilment of precise administrative procedures and of legal conditions. One aim of the process is to allow different stakeholders to participate and to assure the fulfilment of fundamental rights to all citizens in equal conditions. In Colombia, like in many other parts of the developing world, when the "juridical figures" were established these procedures were not necessary, therefore, many IRs and PAs were established without participation of all interested parties. It is not surprising that some of the respondents refer to the confrontation or competition of regimes that began with their imposition. It could be of some significance that none of the respondents that claimed the need to harmonise IR and PA have been in Amazonia. In contrast, the two respondents that pointed out that these two regimes are conflicting in Colombia have been there. The analytical response that called for clear differentiation between the two also came from the group of people that had visited Amazonia (VA). From the set of answers given to Q2 it is clear that different and contrasting narratives ascribed to with respect to environmental management. For some of the respondents indigenous peoples are guardians of the environment, victims of colonialism or in risk of a cultural contamination that will force them to adopt maladaptive strategies that would threaten conservation strategies. For others, indigenous reserves are untrustworthy designations: the environment should be preserved against development and human intervention, be it indigenous or otherwise. Therefore indigenous peoples should not be in charge of environmental management. Yet, another political perspective is derived from hopes of compatibility between the two regimes, which although pursuing different aims are seen as relevant for environmental and human security at the same time. Thus, the third perspective could be characterised as dialectic or iterative. From this (last) perspective indigenous experience could help the development of conservation strategies; and, 11 Schematic summary: Table 2, Appendix 3. 16 at the same time, the revision of environmental and conservation management strategies could be vital for the survival of indigenous peoples. Hope or Utopian visions also have a place here: the development of technology is seen as a key component for adequate environmental management. Technological improvement would allow both compliance with indigenous peoples' rights and biodiversity conservation. We are sketching a continuum from our comment on Q1, suggesting that the narrative of conciliation 'reflects a process of thinking and acting that is deeply rooted in utopia'. Q3 - Do you think that the concepts of protected areas (PA), indigenous reserves (IR) and sustainable development (SD) are useful for environmental management today? Two respondents say that the concepts should be context specific: "Yes, but which of them is useful depends on context… " (S1). "As I said before, all these terms have to be defined properly in the first place before they can be applied." (S2). There were two respondents that simply said 'yes' (S14, S22), while one answered: "yes, if it works" (S4). S4's response suggests that concepts are instruments, and not surprisingly many answers referred to the "applicability" of these three concepts. Environmental indians and contamination risk Some respondents reiterated the idea, already expressed in Q1 and Q2, that indigenous peoples are practitioners of SD or conservation managers: "… Indigenous reserves are important because they allow the preservation of a way of living in sympathy with the environment long gone in most areas… " (S12); "Claro que si. Las culturas indigenas son un ejemplo de convivencia y explotacion sostenible del entorno en que viven" (Yes of course. Indigenous cultures are an example of coexistence with the environment they live in and of sustainable exploitation.) (S23); "Yes because indigenous people are the 'shepherds' of the landscape and they have a first-hand understanding and experience (handed down from previous generations) of ecosystem processes. Sometimes indigenous customs and habits reflect an understanding of nature's processes that can be exemplary in the planning of management plans… "(S41) One response re-enforced an idea presented in Q2, that indigenous sustainable practices are in risk as the younger generations begin to adopt western lifestyles: "… , but this knowledge is also in danger [endangered],… , shamanism is related in many cases to the management of the natural resources, but I have listened to the indigenous people from the community that I'm working in, that they're not interested in receiving this knowledge from their parents, and day by they they're a lot like us in their agricultural practices." (S45) Principles as instruments Various responses made reference to certain conditions that would have to be fulfilled in order for the concepts to be useful. This perspective, where the concepts are understood as political instruments, could be useful if a 'real' or 'truth-value' definition of them were accomplished. This truth-value would come from using the political instrumentality of a concept only if it were to reflect a set of principles such as intergenerational equity, empowerment, and participation. 17 And, in the case of participation, special emphasis were given to the incorporation of indigenous people, their knowledge and ways of dealing with the environment: "The concept of protected areas will only be successful if indigenous peoples are involved, therefore this would seem to indicate that indigenous reserves would be the best way forward of the two" (S5) "… indigenous reserves need to be redefined according to the wishes of the people who will be living in them,… (S6); "… If sustainable development means development with the means which exist and with the participation of the people concerned… " (S11); Yes. Exercising indigenous knowledge should not be limited to reserves but integrated into the management plans along with scientific knowledge more widely. (S26); "Yes… Any protected area, etc. must actively incorporate the participation of indigenous people" (S41) The idea of intergenerational equity is attached to that of resource reserve for the developmental process: "Yes… The sustainable development concept relating to the obligation of the present generation to leave enough natural assets and capital for future generations to enjoy at least the same quality of life we enjoy today must be at the heart of environmental management activities." (S12) "Yes, because the natural environment that we believe is endangered should be protected as a reference in future years to come and because of this a sense of environmental management is very important as the same environment becomes a resource for development" (S13) "Yes. We need to protect the area and its people and provide for sustainable development. (S21) "… pero estoy cierto que las areas protegidas independentemente del interes en prervarlas desempeñan un papel importante en el manejo de ambientes naturales para la captura de CO2, conservación de recursos biogenéticos/biodiversidad/ y como elementos de estudio para futuras generaciones… " (… but I am certain that, independently of the interest in preserving them, protected areas play a roll in the management of natural environment for CO2 sequestration, conservation of biodiversity/genetic resources and as study subjects for future generations (S25) "yes, otherwise development will go against our own endurance. I think we have to consider the possibility that we are not the most powerful force in this world." (S38) Risk and Protection Following this idea is that of concepts (as political instruments) being useful if they could provide and enforce protection (S13, S21 above). In this case either the environment is seen at risk (endangered species or ecosystems) or both indigenous peoples and their environments: "Yes. Protected areas are important as pools of natural resources not affected by human activity. Indigenous reserves are important because they allow the preservation of a way of living in sympathy [tune] with the environment long gone in most areas." (S12); "I think they are vital. Until everyone has a responsible attitude to environmental control certain protections have to be enforced." (S17) Some of the responses expressing a need for environmental protection have a sense of impending catastrophe: "Yes, but they are loaded concepts so we have to be careful in using them… sustainable development is the only way we will survive, but is usually glibly applied." (S6); "in a limited sense perhaps.but what we need to accomplish is protection of all that there is left, without cutting and taking land around the so called protected area. stop the modernisation process wherever it has not already reached into" (S32); "Yes, because they are the only source to preserve life on earth." (S51) 18 Protection but of cultural diversity: "… They may contribute to 'capturing' and saving fragile cultures and 'unknown' languages." (S31) Although acknowledging the need for protection, some respondents made it explicit that IRs were not effective, as the policies derived from such concepts (regimes) would increase risk instead of attenuating it: "… in terms of indigenous groups if they become circumscribed to a specific protected area then this will prevent persistence of nomadic lifestyles etc. and as a result the protected area may become 'unsustainable' as people are becoming circumscribed to a specific reserve. I guess this also answers the question on indigenous reserves, however, the indigenous reserves of N. America should be used as an example of the problems of tying people to such reserves,… " (S10) "… 'indigenous reserves' are not so useful - most of indigenous social problems have been caused by the colonisers, and are being reproduced through generations. Keeping indigenous people enclosed in such areas, and introducing paternalistic rules and laws is not healthy for any society. It instils racism in a society, and will not ensure that indigenous practices of environmental management will be maintained - that depends on the indigenous group and how they choose to manage their environment… " (S24) The need for integration and its impediments Some emphasis was put on the idea that there is or should be a link between the concepts (political instruments): "Yes all concepts are useful as they each permit different aspects of the economic/ecology debate to enter into the wider public arena. Ultimately for there to be sustainable solutions to environmental problems there needs to be a holistic approach adopted… " (S7) "… environmental development will not be meaningful without taking into account the interrelation between 'indigenous reserves' and 'sustainable development'" (S11) "Yes, because all areas are linked with each other very closely" (S18). "Yes. Exercising indigenous knowledge should not be limited to reserves but integrated into the management plans along with scientific knowledge more widely." (S26) "… Lo que creo es que tanto las reservas indigenas, como las areas protegidas deberian orientarse hacia un desarrollo sostenible. Bien sea que estas dos figuras se translapen o no. Si entendemos el desarrollo sostenible como un proceso que involucra criterios sociales, culturales, economicos, y ambientales." (… What I do believe is that indigenous reserves as well as protected areas should direct their attention towards sustainable development, whether or not the entities [juridical regimes] overlap. If we understand sustainable development as a process that involves social, cultural, economic and environmental criteria.) (S34) However, quiet a few responses pointed out the problems that prevent this integration from taking place: 1) Incompatibility of interests between IR and PA: "… Protected areas are useful, but they raise the debate as to whether one should protect an area and exclude people from it so that a certain species/ archaeological site/community can survive or whether people should have access… " (S10); "It is quite difficult to harmonies those concepts, specifically among indigenous people. They are convinced that 'sustainable development' is an imperialist concept, and the first idea they have -as far as they hear the concept- is that they are going to be exploited by others… " (S40) 2) The prevalence of economic efficiency and profit at the expense of anything else: 19 "… El desarrollo sustentable que ha sido cada vez mas un objetivo importante en varios paises del mundo. Pero encontrar los balances correctos ha sido y es dificil, particulrmente cuando las sociedades y gobiernos estan sometidos a un proceso de globalizacion y de efeicientizacion economica. He ahi los conflictos permanentes de lograr un desarrollo verdaderamente sustentable que considere no solo los aspectos economicos, pero politicos, cultrales, sociales y ecologicos o ambientales. (Sustainable development has become an increasingly important objective in several countries around the world. But to find the correct balances has been and continues to be difficult; in particular as a result of societies and governments being subjected to economic efficiency within the globalisation process. There are permanent conflicts in the way of obtaining a real sustainable development that involve not only the economic aspects, but also the social, cultural, ecological and environmental criteria " (S25). "… too many people think of 'sustainable' as meaning economic sustainability and not environmental sustainability." (S30). "… While protected areas and indigenous reserves serve to maintain environmental quality, the concept of sustainable development is often disregarded for the sake of profits and globalisation." (S33) 3) Political manipulation: "I think there have been problems with these concepts for two reasons: First, they mean different thing for different people, second, they have been used and to serve particular interests. There are several and opposite definitions of 'sustainable development' and it's a difficult concept. 'Indigenous reserve', used as a general concept does not describe usefully the complex realities and 'protected areas' have been used to serve particular interests over time so I think it is seen suspiciously by a lot of people." (S44) "I think so, but these concepts are used a lot by politicians, and then the meaning can be manipulated". (S46) "… The big problem is not related to the concepts alone, it is related to the way in which these are applied according with particular interests and purposes. Many times the terms are used by different groups or organisations in order to pretend to be environmental friendly or responsible, when the real purposes reveal an opposite target or interest." (S47) "… Muy seguaramente estos términos se manejan como deben ser en el plano académico teórico, mas no ocurre lo mismo en el ambito práctico donde lo que prevalece son los interese de los diferentes actores que trabajan en este campo, lo que lleva inevitablemente a que se presenten situaciones de tension entre estos y se deje de lado el objetivo primordial en cuanto a la conservación y le manejo ambiental" (For sure, theoretically and within the academic circles these concepts are managed as they should be. Although, in the practical scenario privilege is given to the particular interests of those different [political] actors who work in this field. Thus, it is unavoidable that tensions will arise between these [political actors], which leave aside the fundamental aim of environmental management and conservation) (S48) 4) Semantics, the concepts mean too many things to too many different political actors (S44 above): "… 'Sustainable development' is not so useful for environmental management, as the concept is too contested - it means too many different things to different people." (S24); "As I said, the problem is that there are many definitions of those terms and it makes it difficult to determine if they are useful in one place compared to other places" (S50) Dynamism The perspective of 'dynamism' reflects a perception of mutating meanings as an advantage. Under this perspective 'contested' means 'in change', which is seen as part of a learning process, which is in tune with the idea of local definition of concepts (emphasised above): "Ultimately for there to be sustainable solutions to environmental problems there needs to be a holistic approach adopted, where people can better appreciate that their lifestyle has much in 20 common with others - even if they are in an OECD country and cannot appreciate the day to day lifestyle of someone in a less developed country. … . Therefore the concepts listed can provide an opportunity to raise the awareness of the majority of the world's people." "Yes, there is plenty that can be learned from these three concepts and also applied" (S37) "A lot, I believe there are a lot of things we can learn from them, specially in this field of study,." (S45) "If these concepts are [understood or interpreted] under a dynamic and changing world (attached to contexts), which mean that there is not a unique definition or way to apply them, I think they are still useful for environmental management." [original: understanding or interpreting… ] (S47) The need for new concepts-Q3 Contradicting narratives can be appreciated through the reading of these responses. There is a group of respondents that are uncritical of the concepts or the policies derived from them (like S37, S45 above and): "Yes, they are important to efficient environmental management" (S28); "Yes. An understanding of the mechanism of these terminologies is essential for effective environmental management … " (S9). Another group could be made out of those responses that reflect suspicion or are definitely critical of the concepts (S10, S24, S25, S30, S33, S40, S44, S46, S47, S48, S50 above). And, besides the group of respondents that express conditionality or hope (see above), there is a group of responses that, while critical of the concepts, acknowledge that at present they are all we have: "… which of them is useful depends on context… If an ethnic group is to be allowed to determine the course of events within its own territory, then the territory must be reserved for them until such time as they develop complete autonomy or decide to integrate more closely with wider society. Sustainable development may seem a rather broad, unspecific term, but it does at least draw attention to the unsustainability of conventional development… " (S1) "… The concept of sustainable development is gradually getting better developed and, even if it is not strictly attainable, gives decision-makers something to work towards… (S5) "I don't agree with the concept of SD as it is a contradiction in terms, but at present there are few better alternatives… " (S10) One respondent actually moved forward in the critique, pointing out that the concepts were built on preconceptions and identifying the need to generate new concepts that would integrate the useless categorical divide of nature and society: "I think they are old fashioned, and generated by the Anglo-Saxon culture. We should move towards an increased compatibility between human activities and nature, making it therefore not necessary to talk about reserves, or natural areas." (S35) Non-conclusive comment-Q312: The majority if not the totality of respondents took 'concepts' as 'politics'. They discussed the history of these politics, their adequacy and sufficiency. It is very interesting that while the conduct through which political ideas become policies is supposed to be complex, it is obvious for the respondents that there is more than theoretical debate going on in the process of policy making. There is a prevailing, sometimes automatic or non-reflexive awareness that narratives pursue the aims that drive the policies and politics that are transforming the environment. 12 Schematic summary: table 3, Appendix 3. 21 In continuity with the results of Q2, only 1 out of five respondents of those who argued for the need to integrate the concepts had been in Amazon; while the two respondents that argued the case of 'incompatibility of interests' had been there. Of those which suggested that these concepts –political strategies- are useful for environmental protection or that this is the last chance –catastrophism- for life, none had visited Amazonia. It may be of some significance that none of the five respondents that suggested that IR might be a better strategy than PA have been in Amazonia, while one person of the two that argued that IRs are ineffective had been there. The responses correspond to several narratives that can be identified. One of them is that of 'confidence in science and trust in political instrumentality' derived from the (traditional definitions of) concepts outlined. Another narrative is that of 'natives as heroes and outsiders as villains', which is reflected in the suspiciousness of concepts based in untested assumptions and in mistrust of the governmental policies derived from them. In summary there is a status-quo narrative and a counter narrative. Yet a third type of narrative could be identified, that of 'critical understanding'. Q4 – Should environmental managers (EM) get involved in the territorial ordering process (TOP) of the Amazon? One of the respondents simply answered yes (S4). One was unsure (S52), perhaps suspicious? One considered the question was tricky (S32), and three of them put the question into question. Two of these responses asked for the term 'environmental manager' to be defined: "Difficult to answer. Define the roles, mandate and empowerment of the environmental manager… " (S31); "What do you mean by environmental managers?." (S6). The third one was more critical: "this sentence is colonialist as if indigenous peoples of Amazonia were not in fact environmental managers" (S27). With a similar intent, one respondent argued that indigenous people were better-qualified environmental mangers: "Las comunidades indigenas han sido las mejores administradoras del territorio ancestral, eso debe ser respetado y replicado en zonas donde la intervención humana 'civilizada' ha afectado las condiciones ambientales. (Indigenous communities have been the best managers of ancestral territories, this should be respected and should be replicated in areas where 'civilised' human intervention has affected environmental conditions) (S20)" The response of Indigenous peoples as better managers had been expressed in Q1, Q2 and Q3. Another three responses reinforced the ideas of catastrophism, the need for urgent environmental protection and to stop development (S32, S33, S42). Perspectives EMs are the ones: "Definitely" (S12); " … They have in many cases a better view for the long-run." (S18); 22 Yes. Who else is better suited to do so?" (S21); "Environmental Managers should get involved. They are best able to ensure protection of ecosystem" (S28); "Por supuesto que si. Ya que el ordenamiento territorial de un territorio (en este caso de la Amazonia) debe tener como objetivos el desarrollo sostenible." (Definitely. Territorial ordering (of the Amazon in this case) should have sustainable development as an objective) (S34); "Because they are the ones that can understand the balance that must exist between economic development, traditional culture and environment." (S36); " They should, how can they do whithout?" (S46) "Yes, because they can contribute to better territorial ordering in the region" (S53) EMs and scientists figure out the solutions and take the decisions: "Deben estar involucradas todas las personas del planeta, pero con mas razon los 'decision makers', que a fin de cuentas, toman las acciones concretas sobre nuestro futuro medioambiental. (All people from the planet should get involved, but the 'decision makers' have more reason to be there, after all they are the ones that take the concrete actions in respect to our environmental future) (S23); "Yes, but along with some other scientists, not only because of the importance of the Amazon from a global point of view, but specially for the importance for the people living there." (S35); "Yes, always considering multiple disciplines result in a better understanding and so better solutions." (S38) But taking into account the other opinions: "Yes, although indigenous peoples will also play a major part and without them any agreements between Governments and environmental managers will not work… " (S5); "Not always, because it is necessary to take into consideration lay people's opinions too." (53) Indigenous peoples direct EMs: "If they are asked to do so by indigenous peoples, I see no problem with this." (S1); "Territorial ordering should be primarily decided upon by the indigenous groups that inhabit them, … ultimately decisions need to come from the bottom upwards" (S10); "… The indigenous people should be in charge of the program at the ultimate level" (S14). " They should but they should make sure they respect the opinion of indigenous people and they should be very discreet in their approach and aim for cooperation." (S41) EMs have equal rights to participate as other stakeholders: " Of course. All actors should be involved in the process… It doesn't mean that they have to take decisions but they can evaluate the circumstances under different and also important perspectives." (S2); "What do you mean by environmental managers? But yes, I think they also have a stake in the fate of the Amazon, and have a right to make their voices heard. (S6); " Involvement - yes but only in collaboration and co-operation with the Amazonian people and those in the higher levels of bureaucracy and policy making … Environmental managers can make significant contributions in this area, given their depth of understanding of the issues (relative to the general public)" (S7); "Deveriam estar envolvidos no processo de re-ordenamento territorial, junto com edndios, ribeirinhos etc" (they should be involved in the territorial ordering process together with indigenous peoples, riverine inhabitants, etc." (S29); " I think they should be involved as advisors and technical support but I support the idea of a non-technical management, where decisions are taken by the different stakeholders based on the technical advice and the social, cultural and economic factors." (S44) 23 But this intervention should be avoided within indigenous territories: "Not in indigenous reserves or territories which historically have been managed by indigenous communities. In other areas, should be taking part in dialogue of knowledge between cultures, people, communities, scientists and decision makers from private and government sectors, to order process on the amazon area." [Original text:… historically has been management by… ](S47) The apolitical EM: "Yes, but not for political reasons. It should be for the cause of sustainable use of our natural environment which is our heritage." (S9); " … Generally though I think that environmentalists like missionaries before them should not get involved in political processes as this can have a very negative reaction within the local community." (S17) "Yes, their knowledge will hopefully be of use in the ordering process" (S37) The political participation of EMs: "Yes, to counteract the interference of other external actors but hopefully to work with the indigenous people respecting their values and practices, not independently." (S26) EMs as facilitators of the dialog between IK and WS: "… without them [indigenous peoples] any agreements between Governments and environmental managers will not work. Environmental Managers should facilitate discussion… " (S5); "Territorial ordering should be primarily decided upon by the indigenous groups that inhabit them, environmental managers roles here should be as referees to help in the co-ordination of the process, but ultimately decisions need to come from the bottom upwards." (S10); "It's necessary for people involved in this field of study, that had already gained a conscience, and that are able to understand that we have to work with indigenous, not from our usual management vision, but theirs, trying to see the world like they do. In this way could be easier, perhaps to understand and give convincing and why not scientific arguments to the authorities (or people in charge of handling these affairs) about the different way they have already distributed their territory, which [in] most of the case (if not all) doesn't have our political distribution. (I.E, those groups that live between Colombia and Brazil boundaries) they don't have the same division of territories, because of this, they must be managed in a way more in concordance to their political organisation." (S45) Capacity, ability and quality of EMs: "Depends who the environmental managers are - if they are from the area and have a passion for the area, then why not. If they are drafted in from outside, and seen as the 'outside experts' then probably not - it usually causes friction within the area."(S24) "Define the roles, mandate and empowerment of the environmental manager. They may fall into different categories, of which I may name at least 4: 1. The conflictive manager. Created by a lobbying body. A good example is the body (forget the name) that is in charge of the Everglades in Florida. Their work is tainted by conflict of interest: the provision of water to cities and sugar cane farmers, at the same time maintaining the 'wet lands' as an ecosystem and controlling flooding! 2. The romantic. Exemplified by rich Europeans or North-Americans. Wanting to keep habitats, they may buy some land and resort to eco-tourism in order to keep their sustainability. I believe there are some German managed 'eco' destinations in Ecuador. Driven by an alternative way of life, they may not 'manage' the environment as they should. 3. The bureaucrat. A member of a government agency or NGO that may not be aware of local needs, responding always to policies made from a distance. Current legislation may be a hinder. "Los paisas", developed and colonised what is today Risaralda, Quindio, Caldas and 24 parts of Choco in Colombia, by using legislation that enabled them to cut and clear big forest areas to be claimed afterwards, creating the concept of the "colono". A colonisation process I witnessed in Caquetá some years ago. 4. The "grass roots" manager. Perhaps, the type who knows best the ecosystem and the power relationships that develop around it by the people involved with it. Usually their voice is not heard, mainly because of the threat they represent to some landowners or 'colonos'. If the law regarding claiming land that has been cleared is still existing, managing the environment is going to be a great task. One shall not forget that the 'colono' phenomenon represents one of the many socio-economical problems a nation like Colombia faces. … Management work usually develops around a policy. Trust among all participants is primordial. There ought to be some kind of legal-economical framework that will ease management work. If this is in place and all conflicts of interest reduced, then the territorial ordering process of Amazonia may become real." (S 31) Political risks, EMs tough job: "Yes, however the pressures on the person might be extreme. It would be preferable to have both on-site environmental managers and use some respected external managers as reference." (S15); "Yes, but bearing in mind that you should work with politicians and many kinds of 'parasitic' people which are thinking every day in the short term. It means that environmental managers are not enough for sustainable management and use of natural resource: their analytical models as well as their technical capacity is necessary, but they cannot work isolated, they require to work with others, despite the fact that 'the others' could (and should) think in a different way." (S40) Summarising-Q413 Like in the responses to Q1, Q2 and Q3, we can identify different and often contradictory perspectives. There were those that argued that environmental managers14 are the best qualified for the task and appeared somewhat perplexed by the question. Within that group there were those responses that assumed that decisions were taken by environmental managers or should be taken by them, although two expressed that others' opinion should be considered to a lesser extent. In the other direction were the responses that questioned intervention by EMs and considered it useful only when the decision-making process was led by indigenous peoples themselves. Yet, a third group was of the opinion that EMs should get involve in the same conditions that other stakeholders, such as indigenous peoples but, one respondent suggested they should not intervene in the management of indigenous peoples' territories at all. 13 See also Table 4, Appendix 3. 14 Called EMs in the survey to differentiate them from other experts and indigenous peoples. As it has been explained elsewhere (See "The march of the Manikins: Agroforestry practices and Spiritual dancing in Northwest Amazonia) indigenous peoples management of the environment departs from a different rationality and uses different instruments. What indigenous people from Northwest Amazonia call "management of the world" is not only a set of shamanistic practices but a way of living that combines social aims, aesthetic values, religious believes, and economic practices in a distinctive manner. Although acknowledging indigenous peoples from Northwest Amazonia are in fact environmental managers, the author has stressed that their "management of the world" incorporates many things, some of them of tremendous importance for environmental management more generally. 25 The other contrasting perspectives concerned the character of the intervention. While one group of responses were of the opinion that EMs should not get involved in politics, but have a technical approach, others thought that they should get involved to contrast and balance the political interests of other groups. A third group emerged, which advocated the intervention of environmental managers as conciliators and facilitators. Related to this roll of managers as advisers there was a group of responses showing concern with the capacity, ability and quality of environmental managers and, the possible risks that they have to face. Non-conclusive comment-Q4: As in responses to questions one, two and three, we can trace arguments and contra-arguments. One set of respondents portrays EMs as heroes. In this scenario they face a tough job, they are well trained, better able and indispensable for the process of territorial ordering; their politically risky job in which they have to make the decisions would be fundamental for diminishing environmental risk and even saving life on earth. (As in Q2 and Q3 none of those arguing conservation/catastrophism had been in Amazonia). A counter narrative is that provided by respondents arguing that EMs' participation should be directed by indigenous peoples (IP) or that the projects should be led mainly by natives, and that EMs should not intervene in the management of indigenous territories: in this case the heroes are indigenous peoples. A second counter narrative seems to be reflected by some of the respondents. In this scenario, EMs like IP should have equal rights to participate as different stakeholders, in this case decisions would come from a rational process in which dialog between cultures would take place. The participation of EMs would not be limited by their status/power but by their capacity, ability and their roll as facilitators or conciliators. Discussion European colonisation of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australasia from the late fifteenth century onwards, gave a tremendous boost to the volume of global transactions involving natural resources. Over the long run, trade in these resources, and in an increasingly diverse array of environmental services, has been expanding ever since. However, much of what is called globalisation in the twenty first century has more to do with developments in information technology since the late 1900s. The increasing speed of communications media and information transfer have proved fundamental in economic restructuring and the transformation of the world into a largely urban space (Castells 1996). In the globalised, twenty first century, local political decisions have little chance of being autarchic; international policy advisors inform local stakeholders about what is considered adequate or legal in accordance with international treaties, foreign protocols and political compromises. The local politics of environmental management is the concern of everybody: corporations, governments, international, regional and national NGOs, all of which compete for access to information and expansion of their scope of power in the political arena (Ambrose-Oji, Allmark et al. 2002). During the 1990s, and especially after the Río Earth Summit in 1992, one of the main topics of discussion was management of the global environment (Sachs 26 1993). Global targets for sustainable development were established at Río and similar processes were set in train at regional, national and local scales all over the world, following the guidelines set out in one of the policy documents agreed at Río: "Agenda 21". The official discourse that emerged from the Río process was replicated and many of the assumptions that informed the original discourse have been accorded a quasi-factual status by many people all over the globe (Sevilla_Guzmán and Woodgate 1997). The official discourse on globalisation emphasised the need for environmental management at supranational levels. At the same time, counter-discourse or anti-globalisation narratives have emerged. These emphasise the rights of indigenous people and local political actors to manage natural resources independently, in ways that allow them to make their own livelihood decisions and establish resource-use regimes that can provide the environmental goods and services that people need15. The management of the environment has always motivated debate and often led to confrontation. One of the main arguments of conservative conservationists concerns the 'vulnerability' of rainforest environments, and thus the need for their protection. Since the 1980s the problem of deforestation of tropical rainforests has been a global issue with special emphasis in South East Asia, the Congo basin and Amazonia (Adger, Benjaminsen et al. 2001). In a 1998 analysis of 'rainforest' web-sites, Stott revealed four metawords within the conservation rhetoric: orientalism (the exotic other), climax (harmony), old age (ancient, undisturbed) and vulnerability (Stott 1999). Metawords such as these become key rhetorical devices so that even research and development project proposals tend to employ them, thus replicating assumptions that are no longer questioned. How is this metalanguage produced? What are the bases of its principal cannons? And why is it that semantic analysis tends to remain the preserve of scientists – or is it something that is also dealt with at a local level? Narratives can be traced back in time. Equilibrium disturbance (climax rupture) and environmental fragility (vulnerability) both played parts in Hardin's 1968 'tragedy of the commons' (Hardin 1998). The neo-Malthusian discourse of environmental catastrophe as a result of an increasing population (of 'poor people') lies at the heart of Hardin's tragedy. The conservative conservationist perspective on the management of the rainforest is based on mistrust of systems of environmental management in which property rights (over life and resources) are not yet marketable. From a conservative political perspective responsible environmental action can only be achieved through the clarification of property rights to allow the unfettered action of free markets for the negotiation of such rights. It is assumed that the tragedy of the commons is happening or will happen in rainforest contexts where private property rights are not yet the rule and where societies still practise communal environmental management regimes based on indigenous knowledge rationalities in which nature and society form an ontological continuum. For conservatives only free markets for environmental rights, good and services can guarantee sustainable development. Neo-Malthusian 15 The discourses that emphasise on the need of eco-efficiency, economic transnationalization and planetary ecological management, were named by Sachs as contest and astronauts' perspectives. And the counter-discourse arising from the desempowered communities of the South as the home perspective (Sachs 1977). 27 and neo-liberal assumptions are fundamental to this perspective on sustainable development. With the aim of promoting Agenda 21 at local, national and regional levels, a complex and sophisticated process of institutionalisation was embarked upon. Amazonia did not escape this process; governmental officials or conservationist NGOs replicated the dominant conservationist discourse at the local level in NWA16. This official discourse of deforestation with its main initiative of protection of the environment from people has been labelled 'hegemonic' (Stott and Dullivan 2000) or 'neo-Malthusian' and 'managerial' (Adger, Benjaminsen et al. 2001). It should come as no surprise then that counter narratives have developed in Amazonia (and elsewhere), for many of which the principal intention is to contradict the conservative policies derived from this hegemonic discourse. The rights of indigenous people to define the course of their lives: their rights to manage natural resources and the environmental services used or supplied by the Amazonian environment have been key issues in these significant counter-claims against the official Amazonian territorial ordering politics and policies, which have involved environmental management that has been designed elsewhere. This counter-narrative pursues the principle and right of self-determination against the interests of political initiatives for global environmental management. The counter-narrative was not just a reaction to neo-liberal, neo-Malthisian conservative politics and conservation policies during the 1980s and '90s, however. In Latin America, all indigenous peoples' rebellions against the European empires were motivated by a call to reconstruct pre-colonial socio-cultural orders returning to territorial orders where the management of 'agroforestry' was undifferentiated from the sacred (Varese 1996:124-25). In modern, post-colonial states, indigenous peoples continued to struggle for the recognition of their territories. In today's NWA this struggle is related to governmental and conservationists policies of environmental management and the presence of armed groups opposed to political resolution of territorial ordering. Many of the Protected Areas (PAs) of NWA were created at a time when no legal procedure was established for public intervention in the designation of such areas. The official titles of the PA or IR (Resguardos in Colombia) have not prevented non-native invasion of lands or the expansion of illegal crop production inside either PAs or IRs. Conservationists and indigenous peoples alike have vacillated between alliances with, and the rejection of, the armed groups in charge of illegal crop production, depending on the political gains to be made and the risks involved in rejecting the proposals or achieving an alliance. The armed groups, on their part, have sought political alliances when such co-operation could benefit their military capacity or improve the managerial efficiency of their enterprises.17 16 With respect to the territorial ordering process, the Colombian Amazon controversy is discussed in Forero 1999, 2000; Forero, Laborde et al. 1998. 17 See Forero 2000, "Territoriality and Governance in the Colombian Amazon". 28 As far as local inhabitants were concerned, rainforest conservation policies arrived in NWA from another space and time. The legal establishment of protected areas took no account of the opinions or desires of the peoples already inhabiting NWA. Indigenous agro-ecosystems and the livelihood strategies of more recent colonisers were both ignored. The ideology expressed through legal frameworks was that of protection of the environment from people. The villains were local inhabitants and the regulations to be enforced were those of expelling people from the 'conservation' areas and maintaining their exclusion. The dominant discourse made no distinction between complex indigenous agro-ecosystems and the less sophisticated livelihood strategies being developed by recent immigrants. All of them were labelled as "slash and burn" agriculture (Myers 1980). Yet it has become increasingly apparent over the last thirty years that slash and burn is just an aspect of indigenous environmental management in Amazonia, which combines agricultural production, fish and game management, ritual prescriptions, and aesthetic developments18. It has even been suggested that movement towards "short cropping/long-fallow" cultivation patterns within indigenous Amazonian agro-ecosystems was an strategic response to alien invasion of territories and the introduction of metal axes (Denevan 2001: 115-31). Today, most ethnoscientists find it self-evident that the concepts of "chagras" (gardens) and "rastrojos" (abandoned gardens) are far too simplified to reflect the structure of cultivations over the short-, medium- and long-terms, in accordance with local knowledge of agro-ecological variation. It is obvious that indigenous environmental management has transformed Amazonian ecosystems for millennia; this was already evident to many of the nineteenth century European explorers19. Even the most knowledgeable people in the industrialised world have no precise idea of how 'vulnerable' rainforest is and few have accurate knowledge about the political conditions facing indigenous peoples or other human inhabitants of the Amazonian rainforest. With respect to NWA, even the most determined researcher would have problems accessing this information. It is often said that the rainforests of Amazonia are the 'lungs of the planet' (S.33), a metaphor used to emphasise the region's role in the carbon cycle, especially the absorption of CO2. This is somewhat ironic given that our own lungs actually consume oxygen and release CO2 during respiration. Indigenous people have been portrayed as villains or victims depending on the observer and the moment of observation. When portrayed as victims the picture is something like this: the wise guardians of the rainforest are obliged by violence to sell their natural resources or abandon their noble environmental practices. The role of violence in the functioning of extractive economies has been well documented. Violent coercion has been the dominant system in NWA for more than a century. Although indigenous people are no longer sold, 'debt-peonage' systems still dominate and exploit poor indigenous and immigrant inhabitants of 18 See Forero 2001, " The march of the Manikins: Agroforestry Practices and Spiritual Dancing in Northwest Amazonia". 19 See Forero 2002a, " Indigenous Knowledge and the Scientific Mind: Activism or Colonialism". 29 NWA. These people are employed for the harvesting, transport and commercialisation of coca base, cocaine and, the functioning of 'extractive economies' in general (Gómez, A. 1999). But there has been an indigenous response. This has sometimes taken the form of open rebellion and sometimes that of making strategic and tactical alliances in an attempt to obtain or preserve political power, to secure the acquisition of merchandise or simply to survive20. The counter-hegemonic narratives that we mentioned above have been labelled 'populist discourse': making it explicit that the victims are the indians and the villains the international organisations, sometimes allied to transnational corporations (like oil drilling companies) and the dependent and often corrupted governments that collaborate with these international organisations (Adger, Benjaminsen et al. 2001: 687). For NWA there are reports that seem to corroborate these arguments; e.g. indigenous peoples and environmental campaigners have protested jointly in Ecuador and Brazil against the construction of massive pipelines planned to cross through both IRs and PAs in both countries. The pipeline construction projects in both countries have arisen following collaboration between national governments and international oil exploration companies and have provoked public feelings of outrage (Weinberg 2001)21 . " [In NWA] Governments, multilateral lenders, multinational corporations, private banks and other institutions may not be counting on the convenient disappearance of indigenous peoples who get in the way of their ambitious development plans, but they often act as if they are." (Rabben 1998:122) "We who live in indigenous communities are surviving in the midst of a war imposed upon us by different factions and by the very same Colombian state that historically abandoned the countryside and permitted our lands to be invaded by waves of colonizers. Today we are caught in the crossfire, menaced by killings and displacement, while the State manifests its presence in the air with planes that slowly kill our plants and animals, our subsistence crops, and our people." (Organizacion Zonal Indigena del Putumayo_ OZIP 2002) However, is it possible to claim that there is a policy of 'ethnic cleansing' for NWA? From one side the whole issue of national sovereignty has been put into question; the expansion of Plan Andino (formerly Plan Colombia), the USA's anti-drug strategy for Latin America, exemplifies the delicate situation in which some of the Latin American countries have entered the twenty first century. The military component Plan Andino is aimed to support economic measures, the famous and indeed infamous structural adjustment plans that have provoked strikes and rebellions22. Additionally, even if there were an official policy of ethnic cleansing, South American States, given their size and power, would find it difficult to implement 20 See "Indigenous Knowledge and the Scientific Mind: Activism or Colonialism" (Forero 2002a), and "Technology in Northwest Amazonia: Sketches from Inside" (Forero 2002b). 21 For recent (March 2002) press releases on this issue see www.amazonwatch.org and www.americas.org 22 See Forero and Woodgate 2002, "The semantics of 'Human Security' in Northwest Amazonia: between indigenous peoples''Management of the World' and the USA's State Security Policy for Latin America". 30 it. The poor, be they indigenous peoples or colonisers are in the middle of a territorial war linked to international networks of criminality; they have been displaced, kidnapped or killed regardless of their claims of neutrality. In the case of Colombia, although some military authorities have been linked to some of the worst of the paramilitaries' atrocities, it has not been proved that the State itself has a policy of ethnic cleansing. In the case of Brazil, in 1996 the national executive proclaimed Decree 1775, instructing a right to contravene which, contrary to 169 WTO international agreement on Indigenous Peoples' rights, gave other stakeholders the opportunity to challenge Indigenous property rights. Paramilitary groups associated with illegal evictions of indigenous peoples in Brazilian Amazonia have long sought such a 'charter'. At the same time, the decree left the definition of indigenous land rights to the will of the executive power itself (Ministry of Justice). But, as in the case of Colombia, it cannot be proved that there is a policy of ethnic cleansing. It has been suggested in the non-conclusive comments on the survey results, that many people's responses echoed hegemonic and populist narratives. Indigenous peoples were portrayed as heroes or victims, as well as scientists and environmental managers. However, quiet a few of responses cannot be associated with either populist or hegemonic narratives. There is a group of responses that reflect critical thinking and are willing to challenge such simplistic dichotomies. Thus, the concept of sustainable development has been questioned, suspiciousness of western, scientific and technological solutions was expressed, and there was little willingness to give environmental managers carte blanche to prescribe whatever measures they might see fit. Interestingly, this last group, while acknowledging the need for: new concepts and adequate guidelines for environmental management, and the difficulty of achieving conservation targets while complying with indigenous peoples rights, still consider the concepts of SD, PA and IR as useful or the politics derived from them as desirable. What is interesting is that the responses to this survey, which were made by outsiders (respondents were not inhabitants of Amazonia), reflect a tendency to picture the conflict over territory in ways that do not correspond to either of the two main narratives. We can say that inasmuch as outsiders see possibilities for political action outside hegemonic or populist approaches, so Amazonian insiders are organising and negotiating regardless of whether their political discourse echoes either conservative or counter-hegemonic politics of territorial ordering. As no significant statistical analysis could be derived from the survey it would be difficult to speak of tendencies. At first sight it seems that adherence to hegemonic, counter-hegemonic, utopic or conciliatory narratives reflects each respondent's intellectual background more than his or her witnessing of the situation of peoples and forests in Amazonia. However, certain coincidences among the responses to each question might be representative: - For Q1-SD, two out of four of the respondents that accepted the imperative of SD without question have been in Amazon, none of them is a social scientist (SS) though and the other two were environmental managers. None of the SSs 31 that had visited the region argued for complete incompatibility between sustainability and development. Instead, SSs were part of a third group acknowledging that the concept of SD might be of some use, given certain conditions. - For Q2 – the relationship between IRs and PAs, not one of those who argued for the need to harmonise the two concepts (5), or those that emphasised SD as a desirable aim that has not yet been reached (4), or those or that argued that IRs are better than PAs (2) had been to the Amazon (in total 21 % of respondents). Respondents that had visited Amazonia (VA) were among those that acknowledged a relationship between IRs and PAs and that the relationship can be both complementary and competitive. Two respondents from the VA group argued that a complementary relationship was not possible in Colombia and one of them pointed out that being political strategies with different aims they should be kept differentiated in order to avoid conflict. This result might indicate that people that have been in Amazonia are more aware of the problems of territorial ordering caused by the imposition of regimes based in alien concepts. - For Q3 – on the usefulness of the concepts, none the five respondents arguing that IRs might be better that PAs had been in Amazonia, while one of the two that argued that IRs are ineffective had visited. Only one out of five respondents that argued for the need to integrate the concepts had been in Amazonia, while both those that argued for an incompatibility of interests have. This result seems to confirm that people who have visited the area are more conscious of the problems caused when policies formulated elsewhere are imported to Amazonia. Conclusions All technological adoption/adaptation has diverse effects in the life and development of society. People living within the society that is adopting them, and the outsiders that are analysing cultural change perceive these effects in different ways. The assessments of 'usefulness' or 'risk' a society makes when adapting/adopting technologies are linked to the conscious and subconscious present and future scenarios into which the society places itself alongside other societies. If the rest of the world wishes to respect Amazonian indigenous peoples' rights of self-determination, they should not intervene in ordering processes of indigenous territories. The problem is that indigenous ways of dealing with the world might not be compatible with the ideas that foreigners have with respect to Amazonia, its peoples and its future. And, for good or bad, fairly or unfairly, each group has a way of intervening and exercising a certain amount of power to modify the global political agenda for the governance of Amazonia in function of their own particular interests. Replication of narratives is a common strategy used by all groups aiming to make alliances and enhance their power. However, the responses analysed here seem to indicate that a large group of people (at least from the academic sector) is 32 unhappy with the assumptions behind either populists or hegemonic discourses with respect to rainforest management, and seeking new ways of environmental policy making. This group of people acknowledged that political conflict has derived from policy formulated elsewhere, and derived from an epistemology alien to local inhabitants. There are varied political groups competing for the governance of Amazonia. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilitates analysis and political action. It is expected that better-informed indigenous peoples would be in a better position to make decisions with respect to the governance of Amazonia. At the present time, the indigenous peoples of Amazonia have very limited and precarious access to ICT. Thus, their perspectives on territorial ordering are less likely to be represented than those such as conservation agencies, multinational developers, insurgent and mafiosi groups, all of which have far superior access to ICT. 33 Appendix 1 PRIVACY POLICY: Email addresses will be used only to send out materials related to this survey. Aggregate survey results may be distributed, but all personal data will be kept strictly confidential. No information about individual users will be disclosed to third parties. 34 Appendix 2 Summary of Web-site technical work The most demanding work was designing the pages that would contain indigenous territorial maps. CAD versions of the map would have to be transformed into image files suitable for Web use. In order to do this ArcView- GIS (Geographical Information Systems) software was needed. A picture of the map could be easily generated in ArcView-GIS and to certain extent, editing and colouring could enhance some features. But such a map or, more precisely, such a picture of the bi-dimensional representation of the Tukano territory remained inadequate for publication in WebPages. "The pics were to heavy" (I would learn the ICT design jargon), meaning that the memory used to storage, loading and unloading of these pictures was vast. Besides dividing the map and generating pictures of several areas, these pictures needed transforming to make them 'lighter'. This meant that the pictures had to be edited and the storage format had to be changed in terms of the colour pallet and resolution (a maximum of 72 dpi). Most importantly, the pictures should look better! An early version of PhotoImpactTM was used to change the colours and other features as well as to design the icons that would be used to identify the hypertext links between pages. However, the software was not appropriate for the task and the 'pics' were still too heavy. The design was poor, too rigid, with inappropriate colours and, worst of all the 'weight' of the maps would not allow for easy loading of the images by potential users. To change the maps (pics) again, PhotoshopTM was used, while major design transformations were achieved using FireworksTM software. For the actual montage and edition of the whole web-site Dreamweaver3TM was used. A similar process was followed to generate the vegetation map, which was adapted from one of the Amazonian Vegetation maps generated by Puerto Rastrojo. The introduction to a political ecology taking as a case study the Yaigojé Resguardo, was originally a single text (like in the preliminary version) but following the advice of critical reviewers, this page was divided into six parts. 35 Appendix 3 Table 1 Q1- Do you think that 'development' and 'sustainability' are compatible? RESPONSE - ARGUMENT SURVEY No. NVA VA Profession Unquestioning the developmental project 2 1 PhD Student Biology 12 1 Environmental Engineer 13 1 Environmental Engineer 40 1 Project Co-ordinator (SD) Yes, to diminish environmental risk 18 1 Student 21 1 Taxation 23 1 Designer 39 1 Postgraduate Student 42 1 Biologist Sustainable Development is an aim to be 3 1 Epidemiologist reached 5 1 Civil Servant 8 1 Accountant 24 1 Student 25 1 PhD St. Agriculture & Development 29 1 Anthropologist 35 1 Lecturer 37 1 Postgraduate Student 48 1 Anthropologist 51 1 Postgraduate Student Compatible if defined locally 5 1 Civil Servant 20 1 Lecturer: Ecotourism 27 1 Anthropologist 31 1 Postgraduate Student 52 1 Lecturer: IT & Development Possible but risk of economic imperative 17 1 Unemployed Incompatible a) Contradiction in terms 24 1 Student 4 1 PhD St. Environmental genetics b) Financial economic imperative 10 1 Student 19 1 PhD St. Agriculture & Development 34 1 PhD Student: Environmental Manager 47 1 PhD Student SD inconsistent at present time 1 1 Lecturer: Env. Sociology 33 1 PhD Student 36 1 Research Engineer 45 1 EM SD is green rhetoric 7 1 Student 32 1 Teacher 48 1 Anthropologist 36 Table 2 Q2 - Do you think there is any relation between 'indigenous reserves' (IR) and 'protected areas' (PA)? RESPONSE - ARGUMENT SURVEY No. NVA VA Profession Yes 37 1 Postgraduate Student 18 1 Student 22 1 Anthropologist 43 1 Anthropologist 50 1 PhD Student No 15 1 Consultant: Health & Safety Need to harmonise IR and PA to protect a) For (IP) Indigenous Peoples' benefit 19 1 PhD St. Agriculture & Development 20 1 Lecturer: Ecoturism b) Protection of Biodiversity 25 1 PhD St. Agriculture & Development 33 1 PhD Student c) SD based on IP experiences 11 1 Consultant: Rural Development. SD as Utopia 3 1 Epidemiologist 6 1 Lecturer Ecology Env. Management 36 1 Research Engineer 42 1 Biologist IR and PA are different political strategies 2 1 PhD Student - Biologist IR and PA are colonisation strategies 10 1 Student 24 1 Student 26 1 Student Indigenous resistance to IR/PA strategies 48 1 Anthropologist IR and PA overlapped 7 1 Student 34 1 PhD St. Environmental Management 44 1 Postgraduate Student Environmental Indian 23 1 Designer 40 1 Project Co-ordinator (SD) Environmental Indians contaminated 12 1 Environmental Engineer by mestizo culture 39 1 Postgraduate Student 45 1 Environmental Manager IR are Inefficient 35 1 Lecturer 53 1 Journalist IR more effective that PA 5 1 Civil Servant 17 1 Unemployed 37 Table 3 Q3 - Do you think that the concepts of 'protected areas' (PA), 'indigenous reserves' (IR) and SD are useful for environmental management today? RESPONSE - ARGUMENT SURVEY No. NVA VA Profession Depends on the context 1 1 Lecturer: Env. Sociology 2 1 PhD St. Biologist Yes 4 1 PhD St. Env. Genetics 14 1 Economist 22 1 Anthropologist Indigenous Environmental 12 1 Environmental Engineer 23 1 Designer 41 1 PhD Student Indigenous Environmental in contamination risk 45 1 EM Concepts: Principles and instruments a) Participation: IR better than PA 5 1 Civil Servant 6 1 Lecturer Ecology EM 11 1 Consultant: Rural Development RD 26 1 Student 41 1 PhD Student b) Intergenerational Equity: resource reserve 12 1 Environmental Engineer for Development 13 1 Agriculturist 21 1 Taxation 25 1 PhD St. Agriculture & Dvnt. 38 1 Gardener (MSc) Risk and Protection a)Environmental Protection (EP) 12 1 Environmental Engineer 17 1 Unemployed EP and catastrophism 6 1 Lecturer Ecology EM 32 1 Teacher 51 1 Postgraduate Student b) Of cultural diversity 31 1 Postgraduate Student IR as ineffective 10 1 Student 24 1 Student Integration of concepts or the need for it 7 1 Student 11 1 Consultant RD 18 1 Student 26 1 Student 34 1 PhD Student Env. Mgment. Difficulties for integration a) Incompatibility of interests 10 1 Student 40 1 Project co-ordinator (SD) b) Financial economic effectiveness' imperative 25 1 PhD St. Agriculture Devent. 30 1 Postgraduate Student 33 1 PhD Student c) Political manipulation 44 1 Post. St. Environment 46 1 Lecturer 38 47 1 PhD Student 48 1 Anthropologist d) Semiotic blur 24 1 Student 50 1 PhD Student Education: Dynamism of the concepts 37 1 Postgraduate Student 45 1 Environmental Manager 47 1 PhD Student 39 Table 4 Q4 - Should or should not environmental managers (EM) get involved in territorial ordering process in Amazon? RESPONSE - ARGUMENT SURVEY No. NVA VA Profession Yes 4 1 PhD St. Evolutionary Genetics In fact they are 22 1 Anthropologist Unsure 52 1 Lecturer: IT & Development 32 1 Teacher Question into Question 6 1 Lecturer Ecology EM 31 1 Postgraduate St Indigenous Peoples as EM 27 1 Anthropologist Yes, for Env. protection (catastrophism) 32 1 Teacher 33 1 PhD Student 42 1 Biologist Yes, EM are the ones (better able that IP) 12 1 Environmental Engineer 18 1 Student 21 1 Taxation 28 1 Lecturer 34 1 PhD student 36 1 Research Engineer 46 1 Lecturer 53 1 Journalist EM provide solutions/ take decisions 23 1 Designer 35 1 Lecturer 38 1 Gardener Yes but listening to others 5 1 Civil Servant 53 1 Journalist If Indigenous Peoples direct EM or projects 1 1 Lecturer: Env. Sociology 10 1 Student 14 1 Economist 41 1 PhD Student EM have equal rights to other stakeholders 2 1 PhD St. Biology 6 1 Lecturer Ecology EM 7 1 Student 29 1 Anthropologist 44 1 Post. Student Not inside IP territories 47 1 PhD Student Yes, if apolitical EM 9 1 Environmental Manager 17 1 Unemployed 37 1 Postgraduate Student Yes for political counteract 26 1 Student EM as facilitators 5 1 Civil Servant 10 1 Student 45 1 Environmental Manager Depends of capacity, ability & quality of EM 24 1 Student 31 1 Postgraduate Student EM tough job: political risk 15 1 Consultant: Health 40 1 Project Co-ordinator (SD) 40 References Adger, W. N., T. A. Benjaminsen, et al. (2001). "Advancing a Political Ecology of Global Environmental Discourses". Development and Change 32: 681-715. Ambrose-Oji, B., T. Allmark, et al. (2002). "The Environmental State and the Forest; of Lookouts, Leopards, and Losers". In The environmental state under pressurence. A. P. J. Mol and F. H. Buttel. Oxford, Elsevier. 10: 149-69. Castells, M. (1996). "The rise of the network society". Cambridge, MA, Blackwell Publishers. Denevan, W. M. (2001). "Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes". Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press. Ecologist (2002). Making it happen. Interview to Martin von Hildebrand. The Ecologist. 32: 44-7. Forero, O. A. (1999). From pure sciences to ethnosciences. A broad perspective on ecosystems analysis and governance. Examining the environmental management problems of the Yaigojé Resguardo Indigenous Reserve in the Colombian Amazon. Ecology and Epidemiology Group. Biological Sciences. Coventry, UK, University of Warwick: 233. --- (2000). "Territoriality and Governance in the Colombian Amazon". Conference: SLAS annual conference- 2000, Hull, (Unpublished). --- (2001). "The March of the Manikins. Agroforestry practices and spiritual dancing in Northwest Amazonia". Conference: Conservation and Sustainable Development -Comparative Perspectives, CCR-University of Yale. New Haven, Connecticut, Unpublished. --- (2002a). "Indigenous knowledge and the scientific mind: Activism or Colonialism?" Conference: Activism as History, History as Activism. History Department, Columbia University, New York. --- (2002b). "Technology in Northwest Amazonia: Sketches form Inside. A contribution to the Political Ecology of Northwest Amazonia." Unpublished. Forero, O. A., R. E. Laborde, et al. (1998). "Colombia: Yaigojé Indigenous Resguardo Natural Reserve". In Indigenous Peoples and Diversity Conservation in Latin America. IWGIA. Copenhagen, IWGIA. Doc. 87. Forero, O. A. and G. Woodgate (2002). "The semantics of 'Human Security' in Northwest Amazonia: between indigenous peoples' 'Management of the World' and the USA's State Security Policy for Latin America". In Human Security and the Environment. M. Redclift. Cheltenham UK and Northampton MA, Edward Elgar. Gómez, A. (1999). "Estructuración socioespacial de la Amazonia Colombina, siglos XIX-XX". In Domínguez, C. F. Cubides. Bogotá, CES, Universidad Nacional de Colombia: 21-40. Gómez, R. (1998). "The Nostalgia of Virtual Community. A Study of computer-mediated communications use in Colombian non-governmental organizations". Information Technology and People 11(3): 217-34. Hardin, G. J. (1998). "The Tragedy of the Commons". In Debating the Earth. The Environmental Politics Reader. S. Dryzek and D. Scholosberg. N.Y., Oxford University Press: 23-34. Myers, N. (1980). Conversion of Tropical Moist Forest: A Report prepared for the Committee on Research Priorities in Tropical Biology of the National Research Council. Washington D.C., National Academy of Sciences. OZIP (2002). SOS from Indigenous Peoples of Putumayo, Znet:http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=9&ItemID=2122. 2002. Rabben, L. (1998). "Unnatural Selection. The Yanomami, the Kayapó and the Onslaught of Civilisation". London, Pluto Press. Sachs, W. (1977). "'Sustainable Development'". In The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology. M. Redclift and G. Woodgate. Cheltenham, UK Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar: 71-82. ---, Ed. (1993). "Global Ecology. A new arena of political conflict". London, Zed Books. Sevilla_Guzmán, E. and G. Woodgate (1997). "'Sustainable rural development': from industrial agriculture to agroecology". In The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology. M. Redclift and G. Woodgate. Cheltenham, UK Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar: 83-100. Stott, P. (1999). Tropical rain forest: a political ecology of hegemonic mythmaking. IEA Studies on the Environment, No 15. London. 41 Stott, P. and S. Dullivan, Eds. (2000). "Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power". London and N.Y., Arnold. Varese, S. (1996). "The new Environmentalist Movement of Latin American Indigenous Movement pp." In Valuing Local Knowledge. S. Brush and D. Stabinsky. Washington D.C.: 122-144. Weinberg, B. (2001). "Amazonia: Planning the Final Destruction. Mega-Development Threatens Devastation of Indian Ecologies". Native Americas: Hemisphere Journal of Indigenous Issues 450: Fall/Winter.

Issue 36.6 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Louis UmversLty, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1977 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: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other dountries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Dattiel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor November 1977 Volume 36 Number 6 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REWZW FOa REL~CIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. (;allen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. My Son's "Hour" by Virginia Ann Gardner, S.S.J.1 who shares via dramatic mono!ogue memories ---of others' contemplations and her own-- in an interview with Mary about 1Sister Virginia Ann resides at 517 East 26th Sty; Erie, PA 16504. I. The Marriage Feast at Cana Now that I think about it, my Son's hour had a special kind of beginning at Cana. Chesterton once said, "There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when he walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied--it was his mirth." That is so true it makes me smile. You would have to admit the gospels show little if any of the Alleluia that Augustine said a Christian should be from head to foot. But the evangelists had so much to tell--and, besides, when they were writing, trying to catch the memory of Jesus in words, they knew little mirth themselves. They knew only urgency as they watched Christians pay the price of Love. Little won-der they record no mirth, no laughter, no sign of human joy. Yet, from the beginning, marriage feasts have been symbols of celebra-tion. One finds few somber wedding guests--ever. And so it was at Cana! We had gone to Cana together--Jesus and his new friends, strong, simple men full of the love of life. Cana was filled with mirth and laughter and the warmness of love shared. 817 I~11~ / Revie,w for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 Then, strange that I should have noticed, I read the concern on servant faces: all jugs of wine were empty. It struck a sympathetic chord and I turned to Jesus: "They have no wine," I said. It was just a simple remark--nothing more; the observation of some-thing that would bring embarrassment. It was the way anyone would say, "What a pity!"; or, "Isn't that a shame!"---and wish that you could help. You know, if I were to orchestrate a symphony, I'd compose the Marriage Feast of Cana in a major key of sheer joy--until we knew "there was no wine." But when my son responded, "Woman, what is that to you and to me, my hour is not yet come?"--then, I'd have tympanums clap and cymbals clang; I'd deafen ears with the roar of drums. It would be a haunt-ing interlude--repeated often during the symphony to record in sound the history of an hour that began at Cana. Jesus called me Woman. Strange. Did he mean it as a call to sacrifice --a call to live what women through the years have lived? "She is such a woman," we say--and mean there is nothing small about her; she does not stoop to smallness; she endures. Still, it startled me, much as Gabriel had some thirty years before, with--"Rejoice, O highly favored daughter!" Then Jesus spoke again, "What is that to you and to me?" Was he calling me to translate and respond? Translation revealed everything: He meant: were he to act, the act would be but a first on the way to his hour. "My hour has not yet come," he had said. Someone has called its dis-cernment~ etermining the will of God. At Nazareth I had "wondered and was troubled," I even questioned Gabriel. I did not unders.tand. At Cana there was no wonder, no question. I knew! And I said to the servants: "Do whatever he tells you." Yes, I answered~knowing full well "what it meant to Jesus and to me." We would be parted. I would be alone --and where Jesus was, what he would be doing, I would not know. You see, at Cana we shared discernment: His Father willed that his hour should begin. A mother, someone has said, is a lover--a lover who gives of herself and then pushes the loved .one away, both the child and herself enriched. I loved my son; I had given him myself; I had taught him human ways of talking, walking, laughing. At Cana I pushed that loved one away so that he could tell others what to do. The pushing hurt. But long ago I had vowed: "Be it done unto me according to Thy will." Corita says, "To celebrate is to tell who we are and to say yea cere-moniously." That is what my son and I did together at Cana. I spoke my last recorded words: "Do whatever he tells you." My last recorded words! They began my son's hour. John tells it in his Gospel. You'll read it all in John, and only there. Yes, we had looked forward to Cana. We had not known what the Father would ask. He asked me to be woman; He asked for an hour to be-gin; and on that day my son and I, together, shared a fiat. My Son's "Hour" / 8"19 II. Good Friday Evening Now I knew. Now I understood. Scripture had unfolded. It was like hearing that symphony played--one I had studied the score for but had never heard. "Oh, so that's how it goes! It's lovely and aweful." John had come for me--telling me Jesus' hour had come. I knew it of course. I'd known it since that day in Cana. Lovers aren't aware of time. Days, months, years telescoped. I had said my fiat to this hour thirty-three years ago, but thenwI did not understand. It's like writing something or clinging to an idea you don't understand until later. The unknown is diffi-cult, but it's good for you too. How hard it would have been to live those thirty-three years with what I know now! But at Cana the hour moved both Jesus and me at once. We knew. I did not need to speak for him to hear me, because we were both hearing with our hearts then; and we had both said yes. With Jesus it was always yes. I guess it was with me too---because the Father helped me, the Spirit moved within me--and I said yes ceremoniously to the God of my life. I think the Father saw "that it was good." Since then, since Cana, time has dragged and sped. I've heard so many things about my son. Sometimes what I've heard pierced--and I'd remem-ber Simeon. Sometimes, though, my heart quickened. People would tell me of his life, his compassion--and I'd go back to our Nazareth days, days shared with Joseph. But John came--a humbled "son of thunder." I understood. I loved him for it, and.I went with him. Jesus came stumbling up the road---carry-ing that cross. My heart broke; it broke. But even then I understood. You don't live trusting all those years without the courage to be strong. Then Jesus saw me. I extended no veil. I did not weep. I gave him all I could. His Father, my Father, erased from my eyes all pain. Once again, I did not have to speak for him to hear me: "It's all right, Jesus; no, don't worry about me. Your hour has come. I understand." His glance meeting mine spoke too. It was almost as though he tried to smile, and console me, saying, "It's not bad, not bad at all. Don't worry, Mother." Role pl~ying? You call that role playing? Putting on a masque? No, not at all. Me? I call it gift--my last gift to him. My son, who had emptied himself to take on the masque of humanity, would understand. Emptied him-self. I'm told that is the way Paul wrote it. I like the way another has put it: "Poured himself out." That is how I see his hour that started at Cana and became a free accepted death-act on Calvary. Hearing iron strike iron was such a familiar sound to me! My husband was a carpenter and he'd taught my Son. Part of the price of that hour was the giving up of sounds, sounds that brought back "homey" memories. Strength was God's gift to me; but because he is all knowing, and because he is everything my Son had revealed, I knew he'd understand that ever since that hour, I've been very sensitive to iron striking iron. ~i20 Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 Three hours is not so long a time. It took us longer to get to Bethlehem --and much longer to Egypt---but no time was longer in all my life than those three Friday-hours. His hour was never so long in coming. My heart still shares that pain as I watch loved ones die--loved ones am(~ng my chil-dren now on earth. My children? Yes, my children. During my son's hour he gave me as Mother to all children of all time and all places. Strange! I had given birth to Jesus for one reason: so that he might be shared with all people of all time and all places. In the greatest hour of that sharing, he too shared me-- with John, and in John, you. At Cana, I spoke my last recorded words, "Do whatever he tells you." In one of my Son's last words, he tells you to take me as your Mother. His hour had come and he gave up~no---he didn't give up, he poured out his Spirit. It was that Spirit that had filled me years ago--and once again--this time eternally, I prayed my fiat and you became my Spirit-child. Now share your Brother's hour caught eternally in time. His hour is here! With him, pour yoursel[ out. III. Holy Saturday "Great will be his dignity." I had pondered those words in my heart for thirty-three years: while arranging the straw in the stable-manager; while fleeing in fear to Egypt; as I stood before the prophet Simeon. They came back with new poignancy during the donkey-pageantry in Jerusalem--and five days later when I saw Jesus' bloodied eyes neath his thorned-crown. Then, as I prepared his bruised body for burial, as I washed his wounds, and Joseph (how good his name was Joseph!) helped me with the linen shroud, I thought of them again. It would have been easy to be cynical but I had watched my son die; and I heard him forgive his crucifiers. Yes, I had heard him cry, "Father, forgive." And I heard him call me Woman. Could the dignity he called me to in that name ever match the dignity of his forgiving love? My sagging shoulders had straightened and John had helped me back to the Upper Room. On our way, John and I said the first Stations--back-wards. I made John show me the Praetorium and take me to Gethesmane. John cried, remembering his sleep. And he told me all my Son had said and done in the upper chamber. It was not the time to speak to him of symphony, but I tried to comfort John; he was young and the day had been agony for him, I knew. Then I withdrew. I cried my tears alone. The Father watched and con-soled me. Jesus had wept at Lazarus' tomb; and Jesus had said just a few hours earlier: "Who sees me, sees the Father." Tears, I knew, were some-thing the Father understood. I let them come. What had happened to my mother-hope? "Great would be his dignity. He will be called Son of the Most High. He will rule forever in a reign My Son's "Hour" / 821 without end." Gabriel had told me that. It was a message from the Father. Let me tell you--that night there was within me a whisper of despair, Was it, I wondered, a whisper my son knew too when I heard him call: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Faith is not faith, we're told, until it has been tested. That night, my faith knew its greatest test. And yet something still stirred within me--and I endured. I waited through that long, long vigil--clinging hard to mother-hope and to the patience I had learned from waiting for his hour. I knew--no, I did not know; I hoped that his hour had not ended. I fell asleep saying, "Lord, I believe; help . . . help thou my unbelief." IV. Resurrection If "appearing" means "closeness," there was no need for my Risen Son to come to me. Together or apart-~I live in him and know his closeness. The time after Cana had taught me that. Then, I had thought Jesus' mission would ask for separation--a typical human fear, I know---but the Father was good. Just as the Incarnation had never separated Son from Father, so Jesus' leaving home kept us still united. With him, I was doing the Father's will, and the Father asked that I share him with the world. I shared, and lost nothing. Jesus had said the one who best does the will of his Father--is his mother and father and sister and brother. People pitied me when he said that. They needn't. He was really saying I was more than mother to Jesus. His Father willed it so and I accepted that will. Thomas Merton, in writing about me, once explained how I felt, "I was glad because He was glad and for no other reason." I say all this so you'll understand: it was not necessary for my Risen Son to appear to me. All that mattered was that I believed and he knew I did. Ignatius Loyola had loved me, so he insisted that Jesus appeared to me first. I never admitted that--even to Ignatius; nor shall I admit it to you. Yes, you like the poem that tells I had gathered herbs and had them ready for Jesus' Easter breakfast. You like to think that, while apostles hud-dled in fear, while women wondered "who will roll back the stone," and Magdalen searched the garden--I was calmly fixing those herbs. I'm sorry. That is like a little jewel---a pretty thought. I cannot say it's more. John, whom Jesus had given me as son, was exhausted when he'd finished his memories of Jesus. '"There are still many other things that Jesus did," he wrote, admitting the world would not have books enough to record them. Some things must wait 'til heaven-~else why have faith? I say, then, to you--perhaps I saw my risen son on Easter; perhaps, as it will be for you, that vision came only ~at death. It matters not. The important thing is Christ had died; Christ is risen. I believed and, so, my child, must you. I promise though, that sometime when we meet in heaven, we'll talk about this if you want. But then I doubt if it will matter. You'll Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 understand when your believing is no longer necessary, for Christ will come again. Wo Dialogue with Mary at 55-~ I was not so old the day Christ died So young I was the night I gave him birth. But when they pulled that spear from out his side No one was quite so old on all this earth. You remember that poem, do you? It's true--I was older at 55. Mothers share the lives of their children and my Child had become sin. I think I can say he had become the sin of all my children; he had taken on himself your sin--with that of all the others. Sin ages one. Faith on Good Friday didn't save me from feeling the weight of all those sins. And with Jesus, I forgave all those engaged in sin's tragedy until the end of time. I forgave y6u--and loved you in my Son. But all this took its toll. Yes, I was older at 55. The death-resurrection act was almost ten years old then. John and I shared a home and much more besides. He had begun his Gospel and he'd leave parts with me when he. went on his journeys. I would read them in the quiet evenings pondering each word in my heart; it would take me weeks to read my son's "last discourse." All the apostles would come to see me--come home, tired, from their journeys. Luke came too--our cousin, constantly asking questions about the early life of Jesus. I loved to share my memories. They had become very precious to me---forming a tapestry now--and even Golgotha brought peace. I had lived my own "healing of memories." Things were different after Pentecost. The Holy Spirit that had come upon me long years ago came to all the apostles--filling them with the Love that had given me the courage of my years. All minutes were precious to me but when one of the apostles would return, and I'd send word to the neighbors, and we'd break bread together, keeping my son's new Covenant --then, I find it hard to tell you what I knew. I don't mean that I didn't feel his Spirit with me always. It was just that I'd experience my pre-Bethlehem days again. Jesus was within me--no longer an unborn infant, but my mature son--and we'd share together all we once did not understand. That knowledge and that wisdom were caught in heartbeats of Love. Then I'd be ready to go to the well again and listen to the gossip of the women. Christians, they would say, "are changing the face of the earth." 2The author herselt' is 55. My Son's'",Hour" / 823 Some were not eager for that change. It exacted a heavy toll, I know. But filled with the Spirit the Father sent me one spring evening--and my risen son sent to the whole world--I could look at each woman with such love that she too could respond with openness to that Spirit. You would have liked my life at 55. Did I long for heaven? I longed, my child, only to do God's will. If ever the Father had been very fond of anyone, he'd been fond of me. I wanted to return that fondness--without anxiety. The Trinity lived within me. I was content to do the Father's will. I don't mean that I didn't feel the cross of separation. I was human-- very human, and I longed for reunion with my parents, with Elizabeth, with Joseph. But it was comforting to know they were all with God. We'd be together again--all of us in his good time and that would mean for eternity. And I said once more to the Father; Behold the handmaid of the Lord Be it done unto me according to your will. Amen! .O Till I Begin I did not understand till I had begun to know. I did not find You, You found me; a small and melancholy st6ne to be carried in Your pocket, till I begin to wear, to shine, till I am brushed to a smooth and faultless final core. Stephanie E. WeIler 1030 East Washington St. Iowa City, lowa 52240 Dread (the Dark Night) and Christian Transformation Leslie Lund Miss Lund is presently working on her thesis to complete her work towards an M.A. degree in Religious Studies at Gonzaga University in Washington; her interest is in spirituality. She resides at E. 945 Nora, 4~4; Spokane, WA 99207. It is difficult to be living an authentic, deep Christian life without shortly running up against the cross, the "dark night" (St. John of the Cross), the "cloud of unknowing" (14th-century anonymous Christian mystic), or "diminishment" (Teilhard de Chardin). I will lump all such terms, and the experience they attempt to express, under the catch-all word, dread. These elements of suffering and diminishment (dread, as we may now call it) are not peculiar to Christianity, and neither is mystical experience itself. Such experiences are not in themselves a good. Dread is not to be sought for its own sake. We are not stoics or modern existentialists or Buddhists --but Christians--and this article cannot be read outside the total Christian perspective. Christians may not affirm or emphasize the negative aspects of spiritual growth to the exclusion of ultimate Christian hope, fulfillment, the restoration of all things in Christ. It is my hope, lest distortion arise, that this focus will be kept clearly in mind throughout the article until its final elaboration in the concluding pages. The Paschal Mystery is diminishment, yes, but it is transfiguration. It is the cloud, but it is truth and light. It is the dark night of the soul, but it is union. It is the cross, but it is, ultimately, the resurrection. Though there may be a number of different levels or nuances to dread, in this paper I will be dealing with a very specific understanding of it. The focus will be on religious dread, though to accentuate its particular qualities 824 Dread and Christian Transformation I Will at first show religious dread in counterdistinction to an existentialist conception of dread. There are a variety of states of dread, even within the religious context, so to further narrow the topic, this article will concern itself with the religious dread experienced in serious prayer (desert prayer or contemplative prayer-~-the "dark night of the soul" in John of the Cross). For a representative understanding of this state of dread I will use the l~anguage and thought of a "classical" contemplative, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, and also of a modern contemplative, Thomas Merton (from his book, Contemplative Prayer, in which the topic of dread is dis-cussed in some depth). Dread Dread is a basic, and common, human experience, and as such, it is a theme that recurs in literature, psychology, philosophy and theology. For the philosopher Kierkegaard, dread could also be set within a religious context. But even so, generically it can be described as a condition or state of being that comes before and precipitates a choice (leap) from one period of life to another. Dread, then, involves the awful possibility of freedom, for it forces the choice for or against new realities or potentialities. This state of freedom and new choices is recognized as very painful by existentialist philosophers, but Kierkegaard believed one could be delivered from it by making a leap, a commitment to the "objective uncertainty." The leap is the leap of faith.1 The choice is painful because it is made in regard to the unknown and undeterminable, and hence to what is both attractive and fascinating, but revolting and frightening. It is a very uncomfortable sit-uation, marking the end of self-complacency and the beginning of some-thing new. Let us further define dread. Christians, along with existentialists, can describe it as a state of anguish, alienation, and insecurity. It also includes a recognition of the limits of reason (the experience of "absurdity" for the existentialist), though for the Christian this does not therefore imply that what is is meaningless, but rather, that the meaning escapes the power of haman reason, and lies beyond the self in the.transcendent mystery of God. However, religious dread includes attributes or nuances beyond "sec-ular" dread. It includes for the Christian also the awareness of sinfulness, wandering, exile, Iostness (Exodus themes). This state Merton describes as ". death--a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance.''~ The person can experience an acute, sense of his own uselessness and worthlessness. This experience and awareness of the self is particularly painful, though for tThe similarity of this secular view of dread with our religious dread, and what it means in a Christian context will come Clear, hopefully, a little later. 2Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), p. 34. ~196 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 the Christian this pain does not drive him to self-sufficiency in setting up the self as the center of its universe, but on the contrary, pushes him towards God as the center and meaning of his being. The author of The Cloud of Unknowing makes this statement about the experience of nothingness, self and sinfulness: Then will come a time when he recognizes in that nothingness no particular s'in but only the lump of sin itself which, though but a formless mass, is none other than himself; he sees that in himself it is the root and pain of original sin.a ; Rephrased for 6ur own time we might call this an understanding of the experience of self-worship, with the accompanying experience of this false self as the root of sin, darkness, emptiness and alienation. Our anonymous author also wrote that to feel one's own existence, which is'the content of our modern word "dread," is the greatest suffering possible. ". he alone understands the deep universal reason for sorrow who ex.periences that he is."4 It is more terrible than any other type or level Of experienced isolation and separation. Within the experience itself often comes the realization that this must be what hell is like. And with it also comes the temptation to despair at ever being healed or delivered from it and froha the burden of self. That we are as we are (separated existence) is the source of our deep anguish. The illusion that brings the agony is the failure to experience God in one's own being. Instead, one experiences his .being apart from God. For as often as he would have a true knowing and feeling of God in purity of spirit ¯. and then feels that he cannot--for he constantly finds his knowing and feeling as it were occupied and filled with h foul, stinking lump of himself., he almost despairs for the sorrow that he feels, weeping, lamenting, writhing, and blaming himself. In a word, he feels the burden of himself so tragically that he no longer cares about himself if only he can love God? This is the fundamental cause of this type of dread, though there are other corollaries and ramifications. The alienation that causes the anguish is more than a sense of being a useless, unnecessary, ephemeral being, and includes a profound experience of being separated from God, all men, and even from the self. This gives rise to acute feelings of insecurity, for not only can we not control God, we are even powerless to control or to be reconciled to ourselves. We discover we have nothing and are nothing by ourselves. This period of dread is a time when faith is seriously challenged (as is everything that has ultimate value and meaning in the Christian's life). The fear is great that faith will be lost or abandoned, and that the see,rningly absurd and meaningless, or even despair, will be embraced instead. The aThe Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling, ed. by William Johnston (Garden City: Doubleday, 1973), p. 137. 41bid., p. 103. 5lbid., p. 104. Dread and Christian Transformation entire process of dread is a crucible of honesty, where truth is almost experienced as the enemy because of the pain it causes. One sees too clearly his own unfaithfulness and dishonesty in regard to Truth, especially as it involves the truth of his own life. The existentialists coined the phrase "bad faith" which is descriptive of the awareness that one is capable of, or has been living his life untruthfully, that one has not been true to God, to his fellow man or even to himself. One perceives that he may have been living contrary to the truth of his own call or condition. Indeed, truth itself is questioned. Old ideals and values lose their certainty. There is the suspicion that one may have set himself up as the standard of truth, or there is the temptation to do so if truth is not so certain for him. Deep down, far back in the mind there are demands or calls or possi-bilities that are only dimly and faintly recognized. Failure to respond to, or even examine them, haunts and produces a sense of failure and guilt. Somewhere there is a stubborn, defiant refusal to be all one can be. Every-thing feels illusory and slippery, and out of control, and this gives rise to panic. We "want out," we want to escape the condition, but we do not know what we want instead or where to go. The experience of rebellion and anger are overwhelming at times. We experience, too, a deep hatred for God and for ourselves. God is like a "monkey on our back"--an ever constant and annoying affliction that we cannot get rid of, Like Jeremiah we feel angry at being tricked and duped (20:7). This kind of relatedness to God is not at all what we expected. The spiritual understandings and com-forts of the past have vanished. We are comfortless. To pray is nearly impossible, if not impossible. Gone will be your new fervor, but gone, too, your ability to meditate as you had long done before. What then? You will feel as if you had fallen somewhere between the two ways having neither, yet grappling'for both.6 Not prayer, or mass, or confession, or any fulfillment of the "law" can take the dread away, or bridge the gap between God and the false self. The schism between this self and all that is seems infinite. The self is seen as bankrupt and barren, and the ha~-dness of heart, selfishness, and self-cen-teredness make us recoil in disgust and near despair. "I am gall, I am heartburn, God's most deep decree. Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me.''7 But still there is the clinging to the illusory false self for fear that if we let go of even that miserable possession we will have nothing and be nothing. God could not be so audacious as to demand that from us! Even though it is seen that this clinging to the false self causes our spiritual 6lbid., p. 143. 7Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 62. 1~21~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 "sickness" and estrangement between God and self, still the all important, confused "I" remains th~ center of worship, and without the grace of God it can never be otherwise. The alienation is truly terrible, for it is not estrangement from the abstract, transcendent God of the philosophers, but is estrangement with the All and the ground of our own being. This point being re~iched in the ¯ dread of contemplative prayer, nothing is more terrible than the suffering of emptiness at the prospect of living without God, though the ambivalence of attraction and fear is again experienced--the proverbial "I can't live with him, and I can't live without him." At this point comes the temptation to believe that not even God can be what is needed, that not even he can fill the void, indeed, that he could not be the revelation of love of Jesus, but is instead, uncaring and disfant. "Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, how wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost?.-8 But there is a worse temptation. Maybe He does not exist at all;. and everything is meaningless. Though at first the struggle may be fierce and intense, strug-gling to fight back the chaos, finally one ". loses even the power to struggle._ _He feels himself ready to sink and drown in doubt and despair."9 Transformation While a description of dread needed to be set fo~-th, let us be reminded that this diminishment and apparently disintegrative condition is not the total picture, Much more is happening simultaneously. Does this most horrible of human experiences have a positive value for Christians? What is th,.e. "much more" that is happening? At bottom, it is all the mystery of the transforming cross, and since Christians are used to paradox, it should not be surprising that those who have come through dread speak of it as a "blessed gift." "God in his mercy protects the contemplative in this way, though some foolish neophytes will think he has turned enemy to them.''1° There are several approaches that can be taken in response to the process of dread. One can insulate himself from it by retreating into illu-sions of the world,, getting involved in society's concerns and structures, or in general, by just keeping busy and blocking out any interiority. Or, as many are saying today, one can escape it by "going through it." Thomas Merton wrote that the "chief service of the monk was not only silence, listening, and questioning, but was also b~ing open and exposed to dread."~ Those who are serious about their prayer and faith life, and gradual transformation into Christ, face, and even embrace, the crucible of dread, Slbid., p. 67. 9Merton, op. cit., p. 99. ~°The Cloud of Unknowing, p. 145. ~Merton, op. cit., p. 25. Dread and Christian Transformation / 829 and allow themselves to experience it totally. This is not done stoically. It is not done lightly. There is resistance, for Christians are not masochists; they always struggle against evil. It is the "If it is possible let this cup pass--not my will, but Yours" prayer of Jesus. Even the decision to go through this process is a mystery, and is often not even articulated at the conscious level. There is the sense of continually "letting go" and sub-mitring to the process and moving in the darkness and uncertainty, but if the question were put, "Why are you doing this?" probably no satisfactory answer could be given. This should not be a worry, and can be taken as a sign that it is an authentic transforming process, for it is not something we do to ourselves, rather it is something done to us with which we cooperate. It is the desert experience of the young Israel. Nothing is certain. Help, if it comes at all, comes only at the eleventh hour, barely in the nick of time. It is a period of trials and collapses. But it is the fruitful time of formation (as it was for Israel) and, it was, as it still is, the movement towards the Promised Land. There does not seem to be much of a choice once the process has started. It appears that God has forced us into a radical decision. (In The Book of Revelation he spits out the lukewarm.) We must make a choice. We are forced (as our existentialist writer, Kierkegaard, observed we would be). This makes us angry. We want to sit in the middle, but must choose the dread with its seemingly horrible emptiness and darkness (though we somehow s.uspect: accompanying growth and maturity) or withdraw and drop out of the process, letting ourselves become trapped in our own illusions and immaturity. Our Catholic tradition has always placed a value on suffering (more often than not a distorted value) and somewhere along the way we have all heard that this diminishment is a necessary factor in spiritual growth. If it is the authentic process, and not a pseudo one that we bring or put on ourselves, this can be so, and our faith can be deepened. Merton must be read in context, but he also puts it this way, ". full maturity of the spiritual life cannot be reached unless we first pass through the dread, anguish, trouble, and fear that accompany the inner crisis of spiritual death, where we abandon attachment to our exterior self and surrender completely to Christ.''12 Attributes of Transformation It is time to take up a description of the attributes that the transformation process of dread can accomplish. It brings about many spiritual benefits and new dispositions. Since it threatens faith, it also changes it and deepens it. The doubt and despair serve to purify faith and destroy some of the more human elements of it (i.e., the need for certainty, and a correspondence to t2lbid., p.110. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 one's way of looking at reality, etc.). It is not what it was before. It takes on new dimensions and powers. We can finally experience the very "dearest freshness deep down" of things that Hopkins wrote of in his poem "God's Grandeur." Some time during the process of dread we become more comfortable with it, i.e., with the uncertainty, darkness and emptiness. The dread has moved us mysteriously beyond the need for consolations or gratification of immediate desires, or need to control what is. The process has the power to radically alter attitudes, and once the person has been emptied and humbled through this process that is beyond his control, he can be filled with Christ-like attitudes. His stance before God can include such attributes as opennes, s, pliableness, purity of heart, dependence, defenselessness, emptiness, hopefulness, truthfulness and gratitude. One becomes receptive to the fullness of God through the process. As was mentioned earlier, it is definitely not a time to be trying to regain self-possession, nor is it a time to be making new resolutions. However, it is a time of surrender and a time of letting go of the control and direction of one's life, and of giving it trustingly into the hands of the Lord who has been in charge of the process all ~along. It is the moment to depend only on him and his grace. Again, the experience of dread forces honesty.'It makes us evaluate our commitments and motives and beliefs at a much deeper level. It surfaces questions to ask ourselves that we could not have asked before. It is a blessed time when we come to encounter our real selves, to get to know that person we truly are. It also destroys false conceptions of God, and reveals him as he is in himself. The authentic process reveals sham and posturing. It gets us down to rock bottom. It does not allow hypocrisy, and false religiosity. It makes clear our illusions, idolatries and addictions. It is the experience of being the broken clay pot, for it takes awhy our sense of self-possession or assurance. And though we can often be worried that the dread takes us only more deeply into ourselves, or gets us caught up in the trap of constantly taking our own emotional and spiritual pulses, in the end, the process takes us out of ourselves. The experience, in dread, of alienation becomes trans-formed into a great recognition, need and desire for reconciliation and union with God and our fellow man. It is said that God tests those he loves. This is scarcely of any comfort in the darkest hours of dread, and it is in no way adequate for describing the mystery of the process, but there is some truth to it. The process is a gift of God's enigmatic mercy, and it is God's work, not ours. (In the more traditional vocabulary it is known as passive purification.) Only the false self is destroyed and emptied, but to make room for the Christ-self. Re-men~ ber, we are not masochists or stoics or manicheans--but Christians, for whom each individual, including the self, is precious, not evil. But the true Christ-self cannot be happy or full apart from God, and it is the process Dread and Christian Transformation of dread that intensifies and deepens this realization. The Paschal Mystery is the dialectic that accomplishes this. Thomas Merton writes, This alternation of darkness and light can constitute a kind of dialogue between the Christian and God, a dialectic that brings us deeper and deeper to the conviction that God is our all. By such alternations we grow in detachment and in hope.~3 Our anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing teaches that this is God's way of preparing, educating, and forming us through the alternation of hiS presence and absence. "As often as he goes, he will come back. And if you will suffer itall with gentle love, ea+h coming will be more marvelous and more joyful than the last.''14 In the process, doubt becomes faith. Despair becomes hope. The chaos and confusion become liberating and freeing. Hatred and anger mellow to gratitude and love. Rebellion becomes surrender. Peace comes in the com-mitment of the self to the loving will of God, and in the death of the false self comes the resurrection of the new Christ-self. The language and purpose of contemplative ~lread has a Pauline cast to it. The dread becomes the process in which the incomplete, false self dies so that the true self can come to be. It is "terrible" as the author of The Cloud of Unknowing calls it, but it is the work of love, nonetheless. The false old self dies, but this can be a joyous death for the Christian, for it is really the fulness of being. Therefusal to participate in this "work of love" results in a self that remains separated and isolated from the ground of its be!ng, God. To choose the destruction of the false self is necessary for the life of the true, resurrected self. It is to reject the illusions of the idolatry of the self. It is to truly believe at last that one is only himself when he is in union with God. "This simple awareness of my being is all I desire, even though it must bring with it the painful burden of self and make my heart break with weeping because I experience only self and not God. I prefer it with its pain., for this suffering will set me on fire with the loving desire to experience God as he really is.''15 Thus the author of The Cloud of Unknowing realizes that the suffering he.endures is really not hell at all "but his purgatory,.''16 He instructs the reader to not be troubled if his emotions or imagination tempt him to give up, for the prize is near. He asks simpl3i that a gift of the self be made as it is, to God as he is. Further, he counseis that there is no need, no matter ho.w it seems, for fear or panic or discoiaragement. His understanding is that it is a time to suffer humbly, waiting patiently in trust. For we do not know what is best for ourselves, but God, in his love and mercy, uses dread to bring us to his fuiness. God is audacious for us, and the process is nothing less than a total metamorphosis. "Now you are on what I might call a sort ~albid., p. 35. t4The Cloud of Unknowing, p. 184. 151bid., p. 174. ~lbid., p. 137. ~132 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 of spiritual ocean, in voyage from the rife of the flesh to the life in the spirit."~7 Though the author of The Cloud of Unknowing refers to this dread as a "hell of purgatory," a twelfth-century Cistercian monk, Isaac of Stella, refers .to it as a "hell of mercy." This is an even more powerful and rich notion. Here I quote the passage surrounding the idea of the "hell of mercy," for it very much embodies the reason and purpose of dread, that is, to destroy the false self, so that the Christ-self can be resurrected, and receive God himself. It also makes clear the concept of purification, not as punishment, but as a gift and work of Love. This passage must be read in the context of the total Christian dimension of diminishment and restora-tion, of cross but resurrection. It is too powerful and beautiful to para-phrase, so I leave it as it was written: "So let us be cruel and harsh for ourselves. I mean for the exterior man, so that we not offend the judge of both the interior and exterior man. If we accuse ourselves in all truth; if we judge ourselves with severity; if we condemn ourselves in harshness, we will not have to fear another accuser; nor will we have to be afraid to meet or confront another judge, or to have to endure or submit ourselves to another chastiser. What do we look for--pleasure or rest? We are on the cross. Or rather, we were in the world; we are in hell-- but a hell of mercy, not of wrath; we shall be in heaven. In the world, we sinned; here, we make atonement; there, we shall rest. There, we were in pleasures; here, in pain and tribulation; there, we will be in glory. There, we were in the dirt; here, we are in purification; there, we shall be in peace. "So let the Father be the Father of our souls and the chastiser of our bodies. Be he the Father of the Son of God in us. Be he the one who feeds and nourishes, the pedagogue and teacher, as long as childhood lasts, for him who i~ the future heir, and who as son, will dwell in his house forever. Be he for the son of man (man) theone who bruises and who humiliates, the one who betrays and seduces, the one who takes everything away, the one who crucifies and buries. If he neglects to act this way towards us, let us be ourselves the murderers of the son of man (man), but feeders and nurturers of the Son of God within us, so that he grow and become un-surpassed, or, as the apostle says, until Christ is formed in us, and we attain the perfect man in the fullness of Christ, who with the Father and Spirit reigns forever.''~8 In this same vein, though.from a different age and manner of expression, Thomas Merton also sums up the real value of dread, "The purpose of the dark night., is not simply to punish and afflict the heart of man, but to liberate, to purify and to eialighten in perfect love. The way that leads through dread goes not to despair but to perfect joy, not to hell but to heaven."19 171bid., p. 184. 181saac de L'Etoile, Sermons (Paris, 1974). pp. 148, 150, 152. ~aMerton, op. cit., p. 110. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality Thomas Dubay, S.M. Father Dubay, well known to our readers, presently devotes his time to lectures, retreats and chapter consultations for religious and priests. He resides at the Marist Administration Center; 4408 8th St., N.E.; Washington, DC 20017. No finite reality is adequately understood except in terms of its context. Even the God of revelation presents himself in Scripture in the context of a created world. The individual person is understood against the back-ground of his family, and social problems are evaluated in terms of the milieu in which they occur. A sentence is grasped only within its paragraph and the paragraph within the entire article. The classical example of this truth is the biblical statement, "there is no God." This is understood only with the words that precede it: "the fool says in his heart that . " Celibate friendship can be understood only in terms of a complete pic-ture of the raison d'6tre of celibate dedication. To discuss this way of life without a previous consideration of its primary orientation (which can be known only from Revelation) is to present a truncated account, almost necessarily an illusory account. The Usual Explanation The popular explanation of friendship in religious life is likely to begin with our modern and improved understanding of human sexuality. It goes on to say that while there was in bygone days an undue repression both of the reality and its open discussion, we now see a positive worth beyond that of procreation and we freely share our views about the matter. This may be followed by the basically favorable view of sex that we find in the Bi-ble-- even though anything approaching an adequate discussion of virginity 1~34 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 in the New Testament is omitted. At this point we arb likely to meet a disapproving look into the patristic and medieval literatures. Next the writer or speaker may direct attention to contemporary theories of sexuality as they may be applied to the celibate condition. Little or no attention is given to the revealed context of consecrated virginity. Instead we may find a mixture of undoubted truths ("the two sexes are complementary") with less secure statements (physical signs of affection [no limits mentioned] are normal between celibates) and even clearly .false ones ("there is no vocation to celibacy, only that to Christian life"). The legitimacy of celibate friendship is then supported and illustrated by the classical examples of Jordan and Diana, Catherine and Raymond, Jane and Francis. In this usual explanation there will be words of caution, for not anything at all is acceptable behavior. Yet the limits are not clear and some people carry away from the discussion the impression that occasional serious sin ought not to disturb the two friendsunduly, that such is the price of an enriching relationship. Celibate men and women need to mature in their relationships so that they can "handle" their emotional reactions. Religious and priests differ, of course, intheir evaluations of this typical discussion of celibate friendships. Some are highly critical, others are favorably impressed. My own reactions are mixed. Ican identify with some of the ideas in these presentations, but I also find serious shortcomings. There is often a lack of theological accuracy and of a realistic assessment of the human situation. There may be insufficient contact with the biblical word and, especially, there is no adequate context. Celibate friendships are seen as though celibacy itself were chiefly a matter of interhuman rela-tionships and apostolic freedom. Here, as elsewhere in human life, faulty premises yield faulty conclusions. The Celibate Context As a dedicated ~vay of life, a permanent ideal embraced for the King-dom, consecrated virginity/celibacy~ appears for the first time.on the face of the earth in the persons of Mary and her Son. It is a 'theological ~eality in the etymological sense of that word: its meaning is found only in God and it can be known only from his lips. Although they may be helpful in an ancillary way, psychology and sociology of themselves know nothing of consecrated celibacy. The celibate is grasped by the Lord God in a manner so radically new that his whole life undergoes a basic reorientation. All men and women are to be oriented toward God as their raison d'etre, but most reach him q shall use the two terms interchangeably even though strictly speaking they do differ. In every case the adjective, consecrated or dedicated, is supposed. Virginity is the preferred biblical term, while celibacy enjoys common modern usage. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality through the intimate and human sharing called marriage. The celibate on the other hand omits this sharing in order to respond to another more deeply intimate and divine sharing. Even one who may not be able to see the ¯ significance of these profoundly mysterious words can readily perceive their fundamental radicality. It is this fundamental radicality that must be grasped before we can understand what friendship should and should not be between celibate persons of the same or diverse sexes. Until we know how these persons relate to God we do not grasp how they relate to one another. Without this context, discussions of friendship are not likely to be on a much more elevated level than those of the syndicated advice columns found in the daily newspaper. Virginity, a Privileged Sphere of the Sacred Virginity is a vocation, a new vocation, a privileged vocation. To ap-preciate this fact we must refresh out understanding of the biblical concept ofqadosh, the holy, the sacred. We moderns tend to equate the word, holy, with virtuous. For us the holy person is the morally good person: patient, chaste, gentle, honest. For the ancient Hebrew, ttie "holy" is the set-apart person or thing. One was consecrated, holy, not primarily because he was virtuous (though that would be supposed), but because he was reserved for the service of the Lord God. All holiness derives from the utterly holy One. God is totally trans-cendent, totally other, even though entirely immanent in his creation. One becomes holy in this sense when he approaches the burning otherness of the Lord, when he is therefore set apart from the ordinary, the everyday, the merely finite. God's people, for example, are a holy people because they are selected from all the nations of the earth and set apart for him. This is the sense of 1 P 2:9: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light." Continence was practiced in the old dispensation before a priest par-ticipated in the temple liturgy or soldiers went off to the holy war (which shared something of a liturgical enterprise), not because sexual relations in marriage were bad, but because they were of the humdrum, ordinary life. Sexual intercourse was avoided at these times because it was of t, his world, whereas the priest or soldier was to enter the sacred sphere of Yahweh. He was to engage in something qadosh, holy,set apart, and thus he prepared himself by removing himself from the everyday occupations of marriage and daily life. When ther(fore, St. Paul speaks of the virgin as being holy in body and spirit he is not talking first of all of her moral goodness, though that is not excluded. He is saying that she, unlike the married woman or man, is set apart for the sacred sphere of the Lord God. As a virgin she need not be concerned with the dozens of duties that are the normal round for a wife 836 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 who cares for husband, children, household. She can give "undivided attention to the Lord" insofar as she is not burdened with the concern for this world that is necessarily entailed in familial duties and sexual relations. By calling the virgin holy, qadosh, St. Paul is not saying that she is virtuous while the married woman is not. Both are to be morally good. The dif-ference is that, as married, the one lives in the sphere of this world, while the other lives in the sphere of the Lord. This language and thought pattern are expressed by Jesus himself in his priestly prayer at the Last Supper. He says that neither he nor his select disciples are of this world (Jn 17:14, 16). He "consecrates" himself, makes himself holy, set apart, so that they too may be set apart in the truth (Jn 17:19). Jesus belongs to the privileged sphere of the Father in a preeminent way. He is reserved for the Father alone and so he declined an earthly marriage. His food was to do the will of the Father and nothing else (Jn 4:34). He could not have given the attention to this world that marriage requires. The celibate is celibate precisely as Jesus was and for the same reasons. The celibate, the virgin is a man or woman who, while living on planet earth and involved with its joys and sorrows, its hopes and burdens, is none-theless a person set apart. He belongs to the sphere of the transcendent, which is the sphere of the infinite, the other, the Lord God. This is one reason magisterial documents indicate that the primary orientation of re-ligious life is not engagement in an external apostolate but rather prayer, penance, gospel example.2 The religious vows afford a freedom for uni-versal love and apostolic involvement, yes, but that freedom is second to a prior freedom for a direct love-prayer relationship to God himself. The first commandment remains first, and the second remains second. Celibacy, an Excluding Fullness3 Celibacy for the kingdom (the only type we envision here) is not first of all non-marriage. It is a fullness in its own right. In a similar manner the earthly marriage of Susan to Philip is not first of all a non-marriage to Robert or William. A religious or priest does not see his consecration at all ade-quately until it appears as a positive fullness in its own right. The person with the celibate charism has been grasped by the Lord for a special, direct relationship. God takes the initiative and so orientates this person that he (she) "cannot" give a marital attention to another human being. The authentically married person experiences a similar "cannot" in relation to others than his spouse. The married man could physically attempt marriage to another woman than his wife but it would do violence to his being. The ~See Christus Dominus #33 and Renovationis causam, 4~2. aA more complete treatment of this section may be found in my article, "Celibacy As Full-ness," REWEW VOR REL~C~Ot~S, January, 1975, pp. 88-100. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality / 83? celibate could likewise attempt marriage but it would do violence to his person. God so captures the genuine virgin that she cannot but focus her being on the Lord's affairs and give him her undivided attention. In spiritual direction of religious one sees instances where this cannot is completely obvious. Virginity/celibacy is an exclusive God-orientation, a focusing on "the one thing," a fullness in its own right. From this positive reality flows the negative, the non-marriage. The healthy celibate appreciates and values the beauty, attractiveness, goodnesses of the opposite sex, but he appreciates and values even more the immeasurably greater beauty, attractiveness and goodness of God himself. The virginal heart is a large heart, a heart so large that earthly marriage cannot fill it. Erroneous Premises Many, perhaps most, significant differences among religious in recent years are fundamentally due to widely different presuppositions. An ob-vious example is one's ecclesiology. If one person wholly embraces the ecclesiology of Vatican Council II and another that of liberal Protestantism, ¯ it can hardly be surprising that they entertain basically different notions of what religious life is. Whatever one thinks about celibate friendships, it is quite certain that his thoughts stem from underlying premises. We may be aware or unaware of the explicit forms of those premises, but there is no doubt that we have them. A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit (Mt 7:17). Sound premises, roots, produce sound conclusions (provided the rest of the reasoning process is correct) and faulty premises produce faulty conclusions. Some of our problems in the area of celibate friendships are the presuppositions. It is no doubt worthy of note that not a few of these presuppositions are departures from Catholic teaching. I shall mention here several of these erroneous premises. This is not the place to develop my observations at length. Anyone moderately versed in theology will recognize that with some of them we are dealing with re-jections of the teachings of the Church. After we have cleared the air we shall sketch positively what a beautiful celibate friendship is like. First, the faulty premises. 1 .) "Close celibate relationships have no significant connection with the quality of prayer life." If a connection is supposed, little is made of it. The writer or speaker seems quite unaware of the primary orientation of vir-ginity to prayer, and he makes little of the tie-up between depth of prayer and the reality of friendship. The latter he seems to think ¯is simply a psychological matter which is quite accessible to human reason. 2.) "Genuine love between the sexes is common and easy to come by." We may note about this premise that psychologists themselves point out on purely natural grounds that a capacity for genuine love between the sexes is rare. Even more to our purposes is the teaching of the New Testament 1~31~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 that the new Christic love is naturally impossible, not simply rare. Only if we have been emptied of our maze of selfishnesses and converted by the eternal Word of God and born into his new life can we love others sincerely (1 P 1:22-23). Popular discussions of celibate sexuality seem not to know this. This is a fatal error. 3.) "The religious vocation may be temporary, and hence dating may rightly lead to marriage." I have not seen one sound psychological or theological argument among the many produced in recent years to support the theory of temporary vocation. This is not the place to trace out the solid case for permanent vocation. It may suffice for our purposes simply to state that the Catholic Church all through her history has held that the vocation to the counsels is permanent. 4.) "Genital sexual activity in celibate life is not nece.ssarily repre-hensible." Hence, those who hold this premise feel masturbation, intimate touches between friends, perhaps even sexual intercourse are not always wrong. It may be sufficient to note about this position that most people find it shocking, and that it entails a rejection of a large portion of Catholic sexual morality. One wonders what founders and foundresses would have said about these thoughts of their spiritual children. 5.) "Marriage and celibacy are of equal effectiveness in freeing for the kingdom." This premise is a rejection of Jesus' and Paul's teaching (Lk 18:29-30; 1 Co 7:32-38), as exegetes who have no axe to grind readily point out. The premise is of course also a rejection of the teaching of the Council of Trent and that of Vatican Council II. 6.) "The religious woman should display her femininity, or, as one writer put it, she should look 'sexy' " (in some sense he did not define). Only one who is innocent of real life (what, for example, many men are likely to think and say of this type of "virgin"), would make this sort of statement. One may wonder here, too, what our best examples of deepest feminine beauty would think of this idea: Agnes, Agatha~ Catherine of Siena. Teresa of Avila, Maria Goretti and a host of others. 7.) ,"Almost any friendship between a celibate man and woman is to be viewed as similar to those between saints." Merely to advert to the sen-tence is to see how untrue it is. No comment is needed. Signs of Genuine Friendship Even the most uncommitted scholar, well informed in the area of saints and canonization processes, will agree that the Church does not place her seal of approval on any celibate friendship. This undebatable fact suggests that there are significant differences between the holy and the unholy re-lationship. One may, if he wishes, introduce a third category, the "spiri-tually neutral" friendship, i.e., one in which there is no obviously sinful activity and yet in it no one would be inclined to consider either party especially saintly. It may be doubted in at least many cases whether such a "neutral friendship" would long remain merely neutral. It is likely that it Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality will either slowly dissolve or become more or less unholy. We humans are like that. I shall consider here the signs of the genuine friendship. If some readers are inclined to question these signs, I ask only one favor: read the lives of the saints and then judge whose position reflects their attitudes and prac-tice. All of us ordinary people are subject to error. In matters like this we are inclined either to exaggerate the gospel or to dilute it. And being sinners, ,most of us are far, more likely to dilute than to exaggerate. I trust that no one of us is so arrogant as to suppose that he knows better than the saints how the gospel is to be lived in concrete life. Their lives have the authentic seal of the Church upon them and ours do not. This is no slight difference. We may take it as a general norm that a genuine friendship is immersed in God, honestly immersed in him. It is a living of the universal Pauline principle that whatever we do, eating, drinking or anything else, we do to the glory of God (1 Co 10:31). This is easy to say in the morning offering but it is"not easy to live. Nevertheless I am supposing here that celibate friend-ship is a love of the Holy Spirit and as such is immersed in Jesus' love for all men and women. In a sense it is a participation in that love: "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus" (Jn 11:5). Every celibate is to love as he loved. In that way and in no other. Honesty here is not easy. The first sign of this honest authenticity is that God not only was, but remains the first concern of each party to the friendship. It is not siinply that God was once upon a time their prime concern when they engaged in spiritual direction ora common apostolic enterprise. Right now he is their chief love. They would do nothing, absolutely nothing to displease him or to divide their hearts. This implies that each person is a man or woman of deep prayer. They take contemplative prayer seriously and are at least growing in it. They are not content with vocal prayer alone, even the excellent vocal prayer of the Liturgy, of the Hours. We can see why this sign is crucial when we recall the context of celibacy we considered above. Religious and priests who do not really understand their vocation and love it deeply are hardly capable of celibate friendship. This may be a funda-mental reason why some of the writing and speaking on this subject is so defective: it lacks roots and orientation. The second sign is a growing commitment to the celibate gift. God is a God of fidelity and he expects fidelity in us. The celibate charism is given permanently, not for a few years. Both the charism and a genuine friendship are gifts of the one Holy Spirit. He does not contradict himself. He who gives the permanent gift of celibacy does not then turn around0and chip away at it in a relationship between possessors of the gift. Hence if a priest and/or religious begin seriously to consider a dispensation from vows and possible marriage, the love is no longer a love of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual life is one integrated whole. It hangs together. A beautiful friend-ship strengthens chastity, perfect chastity. It prompts each party to want the celibate dedication more strongly and to be entirely faithful to it. 840 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 The third sign is non-exclusiveness, non-possessiveness. It is true that the universal love of the virgin does not mean that she (he) does not love individual persons. No one is to love others only as a kind of global mass. Like all others the celibate is to love unique individuals, but unlike the married he loves without exclusiveness. Marital love is possessive, but celibate love is not. Marital love as marital centers on one person and one alone, even though the married are to love others with a general love. Celibate love as celibate is universal, and a deep friendship with one in-dividual does not erase celibate universality. This is why a Teresa of Avila would be happy to know that Jerome Gratian has another deep, close friend. She does not love him possessively, exclusively. A religious or priest who resents another close friend lacks something of the love of the Holy Spirit. Our next sign is closely allied to the previous one. Genuine friendship promotes universal warmth. Not only is there no exclusivity or posses-siveness, but each party finds that he goes out more warmly to all people. Cordiality, warmth, helpfulness is not reserved to one's friend. This person lives the Pauline admonition to the Romans, "treat everyone with equal kindness" (Rm 12:16). Friends ought not to assume easily that they are living this admonition. It takes a great deal of detachment, self-emptying, to go out as warmly to others as to a special friend. We may recall that 1 P 1:22-23 taught that authentic love in community requires a conversion. And we ought not too easily suppose we have been thoroughly converted. Afinal sign is that in authentic celibate friendship the frequency and length of visits are limited. I shall not cite quantitative limits, but I may say that a man or woman of prayer knows instinctively what is too much in the area of time spent together and what is too much in the area of signs of affection. Again one need only think of the saints. Normal men and women who spend too much time together or are too demonstrative in their af-fection soon have a chastity problem. The Need-Relationship Experience indicates that when many young religious find themselves close to another person they quite automatically consider the closeness to be love. This is especially true of young women. When before too many months or years pass the closeness slowly vanishes, they are not only surprised, but sometimes crushed. Many of these relationships are nothing more than need relationships. One individual finds another to be attractive, interested, concerned. And perhaps the other finds the first to be such also. Then one or both find that the other answers real needs for attention, security, warmth, sharing of problems, pains, aspirations. They are close ¯ because needs are being met. This need-relationship is not necessarily bad. But it is not yet love. Love does not dissipate in time. A mere need-friendship does dissipate when the need disappears or is met by another person. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality / We annot emphasize too strongly what we noted above as the opinion of psychologists, namely, that a capacity for genuine love between the sexes is rare. Need-closeness is not rare. Love is. Real love demands I. conversion, being born of the word of the everlasting God. This is why ¯ genmne celibate friendship happens only when deepening prayer happens. This islanother reason, too, why some recent writings on celibate sexuality are so superficial and consequently misleading. / Implications //We are now prepared to suggest implications that flow from our dis-cUssion. of context, premises and signs. Some religious may well be sur- Jprised that I feel it necessary to indicate these implications so plainly. While others who are well aware of our situation may be saddened, they will not be surprised. Our first consequence is that there is no such thing as a valid "third way," namely some sort of combination of celibacy and marriage, that is, physical closeness and intimacy without marital commitment. It should be said, of course, that what has been meant by the third way is itself a fuzzy spectrum of relationships all the way from dubious friendships to uncom-mitted sexual intercourse. And, it may be noted, this spectrum of rela-tionships has itg defenders from one end of it to the other. Why do I say that there is no such thing as a third way? There are two clear vocations on this score, marriage and celibacy/virginity. A third, marital-virginity, is an illusion. The whole twenty-century history of Christian virginity has seen deep friendships and profound love, but the Church has never set her stamp of approval on a third way. A least acquaintance with the saints makes this clear. Further, one need only review all that has been said thus far in this article. None of it remotely suggests a third way. Our second implication concerns dating. I have found that a religious and a priest who go out to dinner socially together (or share some other recreation) are likely to object to calling the engagement a date. I am not at this point overly concerned about the semantics of the matter, but I may note that these people for some odd reason resist terminology commonly accepted in our day. Almost everyone calls this kind of outing between two unmarried people a date. Whatever the name, this practice has its ardent defenders. It is not simply something done through mistaken judgment and then regretted, That it often ends up in marriage is not surprising. (And that this is a normal, good consequence is also defended.) What is wrong about all this? A number of things. First, the celibate charism is a permanent gift. One who has accepted the gift through vow is to honor his commitment. Vows are to be k~pt. The celibate may not marry, and he ought not to put himself in circumstanc'es that normally lead to marriage. If one responds by thinking or saying, "I have no intention to marry and there is no danger in our dating," I would answer that if the two ~142 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 persons are normal and persist in their relationship they are going to have a chastity problem. If they are not normal, they already have a problem. Then there is the question of scandal. One writer, admitting that many people in our society are scandalized in seeing religious and priests dating, expiessed the hope that one day our fellow citizens would come to see that a man and a woman can go out together with some other purpose than an eventual genital relationship. To be more clear, I think he should have said that he hopes the ordinary man and woman of our day will come to see that a platonic friendship is a likely explanation~ of why a priest and sister may date. This hope is naive. Anyone familiar with our sex-saturated world recognizes that this "likely explanation" is becoming more and more re-mote. I have met aremarkable woolliness of thought on this score of scandal. A sister will maintain that if people see anything wrong in her going out to dinner with a man, that is their problem, not hers. They must, she thinks, have unchaste minds to think of anything else of a platonic or merely business relationship. This view is innocent of reality in two. ways. The first innocence regards the types of scandal~. There is such a thing as pharisaical scandal, namely, that which people take when there is no least reasonable basis for it. This kind we may disregard. The other is what we usually mean, namely, when our action is such that in the normal understanding of.people there is basis for seeing something amiss in it. This kind we may not disregard. And this leads us to the second innocence in this woolly view. The person who holds it seems unaware that in our contemporary society a man and woman who.go out together are ordinarily viewed as either a) married, b) thinking of possible marriage remotely or proximately with this person or some other or c) doing something together but only as a part of a genital sexual relationship. It is. true that many people would admit that the two may have only a platonic interest in each other, but that is not the likely understanding of why they date. Now if th, ese people are scandalized when they see two consecrated celibates dating, their scandal is not pharisaical, that is, without solid basis in normal society. They ought not to judge that the two have sinned or plan to, but they are not wrong in think!ng what I have expressed in the above (a), (b), (c) sentence. It is important to notice about this scandal matter that people need not be sure that there is sexual sin between dating religious. Scandal is given if suspicions are aroused through a normal understanding that there may indeed be something amiss. The work of priests and religious for the king-dom is seriously undermined if people begin to think they are leading double lives, posing public!y as celibates and privately living as married or some-thing approaching this. The Church is severely damaged by suspicions like these. Priests and religious have no right to furnish a basis for them. We may be reminded of the splendid example of St. Paul. He refused :to scandalize "the weak" (i.e., those with erroneous consciences about eating Celibate Friendship." llluMon and Reality food offered to idols) even though what he was doing was perfectly per-missible[ He does not callously say "that is their problem." Rather he remarkslthat Christ died'for this weak brother and Paul will never cause his ruin. "That is why," says the apostle, "since food can be the occasion of t my brother's downfall, I shall never eat meat again in case I am the cause of my br~other s downfall (1 Co 9:7-13)¯ Dedicated religious have this same sensitivity. In no way will they sow the seeds of suspicion in the minds of their bro~thers and sisters, whether the latter be weak or strong. Our ~inal implication bears on maturity, chronological and spiritual, in ~ts bearl.ng on the question of deep cehbate friendship. If one reviews what we havelsaid about the context and signs of a beautiful relationshihpe, will easily see" a problem: are young religious, priests, seminarians really de-veloped/ enough, psychologically and spiritually, to be capable of what we are talking' about? It goes without saying that no one can cite a mathematical norm oriage at which people are mature enough to enter upon more than a mere ne, ed-relationship. In any event young people should remember that ¯ a capacity for genuine love among all age groups is not common and they . ought not to be easily persuaded that they themselves are already so capa- . ble. Young people especially are prone to mere need-relationships which they m~stakenly interpret as love. I am not saying that the young cannot love genmnely. But I am saying that no one, young or old, can love w~thout hawng Been converted¯ And no one loves deeply w~thout deep conversion. Thislis why prayer is absolutely crucial to the whole question of celibate friendsliip.' Those who write and speak about this matter and pay scant ¯ I . attention to the prayer-context are s~mply bypassing the core ~ssue. Vt r-ginity f~r Christ has' depths of which psychology has not dreamed. That man or woman alone is capable of a deep friendship who is already deeply (or at least is growing in depth) in communion with the source of all love, the God who is love. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.~.B.T. and Carla Przybilla, O.S.F. Sister Mary Vincentia is Assistant Professor at the National Catholic School of Social Service; the Catholic University of America; Washington, DC 20064. Sister Carla is Executive Director of the National Religious Formation Conference; 1330 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.; Washington, DC 20005. The authors wish to acknowledge and thank Rev. Ladislas Orsy, S.J., for reviewing this article and for his helpful comments. The whole future of the Earth, as of religion, seems to me to depend on the awakening of our faith in the future. Teilhard de Chardin Today, with the growing consciousness of the personhood of woman and with the re-structuring of her roles in both society and in the Church, women religious are providing leadership in spearheading and developing new and exciting ministries designed to meet rapidly changing social needs. There appears to be a new perspective, based on a model of collaboration and interdependence, which captures both identity and purpose, while at the same time engaging in a dialogical process with the world. This vibrant movement, in response to the needs of people, and within the context of the charismatic beginnings of religious communities, is not only transforming the forms of ministry of women religious in the United States, but is also impacting on the orientation and style of preparation required for ministries of the future. The future however, is in the present. A futuristic view of ministry requires preparation for today's demands. We are living in a time of such 844 Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / !i45 accelerat ~d change that it is estimated that people will undergo retraining ~ . for occup, at~onal needs many times during a lifetime. Not only will many religious have to re-tool for today's work but a totally new orientation will be necess,ary to respond appropriately to ever-changing needs. Professional schools, i,n their socialization processes, are emphasizing education geared to the self-directed learner, preparing the adult learner for a major constant in our culture--social change. In the helping professions this means creat-ing a readiness to handle continuous and rapid change as well as skill in generating new models of helping. Incorporated within this orienting frame is the closely related concept of monitoring and assessing service effect¯ iveness. Has this trend fully impacted on religious communities, in their socialization processes and in preparation for second careers? Cer-tainly, it has influenced a number in their approaches to ministry. More still have to ~ confront this major dynamic influencing the mission of the Church in moder~n society. It vitally touches every area of "personpower": re-cru~ tment policies, qualifications needed for the various service modalities, the capacity to ~ntegrate the spiritual and rehg~ous dimensions m service, and the tra~mng modaht~es for new m~mstnes. What are the personal re-quiremedts necessary to meet new and changing situations? A look at the emergln.g~ forms of mlmstnes may provide some answers. As Rahner states, ttiese new models of service, similar to the secular professions, are concretelexpressions of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.~ The p~urpose' of this article is to examine the developing forms of min-istry of women religious and to consider their implications for the so-c~ ahzat~on processes, e.g. the formation programs of religious congrega-tions as ~well as for re-tooling for new and re-focused careers. An attempt also wiillbe made to provide an organizing schema, a conceptual frame-work, to,~ analyze the major components of these socialization processes within a [context of future needs. The data presented here were collected during the preliminary phase of ¯ a larger study which is underway on the new careers of women religious, related areas of role conflict, and coping styles utilized in conflict resolu-tion. 2 Thlis first phase, a survey of 367 religious congregations of women in the United States, sought to locate the population of religious in new works, that is, ~n works which were new to their congregations.3 Communities ~Karl Rahner. "'Practical Theology and Social Work in the Church," Theological Inves-tigations, ~/ol. 10, translated by David Bourke (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), pp. 267-68. I , 2This study is being conducted by Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T. with the Nationa~ Religious Formation Conference, Washington, D.C. Sister Mary Vincentia developed the research design and Stster Carla processed the data for this preliminary phase. The article was written by the former and the final version was completed jointly. 3The istin~ of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which included major supe-riors of 367icongregations, was used for the mailing. The time-frame of the survey was summer to fall, 1976. 1~46 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 were asked, in an open-ended format, to indicate the new ministry of each sister. There was a 94.60% rate of response which would seem to indicate, along with the many supportive statements, a high level of interest among religious communities in this area. A total of 5,892 religious was reported by their communities to be engaged in new works. ¯ Although this survey was not intended to be an exhaustive study, it was rich in information on developing works among sisters. The data, therefore, were analyzed and classified into broad categories of ministry. These findings would seem to have value in that they provide an empirical base, suggesting future directions and rough indicators for some future projec-tions. New ministries, as used here,, refer to forms which were new to religious communities. In considering the findings, it is important to note that a number of communities indicated that they have no new works, that their congregations have always been involved in what many consider new directions. The non-r~spondent group may also be composed of those who have consistently been involved in what is considered new by religious today. For example, in a recent study on sister social workers profession-ally educated in the United States during the period 1962 to 1972, forty-six sisters or the largest, number trained in any religious community were members of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity.4 None of these, however, are reflected.in the findings discussed here since social work is traditional apostolate of this community. Similarly, the large num-ber of sisters in this community, and in a few others, in parish work is not represented in the data since, historically, these communities have been engaged in this type of work. New Forms of Ministry The proportion of women religious in the broad categories of ministry are shown in Table 1. This typology follows the familiar classification of works according to the fields of health, education, and welfare (here termed social ministry). Other emerging forms of ministry did not fit neatly into these general categories and, therefore, were presented separately. Parish work, for .example, which involves a plurality of ministries, crosses the categorical boundaries of health, education, and social ministry. A special category was constructed for the spiritual ministries which have been in-creasing over the past few years. They clearly represent a cluster of spiritual and religious functions (such as directed retreats and prayer movements) generally performed in Church-related structures rather than in exclusively non-ecclesial settings. Similarly, supportive Church-related 4Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, A Study ~of Self-Role Congruence and Role-Role Congruence on the Integration of the Religious Role and the Social Work Role of the Sister Social Worker. Unpublished DSW dissertation, the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 1974, p. 247. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / 1t47 ministries are surfacing more explicitly and distinctly associated with some level of Church structure or Church work. An example would be the role of the diocesan consultant. These categories, particularly, give striking evidence of the shifting roles of women in the Church. Table 1 Proportion of Women Religious in New Forms of Ministries According to the Type of Ministry* Religious Type of Ministry No. % Health Ministry I 112 18.87 Education Ministry 1334 22.64 Social Ministry 1912 32.45 Parish Ministry ' 797 13.53 Supportive Church-related Ministries 384 6.52 Spiritual Ministry 266 4.5 I Other 87 1.48 5892 100.00 *Refers to forms of ministries which were new to religious congregations of women at the time of the survey. As can be seen, the social ministries represent the largest group of services provided by women religious among these new forms. Almost one-third of the survey population were engaged in a form of social ministry, 10% more than those in education and close to 15% more than those involved in the health field. An interesting piece 6f data was the small number of sisters actually engaged in such works as business, clerical work, and sales in strictly non-ecclesial setti.ngs. Although a large number of others worked in non-sectarian structures, such as hospitals, they were most frequently ehgaged in pastoral work in the human service fields. The dominant theme which ran through the findings was se~r, vice, often with a highly skilled and profes-sional orientation, within a framework of ministry or mission. From the comments of some communities, form of service and perspective of min-istry were clearly within the context of their charismatic beginnings. The categories in Table 1 will be elaborated more fully in the discussion that follows. New Forms of Health Ministry The largest single category in the health field was pastoral care in Cath-olic institutions--hospitals, .nursing homes, or other group facilities. As Table 2 illustrates, a forceful trend is noted when pastoral care in Catholic settings is combined with pastoral care in non-Church related settings: almost one-half of the new forms of health ministries are in the field of pastoral care. Interestingly, too, more than one-fourth of the sisters in new health ministries are providing nursing or allied medical services in public 1~41~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 or private institutions not sponsored by the Church. Thus, almost 45% of the sisters included in the survey in the health field offer services in other than Catholic institutions. This proportion is even higher when combined with non-Church related community services. Table 2 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Health Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Community-based Health Care (nursing and related allied 202 18.17 services) Health Care in Non-Church-related Institutions* 289 25.99 Pastoral Ministry in Catholic Institutions* 363 32.64 Pastoral Ministry in Non-Church-related Institutions 192 17.27 Other (Physicians, dentists, other specialists/consultants) 66 5.93 Total 1112 100.00 *Refers to hospitals, nursing homes, and the larger group facilities. As would be expected;.a large proportion, or almost 20% are in in-novative community and neighborhood-based health programs (such as public health, visiting nurses, and outreach clinics, both in Catholic and non-Church related settings). This group consists largely of nurses and allied professionals. Interestingly, this trend somewhat parallels that in social work although there was a sharper reversal from institutional to community settings in that field. Close to two-thirds of the sister social workers were in institutional work prior to Vatican II in contrast to over two-thirds in community-based programs after Vatican II: No doubt this trend in the hea!th field would be greater if more Church-related commu-nity- based programs were available within Catholic structures as they are in social work, e.g. Catholic Charities agencies and other neighborhood and parish-based social service and social action programs. Also, it was inter-esting that close to 85% of the population studied provided services within Church structures and only 6% saw services in the public sector as an important future role of the sister social worker. Leadership within the framework of the Church, as long as these structures were available and viable for effective and relevant service, was viewed as a dominant future role. Close to sixteen were physicians or dentists; when combined with psy-chiatrists (see Table 4), we can see a more visible trend in the medical ministries. A small number were speech and music therapists. 5Joseph, op. cit. pp. 102, 174. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View 1149 New Forms of Education Ministries More than one-fifth of the religious in the survey population continued in new and specialized forms of the education ministry. This is not sur-prising since the majority of religious have professional training in this field and many communities hold education as integral to their mission. Most interestingly, however, were the innovative and creative forms taking shape. As reflected in Table 3, close to 40% are specializing in religious education, which would seem to be an important role for the religious of the future. Almost one-third teach in schools in the inner city and urban areas, reflecting the traditional concern of communities for the poor and culturally deprived. Close to one-fifth were in a variety of specialized forms of education to the physically and emotionally handicapped, school drop-outs, minority and bilingual groups, and a range of adult education pro-grams. Table 3 Women Religioas Engaged in Forms of Edncation Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Campus Ministry 86 6.45 Communications 67 5.02 Library Work 56 4.20 Religious Education 530 39.73 Teaching in Seminaries and Theologates 25 1.87 Specialized Forms of Instruction 252 18.89 Inner City Teaching 318 23.84 Total 1334 100.00 A developing trend in communications was discernible, revealing some interesting works. Thirteen sisters were involved in very technical work with the media, TV and radio, while fifty-four sisters worked with Catholic and secular newspapers/periodicals in writing, illustrating, and publishing. ¯ New Forms of Social Ministry It has been made forcefully clear in recent years, by both the magis-terium and the Council, that the social ministries are essential aspects of the Mission of the Church.~ Perhaps the most significant trends in new min-istries are, in this area, not unrelated to the directions in society and de-velopments in the Church. This field, which reflected the largest number of new forms, has been defined variously in the literature. Very broadly, it ~Eugene A. Mainelli. "'The Parish Community Becoming: Theological Reflections," Social Thought, i (Fall. 1975). p. 15. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 is viewed as comprising health, education, and welfare. Most specifically, as used here, it includes those activities which focus primarily on the social dimension of human services: the response to socio-personal needs as well as social justice and advocacy efforts directed toward humanizing and transforming societal structures,r As Table "4 shows, the largest proportion of sisters engaged in social ministries, over one-third, were in social work. These data are consistent with Joseph's findings: as many sisters were professionally trained, in social work from 1970 to 1972, inclusive, as were in the previous decade,s It is not surprising that religious would select this field as it call for skills in working with both' personal and social needs. With the two-fold emphasis today on the person and impacting social systems, it provides opportunity for both service and social action. The sisters in this survey were social workers in school and hospital settings as well as in community-neighborhood pro-grams which reflected reaching out to others in a variety of ways. More than one-half were in Catholic Charities agencies, in both traditional family and child care services, e.g. family counseling, foster care and adoption ser-vices, and in community organization work, crisis intervention, and other forms of outreach. More than 30% of the religious in social ministries worked with minority groups and rural poverty programs, evidencing out-reach as well as justice efforts. Table 4 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Social Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Prison, Probation, Police Work 99 5.18 Social Justice Work 168 8.79 Social Work 651 34.05 Psychiatric, Psychological. Therapeutic Work 82 4.29 Work with Minority Groups 376 19.67 Rural Poverty Work 204 10.67 Alcoholism and Drug Addiction 116 6.07 Youth Work 114 5.96 Day Care Programs 28 1.46 Group Homes and Specialized Care Facilities 32 1.67 Other 42 2.19 Total i912 100.00 Although many in the above categories were actively engaged in social justice, advocacy, and social action--as related to the groups served-- 7Cedric W. Tilberg. "'The Social Ministry of the Congregation," Lutheran Social Welfare Quarterly, Vi (December, 1966), p. 8. 8Joseph, op. cit., p. 90. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View almost 10% of the sisters ,wer~ involved exclusively in these activities. Most of these sisters worked in social justice centers or on special commissions directed to justice and peace. Eighteen, however, were in political min-istries or appointed to government positions at state or local levels, while twenty-three were lawyers, aids, or legal advisors to the poor. A number organized legislative networks to promote grassroots leadership and create political power. Sixty-six worked in halfway houses for alcoholics or parolees or in group homes for pre-delinquent or delinquent youth. Another thirty-two served in homes for the mentally or physically handicapped or the emotionally disturbed. Slightly over 5% of the sisters worked with prisoners/parolees and their families, did probation work, or were on the police force, a relatively new area of ministry and one rich in service potential. The "'other" category consisted of those engaged in natural family planning, Birthright, housing projects, and shop~ for the poor. The liberation of the oppressed, as a pivotal and actigie concern of the Social Mission of the contemporary Church, is vividly clear in these data. Neff Forms of Church-Related Ministry Table 5 shows that almost one-half of the religious working in supportive Church-related works were specialists in the various fields of ministry, e.g. education and health, who acted as consultants to diocesan programs. More than one-third held offices in Church organizations at national and inter-national levels, utilizing the competencies of religious in important lead-ership roles. Three sisters were canon lawyers, twenty-three were identified as vicars for religious, and twelve were in tribunal work, no doubt a significant future indicator for the role of the ecclesial woman, These data represent a growing trend for women to assume leadership positions at all levels in the Church. Table 5 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Church-Related Ministries New to Their Congregations Ministries National and International Offices in Church Organizations Vicars for Religious and Canon Lawyers Marriage Tribunal Work Diocesan Consultants/Specialists Ecumenical Consultants Total Religious No. % 126 32.8 I 36 9.38 12 3.12 189 49.22 21 5.47 384 100.00 Parish Ministry There is a:remarkable movement in the Church toward parish ministry, 1~52 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 especially among women religious, markedly illustrated in these data.~ The parish may be viewed as the Church in mission; it is here that the Church's mission is concretized. Rahner, in discussing the parish, states: ¯ . . the Church will make its impact as a present reality there where the presence of Christ is made real . Here the Christian of tomorrow will come to realize the true nature of the Church. Of course such a community, which feels itself to be the concrete realization of the Church as achieved through word and sacrament, will be conscious of being united to all other communities which likewise are the same Church . "~ It is in the parish-community that the Christian of the future will experience the Church in word and sacrament. The parish was the largest single category of ministry; 797 sisters were reported as involved in some aspect of parish work. The Parish was actually the only single category in the broad classification of ministries (see Table /), since the data did not lend itself to clearly differentiate among the various forms of parish work. A number, however, did indicate that they were parish associates, assistant pastors, parish workers, home visitors, social ministers, pastoral assistants, eucharistic ministers, parish spiritual directors, and parish team ministers, evidencing the plurality of forms at this level and supporting the need for the team approach. It may also be an index to the role ambiguity often experienced by parish workers and, fur-thermore, may indicate the need for clearer role definitions. Presnail dis-cussed this, detailing the range of roles identified with the parish worker and urging specialization within a framework of the plurality of ministries and personal charisms, competencies, and training. He points to the role am-biguity experienced by the religious educator until the role became more specialized and the boundaries more circumscribed.1~ In recent years, a number of Catholic Charities agencies across the country have reached out to parishes to facilitate social ministries at this level. According to a study that is underway, 206 religious are involved in some way in these parish social ministries, either directly as parish staff affiliated with the agency or as parish workers, not administratively related to the agency but receiving consultation from agency staff.t2 This upsurge in parish ministry is consistent with the findings of Jo-seph. 13 Comparative data, pre- and post-Vatican 1I, on the major apos- ~Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T., "'Christian Social Action," Careers in the Christian Ministry (Washington. D.C.: Consortium Press. 1976), p, 118. ~UKarl Rabner, -The New Image of the Church." Theological Investigations, Vol. X (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973). p. 11. ~Gregory Presnail, "Guidelines for a Parish Worker," Sisters Today (November, 1971), pp. 416-21. ~zSister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T. and Sister Ann Patrick Conrad, M.S.B.T., National Trends in Parish Social Ministry: A Study of Parish Programs Affiliated With Catholic Char-ities Agencies, in process. ~ZJoseph, A Study of Self-Role Congruence and Role-Role Congruence on the Integration of the Religious Role and the Social Work Role of the Sister Social Worker, p. 241. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / 853 tolates of 108 religious communities, were obtained. The most dramatic change was in parish work. The number ~f religious congregations engaged in parish work at this time increased from 17.35% to 44.90%, close to a 30% oost-Vatican increase. Thus, we can expect---on the basis of these data, a continued upswing in parish work with a greater differentiation among ministry roles and a continued use and refinement of the team approach. The challenge remains to identify and elaborate the emerging patterns of parish ministry. The Spiritual Ministries Spiritual ministries, close to 5% of the new ministries, represented an emerging field in which the religio-spiritual dimension is the primary focus. These are closely related to pastoral ministry, but differ in that generally thry' are performed within church structures rather than in a setting in which one of the helping professions is the host-profession such as the hospital or the social agency. These ministries consisted largely of houses of prayer, retreat work---especially directed retreats, and prayer move-ments. Summary A two-pronged trend is reflected vividly in these data: concern with religious/spiritual aspects of the person (as evidenced in pastoral care, religious education and the directly spiritual ministries) and with the social dimension of human need (noted in the large number of religious engaged in the social ministries). Parish work may be viewed as reflecting both trends as the parish is concerned with socio-religious needs of persons through its developing approaches or team ministries. Deepening insight into the Pauline concept of the plurality of ministries is illustrated remark-ably in the growth in ministries at this level, particularly among women religious. The emphasis on social need was not only reflected in the increase in social ministries but also in the service modalities and organizational patterns in the health and education fields. The upswing in parish work, social work, pastoral care in health settings, and religious educationhin that order--would seem to forecast that these will be important future roles of women religious. A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Formation Programs The literature on adult socialization~4 is rich in its implications for for- ~4Socialization is the process by which one learns the ways of a given group. Often, it is defined as role learning. In adulthood, it refers to training for life or occupational roles. Studies have been done on socialization processes in such professions as nursing and medicine. No published research has been located by the authors on preparation for the role of the woman religious. I]54 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 mation programs in religious communities and provides tools for critical examination and assessment. The work of Brim and Wheeler is particularly useful as it identifies core variables which influence socialization out-comes.~ 5 It suggests a broad conceptual model to study the essential com-ponents of formation and aids in raising questions about current structural patterns, Central concepts are: the recruit or socializee: the candidate; the socializing agency: the religious community; the socializing agent: .for-mation personnel; and, the socialization process: the process of formation. The importance of taking another look at formation programs becomes obvious not only in considering the trends in ministry but in recent work-shop experiences of the National Religious Formation Conference. During workshop meetings, both men and women religious were asked to define the qualities needed for the future religious. Most frequently projected characteristics were: (1)self-direction; (2) the willingness to search, risk, and deal with uncertainty; (3) a deepening spiritual life; (4) a sense of rootedness in the charism of the institute;and, (5) a global mission concern. These characteristics and the new ministries suggest the need for an orienting philosophy of learning geared to the adult learner. Cartwell, in an excellent article on current educational models in formation programs, clearly identifies the need for an integrated cognitive-experiential-devel-opmental approach appropriate to today's social and cultural needs.~6 The proposed approach to learning is the adult learning model, androgogy, which prepares the person for self-direction and on-gbing learning. This approach is grounded in active participation, mutual sharing, and a readiness to learn. It recognizes not only the potential of the recruit but also the learned skills and past experiences which are brought to the new learn-ing situation.~r ~ With the trend awayJfrom institutional forms of ministry to community and parish-based work, many religious are moving from highly structured settings to natural ecological settings which are often ambiguous and lack-ing in role clarity. Such settings require that structures not only be created but implemented effectively and that roles be defined and continuously reclarified. Services at these levels demand creative action and continued innovation. Collaborative team approaches are required, calling for a high degree of skill in interpersonal communication as well as in coping with conflictuai role demands. Competency and evaluation (a trend in our so- 15Orville G. Brim and Stanton Wheeler, Socialization After Childhood (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1966). ~6Peter W. Cartwell, O.F.M., "Formation--Whither or Whether," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XXXll (September, 1973), p. 1050. ~rMalcolm Knowles, The Adult Learner: Neglected Species (Houston: Gulf Publishing Com-pany, 1973). Preparation ,for New Ministries: A Futuristic View ciety where resources and commodities are scarce) will be essential to assess program effectiveness. Increasingly, then, ministry will require self-directed persons, ready to generate new service modalities, negotiate role demands, and collaborate with others in attempting to find solutions to complex problems. The Recruit-Candidate Very often young people today have broad experiences. Frequently, they are well traveled and view such experiences as important to their on-going development. Generally, those who enter the helping professions have a high degree of commitment to serve the needs of others. Those who would enter a religious community seek to deepen their value-orientation and share similar values with others in community. Many have been ex- :posed to an adult learning style, basically experiential, moving from the realm of the empirical and from skill in doing to the level of abstraction and conceptualization. They freely challenge ideas and existing structures, ex-pecting an openness of response and, themselves, inviting feedback. Where opeaness is absent, confrontation is often heightened. They seek an ex-panding personal development and view some contemporary religious structures as constricting growth potential. The questionmust be raised: Can present structures of many formation programs attract, support, and enhance the goals of these young women? In view of the socialization outcomes required fo~ the new ministries, what personal qualifications are needed in the recruit at entrance?~Selection and socialization processes obviously interact. Etzione states that where both are high, socialization should be effective.18 Space does not permit further discussion of the prospective candidate. It seems sufficient here to raise these basic questions. The Structure Granting the developmental-experiential nature of adult learning, one must consider the environmental or structural conditions which foster it. Organizational arrangements of formation programs will require on-going examination in the light of trends in ministries and related learning needs. A basic assumption of the androgogical model implies change in the self-concept moving from one of dependence, to increasing self-direction.19 When operationalized in structures, this assumption is reflected in mutual trust and collaboration, flexibility, freedom to express differences, and active participation in learning. These structures should be geared to fa- ~SAmitai Etzione, Complex Organizations (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961). ~Knowles, op. cit., p. 45. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 cilitate growth and provide experiential as well as didactic learning oppor-tunities, a direction underway in many communities. Self-concept theory and research have demonstrated the impact of ref-erence groups on the self-concept of the person. Where a person constantly receives negative images, a negative concept of self may develop. In the past religious structures emphasized negative feedback, often forming negative self-concepts in religious. Current structures must be realistic, emphasizing positive as well as constructive negative feedback. Such an orientation contributes to a realistic self-concept and confidence in both self-direction and leadership skills. The Socializing Agent Fundamentally, formation personnel must be comfortable with the self-directed contemporary religious. Question must be raised as to appropriate preparation for formation team members. The predominant emphasis has been largely theological while also drawing from the humanistic psychol-ogies. Since the new ministries require an on-going diaiogical process with the world, it would seem that a broadened training would be required drawing from the social sciences and the secular professions. This would highlight the environment, the interaction between the person and the so-cial context--in this situation, the community. The environmental aspects and their influences on the person need to be emphasized. The self is in constant interaction with social structures, both within and outside the community. Formation personnel need to be more aware of the impact of structures on the person in community and how the person can impact on structure, as a basis for mutual and on-going growth and change. The Process The process of socialization, which seeks to identify how a specific role is internalized, has been studied in a number of professions,z° Greater attention needs to be given to this process in formation programs. The work of Kinnane and Preister suggests that the ultimate direction of socialization should be characterized by a movement from dependence and indepen-dence to interdependence; the development from self-centered behavior to social behavior; growth in maturity; and, the increasing integration of re-ligio- spiritual values in ministry.2t Z°Howard Becker, et ~il., eds., Institutions and the Person (Chicago: Aldine Publishers, 1968). ZlJohn F. Kinnane, Career Development for Priests and Religious (Washington, D.C.: CARA, 1970); Steven Preister, "The Professional Socialization of the Seminarian into the Career of Priesthood." Unpublished paper, Catholic University of America, 1976. PreParation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View The formation process involves both formal and informal components. Basically, the formal process occurs in sequential phases, clearly marked by rites of passage or movement from affiliate or candidacy status to the position of novice or of commitment. Informal processes, however, operate and may be identified. It has been observed in one community that religious often proceed from the initial stage with some role ambiguities, to a positive identification with community (often at the beginning of the novitiate) to a negative identification, followed by a more realistic conceptma stage of interdependence in community and the beginning of internalized commit-ment (generally toward the end of the novitiate),z2 Although this was found to be th~ usual process, individual variations in development and regression may occur throughout the process. It does suggest, however, a process of integration and internalization which continues in all adult life. Young religious need to be continuously confronted throughout this process to recognize both positive and negative aspects of the religious community and consider within this context where they are, personally, at a given time as they develop a realistic view of the community and seek to serve within its framework of ministry, they have already begun to internalize their religious commitment. To be fixated in either a positive or a negative phase may well reflect a question of personal commitment within this particular life style. With the complexities of living in society today and the greater demands in ministry, it seems that more attention must be given to the processes of initial and on-going formation. Conclusion In conclusion, religious of the future are now, in fact defining them-selves. This paper has presented indicators for the future role of women religious based on ministries which were identified as new to their con-gregations. An orienting conceptual model was formulated to examine ex-isting struciures and processes of formation programs as well as to raise questions as to how these programs are preparing religious for future roles in ministry. A further question, however, needs to be asked. Although religious communities are intellectually endorsing new ministries, are affective sup-port structures being provided for these newly developing works? These survey findings therefore, compel communities not only to address their newly developing forms of ministry but also to consider the support sys-tems provided for these new directions. 22Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T., "S~cialization in a Religious Community." Un-published paper, Catholic University of America, 1974. This paper was prepared in con-junction with research on the socialization process of one community. Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" Anne Marie Harnett, S.N.J.M. Sister Anne Marie received permission for a "contemplative sabbatical" last year, during which time she resided with, and lived the life of several contemplative communities. Presently she is doing graduate studies in theology and resides at 519 Varnum St., N.W.; Washington, DC 20011. The poet's labor is to struggle with the meaninglessness and silence of the world until he can force it to mean, until he can make the silence answer and the non-being be. It is a labor which undertakes to "know" the world not by exegesis or demonstration or proofs but directly, as a man knows apple in the mouth.1 When I read this paragraph recently, I was excited. It seemed to express what I have been trying to do this year during a "contemplative sabbat-ical." Aboht a y.ear ago, I asked for the opportunity for an extended ex-perience oUsolitude because of a somewhat hazy intuition 'that such an orientation was at the source of any ministry for justice (a large interest of mine) and it was itself a powerful witness to the consumer ~ociety in which we live. ~' I address these reflections particularly to those men and women who" might also feel called to an experience of solitude--to encourage them. I speak to contemplative communities--to thank them for their hospitality to me when I needed to be a "temporary monk." I hope that these few thoughts will encourage contemplative groups of women especially to con-sider this kind of hospitality as a service to the Church. Since September I have been struggling with the meaninglessness and silence--sometimes catching glimpses of the answer and the being--in a seemingly endless game of hide and seek. I have let the various elements of the experience speak to me, wondering at times what all this has to do 1Archibald MacLeish, Poetry and Experience (Boston, 1961), pp. 8-9, in The Courage to Create by Rollo May (New York: Bantam Books, 1976), p. 89. 858 Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" / 859 with ordinary living, let alone with problems of violence, poverty, injustice, the needs and :,:~oblems of people today. Sometimes I have felt anxious and frustrated: c:,.cu joy-filled, occasionally guilty, generally at peace, "r,. year has been. a tapestry. It has provided me with a variety of experiences resulting in changed attitudes and new and keener aware-nesses. Many of the designs iffthis tapestry have not yet been woven, and like the underside of a tapestry, the pattern is not readily visible to me. Because I am always wary of instant experts, of people who spend a few weeks in a foreign country and then lecture or write about the people and culture of that country, I hesitate to say a great deal even about the early part of my adventure in the "desert"; certainly I cannot yet write about my current "Carmelite phase." I would like however to share my reflections on the short experience I had in a Trappist monastery in Mistassini, Quebec. The monks'there have opened their choir to both men and women, and so I had the privilege of sharing fully in their prayer from Vigil at 3:30 A.M. until Compline at 7:30 P.M. Their Office is beautiful inits simplicity. I found that it not only satisfied 'my need.for beauty in worship but that it completed my own prayer; whatever the mood or message of my prayer might have been. The Hours became~for me a stream into which I could jump at various times of the day, a stream which carried: along with it all my hopes, as-pirations and activities. Because chanting Office at 3:30 A.M. is so foreign to most of us, I would like to say a little abotlt Vigil. It was never easy; seldom .was it bright With praise or, comforting in sorrow or pain. It was to me what its name suggests: watching and waiting. I often thought all of this would be absurd if God did not exist, if he were not God with us and for usl Often too I would think of and so pray for other people who-were up for other reasons: those on night shifts, parents with sick children, street people, those with no bed to go to. At other times I would think of people close to me, some of them watching and waiting in a way only they could know; other~ now fully enjoying him for whom we in that church were keeping vigil. Often too I would just manage to be there. Always I knew that all the stars were laughing at our wonder. I became more keenly aware of the apostolic dimension of prayer, both liturgical and personal, knowing that my prayer and that of the monks and other guests extended far beyond the confines of that church. This is so because of the nature of liturgical prayer, because of the eucharist and our faith in its cosmic dimensions~, but also because of what happens in prayer. The experience of a deep need of liberation and healing, the experience of both the presence and the apparent absence of God, and of his absolute fidelity, the relationship of this prayer to daily life with its demands, calls, and responses--all this is a microcosm of the world today with its own great need for liberation and healing, and its search for God whom so many have dismissed or do not know. ~160 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 This experience in prayer brought me new attitudes toward solitude. For some time I had found periods apart renewing and increasingly nec-essary to my well-being. So when I went to Mistassini I considered it under this primarily physical or geographical aspect. Now, while I realize the necessity and appreciate the value of periods of physical solitude, I have come to think of it more as "an enclosure" I carry around with me. It is an inner attitude in line with the thought of Thomas Merton expressed in Contemplation in a Worm of Action. As I understand it, he sees solitude as a probing for truth, first of all in oneself; it is the acceptance of one's identity and of one's lot as given by God. While probing for truth and forming convictions, one seeks the courage to live, to witness in accordance with these convictions. It involves making decisions, consonant with one's inner reality and in the light of God's truth and love.2 I became more aware of the fact that my search and probing is a pil-grimage. Like Abraham I have set forth in the desert hearing the call, "Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father's house to a land that I will show you" (Gn 12:1). While my predominant mood as I set out on this pilgrimage was one of joy in God's presence, yet solitude sometimes brought me fear of the future, an angst fear. This reality I found also described by Thomas Merton: "The man who wants to deepen his existential awareness has to make a break with ordinary existence, and this break is costly. It cannot be made without anguish and suffering. It implies loneliness, and the disorientation of one who has to recognize that the old signposts don't show him his way, and that in fact he has to find the way by himself without a map.''3 Perhaps I will always have to live with this anguish because the old signposts are in fact gone, and the new ones are very hazy. Certainly they will never be as clear-cut and sharply defined as they were in the past. Very likely the way will never be clearly mapped out. Yet I have become more at home with my anxiety and at times even welcome it as an experience of my powerlessness, as a call to total de-pendence on God. Recently I found a passage in The Courage to Create by Rollo May which describes in psychological terms this aspect of solitude. The ex-perience of encounter, encounte¢ implying a deep commitment, always brings anxiety because of the shaking of the self-world relationship which occurs in the encounter. "Our sense of identity is threatened: the world is not as we experienced it before; and since self and world are always cor-related, we no longer are what we were before . The anxiety we feel is temporary rootlessness, disorientation; it is the anxiety of nothingness.''4 In mature creativity anxiety must be confronted if we are to experience joy. 2Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action (New York: Image Books, 1973), Chapter III, "The Identity Crisis," pp. 75-100. aIbid., p. 126. ~Ibid., p. 107. Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" / 861 I can live with anxiety and anguish, confront them and experience joy because of my faith and trust in God, and because of the love relationship I experience with him. The anxiety is then transformed into resting in him. It' is living in that marvelous gap between what my faith sees and feels and what God knows and is actually accomplishing in me; between my desire to live as he wants me to live, to be the person he wants me to be, and the fulfillment of this desire. It is a living of the words of Isaiah, "See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers" (Is 43:9). During the summer just before my sabbatical year I was a journalist at our general chapter which was one of reflection and discernment on our charism and our response to it in the world today. During the c.hapter our foundress was very much alive and present to us; she continued to be present to me during these weeks of solitude. As I reflected on my life as a woman religious and on hers, I saw that she had creative imagination'~ which she used in service to the Church. She consulted the signs of the times and, with eyes wide and in perfect freedom, said yes. This yes meant leaving a respectable and secure position, setting herself and her two com-panions up in an attic, opening a small school with no financial means, embarking on unknown seas in an as yet unfounded community. She said thisyes daily depending totally on God in faith and love. It seems to me that this is the kind of response to which God calls us today: the witness of a life--creative, integrated, with a willingness to risk, dedicated to the gospel. As I write these reflections in my room in the Bronx Carmel, I am looking at a little collection of prints tacked on my wall: La Misereuse accroupie (a woman crouching, possibly in prayer) by Picasso, Christ Mocked by Soldiers by Rouault, The Burghers of Calais and La Pensde by Rodin, the South Rose Window and Lancets from the Cathedral of Chartres. Beside them is the quote, "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." The collection symbolizes the strands of life that have brought me here and the threads continually being woven into my solitude, my experience of God. The Christ who is mocked is the crouching woman, the attraction of La Pens~e, the glorious center of the rose window. He is the reason for loving the questions and for being patient with the incompleteness of the answers. He is somewhere in the agony, the stolid acceptance, the chains and the resistance symbolized by the Burghers of Calais. At the same time he is in the beauty and achievement of ihe ensemble. My encounter with this reality brings me back to labor and struggle with the meaningless, the contradictions and the paradoxes. Again I am knock-ing on silence, waiting for being; above all, I am living in hope. ~Leonardo Boff, author of Jesus-Christ Liberateur, says that imagination is the creativity to see humankind become better and richer than the present cultural environment. The Call of Retirement: A Ministry of Elders Jeanne Schweickert, O.S.F. Sister Jeanne is Vice President of Ministry for the School Sisters of St. Francis. Her office is located at 1501 South Layton Blvd.; Milwaukee, Wl 53215. Over the past several years many old people have entered my life in new and powerful ways, the young old, the middle old, and the old old--and as they touched me I experienced the paradoxes of their lives: the hopeful expectations of some, the disillusionment of others; the longing for (he great past and the eager awaiting of death; the joyous celebration of life and the loneliness, fear and despair of day-after-day. It became more and more obvious that as the people I met approached old age, as they moved into retirement, they experienced traumatic mo-ments in their lives, moments that challenged their very personhood. Some time ago I decided to take council with some of the elderly sisters of my community. I invited them to get in touch with their own experience of retirement and share with me what they recalled happening inside them at that time. The following are a few of their comments: "Sometimes it feels like your personhood is diminished ." "I want to be seen first as a person, and then as a patient . " "Institutions make it difficult to be personal ." "You can't make decisions for yourself ." "I felt dethroned, becoming an observer rather than a participant . " "I was frightened of being a captive of the rocking chair and treated as a child kept busy with games and crafts . " "The real pain of not being active is that your opinion is never sought . " These are but a few of their comments; they are the more painful ones. 862 The Call of Retirement: A Ministry of Eiders / 1~63 However all of these perspectives reinforced for me again the perception of retirement as a time of moving away from something that had meaning rather than moving toward something significant in life. In his "Preface to a Practical Theology of Aging" Don S. Browning emphasizes that we must challenge both the idea that a person is only of worth or contributing when he is gainfully employed and the idea that the last stages of life should be a time of irrelevant comfort and preadolescent indulgence. Al

Issue 29.6 of the Review for Religious, 1970. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to Rxvmw Fog R~LmtOUS; 6x2 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63xo3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. .Joseph's Church; 32~ Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Lores, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1970 by REVIEW SOR REI, mtOUS. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing offices. Single copies: $1.25. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years; other countries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order paya-ble to REvmw sort RELmmUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REvmw sog RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REVIEW sort RELIGIOUS; P. O. Box l 110; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editorial correspondence, and books for re-view should be sent to REVIEW sog RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. NOVEMBER 1970 VOLUME 29 NUMBER 6 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN, s.J. Spiritual Counseling and Pra er. Fostering an ever deepening relationship with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit constitutes a major objective of the religious life. Traditionally the road to such a relationship has been a formal schedule of prayer. The daily horarium of spiritual exercises has been an essential part of almost every congregation's rule or con-stitutions. During the past decade styles of religious life and prayer have undergone change, especially among younger religious. Emphasis on the relationship with God remains, but the way of achieving this relationship and what it means differ. The new religious is more aware of what he is before God and before others. He is more aware of the Spirit working in the secular world; he recognizes God in himself, in the persons and events of his daily life. He encounters Christ in his contacts with others. Formal prayer, such as meditation, recitation of the Office and rosary, seem less impor.tant to him. In some instances, they have been abandoned in favor of a fre-quently renewed commitment. Flexibility. in Prayer In response to changing attitudes, many congregations have started to experiment with more flexible approaches to prayer. Freedom, previously unheard of, has been ÷ granted. Set periods of obligatory prayer have given way ÷ to approaches geared to unique personalities and temper- ÷ aments and to the dem~inds of a particular apostolate. This change has let a breath of fresh air into many communities, but at the same time it has created a vac-uum. Formal scheduled prayer, while it can and has helped individuals to grow in the likeness of Christ, is subject to the danger of routinism. It is relatively easy for a religious to deceive himself into believing that he is growing in the spiritual life because he spends the time at prayer required by rule, whereas little true prayer is ac- 803 Richard Vaughan, S.J.; P.O. BOX 519; Los Gatos, California 95030; is Provincial for Edu-cation of the Cali-fornia Jesuits . VOLUME 29, 1970 .÷ R. P. Va~ghan, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 804 tually taking place. Some religious have been content to spend the assigned time at daily meditation, Office, or rosary, even though little recognizable benefit resulted, simply because the rule prescribed it. Young religious have come to question such a view. The focus of their religious life is more on the frequently renewed dedica-tion. However, just as the traditional emphasis has its limitations, so too does the recent approach. A spiritual life placing heavy emphasis on seeing God in the world of people and events can gradually give way to a human-ism in which one is no longer actively aware of God and centers rather on the purely human with a subsequent loss of the original commitment. Value of Spiritual Counseling Regular spiritual counseling can counteract this dan-ger, inasmuch as it requires the counselee to face honestly and openly his continuing commitment to the service of God and neighbor and, it might be added, to see the need for some form of regular prayer if an active awareness of God's presence is to continue. The process of spiritual counseling differs radically from psychological counseling and psychotherapy. The latter two are concerned with changes in personality and the reversal of symptoms resulting from the application of psychological techniques, whereas spiritual counseling focuses on the person's life with God. The spiritual coun-selor attempts to help the individual become more aware of his religious experiences. Basically he is trying to assist the counselee in discerning the workings of the spirit, so that he can determine what is the will of God for him in concrete situations. It is true that emotional disorders and faulty attitudes injure this discernment, but chang-ing these personality characteristics is not the spiritual counselor's proper function. Recognizing them, however, and the part they play in blocking discernment is. When personality characteristics are such as to handicap seri-ously any true discernment, then it is the responsibility of the spiritual counselor to direct the religious to a compe-tent professional so that these limitations can be reme-died. Spii'itual counseling serves a number of important functions. First of all, it allows us to have a better under-standing of the nature and quality of our relationship ,with God. It makes us actively aware of our daily reli-gious experiences. In our routine-ridden world, it is very easy to put aside a certain amount of time for prayer but seldom reflect on the efficacy and effectiveness of this prayer. We are apt to gloss over the question: Is my prayer truly prayer? Moreover, spiritual counseling makes us clarify and sharpen our thoughts and feelings about religious experiences in a way we would never do if we settled for a few minutes of self-reflection. When I must explain these experiences to another, I am forced to scrutinize them and then describe them in clear, accurate terms intelligible to my listener, As I talk about such things as the place of Christ in my life, God as a loving Father, prayer, the manifestation of grace, the working of the Holy Spirit, or God's will, I gradually sort out the genuine from the false, and the important from the un-important. I become aware of my openness or.my lack of openness to God. I become aware of the many ways that God is operating in my life--either directly or indirectly. I experience a deeper appreciation for God-'s manifesta- .tions. On the other hand I may well see that a wall seems to exist between God and myself. I may come to the conclusion that I have closed myself off from or denied many of God's manifestations. I may see that I have rejected important graces and c6ncerned myself exces-sively with my own world. If left to myself, it is less likely that I would come to realize my own selfishness and. lack of concern for God and neighbor. Listening Spiritual counseling involves three phases: listening, dialogue, and decision. Listening is an activity .of both the counselee and the .counselor. Even though the coun-selee may never reflect upon the fact, he listens to himself and to the promptings of divine grace within himself. As he talks he becomes aware of God working in and through him. Moreover, it is assumed that previous to the coun-seling session he has listened to God speaking, especially at times of.prayer. These promptings of grace become the subject of discussion. It should be noted that God speaks in many ways: directly through His Spirit, through reve-lation, through others, and through the events 6f everyday life. One 6f the goals of counseling is to determine when God speaks as opposed to the promptings of our sinful nature. Listening is also the work of an effective counselor. It is sometimes falsely considered "lending an ear." If one is present and aware of what is being said, he is thought to be listening. The truth of the matter is that listening is a very active process requiring much concentration and ex-penditure of energy. It demands that the counselor try to be aware of what is taking place within the counselee at each moment he is with him. It also demands that the counselor recognize the various levels of functioning, such as the spiritual, the cognitive, the conative, and the affective, as well as the relationship and integration, or lack of integration, of all of these functions. For instance, the good listener is one who is perceptive enough to see ÷ ÷ ÷ Counseling and Prayer VOLUME 29, 1970 805 ÷ ÷ R. P. Vaughan, S.]. REVIEW "FOR RELIGIOUS 806 when emotions have taken over to the detriment of the Spirit or when habitual attitudes block thoughtful reflec-tion. The good listener hears not only the words but the way the words are expressed. He notes the tone of voice as well as the mode of expression; from these he is able to estimate the emotional involvement. The spiritual coun-selor as listener concentrates on any indication of the Spirit working within the counselee. He notes blocks or hindrances to the promptings of grace. At times, he sees that the counselee has a need to unlSurden himself before he can become aware of God's presence in his life. The counselor listens with empathetic concern. He attempts to discover what God means to the connselee, his reli-gious experiences, the depths of his faith, and his atti-tudes. Frequently all of these can be learned by active and attentive listening with little need for probing or questioning. Before the counselor enters the second phase, namely, the dialogue, he makes sure that he has at least an adequate estimate of the counselee's spiritual state. Dialogue The second phase, the dialogue, presupposes a rapport which allows the counselee to talk freely about his reli-gious experiences. Concerned listening often brings this about, inasmuch as it produces a feeling of acceptance, which permits the counselee to express freely his views without [ear of rejection. A dialogue is a conversation in which two persons reason on a topic, exchanging ideas and opinions. They examine the evidence for and against an action or a position. The initial stance is one of open-ness to all possibilities. When the term is used in relation to spiritual counseling, it implies that the counselor and the counselee examine the latter's spiritual condition, re-flecting upon its state. I[ all is well, they evaluate the signs indicating that the individual is following God's will. If there is a problem, they weigh together possible solutions, considering arguments for and against each. During the first phase the counselee describes his spirit-ual condition, which then becomes the topic of discussion during the second phase. The counselor helps the counse-lee enumerate arguments favorable to and opposed to a particular stance; he helps him evaluate the relative mer-its of each. He assists him to see when and how the Spirit is working in concrete situations. He also helps him to-ward a greater awareness of God's presence. Counseling is a learning situation. It is a time when an individual learns more about himself. Often this is accomplished without giving advice or direction. As the counselee talks about his relationship with God and neighbor, he be-comes more aware of divine intervention in the world of grace. He begins to see on his own what changes should be made and what he should do to bring about improve-ment. However, there is still a place for direction and guidance, especially in counseling younger members of a community. For instance, if a religious has never learned to pray properly, the counseling session c,'in afford an opportunity to teach the fundamentals, followed b3) a period of testing and reassessment. It can also be the occasion for presenting the traditions of a community, a time when the religious can consider whether he is fol-lowing these traditions or whether he really wishes to do so. Whether one makes use of advice and. guidance de-pends upon the needs of the individual counselee. It is the task of the counselor to determine these needs and then proceed accordingly. Decision-making At times, decision-making is part of the counseling process. Frequently, however, the purpose of counseling is simply to help an individual come to a greater aware-ness of God's manifestations and to a better understand-ing how he is or is not following God's will. When there is a need to make a decision, it is hoped that the counsel-ing will result in the counselee arriving at a decision on his own. The function of the counselor is to see that the counselee confronts all the options and weighs their rela-tive merits. Rarely should the counselor force a final deci-sion based on his own evaluation of the situation. If the counseling is truly counseling, most counselees can arrive at a decision without undue influence on the part of the counselor. An inability to do so may signify some kind of a psychological problem. dttributes of the Counselor Who can counsel? What should be the characteristics and abilities of the spiritual counselor? First and fore-most, he or she should be a person of faith, aware of the world of grace and the divine manifestations; one who has personally experienced the presence of God in his own life. He should be a person who can and does love both himself and others. He should be perceptive, with the ability to see below the surface and recognize the depths of personality and spiritual growth. He should also be able to communicate well his thoughts and im-pressions. To be effective, he or she will need adequate training in the theology of the spiritual life and, hope-fully, will have previously sought out a spiritual counse-lor for himself or herself. Psychological training can be helpful inasmuch as it offers some procedures directly or indirectly applicable to spiritual counseling. It should be noted, however, that it Counseling and Prayer VOLUME 29, 1970 807 can also be a handicap if the counselor, as a result of his training, centers most of his attention on personal prob-lems to the neglect of the spiritual. If young religious are to develop a full spiritual li~e, and if older members are to realize the renewal urged by Vatican II, there is a need for an abundance of spiritual counselors--at least one or two for every large commun-ity, It is quite evident there are too few priests with available time. The most logical solution is for congrega-tions to train the members of their own communities as spiritual counselors. They could select those best suited by previous training, experience, and personality, and assign them to this important task. Many orders or con-gregations of men have already inaugurated such a pol-icy, but they find it impossible to supply priests who can devote themselves fully to the counseling of religious women. Conclusion A perusal of the early history of the religious life re-veals a minimum of structure with a great emphasis on regular spiritual direction. Due to the constant effort of a spiritual counselor each monk grew at his own rate in the likeness of Christ. As members increased individual coun-seling became more difficult and was gradually replaced by the ordered daily horarium of spiritual exercises, the goal of both being the deepening of the monk's relation-ship with God. If contemporary religious congregations are to realize the inner renewal sought by Vatican II, they would do well to consider a return to a style of religious life grounded in regularspiritual counseling. ÷ ÷ R. P. Vaughan, REVIEW FOR R~LIGIOU$ SISTER KRISTIN SHRADER, R.S.M. Prayer Is Listening Several years, ago, Karl Rahner began speaking of the "Church of the Diaspora," the Church which had come of age, which had forsaken the trappings of bourgeois collectivism, which had become the standard, of a commit-ted few. If the diaspora has characterized Chrigtianity, it seems even more so to be characterizing contempoi:ary religious" life. The wane of numerical strength has made it clear that convents and seminaries are in the throes of a crisis of vocation and a crisis of belie[. It is within the context of religiotis life in the Church of the diaspora that I would like to discuss the question of contemplative prayer. Our age, engulfed in a deluge of media and messages, has been characterized as one which "has lost the apti-tude for prayer.'.' 1 If prayer is listening not only to the Spirit as He works in our hearts but as He works in the world around us, then perhaps our age has also lost the aptitude' for listening. Perhaps we are deaf to'entire re-gions of ourselves and our world. I shall try to describe these hidden domains, and, in the process, try to l~rovoke us to hear what we have not heard before. Perhaps we are deaf to that part of ourselves and our world which is beyond that which merely performs "actions. This is the self and the world which do not act, but which are the mirrors in which God acts so as to let Himself be known. This is not the self-made self and not the man-made world, but is that which is passive, which is fashioned and illuminated by God. How are we in the last third of the twentieth century to find a new way to pray, a new way to listen? I suggest that we look at our unhearing selves in terms of two new images: that of pilgrim and that of prophet, instead of in terms of the image of professional or of achiever. This means that to listen, to pray, we must not do, achieve, or accomplish anything as the world accomplishes things, but rather that we must learn to listen by holding our- I Wino~ de Broucher, S.J., "Mortification in Prayer," Cross and Crown, March 1963, p. 13. 4- Sister Kristin writes from Lewis Hall (Box 219); University o[ Notre Dame; Notre Dame, Indiana 46556. VOLUME 29, 1970 809 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Kristir~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 810 selves in readiness for something, or rather for someone. This patient readiness is what I think Karl Rahner was describing when he spoke of prayer as "this awful waiting." 2 It is what Augustine meant when he said that the continual desire for God is prayer. I can neither explain nor understand prayer. Perhaps no one can: "There are thresholds which thought alone, left to itself, can never permit us to cross. An experience is required--an experience of poverty and sickness" 3 or, perhaps, of love or of sacrifice. By attempting to describe something, prayer, which I cannot explain, perhaps I can, though, suggest how we "listen." Merton suggests the form that such a preparation for prayer might take: (1) detachment and (2) finding ideas about God in all we do.4 His second suggestion corresponds to what I will describe as living as a prophet, as one who sees the signs of God in all things. His first suggestion, detachment, corresponds to what I have called living as pilgrim, as one who can look inside himself to see that he desires God and God alone, and that this world is b/at one stage of his Godward development. Amid the dissonance of the desires of this world, the pilgrim alone truly knows how to listen. He knows that this world is not his home, that he is journeying to God, and that this very journey is what we call prayer. As Merton says: "The secret of prayer is a hunger for God and for the vision of God, a hunger that lies far deeper than the level of language or affection." ~ Much this same point, that prayer is a desire for God, a consciousness of our being pilgrims, of our listening to what is in, but not of, the world, is made not only by Merton, but also by Teresa of Avila, by Aquinas, by Paul, by Guardini, by John of the Cross, and by Karl Rahner. When John of the Cross wrote that the man of prayer "will desire with all desire to come to that which in this life cannot be known," 6 he was making much the same point as Paul whose prayer was his desire for God: I think that what we suffer in this life can never be compared to the glory, as yet unrevealed, which is waiting for us. The whole creation is eagerly awaiting for God to reveal his sons . Creation still retains the hope of being freed, like us, from its slavery to decadence, to enjoy the same freedom and glory as the children of God. From the beginning until now the entire 2 Encounters With S!lence (Westminster: Newman, 1965), p. 25. a Quoted by Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds o] Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968), p. 56. ~Seeds o[ Contemplation (Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions, 1968), p. 133. ~ Ibid., p. 140. ~ The Complete Works of John of the Cross (Westminster: New-man, 1949), v. 1, p. 76. creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth; and not only creation, but all of us who possess the first fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free. For we must be content to hope that we shall be saved--our salvation is not in sight., it is something we must wait for with patience. The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means.' These are the words of Paul who longed ~o be deliv-ered from this body of death and to be with God, Paul who wrote to his Philippians: "I want to be gone and be with Christ." s Thus, for a man who really desires God, prayer is no longer problematic, because we pray as we live. As Merton puts it: "As a man is, so he prays." 9 Thus the man who listens is he who is able to hear his own deep desire for God. He, the pilgrim, is able to say: "I want God and I want him more than anything else, and I will wait for him." This is what Teresa of Avila meant when she uttered her Deus solus sul~cit. It is this realization which is the substance of prayer. Following along these same lines, Karl Rahner says that the ulti-mate meaning of daily prayer is the awful waiting for the God we desire: "The prayer that You require of me," writes Rahner to God, "must be, ultimately, just a pa-tient waiting for You, a silent standing by until You, who are ever present in the inmost center of my being, open the gate to me from within." 10 For Rahner, being a listener, a pilgrim, was based on the realization that nothing on earth is worth abandon-ing oneself to it. Thus all life is one prayer, one long aspiring for God, like the lives of the wise virgins of the Gospel, si~ch that our eternal possession by God is the answer to our lifelong prayer, a prayer which basically is like that of John of the Cross: I live, yet no true life I know, And living thus expectantly, I die because I do not die Within myself no life I know And without God, I cannot live.n Out of our Augustinian restlessness-~our restless until they rest in thee--and out of our wholeness and for finality is born contemplati Thi~_ pr_~esupposes, of course, that we can hear~ ' Rorn 8:18-27. s Phil 1:23. ~No Man Is an Island (New York: Harcourt, Brace 1955), p. 42. 10 Rahner, Encounters, p. 24. ~ Works of John oI the Cross, v. 2, p. 450. hearts are ~unger for ve prayer. he cries of and World, 4- 4- + Prayer VOLUME 29, 1970 81I Sister Kristin REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 812 our hearts for wholeness. The penalty for failing to artic-ulate our inner longings for God, for failing to risk the often painful encounter with the unseen God within Us, is being doomed to live a boring, supercilious, superficial life. But none of us wants to live a superficial life, just as none of us wants to live a life devoid of prayer. The crucial question, then, is: How do we learn to listen, to live as pilgrims? How do we begin to utter the "I want God" which is the essence of contemplative prayer? Pascal says that we would not seek God unless He had ¯ already found us.12 This suggests that we cannot learn to desire God, because He must find us first. This suggests that John of the Cross was correct when he said thatthe soul that has union with God no longer has any methods of prayer, that within the limits of the supernatural there are no prescribed ways.13 Pascal's remark also suggests that we do not really learn to look for God; rather, we realize He is already within us. Seeking Him should be for us, as it wa~ for Paul, a continual realization that He has already found us, that He dwells within us. "Know you not," Paul virtually shouts out, that "you are the temples of the Spirit?" 14 Paul knew that God had found him, had loved him.15 As John said: "Christ first loved us." i~ Perhaps we do not have a tremendous desire for God because we have not been stripped of all else. That is why we cannot live as listeners, as pilgrims. 1 referred earlier to the necessity of detachment if we were to listen to the cries of our heart for God--lf we were to llve ~'s pilgrims. This emptiness means, I think, that we realize that just as love demands sacrifice, so prayer dhmands discipline, that we cannot live by our feelings and then call it fulfillment, that we cannot live by rationalizing and then call it hearing the Spirit. I think this ~mptiness means, too, that we must bear patiently even our inabil-ity to desire God. Only When we learn to suffer with our own inability to find Christ, only when we discover our own spiritual poverty and our own hunger for God, only when we learn to agonize over the whys of existence and God and self---only then will we have prepared the ground out of which the solitude of contemplation will grow, because on.ly then will we have learned to listen. It is~hard to learn to listen, hard to say "I want God" when we know that the very conditions of our finding God demand sacrifice: the sacrifice of regular, disciplined ~ Quoted by Louis Evely, That Man Is You (Westminster: New-man, 1964), p. 15. ,1, Works o] John oI the Cross, v. 2, p. 76. it Rom 8:9-11; I Cor 3:16. ~ Rom 5:8. 101 Jn 4:19. prayer, the saca-ifice of not trying to rely on an of prayer but only on faith, the sacrifice of "a ihg," as Rahner calls it,17 the sacrifice of reno that we possess, as Luke says,18 the sackifice of o dung what we used to call gain, as Paul says.19 All these forms of sacrifice are" what Cassian "purity of heart," what Christ meant when no man can serve two masters, what Merton using Zen to still the birds of appetite, wh~ Eckhart meant when he said: "To be a proper God and fit for God to act in, a man should a] from all things and actions, both inwardly wardly.20 In saying that detachment and mortification condition for the contemplative prayer ofa li: being a pilgrim, we enunciate the dictum of Jc Cross: Solitude is o;eated by an unsatisfie~ John of the Cross compares wrong desires tc which obstruct the sight of the soul,2~ and says hess that is uncreated cannot enter the soul, not first cast out that other created hunger whk to the desire of the soul; for . two contrari dwell in one person . " Yet, in spite of our knowledge that we will ne union with God in prayer without first emp hearts of other desires, this knowledge does cause us to desire God. On the contrary, it is dous grace, I think, for a person living in th~ lose interest in the things that absorb the discover in his own soul an appetite for po y methods ~vful wait-ancing all )unting as meant by said that meant by it Meister abode for so be fi:ee and out-is the pre- ;tener, for hn of the hunger. cataracts that "ful-l there be h belongs es cannot vet attain Lying our lOt alone a tremen-world to orld and 'erty and. solitude. How can we prepare ourselves to r~ zeive this gift of grace? I think we can begin, as Merton'says, by not trying to understand, explain, or produce a ~lesire for God or for contemplative prayer. Rather, we on ght to .try tq see, to listen . and this seeing and hearin experience, not rationality, out of which pray! How else can we learn to hear the pure ~ which is the threshold for prayer? Paul sugges~ learn to really listen to the Spirit when in th~ chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians, guishes two types of wisdom. The first is a ~ words; it is rational and didlectical. The secon~ dom of the cross; it is experiential and para6 was the second sort of knowledge that Paul kne about Christ. The word of the cross is self-empt Rahner, Encounters, p. 2~. Lk 14:33. Phil 3:7-9. Quoted by Thomas Merton, Zen, p. 9. Works oI John oI the Cross, v. 1, pp. 42-3. Ibid., p. 36. is pure is born. Cperience how we first two .ae distin-isdom of is a wis- ~xical. It w told us ying, and ÷ ÷ Prayer VOLUME 29, 1970 813~ 4, 4. Sister Kristin REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 814 only it enables us to know in the Biblical sense of know-ing as possessing in the act of love. Those who love have a new logic of knowledge and from this new type of wisdom comes the experience which is prayer. But prayer, listening to the reality of all that happens, is not merely being aware of our desire for God and our condition of being pilgrims. Prayer is not only to love God above all things, but it is also to see him everywhere in all things. This was what Teilhard called "purity of heart." 2a That is, prayer also is a type of listening which looks outward and sees the world as filled with signs of God. It is tlfis type of prayer whose exercise demands that we al! be prophets, revealing the hidden things of God out of tangible happenings. This type of prayer is not problematic if one's world is shot through with God. But how do we listen such that our world is seen and heard as permeated with God? One way, I think, is to build on the crucial experiences of life, since prayer operates by means of issues which are ulti-mate in our lives. That is, prayer operates according to our systems of values. Prayer, or the lack of it, affirms what is, or what is not, important to us: That is, the happenings which drive us to the ground ques-tions about human existence and which elicit our deepest self commitments are., good preparations for deep prayer. We find in the profound experiences of love and creativity an in-tensification of our spiritual self-possession, accompanied by a lucid awareness of the contingency of our world, which is already an encounter with God. From such peak experiences we can slowly learn to feel how God is always present to our human action?~ Perhaps we cannot learn to pray because we cannot really see or hear. Perhaps we are too much a part of an age which is activistic rather than prayerful, pragmatic rather than spiritual, anthropocentric rather than theocentric, compromising rather than disciplined. Thomas Merton once wrote that if we were really look-ing for God,. every moment and every event would sow seeds of contemplation in our hearts.2~ That is, if our hearts were ready, we would see that "the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls" as Simon and Garfunkel say. All life would be a sign if we knew how to listen to God. How do we become prophets, so that we can listen to the signs of God that are heard in life? Perhaps one way of listening is conscience. Perhaps another is being aware of a seeking that is unsatisfied by material things. As we =Hymn of the Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 124. -"~ John Carmody, S.J., "Contemporary Faith and Prayer," Sisters Today, November 1967, p. 105. "~ Merton, Seeds, p. 18. passively search, or listen, we become aware of God's work in us and in the world around us and we respond. This response, is prayer, and it was brought about, as Scriptures say, by sleeping with our hearts awake.2~ And our heart is kept awake by love and discipline, by faith- [ulness to the insights of prayer, by watchful attention. This continual search is the 'condition of continued growth, and faith is the condition of continual search.27 For us to be prayerful, then, requires that we learn to see the world as prophets, as full of signs of God, and this requires faith. But what is the object of our faith and how is it attained? Jesus told us to seek and we would find, and yet He did not tell us what we would find. In fact He said there were no close directives for discovering His kingdom. It would come unawares; it was within . His coming would be like a lJlghtning flash.-~s If this is so, then perhaps all we can do is to be like watchful virgins, ready for the hour when His light and His prayer comes. Another way of being "ready" is, I think, to eliminate the defensivensss and self-protectiveness of our words, by opening ourselves to understand, by giving up the secu-rity of set words or positions. If we know how to listen, then a person who confronts us with angxy words is really saying he is afraid to love us. A person who says God does not exist is really saying no one ever made God meaning-ful to him. Listening this way means hearing God. And after all, (lid not God know how to listen? He loved us first, as John says.29 He became a slave so that we could be saved, as Paul says, and He loved us while we were yet sinners.~0 Why is it that we cannot see signs of God, that we do not know how to listen and to pray? Perhaps it is because Christ is not real enough for us . but how is he made real? One way, I think is by the way in which He gives shape to our lives by the vocation that we, with the Spirit, choose. This is because, for the Christian, love is the only absolute, and' our vocational dhoice and our prayer are both concrete ways of expressing this love. When Jesus prayed, it was always in response to His vocation; He prayed before choosing His Apostles, and before His passion and death. To pray in this way, as Christ prayed, demands that we listen to the signs of God in our vocational call. We pray for much ~he same rea-sons that we want to be religious: we want to preach God and to praise Him and to help bring forth His kingdom. ~ Canticle of Canticles 5:2. ~ See Rosemary Haughton, On Trying to Be Human (Springfield, Illinois: Templegate, 1966), p. 42. = Lk 17:24. .o0 1 Jn 4:19. ~o Phil 2:7; Rom 5:9. ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 815 Si~ter Kristin REVIEW FOR,RELIGIOUS 816 We want to find Him. For these reasons we pray. For these reasons we are celibates living in community. Thus the surrender to God's will which characterizes listening prayer seems, identical with a resolve to go ahead vocationally with what we know we must do. And what we must do is necessitating precisely because it is a faithful expression of who we are. Prayer and vocation both say who we are; they constitute our identity, and they are both linked together. If we are faithful to who we a~e, then we listen. Then we do not have to run around trying to fill up people with. God, because we know He is already there, that we have already been redeemed. Then we are abl~ to make visible, in daily events, the fact that behind the anxious sincerity and idealism and capacity to love of most people is the face of Christ who loved us so much that He came to liye among us, that behind the dirty curtain of Viet-nam, and racial hatred, and all the ways in which we are insensitive to those with whom we live, is the face of the crucified Christ. This is the raw material of prayer, and knowing how to listen refines it into prayer. If we know how to listen, then we do not have to look at the world as if it were built in two stories: the first floor, the natural level, the second floor, the supernatural level. If we know how to listen, we do not have to try to depend upon laws or habits or practices or veils to speak, of God. Our love will do it for us. Instead, we can take the world as it is, lavished by God's love and our poor attempts to love, and see it as holy. I do not think the person of prayer, as prophet, is pietistic.or aloof or unapproachable; I think he or she is One who is able to recognize in all men the face of the Messiah, the one who, as prophet, is able to make visible what is hidden and hopeful the one who was without hope. Such a person is compassionate and merciful; he realizes that nothing human is alien, that something looks profane only because his eye is not sacred. Out of this human compassion, the heart of a true prophet is opened not only to his sisters and brothers, but to God. In listening to them, he can listen to the man of Galilee who called illiterate fishermen, who talked with learned Pharisees, who wept over Jerusalem, and who, finally,. had nowhere to lay His head. Jesu.s redeemed us, and if we listen, we know that. When we listen, we will become aware of all that is beautiful, that is one, that is in pain and anguish, of all that is holy, in the Body of Christ. With this awareness-- and we have to be aware--we go to the Father in the Spirit, and we praise Him and reverence Him and lift up to Him the suffering members of His Body. It is this awareness which is the door to deep personal prayer. In fact, contemplative prayer is a witness to a special type of awareness: that of faith. Here:, God is present to the self and the contemplative listener is called to live in a more intimate communication with that mystery. Just as de-tachment was the precondition for the prayer which was desire for God, so faith is the precondition for the prayer which sees God in all things. When we can live these two types of prayer, when we are both pilgrim and prophet, we can listen, and we hear precisely because we have stilled our own murmurings and hear Christ in others. When we are all this, we have, as John of the Cross says, both entered upon the road and left the road at the same time.al At this point we will have given God, not our feelings, not even our thoughts, but ourselves. And when we have done this, we can say with Rahner: "Your commission has become my very life. It ruthlessly claims all my energies for itself; it lives from my own life." az We can say with Paul: I am not my own any longer,as At this point, our prayer will be the utterly simple prayer of listening because we will be living and moving and having being in God. Prayer will happen because we pray as we live, and we must live as pilgrims and proph-ets. In the end, all I have said comes down to our living with the unshakable conviction, of those who wait, that now we see a dim reflection in a mirror, but that one day, one day, as Paul says?4 we will see face to face. Works ol John oI the Gross, v. 2, p. 70. Rahner, Encounters, p. 72. Philem I:10; Phil 3:12. 1 Cor 15:12. Prayer. VOLUME 29, 1970 817 JOHN O. MEANY AND SISTER MARJORIE CAREY, B.V.M. Psychology and "The Prayer of the Heart" J. O. Meany is as-sociate professor of. education and Sis-ter Marjorie teaches Russian at the Uni-versity of Notre Dame; Notre Dame, Indiana 48556; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Incredible as it may seem, there is an ancient Christian tradition of prayer which seems to be almost unknown to Christians in the West. How many Western Christians, for example, have heard of "The Prayer of the Heart"? This Eastern tradition of prayer, sometimes called "Hesy-chasm," may play an increasingly important role in the personal and interior "reformation" which is, hopefully, now taking place in the Roman Catholic Church in the West. There are changes emerging in the Western ap-proaches to prayer and to spiritual formation: a return to a more interior life of prayer and a personalistic and psychologically-conscious spirituality. In order to return to what is more basic and funda-mental in the psychology of prayer, it is essential that we distinguish between those particular aspects of Western Christianity which have been determined by our own unique culture(s) and traditions and, on the other hand, those aspects of prayer and spirituality which are, in an anthropological sense, relatively "culture-free," or more universal and fundamental. It may be difficult to com-pare. our own familiar forms of prayer and spirituality with those which are relatively more independent of our own experience and traditions, but only in this way can we obtain a new view of the primary sources of the basic Christian spirit. There are, of course, as many approaches to G6d as there are (from the human point of view) facets of His Being; and there are as many paths to Him as there are individuals whom He guides along these paths. For God is not limited by our limitations. He draws each individ-ual to Him in a unique way. Yet it seems that, however unique the way, God usually draws a person to Him by using that person's cultural and socio-economic back-ground. Eastern and Western traditions and personality characteristics differ; thus the mode of prayer of an East-ern Christian may seem to be radically different in ap-pearance, if not in reality, from that of a Western Chris-tian. In recent years, however, many young Westerners have turned to the East for new approaches to spirituality; they have found in some forms of Eastern spirituality-- particularly in Zen Buddhism and Yoga--new insights into themselves. Similarly, we, too, may come to see more clearly our own sources of spirituality, through an at-tempt to understand a different Christian tradition. In-deed, one seldom understands his own country until he has left it to travel abroad. | Historically, the Prayer of the Heart d~tes back to the fourth-century desert fathers of Egypt wh~ insisted on the ideal of continual prayer. The Prayer of/he Heart, often called the Jesus Prayer today, began to e~nerge in recog-nizable form during the fifth century; and the full text of the prayer can be found in the life of tl~e sixth-century Egyptian hermit, Abba Philemon. A coln~non~ expression of the Jesus Prayer, rhythmically said froth the heart, has bee,n,: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. This form of prayer can be descr!,b~d as: "Standing before God with the mind in the heart. | The roots of the Jesus Prayer are to belfound in Scrip-ture itself. The Jews of the Old Testarpent so revered Yahweh that His name was considered to [be an extension of His Person, a revelation of His Being.I This reverence for the name of God continues throughout the New Tes-tament: "At the na,m,,e of Jesus every kne~ should bow, in heaven and on earth (Phil 2:10). Indeed, lthe entire Jesus Prayer is existentially, as well as Biblically, oriented. Its similarity to two other Scriptural prayers is apparent: the prayer of the blind man, "Jesus, Son ~f David, have mercy on me" (Lk 18:38); and that of the [publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner" (Lk 18:13). In t!me, a body ,o,f traditio,n, al teachin~ c,a, lled "Hesy-chasm;' meaning quietness' or "reppse, grew up around the Jesus Prayer; and at least 'since the sixth century the tradition of the Jesus Prayer has influenced the spirituality of Eastern Christians. During three peri-ods of history the Jesus Prayer has been particularly in-fluential in the East: during the Golden Age of Hesy-chasm in fourteenth-century Byzantium .under the great theologian,. St. Gregory Palamas; during the Hesychast renaissance in Greece in the eighteenth century when the great anthology of Eastern spirituality, the Philokalia (love of the beautiful), was written; and during nine-teenth century Russia under Theophan the Recluse. To understand better how the Hesychast approach could contribute to the West, one might examine how it ÷ ÷ ÷ Prayer o] the Heart VOLUME 29, 1970 819 4. 4. 4. I. O. Meany and St. Marjmle REVJEW FOR REL]GIO0$ 82O has already contributed to the East; for example, how it has contributed to Russian spirituality, as that spirit has grown out of the environment and "national" character of the Russian people. The Russians are predominantly a silent people; this is evident in an old Russian custom: traditionally, whenever a member of an old Orthodox Russian family leaves on a journey, the entire family gathers in silence to pray. The family remains silent for several minutes; then the father rises to bless the family and each member of the family silently traces the Sign of the Cross on his forehead while facing the. family icon. Afte~ this paternal blessing, mutual blessings are ex-changed. This love of silence may also have led many Russian Christians to a contemplative life. There is also in the soul of the Russian people a primitive, almost naive simplicity; yet in this simplicity profound depths may be fathomed. Russian spirituality has been imbued with this simplicity which is so characteristic of the spirit of the Gospel. Their prayer life, too, has always been simple, without a complicated rational (or discursive) for-mula. Still another characteristic of the Russian peasant is his love of the rhythmic beauty of life--the" rhythm found in the cycles of nature and family life. This is especially apparent in the works of Tolstoy, who so com-pellingly depicted these cycles in his great epics, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This love of rhythm, found also in Russian music, is clearly reflected in the rhythmic breathing of the "Jesus Prayer." One of the most obvious characteristics of the Russian peasant is his yearning for open and unlimited stretches of land. The geography of the land, therefore, influences the national character ofthe people, which in turn, af-fects the forms of their spirituality. The vast open areas of Siberia, the immense forests of the country, seems to have evoked a response to the Infinite which is reflected in personal religious experience. Because of this yearning for space, the Russian peasant has also been somewhat of a pilgrim. This, of c6urse, is true of many cultures and personalities; indeed, the whole history of man can be seen as a journey. Yet as Nicolas. Berdyaev points out, this spirit of the wanderer seems particularly characteristic of the Russian people. Through the centuries Russian pil-grims have traveled from afar in search of peace and spiritual renewal, visiting the famous cathedrals of Kiev, Novgorod, and other places of pilgrimage. They have traveled especially to those places where a "staretz," a man of God, prayer, and discernment, was still to be found. Thus, the innate yearning of the Russians for vast unlimited space has made them a nomadic people. This spirit of the wanderer, in search of truth, is .underscored in The VCay of a Pilgrim, a story of a Russian pilgrim who journeys forth, continually repeating the Jesus Prayer. This unknown Russian pilgrim has made the Eastern mode of prayer more available to Westerners through his personal religious experiences which are de-scribed in The Way o[ a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim ,Con-tinues His Way. The Jesus Prayer is a prayer that comes from the heart. It differs from the current Western and, perhaps, more cognitive approach to prayer; yet as St. Teresa of Avila points out, the important thing is not to have m~ny thoughts, but to have great love. Eastern Christians seem to have preserved the idea of the whole man: body and heart as well as mind and soul. This more total approach to "spirituality" seems to be meaningful for modern Westerners, as can be seen in the new orientation of such books as Harvey Cox's The Feast o[ Fools, Dechanet's Christian Yoga, Dom Aelred Graham's Zen Catholicism and Norman Brown's Love's Body. The difference in modes of prayer, then, between the East and the West is based not only on cultural and personality characteristics, but also on the different atti-. tudes toward man which are prevalent in the East and in the West. For centuries. Europeans and Americans have tended to emphasize man's rational nature; and since the Counter-Reformation, this emphasis has found expression not only in Western scientific methodology but also in various discursive "methods" of prayer, such as the Igna-tian, Sulpician, Salesian, and Ligourian. Descartes' dualism, or Western rationalism, has failed, however, to create in the (non-Westernized) East the head/heart dichotomy that it has fostered in the West. The traditional Russian peasant seems never to have lost his sense of wholeness. Eastern Christians seem to have preserved that broad perspective of "the whole man," an integrated body-heart-mind-soul. Perhaps the Zen scholar Daisetz T. Suzuki was right in contending that Western thought has erected barriers be-tween man and reality; barriers of concepts, imagery, cas-uistry, and reasoning. Consequently, instead of bringing us closer to reality, language has frequently separated us from it. For example, if a person rigidly decides not'to think about sex, he often finds himself unconscio~usly in-volved in it. There is a story of a Western theologian who decided to marry just after writing an elaborate treatise on celibacy; the theologian admitted that all his former theories had been "mental constructs." In terms of depth psychology, this type of theological "construct" might be seen as an intellectual defense, a defense which .broke down under the pressure of previously-denied (emotional and sense) experience. Repression fosters "acting out.:' Similarly, current Western existential "philosophy" can the Heart ,. VOLUME' 29,. 1970 :~" 82L ~. O. Meany and Sr. Mar]orie REVIEW FOR RELiGiOUS 822 be seen as an attempt to break through (defensive) logical constructs in order to come closer to the "living reality." The East, however, is in a sense, already "existential" and has been throughout its long history. Though recent Western theology has tended to be Cartesian or dualistic, the Russian has always been more at home with an existential or phenomenological ap-proach to God and prayer. The writings of Dostoevsky were influenced by Orthodox spirituality; this approach is often viewed as both intriguing and somewhat threat-ening to a Westerner, whose spiritual formation has o.ften been unconsciously conditioned by abstract ideals and logical categories. However, existeritialism and phenom-enology are beginning to have an impact in the West, through such Christian authors as Dietrich von Hilder-brand, Hubert Dom, Adrian Van Kaam, Gabriel Marcel, and Simone Weil. The existential and direct approach to God, although it is found in the prayers of the liturgies of the West, has always been a more living part of the consciousness of the Russian. The best aspects of tradi-tional Russian spirituality would not be interested in a rationalism or nominalism which would tend to separate love from human physical experience. But the worst in Russian Marxism might attempt to separate love from the physical world. Even as the human body can be seen as the outward expression of the inner soul, so also can icons, images, and incense be seen as an expression of the Church's inner spirituality. Thus the Russian prays with a pro-found sense of reverence; he seems to have a deep sense of ritual. In the Orthodox religion there is no Western-like sepa-ration between the liturgy and private prayer; no such Cartesian-like distinctions are made. This ancient Eastern tradition is similar to a relatively new trend in the West-ern liturgical movement which stresses the use of public liturgical prayers for private prayer. The scholarly jour-nal, Worship, has long stressed the value of liturgical meditations. We are not always conscious of the fact that much of our Western liturgy is an existential prayer, existential because it addresses God in the "here-and-now." For. Orthodox Christians there are no logical dis-tinctions between private and public prayer, just as for them there are no class or caste distinctions between monks and laymen. Husbands and wives, monks and nuns, all follow the same traditional and existential way of prayer. Love, not rules, is the focal point. Orthodox Christians do not feel that reading the Bible reflectively is a prayer, though they do not deny its value. Reflective reading often is predominantly a cognitive process unless the words are related to the feelings, fanta-sies, and senses of the "heart." Orthodox Christians re-gard their prayer as more of a total personal relationship to God, by praying "with the mind in the heart." At the risk of imposing Western categories on Ortho-dox spirituality, one might distinguish three forms of Orthodox prayer. First, bodily prayer which uses the pos-ture and the senses of the body. For example, one might bend his head so that his eyes can look at the place of the heart; he may try to become aware of his breathing in order to use its natural rhythm as an aid to concentration as he prays to God. Secondly, mental prayer in which the mind holds the "Word" in inward prayer, so that con-sciousness is expanded; thus one tries to center one's whole being on the "Word of God." And thirdly, there is the Prayer of the Heart. This last form of prayer is for Eastern Christians the highest form of prayer because in this way of praying the mind descends to the heart as it stands before God. The Orthodox feel that it is essential that the mind descend into the feelings and images of the heart during prayer although they realize that the heart, without the attention of the intellect, is blind. As St. Makarios of Egypt (4th century) said: "Descend into thy heart and there do battle with Satan." Thus the mind of the person descends into his heart to view his feelings, fantasies, and sensual experiences in order to choose those which are truly good and oppose those which are not. This process is different from that advocated by some western writers like Tanquerey. This process also pre-supposes a deep psychological openness to oneself, a non-defensive consciousness. Unlike many Westerners, the Eastern Christian does not try to use his intellectual constructs to keep the mind from the heart. Rather, he worships God with his heart and feelings which are, hope-fully, known by his mind. Thus the body and the inter-nal senses play a positive role in prayer, as it can in higher forms of Yoga. The conscious use of the body, as in dancing, could play a more important role in prayer and in the liturgy of the West. The purpose of the Jesus Prayer is to fill one's whole consciousness with the name of Jesus, just as St. Francis of Assisi spent a whole night in prayer rqpeating ever more deeply the Lord's name. Ideally, the head and the heart are thus united; conscious unity in the person is the goal of some modern psychologists and theologians. For example, the psychologist Carl Rogers describes the ide-ally "fully functioning person" as one who knows, exis-tentially, what his "heart" (or organism) is saying, and he can talk about his inner experience if he chooses to do so. The theologian, John S. Dunne, in his A Search [or God Prayer of the Heart VOLUME 29, 1970 823 ~. O. Mean~ and St. Mar]orie~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in Tim.~ and Memory also stresses the value of a unity of thought, feeling a.nd action in the person, " ' .~ Through the centuries physical~ "exercise~ ~ind disci-plines such as fasting have been used to affect one's sciousness. In prayer, exercises and inner discipli.nes can" be used. to concentrate, one's being on the n.ame of. Jesus. But. one great danger in "prayer" is that words, or thoughts can be compulsively repeated, being motivated by unconscibus inner conflicts;, thus "prayer" could, be used defensively to avoid an inner growth of. conscious-ness and love. As in some forms of Yoga, the Jesus Prayer can be associated with the natural rhythm of breathing. Thus, this Hesychast"method of prayer uses the natural, not [orced rhythm of breathing or the .heartbeat to aid total intellectual and emotional conceritration on the name of Jesus; just.as a Westerner might use the beads of'a rosary ti~ c0ncefitrate on a mystery. By using his breathing to concentrate on the name of Jesus, the person may thus bring prayer more deeply into his ~hole being. Sponta-neous and relaxed breathing is used to bring one's atten-tion repeatedly back to the name of Jesus, which is then psychologically associated with the breath (and life) of the person. It is important to realize that these physical exercises are regarded as an aid to, not~ an obligation of, prhy'er. The Orthodox know well that there can be no physical or mechanical means of acquiring grace. No bod' ily nor physical techniques can be an automatic method of obtaining grace. Furthermore, they do not recommend the use of this form of prayer without proper guidance, or Spiritual direction, because it can cause sexual arousal, or it could possibly damage the lungs or body, if forced o~ used incorrectly. Associating one's prayers with the natural easy flow of one's breathing, however, is'a way of aiding the mind to descend into the body and the heart,' in an attempt to offer lovingly to God one's whole being (emotions, will, and attention) in the name of Jesus. Some practical applications of processes similar to this way of prayer are described in J. M. Dechanet's Christian Yoga. This book is one example of a modern application of "ancient wisdom to prayer. He includes a discussion of practical techniques for the "Prayer of the Heart." "On the Three Methods of Attention and Prayer"'is a treatise often attributed to St. Simon the New Theolo-gian. It makes clear that .there are three ways of prayer. The first way of prayer, used by an emotional person, would stress primarily the feeling approach to God with-out much stress on reason. A second ,,~ay of,prayer would stress the intellectual approach with thoughts-fighting-. thoughts because that person is relatively unaware of his emotions. The third and preferable way is an integration which would have the mind consciously descend into the heart so that the person takes a conscious position toward his own internal emotions and fantasies in order to love God with his whole mind, his whole heart, and his whole soul In recent years many young Americans--like Franny in Salinger's Franny and Zooey---have come to know some-thing of the Jesus Prayer, although it may easily be mis-interpreted as a mechanical spirituality. Its appeal for modern people may be due to several factors: its Christo-centric theme, its Scriptural base, its simplicity. Many may find in this way of prayer a human expression of their adoration and love of God. Others may find in its rhythmic breathing a meaningful way of "physically ex-pressing" their spirit. So, like Yoga, Zen, and other modes of Eastern spirituality, Orthodoxy may offer to the West another approach to prayer, perhaps another way of help-ing us to find our way back to the Christian Spirit. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES Arseniev, Nicolas. Russian Piety. London: Faith Press, 1964. Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Prayer. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961. Berdiaev, Nicolas. The Russian Idea. New York: Macmillan, 1948. Chariton of Valamo, Igumen. The Art of Prayer. London: Faber and Faber, 1966. Dechanet, Jean Marie. Christian Yoga. New York: Harper and Row, 1960. Delmage, L. Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. New York: Wagner, 1968. Diahonia, a journal edited by George Maloney, S.J. New York: Fordham University. Dunne, John S. A Search for God in Time and Memory. Toronto: Macmillan, 1969. Fedotov, George P. A Treasury of Russian Spirituality. London: Sheed and Ward, 1952. Hausherr, Iren~e. "La m~thode d'oraison h~sychaste," Orien-talia christiana, 1927. Loyola, Ignatius de. The Autobiography of St. Ignatius. New York: Benziger, 1900. Johnston, S.J., William. "Dialogue with Zen," Concilium, November 1969. Jung, Carl G. The Collected Worhs of Carl Jung, volumes 5 and 9. Princeton: Princeton University, 1968. Kadloubovsky, E. and Palmer, G. E. H. Early Fathers from the Philokalia. London: Faber and Faber, 1952. Kadloubovsky, E. and Palmer, G. E. H. Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart. London: Faber and Faber, 1951. Mason, R.ussell E. Internal Perceptions and Bodily Function-ing. New York: International Universities Press, 1961. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain. Unseen Warfare. London: Faber and Faber, 1952. Philips, Dewi Z. The Concept of Prayer. New York: Schocken, 1966. Prayer " o] the Heart VOLUME 2% 1970 825 Richardson, A. Mental Imagery. New York: Springer, 1969. Sofrony, Archimandrite. The Undistorted Image. London: Faith Press, 1958. Stolz, Karl R. The Psychology of Prayer. New York: Abingdon, 1923. Ware, Timothy. The Orthodox Church. Baltimore: Pelican, 1964. .~. O. Meany and St. Mar]orle REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS JONATHAN FOSTER, O.F.M. Some Notes on Hostility and Fidelity: The Religious Presence One of the most masterful and insightful commentaries on human aggression dates from the years immediately following World War I--Edna St. Vincent Millay's poign-ant little play, Aria da Capo. In the work's "play within a play," two friendly and unsophisticated shepherds under the direction of a stern stage manager set out to play a game in which they innocently build a wall between them and say "that over there belongs to me and over here to you." The game soon becomes deadly serious, however, and their friendship quickly deteriorates into suspicion and mistrust. At one point in the game, Thyrsis has a moment of sanity and beseeches Corydon.: "It is an ugly game. I hated it from the first. How did it start?" To which Corydon replies: "I do not know . I do not know. I think I am afraid of you! You are a strangerl I never set eyes on you before." Their fearful insight into the tragedy of their situation does not hinder them, how-ever, from plunging head-long into the "game" which ends in their mutual killing of each other for what the other has. The essence of the tragedy of human existence there-fore, as seen by Miss Millay, is the deterioration of trust. When man do not deliberately break trust with each other, society can be sweet and peaceful, as the shepherds in the play experienced it. For in the beginning, before the "game," they agreed in simple joy to "make a song about a lamb that thought himself a shepherd." But when .the wall goes up--and in the play it is only a streamer of tissue paper that Corydon cannot even find when he staggers toward his dead friend in his death agony--ignorance and misunderstanding build large, + + 4. Jonathan Foster is a member of St. Joseph's Franciscan Seminary; P.O. Box 449; Oak Brook; Il-linois 60521. VOLUME 29, 1970 827. ]. Foster,~ O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 828 tricksome images that cast dark and suspicious shadows over the land. And it is when we encounter these suspi-cious shadows that:we begin to experience hostility, and too frequeritly this hostility bristles into violence. I would like to suggest here that the situation dramati-cally Conceived in Aria da Capo is .r~pidly coming to characterize the whole of American society and that the current easy attitude toward vows in religious life is con-tributing to this situation. ¯ There is an unease in the land, an .unease that increas-ingly expresses itself in polarized movements, bristles with hostility for its counterparts, and, with a regularity t.ha.t is ~c~asing to. ast.onish; b.reaks out into violence. The reason for this is hardly a simple onE;°but one of the most important factors, I believe, is the demise of trust under-lined by Miss Millay. It has long been known that violence, especially as carried out by children, is the mindless response to a betrayal of trust by those who should above all have been trustworthy--parents, brothers, sisters, friends. Most psy-chotic violence among grown-ups too is explainable in terms of betrayal and subsequent alienation. It is.not too much to suggest that the unease drifting through our country, the. increasing prickle of hostility, the growing threat of mass violence is largely a projection on a na-tional scale of this same betrayal o~ trust. There certainly has been such a betrayal in our public institutions. Our government and political leaders have been. found to be insincere so often and so damagingly that they, have generated powerful counter-political movements based on an-idealism that seeks to actually do that which government and presen( politics only profess tostand for. Business and labor time and.time again have been found out to be playing dirty games behind the bright chintz of public relations, advertising; and noble sentiments. The curtains have been jerked back a few times too often on all levels of education, to reveal admin-istrators and teachers .with their thumbs stuck in a few unsuspected pies. Even the hallowed judicial system has been seen to be as petty and partial as ward-heeling poli-ticians. Bishops and religious leaders with almost monot-onous regularity put on masks in the same dressing rooms with government,, and more and more of their subjects are sbe, ing under the make-up. ¯ Perhaps all this insincerity is not as new as it seems. But what is certainly new is the great number of people who know: about it. Mass journalism and historical schol-arship have had much to do with this public breast-bar-ing, "telling, it like it is," debunking and stripping down even ou~ heroes. And so, I suggest, the great question that expresses the malaise of. our society is: "Who ;can you trhst?" Th~ cynical crack is mor~ and more the language of the land. More and more like-minded'groups, search-ing for trust, turn within and band together. The result is fraCtionalization, polarization, hostility, violence. "I do not know you" becomes "I do not trust you." But this is hardly the whole story. As if it were not engugh that the public institutions of our, society are found not to wash under their public robes, we are facing now the deterioration of trust in the private institutions of our society. Personal rel~itionships 'of all kinds ,have B~en affected by the erosion of trust. The vows of mar-riage, "till death do us part,"'ard taken with increasingly l~gs seriousness. In the steady-dating relationship, too, boys and girls enter into quasi-matrimonial and even Sex-ual relationships, the basis of which is not ~rust, but usefulness ~ind convenience. But where this relationship is easi!y deceived into thinking itself meaningful, the no-torious "Playboy" relationship cynically strips away all pretense and encourages partners to enter the most trust-oriented of all relationships with the most callow mo-tives. And the infamous generation gap is not created just by misttnderstanding. It is created as much by the parents using this deepest and most responsibility-bearing rela-tionship as a means for their own advancement. Finally, there are religious vows. In the past history of religious life, the value of the vow for. society was preemi-nent. Today what is becoming of supreme value is the relevance of the vo;v for the individual religious. And if the taking of the vow, or the keeping of it even for a specified time much less for life, is similarly restricting, then it is not taken, or it is broken in view of some other commitment. The priority of the individual in the reli-gious taking of vows has become paramount in our day. What we are failing to understand at this point in the pendulum swing of religious commitment is that reli-gious life is perhaps the last social institution in which fidelity and trust are basic and honored, and that this perhaps says something about the witness of religious life in contemporary society. The absolute centrality of promises to the preservat~ion of the quality of human existence has been strongly stressed b);' various authors, bi~t none has made the case more' strongly than the philosopher, Hannah Arendt; In her book, The Human Condition, Miss Arendt pinpoints two factors essential to the preservation of~ life from chaos. The first is forgiveness, or the undoing of mistakes of the past. The second is the faculty to make and keep promises. The first obviously deals with the past. The second concerns the future. The ability to make promises and keep them builds on the reality.of forgiveness, and Mi~s Arendt always keeps the two together. But for our VOLUME 29; "1970 ' "" 829 ]. Foster, O.F.~I. ~EVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 830 purposes here, we must look especially close at what she says about promise. The making of promises is an expression of one of the most ancient needs of man. In fact the two great institu-tions of western society were built on promises. The Jew-ish- Christian religion grew out of the covenants of Abra-ham with God. And the Roman empire built a legal system on the inviolability of agreements and treaties. This is not surprising. For man's experience of himself in history has revealed a twofold "darkness." The first is his inability to rely on or have complete faith in himself: The second is the unpredictability of human events. And so man, both to insure his own survival and to make his society an increasingly hospitable one, from the very be-ginning has gone out to his fellowman in promise and covenant. He has come to rely on and count on his fel-lows. Promise is what holds society together and staves off barbarity, barbarity both in the forms of totalitarian domination and in the unstructured freedom of anarchy. Although Miss Arendt's primary purpose in treating the faculty of promise is to show that it lies at the very foundation of society, she does not ignore its value for the growth of the individual, which she sees in the con-text of the preservation of one's integrity: Without being bound in the fulfilment of promises, we would never be able to keep our identities; we would be con-demned to wander helplessly and without direction in the darkness of each man's lonely heart, caught in its contradic-tions and equivocalities--a darkness which only the light shed over the public realm through the presence of others, who con-firm the identity between the one who promises and the one who. fulfils can dispel" (The Human Condition, Doubleday Anchor Books, p. 21B). Promise combines with forgiveness, as Miss Arendt sees it, to form the basis of morality. For "these moral pre-cepts [forgiveness and promise] arise . directly out of the will to live together with others., and thus they are like control mechanisms built into the very faculty to start new and unending processes" (p. 221). It is here also that she stresses the creative and life-sustaining force of forgiveness and promise. For if we could not forgive mis-takes and if we could not re-establish firm bonds through promise, then society would be trapped by the "law of mortality" and would steadily wind itself down to death. Forgiveness and promise together make newness con-stantly possible. And as such they are the foundations for the Christian view of life--faith and hope: faith that is fidelity to the convenant, and hope that is created both in this fidelity and in forgiveness. What is important, I think, about Miss Arendt's com-ments is that they place the taking and keeping of vows not in the context of what it can do for the individual but rather of how the taking of vows enters into the very bloodstream of human society. She speaks eloquently of promise as confronting the "darkness" of human exist-ence, of staving off "ruin and destruction," of the "mira-cle that saves the world." She also cites Nietzsche's com-ment that promise is the very distinction which marks off human from animal life. It is precisely to this larger context therefore that we must shift some of our discus-sion of religious vows. Far from being an anachronistic kind of slavery exercised by religious orders to maintain their survival, religious vows must be seen, in Miss Arendt's perspective, as an expression of man's striving not only for survival, but for dignity as well. To further emphasize this perspective, we must focus very precisely on the kind of promises religious make. It is not a promise to complete the transaction of a deal, to run a hospital, to cook forever, or just to do anything. It is a promise to be, and as such a deep commitment and trust. We can forgive someone who does not keep a prom-ise to do something, and we can perhaps survive in a society in which this failure to deliver is relatively fre-quent. But how much can we tolerate of a society that ¯ does not keep its promises to be? When people make great commitments of personal loyalty and then opt out in large numbers, what effect, we must ask, does this have on society at large? And when they go a step further, frequently in justification, and refuse promise at all, or make expressions of loyalty that are weak, decidedly ter-minal and often vague and open-ended, what, we must fnrther ask, effect does this have on society? Does it weaken the ties between men? Is this abandonment of covenant intensifying in a' way that has not occurred to us at all the increasing lack of trust and rising hostility in our society? Does it raise again on a new front, and per-haps the last one, the question: "~¥ho can you connt on?" I suggest that religious have a serious responsibility to raise these issues. They are perhaps the last people in the world in which the free offering of total loyalty has been taken for granted as a matter of policy. Because of this professed commitment, they have been witnessing some-thing to the world, namely, that it is possible to be loyal and trustworthy on a grand scale. They have advanced the ideals of mankind a great milestone. And now sud-denly they have reversed this witness, first in practice, now in theory. The anger and resentment, shock and frustration of many people over the vast exodus from vows, now settling into a flat cynicism, comes as no sur-prise. Religious cannot simply dismiss this anger and cy-nicism with the comment: "They'll get used to it." This may very well be the tragedy we can least afford~that men should get used to it. ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 831 ¯ Perhaps then if there is any validity tO these questions another dimension must be added to the mission of reli-gious today. If, as Miss Arendt suggests, the power of making and keeping promises is our bulwark against chaos or repression, if, as Nietszche asserts, fidelity is what distinguishes us from animals, then the question of vows is not merel.y a question of the internal life of a particu-lar community or of individual religious. It is joined to the very issue of human survival. My suggestion, then, is that as religious weigh' the relevance of taking of not taking vows, of their leaving or dissolution, to the per-sonal fulfilment of the individual religious, they also seri-ously discuss again the impact this same taking or aban-doning of vows has for society at large. The problems of the individual religious in an institute that he or she feels is inhibiting or irrelevant or itself unfaithful to its own profession are real eno.ugh to us. They have preoccupied religious for the past several years. But what about this same religious in relationship to a world in which indi-viduals and groups are drifting further and further apart 'because of the decay of trust and faithfulness? Do not religious perhaps have a mission here too? Today most religious orders, in their renewal, are concerned about "going out to the ~orld," trying to be relevant. It would be most ironic, not to say tragic, if what the world most needs, trust and loyalty, were precisely what religious are s'o busily unpacking and heaving overboard. ]. Foster,~O~F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 832 KATHRYN LINDEMANN, O.P. Toward a Definition of "Communi " The problem. During the past few years there has been much debate among American religious concerning "community." "What is community?" and "What do you mean by community?" are two frequently heard ques-tions. This article does not attempt to totally resolve these questions since any further "total solutions" would only add to the present confusion. This paper does attempt to disentangle the discussion and to introduce clarifications which, will make resolu-tion possibl~. To this end it begins with a consideration of the present state of the issue. Then there is a non-po-lemic exposition of the meaning of "community" as found in current literature. Finally there is an indication of some still unanswered questions concerning "commun-ity" which seem important for continued progress toward a clear definition of "community." ¯ .4 first inquiry and a prol~ered solution. The fact that American religious are asking about "community" seems to indicate that they are aware of confusion and are seek-ing to remedy it. Confronted by this confusion, a normal query is: Why such a difficulty concerning "community"? One proffered solution has been to postulate something about the word itself~some attribute which defies defini-tion. "Community," like patriotism, becomes a Wittgen-steinian "slogan word" which is too ambiguous for defini-tion. Such a proposal is both logically unsound and a breeder of irrationality. If one analyzes it, one finds: 1. It accepts the generalization: "If x is a slogan word, then x precludes definition." 2. The postulation is then argued: since the definition of 'community' engenders much confusion, "com-munity" must be a slogan word. Since slogan words are indefinable, then "community" must be indefin-able. This is viciously circular. It assumes what it claims to ÷ Kathryn Linde-mann, O.P., lives at Mr. St. Mary Col-lege' in .,Newburgh, N.Y. 12550. VOLUME',29, '1970 . ~ ÷ ÷ Kathryn Linde- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 834 prove. The statement of the generalization only acts as camouflage. If one wants to conclude that a slogan word is not definable, one cannot assume it is a slogan word because it is indefinable. In the practical order, the proposal leads to subjectiv: ism and a canonization of irrationality. If "community" is indefinable, then there is no procedure for discussing: what it is; what engenders it; what destroys it. Two indi-viduals have no way of ascertaining if they use the term with the same meaning. They are condemned to unknow-ing or subjectivism. Since rationality depends on com-monness, no rational procedures of discussion or decision are possible. Thus all those groups of American religious now committed to the conscious renewal of community can have no use for rationality in their endeavors. At best, community renewal needs to be relegated to some irrational force. A second proposal. The above is not the only possible explanation for the confusion concerning "community." There is also an explanatory avenue opened by the no-tion of the theory laden texture of terms. In Patterns of Discovery, Norman l~ussell Hanson explores the relation between theory and particular observations, facts, and terms. He contends that scientific observation, fact, and meaning are only possible within the context of a theory. Further, he holds that each of these three are theory determined. Thus, two men experiencing the same sense data of orange color patch moving upward through an orange tinted visual field at 6:50 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in Newburgh, New York, might observe two dif-ferent things. One operating in a Ptolemaic framework observes the sun rising. The other operating in a Coper-nican framework observes the earth turning. If each spoke of the "morning event," "morning event" would have, in a certain sense, a different meaning for each.1 Hanson often cites such theory determination of termi-nological meaning: If, in the blank pages of a next year's diary, we find the word 'fire' in the place reserved for St. Valentine's day, no action would suggest itself. Consider another man shouting 'Fire'; but now he is in uniform, hovering over a busy gun crew. Were we members of that crew, our response would be automatic . In other contexts 'fire' might herald a worker's dismissal, or the entrance of a Wagnerian soprano amid pyro-technics. It can signal a phase in the making of pottery, de-scribe how an actress reads her part, or designate some primi-tive rite . 'Fire' has, in each situation, a propositional force; it is shorthand for complex statements whose nature is clear from the contexts of utterance. We are not born able to recog-nize such contexts., for that we need education.2 X Norman Russell Hanson, Patterns o] Discovery (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1965), pp. 7-8. 2 Ibid., p. 63. And again: When the youngster says 'lightning and thunder' he prob-ably means 'flash and rumble.' Again, a lot may follow, but what follows for him is different from what follows for the meteorologist--for whom 'lightning and thunder' probably means 'electrical discharge and aerial disturbance.' 8 ~lpplication to the question of community. In order to see the relation of this theory laden texture of terms to the present confusion among American religious, one needs to know something of the recent intellectual his-tory of religious groups. Since 1949 there has been what Thomas Kuhn would call a "paradigm shift" in religious life.4 Any comparative study of congregational constitu-tions of 1949 and 1969, of the 1949 and 1969 issues of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, or of books dealing with the theory of religious life from that span of years, gives multitudinous evidence of this paradigm change. In this paradigm shift, the term "community" is one which has been strongly affected. It has moved from a peripheral to a central position and has acquired a new extension. This change in "community" cannot be considered in isolation from the total theory of religious life. The change in meaning actually occurred as a result of changes in other areas of the theoretic system. A change of perception concerning certain areas made for new ways of seeing many other areas. And as the whole theory changed, each specific term was affected. Having noted the theory-laden-texture of terms and the fact of paradigm change in religious life, one can now locate reasons for the present confusion concerning "com-munity." These reasons are embedded in two specific fea-tures of the theoretical change among American religious. First, the change has not been a single-stroke event. Sec-ond, the "new theory~' has not yet reached stasis. First, the change in the religious life paradigm has not been a single stroke event. It is a process event whose history can be mapped. See Figure I. Given Theory A (the paradigm at n) and the innovations (I . I5), one finds a transformation in theory during stages n+l. n+5. The first outlines of Theory B become evident at stage n+5. Most often, one thinks of the theory only at stage n (theory A) or stage n+5 (theory B) since at these stages the theory is in stasis. These two stages represent "para-digms" as Kuhn refers to them and the change from paradigm A to parad@n B is a "revolution" in the Kuhnian sense. It is a fact, however, and one at which ~ Ibid., p. 61. 'Thomas Kuhn, The Structure o] Scientific Revolutions (Chi-cago: University of Chicago, 1962), pp. 43ff. ÷ ÷ + "Community" VOLUME 29, :970 835 Theory elements oO OoOo oo\o o\ o o -o n n-'l-1 n÷2 n+3 n÷4 n-~-5 Figure ] 4. 4. 4- Kathryn Linde. mann REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Kuhn hints several times, that the intermediary stages exist.5 Now, as is normal in the innovation and diffusion o[ ideas, all members o[ religious congregations do not ac-cept theoretic innovation or revision at the same rate.e Since the acceptance of theoretical innovations is not simultaneous and universal, different individuals within the total population o[ religious may be in different ~tages of theory revision at any given time (n+l. n+5). Since terms are theory determined, such members, being at different theoretic stages, mean different things by " com~munity." Since the dynamics of any change are seldom pondered at the same time as the change is occurring, given reli-gious are usually unaware of the specific theoretic stage they are in. Further, they may not realize that theirs is one stage in a process continuing toward a new paradigm and stasis.7 Thus, one has the situation in which individ-uals will notice that there .are apparent differences in meaning concerning "community" (or a number of other ~ Ibid., pp. 84-7, 89, 128-9. e Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York: Free Press, 1968). ~Note, for example, the many expressions of conviction among religious that there will never again be a stasis in religious life or theory. terms such as prayer, apostolate, or common life) but will be at a loss to either: articulate the differences with any precision, or to explain the differences through an enun-ciation of the theory which determines their meanings. This is a major source of the confitsion concerning "com-munity" at the present time. . Second, it is not until a theory approaches stasis that all the relations among particular elements are enunci-ated with any precision. To the extent that this precision is absent, there is an inescapable vagueness about any term endemic to the theory. Most congregations have enunciated the major outlines of the new paradigm in their constitutions. Yet all refer to their constitutional documents as interim or experi-mental, and all expect to produce a more finished prod-uct in a few years. Congregations have built in a time span for working out the practical and theoretic interre-lations among various elements,s The new paradigm is not yet articulated with full precision, and so a certain vagueness concerning a key term such as "community" is inescapable. Until this full precision is reached, a certain confusion will remain in the meaning and use of "com-munity." Summary. The theory laden texture of terms proposal succeeds in answering the first query concerning the why of the present confusion about "community," whereas the indefinability proposal did not. This theory laden texture notion indicates a double source of confusion: the simul-taneous operation of multiple versions of theories within the groups and the lack of precision in the newest theory because it has not yet reached stasis. Having dealt with the first query, the study needs to move on to the next: "How is 'community' defined in the new paradigm among religious?" ~ What Is "Community"? Method. To avoid arguing some of the philosophical issues attendant upon "meaning," "definition," or "expli-cation" this paper will approach the problem a poste-riori. There will be an examination of the literature for religious to see what meaning is already established in relation to "community." From this information, there will be an attempt at precise definition or explication. The two paradigms. The general accounts of "com- S As established in Ecclesiae sanctae, au apostolic letter issued on August 6, 1966, by Pope Paul VI (reprinted iu REVIEW FOR REL~CIoUS, V. 25 (1966), pp. 939--70. ~The meaning of "community" in the old paradigm has re-ceived adequate treatment by sociologists, historians, and theo-logians. The elements of the new paradigm, however, have seldo~n been subject to collection and analysis. ÷ ÷ ÷ "Community" VOLUME 29, 1970 - 837 + ÷ ÷ Kath~ Linde- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS munity" diverge gr~eatly between the old (1949) and the new (1969) paradigms of religious life. Since a contrast often helps specify a complicated term, a general account of "community" as it appears in each of these basic theo-ries is presented first. When one studies old constitutions, those in effect in the forties and fifties, one finds: 1. The term "community" is rarely used. 2. When it is used it is capitalized as a proper noun-- denoting a particular (person, place or thing). 3. It seems to have a non-personal, "thing-like" quality common to collective nouns used in the "otherness" of the third person. 4. Sometimes the word designates a local group, while at other times it refers to an entire group. In the lat-ter instances, one mentally substitutes the word, "Congregation" or "Institute," both of which occur far more frequently in these early documents. Point four seems to strike the terminological core, for the meaning of "community" is primarily that of a hier-archical organization. Almost every sentence utilizing the Word "community" would retain its meaning if "organi-zation" were substituted. Further, the literary structure of these constitutions of the forties and fifties seems domi-nated by the organizational model. They set out goals; they cite organizational procedures for attaining the goals; and they define each person in terms of her role in the organization. They state the duties of the role (posi-tion in the organization), the prerequisites for possessing this role (be it that of an ordinary member or an officer), and the privileges of the role. The documents join a second model to that of hierar-chical organization. There is an interpersonal ideal of a familial society which is most compatible with that of a hierarcical organizational model. Officers are compared to parent figures. As such they ought to give and receive love and concern in a way which officers of an organiza-tion usually do not. Thus, in a unified model of hierar-chical- organization-family one provides an ideal for the lived situation of religious life. Newer constitutions, those of the sixties, present dif-ferent features: 1. "Community" is a common word; it appears time after time. 2. In most documents there is a definite distinction between community-as-organization and communi-ty- as-people. 3. Most, at least implicitly, deny "community" of the hierarchical organization model. "Community" de-notes, a primary group with strong interpersonal ties. This interpersonal notion is often extended to the congregation-as-community or the larger, civic, community. Although texts vary, the following is typical: Religious life is a loving community of free consecrated persons, sharing their lives, their worship, their service and their celibacy. A distinctive mark of the religious life is to be found in the fact that this living of Christ's life, this witnessing to His values, is lived corporately?° The function of a religious community is twofold. The first is to provide the climate for its members to grow to full stature as free persons in an ever deepening union with Christ, and for the sake of His Kingdom to be available to serve individually and corporately the needs of men. The second is to present a threefold witness in the eyes of the persons it serves: a living witness to Christ and His values, a sacrament of Christ's continued presence among men, and a sign of hope that community, which is the only mode of existence proper to men, can be a reality?1 When one looks for a model to explain this use of "community," one tends toward the community of scholars or St. Paul's my.stical body model. Religious community is the union of equals through interpersonal relationships. Each individual gives some service to the group: the serv-ice of authority, of information, of support, and so forth. Further the community itself is situated in relation to other communities. Religious community is always seen as a microcosm of the larger community of the Church and as such the religious community has an intimate re-lation to the People of God (Church) and the world com-munity.~ 2 Distinction. in terminology. Hence forward this paper will speak of the general account of community as found in the 1949 paradigm as "community1" and that in the 1969 paradigm as "community2". At present few religious make such an explicit distinc-tion. A single term, "community," is used for both mean-ings, although some religious are beginning to say that although both are called "community" only the 1969 paradigm expresses real community. Toward a Definition of "Community2" The term. In analyzing the common use of "community,;', one finds a distinction clearly made be-tween "having community2" and "being a community,". The latter is a wider term which necessarily includes the former. 10Sisters of the Third Order of St. Dominic of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Religious Lile: Lived Reality (Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1969), p. 4. n Ibid., p. 10. ~ Yves M. J. Congar, o.P., "The Theology of Religious Women," REv~w for RELIGIOUS, V. 19 (1960), p. 26. ÷ ÷ ÷ " ommunity" VOLUME 29, 1970 859 ÷ + + Kathryn Linde. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Having community,". The instances in which the term "having community2" is clearly applied reveal three nec-essary elements: a group of persons, united in sharing "goods," and either a resulting witness to Christian values or personal growth of some members. First, intuitions may indicate the last (witness or growth) as non-necessary, but when one discusses specific examples with members of religious congregations, one finds a hesitancy to apply "community2" to anything lack-ing a result in witness or personal growth. Confronted by an example exhibiting the first two characteristics of (1) a group and (2) sharing goods, which lacks, however, the third characteristic of witness or growth, members tend to say: "Maybe the witness or growth was really there but you didn't notice it"; or: "If there was no witness or growth you only thought you had community, but you really didn't." Hence this third characteristic is included as a necessary element for "having community2",is In pressing for precision, one finds that each of these characteristics is a term with its own range or extension: I. group of persons--extends to all persons united in groups, ranging from the smallest group of three to the largdst number so designatable. 2. sharing goods--extends to all goods, both internal and external, which can be shared by humans. In the context of "having community2" at least one internal good must be present, but any number of additional internal or external goods may be present also. 3. witness or personal growth extends to (1) all witness to Christian values and (2) all growth in personal maturity. "Having community2" is the term applied to the event which occurs when all three of these characteristics inter-sect. More formally. One may say that "x has community," if and only if: x is a group of persons; and there exists at least one y such that y is an internal good and x shares y; and either x gives witness to Christian values, or there is at least one z such that z is a member of the group's union in sharing and z grows in maturity as a result of this mem-bership. "Being a community2". When one examines the use of "being a community2" by religious, several crucial cases reveal themselves: 1. If a group "has community.o" frequently for several 18One is struck by the difficulty of making empirical observa-tions of personal growth or witness to othe,~. Yet this is how the term is used by religious. This study proposes to describe, to cite extension of terms, not to evaluate them as "true to reality," "false to reality," and so forth. weeks but then illness or work prohibits this "hav-ing community2" for awhile, no one denies the .group still is a community. All consider the non-hav-ang of community as a temporary condition which does not destroy the being-a-communi.ty of the group. On the othei: hand, all agree that an absence of "having community2" continued for a long enough period, would negate the gr9up's being a community. 2. If a group lives together for some time but shares little more than their domicile, no one designates them as "being a community2". 3. Groups experiencing two or three instances of in-tense "having-community2" are assigned a status of "being a community2" equivalent to other groups which have eight or nine experiences of community on a much lower level of intensity. To preserve these designations of being a community, this researcher proposes a function, C: frequency of having community X intensity of having communityt4 the total duration (or proposed duration) of the group All items having a C result of at least 0.3 are described as "being a community2". They fall in the extension of the tenn. Thus one can replace the externally vague term "being a community2" with the clearly defined one of "any x, where x is an item having a C function of at least 0.3." Some criticisms o[ the above analysis. There is much lacking in this whole analysis. This lack extends both to the theological and to the empirical dimensions of the discussion. First, theological aspects, for example, the cen-trality of Christ in community, are not explored in this rather philosophical approach. Yet these aspects are most important parts of the notion of community. Second, em-pirical aspects are incomplete. The method of finding the intensity of community noted in footnote 14 is inade-quate. Also, there have been no empirical studies to jus-tify, for example, the choice of 0.3 as the limit for "being a community2". Indeed, there is a lack of precise data for much of this discussion. The Task Remaining ÷+ American religious need to continue to explore this + notion of "community." They need to listen carefully to 1, The intensity of community is a function obtained by assign-ing positive integers to the elements contained in the range of each characteristic necessary for "having community.". The product of these integers indicates the level of intensity of "having com-munity.'. VOLUME 29, 1970 841 what others are saying about community and to note exactly where their statements agree and where they dif-fer. And when they find that they differ, religious need to be willing to continue the discussion. They need to find the reason for the differences. Sometimes it will be a false difference caused by incomplete communication of mean-ing. in other cases there may be a real difference. When religious reach the point of finding the exact differences, they are then keady to begin the honest dialogue common to every discipline which is alive and healthy. Out of such dialogue can come a truer understanding of '~com-munity" and perhaps a revitalization of their communal living. Perhaps, too, such dialogue will result in the reali-zation that although "community1" and "community2" have appeared as opposing theories, they are not antitheti-cal notions. They describe two different aspects of the same phenomenon. The above is an ambitious plan for religious. It is also difficult. Yet real analysis, the foe of polemic, is not only difficult it is very necessary. Emotivity makes poor theo-retic justification, and no theory can claim reasoned alle-giance if its advocates are not willing to utilize the pro-cessses of reason. Kathryn Lind¢- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS RICHARD M. McKEON, S.J. Retirement Policy for Religious With an increasing number of people enjoying a longer span of life many religious should be alert to the fact that they too will hit the retiring age before they realize it. Yes, retirement for older religious is finally being recognized formally. To many retirement will come as a shock. They will think that they have reached tlae end of the line and that they will drift rapidly into the hereafter. It is time that all religious orders wake up to this new problem. They must have programs to acquaint their older members with all facets of what retirement means. In this respect a great deal can be learned from the world of industry where programs have been in effect for many years. Later we shall discuss some of these and try to apply their wisdom to our older religious. Superiors who are formulating programs must face this issue squarely. Why should the accumulated experience and developed talent be lost to apostolic endeavors merely because a certain age for retirement is at hand? Here is capital which should be yielding dividends. If older religious are forced to coast along waiting for Ga-briel's horn to summon them to give an account of their stewardship, that accounting will be harder to make. Time has value. Time lost is never regained: "Some secrets of the well-rounded retired life are these: make the most of what you have; wherever you are, go with your whole heart; keep your eye on what's coming up, not on what's slipping by; play your role with comeliness; do not let the minutes rust away" (Bank of Canada Monthly Letter, December 1967). It is presumed after long years in religion one has a true sense of values. Before retirement each one should assess his own possibilities and plan to achieve new goals. Many opportunities will arise to afford an active life within one's mental and physical condition. What do older religious in good health want? They Richard McKeon, S.J., teaches at Le Moyne College; Syr-acuse, N.Y. 13214. VOLUME 29, 1970 8~5 ÷ R. M. McKeon; Sd. REVIEW FOR REI~?IOU~S want to remain active and to do good as long as possible; to utilize their special talents; to receive the same respect they commanded in middle age. Rightfully they expect the functional policies and the traditions of religious life to be practiced in their regard. The older religious must be convinced of being heart-edly in earnest in what he can still do. Discouragement and difficulties will be challenges. He must have a firm resolve to carry on. If he has a reputation for special gifts, rightly may he expect others to approach him. To quote the Talmud: "If you see a man of understanding, get you betimes to him, and let your foot wear out the steps of his door." At least once a year, usually during retreat, he should make an honest appraisal of himself: "How is my health? Have I checked with a doctor? Have I reviewed my work of the past year to see what I have done well? What mistakes .have been made? What are my plans for the coming year? Have I determined to keep my mind alert, to keep feeding my mind by study so as to contribute to my up-to-dateness and the germination of ideas?" Richard Butler, O.P., warns: "Those approaching old age should prepare themselves for the trial ahead by strengthening their faith, patching up the holes in their characters, stiffening their self-reliance, developing new and sustaining interests, discovering orientations of ac-tivity that will endure and will provide some amount of satisfaction for them" (America, November 19, 1966). Good ideas can be picked up from ordinary literature on retirement. For men and women who have been highly educated and employed in apostolic work it would be better to study what is going on in the field of indus-try and business. Special research studies on retirement have been made at the California Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago. The Caltech report suggests "a model program and a variety of ways in which it can be adapted to different company situa-tions." These studies are recommended to religious orders which are preparing programs. A digest of the program at Esso will afford some help-ful suggestions. First, changes in life expectancy are ex-plained. Then it tells how millions in the over 65 age group are non-productive but still consumers. In a word, when a worker retires, he is no longer productive to the country, profitable to the company, and useful to himself. Compulsory retirement is explained together with the benefits offered through social security and pensions. But more accent is placed on the sociological problem--how the retiree can be active, fruitful, and constructive. Esso offers help and counsel to each worker to think through his new situation. The company "feels that retirement is something earned by faithful service, a form of 'graduation' into a new phase of life rather than a 'casting out' process. Re-tirement should be the opportunity for the employee to enjoy the fruits of his labors in freedom, leisure and relaxation as well as an opportunity to serve himself, his family and his community in ways not open to him dur-ing his working career." A year before the set date group discussions are held covering topics such as health, planning for the future, what has been done, and so on. Plenty of appropriate literature is available. Each prospective retiree is pre-sented with a copy of How to Retire and Enjoy It by Ray Giles (McGraw-Hill). The Wall Street Journal frequently publishes articles on how retired executives keep busy, Their prime motiva-tion is not to make money for themselves, but to help others in trouble. Although some go into real estate and others start small businesses, many of the best become consultants as a challenging occupation. They form com-panies to give their specialized skills to small firms which need professional advice. The Mohawk Development Service of Schenectady, New York, has an excellent record of over twenty-five years. It is composed of former General Electric Company executives who have pooled their talent and experience. At Wilmington, Delaware, a similar group of Du Pont managers is engaged in a variety of projects. Charles H. Kellstadt retired as chairman of Sears, Roe-buck in 1962. At 72 in 1970 he is chairman and president of the General Development Corporation, one of Flori-da's largest land companies. He took over when things were in very bad shape. Today the corporation is most prosperous. His goal is to do a $250-million business a year. Religious orders should become a, cquainted with the International Executive Service Corps. Here is a magnifi-cent contribution which American executives are making in helping developing nations to help themselves. Its work should inspire qualified older religious to do some-thing similar to aid the foreign missions. The ISEC is a non-profit organization with headquar-ters in New York. It sends seasoned executives to counsel companies in the poorer lands. There is no salary but travel and living expenses are assured. Within the past five years a total of 1244 projects have been successfully completed in 45 countries. Optimism and the challenge of difficult problems have ÷ ÷ ÷ R. M. McKeon, $.l. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 846 given these men a new interest in life. They work with the native managers, not over them. Their know-how is eagerly sought. Using tact and patience they guide local managers to realize their own great potential Helping others to help themselves, who in turn will help thou-sands more, is certainly a high type of social action. Sylvia Porter in her column for December 16, 1969 paid tribute to the IESC and then put the question which might be put to older religious: "Why couldn't the con-cept be brought back home so that men and women in this age bracket work as volunteers in the ghetto and rural poverty areas of our own land?'" Our religious could make a great contribution here. "Life is only exciting when you are contributing in the mainstream." Keeping in mind what retired executives have done, let us make application to religious. First of all, those who have been superiors for a long time are still human. With a fair record of successful management, there is danger that many will regard themselves as indispensable. Every undertaker will contradict this statement. They have bur-ied too many. But to former superiors retirement does come as a shock. In industry it is maintained that compulsory retire-ment is the only way to clear out executive deadwood. Many of us know that it is a very touchy to mention possible retirement to an old superior: "Top manage-ment generally considers the subject as unmentionable as bereavement." Older religious might take a hint from the remark of a wise judge: "Retirement implies at least part of the motive power must originate in the person whose status is to be changed. Children are put to bed---adults retire." They should also remember that once the tension of their past job is over, arteriosclerosis might hit them with a stroke. Older religious should find comfort of mind if they have done their work faithfully in the past. As the time for retirement approaches, there should be no real repug-nance in letting quaIified younger people take over. If those in authority had signaled out men with executive ability and given them opportunity for training, there would be less trouble. Let us be blunt. Formerly, older people were respected, their advice was sought for, younger folk delighted to learn of their experiences. No longer in positions of au-thority, they soon find they are being ignored. Take a retiree who is removed from apostolic action which domi-nated his past life. Now assign him to a house for retirees as has been suggested. His health is still good. His mind is alert. But there is nothing to challenge it. He begins to feel unwanted, morose, and he gradually loses interest in things with which he was formerly associated. In such a state of mind death is bound to come more rapidly. In many universities and colleges religious teachers must retire when they reach the same age as set for lay teachers. Without a proper program they may be placed in isolation, as just noted, with no demand for their services. Edward F. Heenan, S.J., has written that many religious groups "have been increasingly enticed to adopt the bureaucratic business model in an effort to more effectively operationalize their goals." Retirement need not mean the end of the road. It should be accepted as a challenge. It means an awareness of the personal ability of the religious to perform, to continue .productively, and to make older life worth the living for one's self and others. Longfellow has put this Challenge attractively: For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And, as the evening twilight fades away, The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. In the past a religious, like any other active person, got recognition and identity for the work he was doing. He could possess a just pride in his accomplishments. By the same token, when he does special work as a retiree, he should receive due praise. Many religious are truly hum-ble. Nevertheless all men appreciate recognition for any job well done. It does boost morale. On the other hand, there is the problem of rejection. To feel rejected, especially by those with whom one was closely associated, often causes a heavy strain on the nerves. It can easily make an older religious irritable and upset his health. We maintain it is a fatal mistake to put a healthy, older religious in a home for retirees. It will depress him. With nothing to challenge a once busy person he will rapidly decline in health, mental and physical. For example, if a religious has been at a college for the past ten or more years before retirement age, then we hold there is really a moral obligation to keep him as a member of the community as long as his health holds up. Why? Because to separate him from the familiar atmos-phere where he knows his fellow religious and they know him, from his friends on the faculty and from people in the local community would be dreadful in its conse-quences. It is here that he can continue to do more good than elsewhere: "Familiar things and places are priceless as we grow older--make no mistake about that." Dr. Edmund V. Cowdry, Washington University, St. Louis, an authority on gerontology, states: "More impor-tant than any other single factor is the old person's need Retirement VOLUME 29, 1970 for a community of interests. Nature seems to have or-dained that those who abdicate from life socially will soon abdicate from life physically." Where should there be a better community of interests than in the house where the religious has been living for years? Father Heenan remarks: "The closer the community approaches the communal idea of integrating and providing for the needs of every member, the more successful the aging process." A bureaucracy might be more efficient but it would tend to depersonalize and estrange the members. A mature religious should know that leisure for pleas-ure's sake alone will not bring happiness. But there is that approved pleasure which comes from doing good to others, especially the less fortunate. Instead of the deceits of idleness there can be a modified form of asceticism. There can be early rising with sincere attention to reli-gious duties. Planning for and being prudently busy with the needs of others will improve health. Two qualities will help the retirees: "They do enthusiastically .what-ever they are doing, and they get deepdown joy out of very simple things." Accordingly it is very foolish to think that retirement means the cessation of activities and merely a vegetating process. Retirement should be dynamic. One must beware of tyrannical trifles which can enslave. Too much televi-sion with its many insipid programs can mark a mental decline. In the 1955 Governor's Conference on the Aging in New York it was held that "religion is the key to a happy old age because man is essentially a spiritual and social bbing. The aged turn to religion even if they have been lax in their youth." What, then, Of men and women dedicated to God, who now have the time and conveni-ence to make up for past neglect because of distraction in the workingday world? There can be a renewal of spirit-ual life and a practice of reparation to gain grace to face bravely the reality of their new status. Since Vatican Council II changes in training have been made to meet the needs of younger religious. They have been very frank about what they need to be effective in a challenging new world. By the same token, older reli-gious should be outspoken in presenting their needs and claims. That is why at the young age of seventy-three I am writing this defense. R. M. McKeon, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELI{;IOUS 848 SISTER DOROTHY COONS, B.V.M. Life Style Study: Convent Li g This study of the pattern of religious living as it is carried out in the various convents of the Sisters of Char-ity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was undertaken as a part of a series of such studies of modern religious living that have been made in the past five years (see l~vmw for I~LIG~OUS, March 1970). The instrument used was constructed by Sister Cather-ine Leonard with the help of the other members of the Commission on Experimentation and Research, espe-cially Sister Helen Thompson and Sister Mary Kenneth Keller. The latter was responsible for processing the data on the computer. Questions Examined Four major questions gave direction to this study: To what extent do the sisters living in the traditional con-vent life style feel that this is providing them with necessary support in community living? What are the topics of concern in these convents? ¯ To what extent is there satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the life style, and what changes would be desirable in the cases where there is dissatisfaction? What are some of the general characteristics of the local communities in the areas of common liturgical experiences, in living arrangements, and in financial arrangements? Group Studied The questionnaires were sent to approximately 1800 sisters living in 153 convents. Those living in apartments and the patients in Marian Hall were not included. A total of almost 1300 sisters from 151 convents responded. According to the number of years in the congregation, the respondents fell into the following categories: ÷ Sister Dorothy Coom, BN.M., is chairman of [BVM] Commission on Ex-perimentation and Research at Clarke College; Dubuque, Iowa 52001. VOLUME 29, 1970' 849 Years in the Congregstion Number Percent 0-4 23 1.7 6.6 10-19 953 19.6 20-29 231 17.9 30-39 273 21.2 Over 40 415 32.1 $i~t~r D~rothy REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 850 This distribution is similar to that of the entire congre-gation with the exception of the oldest group who num-ber approximately 42% of the total. To a lesser degree the groups in the 5-10+ years differ from the general distri-bution because it is in these age groups that most of those living in apartments fall. In 49 of the 151 houses 100% of the sisters living there responded; 136 houses sent responses from more than half of the sisters; 15 houses were represented by less than half; and two did not return any of the questionnaires. Support in Community Provided by Convent Life Style Certain items on the questionnaire were included to bring out the general characteristics of "community," es-pecially those which provide mutual support for those living together. These questions and the results for both the congregation as a whole and when subdivided accord-ing to years in the congregation are given in Table I. While there are differences in the percentage responses to the positive questions, on the whole they are clearly above the 50% levels, ranging from 91.3% agreement with "Sisters seem concerned for one another" to 73.9% agreement with "Sisters like to be together" and "Com-munication among the sisters in our house is good." There is a similar picture shown by the disagreement with such negative items as "Money is a source of ten-sion" and "Communi.ty life suffers because the sisters are out doing other things." There is a surprising degree of agreement on the items that reflect a supportive atmos-phere among the various age groups. Figure 1, for exam-ple, shows that there is a high degree of agreement among all age categories on the item, "Communication is good," and that the disagreement is slightly higher among those in the 5-9 and 10-19 year group. There is also a slightly higher rate of disagreement on the part of the sisters in the 5-9 years in the congregation on the item: "Sisters plan together or in groups things that the whole house will enjoy," as shown in Figure 2. On the other hand, one of the most significant items, "Sisters in the house seem concerned for one another," shows fairly uniform agree-ment and disagreement in all age groups. See Figure 3. On a somewhat similar item: "Sisters like to be together," the pattern of responses is different. See Figure 4. + + + % 100 75 50 25 0 [] Agree [] Disagree O- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Figure 1. Communication is Eood. % 100 75 5O 25 O, 0- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Figure 2. Sisters plan to-gether. % lOO 75 50 25 o 0- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Figure 3. Sisters seem con-cerned for one another. % lOOI 75 5O 25 0- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Figure 4. Sisters like to be together. + + + Sister Dorothy REVIEW.FOR RELIGIOUS 852 The two items that would ideally be answered by disa-greement, "Money is a source of tension," and "Commun-ity life suffers because the sisters are out so often doing other.things," showed unexpected results. The similarity of the results for both agreement and disagreement as shown in Figure 5 suggests that, at least among those responding to the questionnaire, money is not the prob-lem that it is generally thought to be. Figure 6 shows a higher percentage of agreement on the item, "Commun-ity life suffers because the sisters are out so often doing other things," among the older age groups. While this might have been expected, the actual difference is not as great as could have been predicted. Topics of Concern It was hoped that areas of concern could be identified by the items that are frequently topics of discussion. These were found to cover the whole range of those sug-gested, with the following results according to frequency: % 100 75 5O 25 0 % 1 O0I 75' O- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over O- 5- 10- 20- 30- Over 4 9 19 29 39 40 4 9 19 29 39 40 Years in the Community Years in the Community Figure 5. Money is a source of tension. Figure 6. Community life suffers because sisters are out so often doing other things. religious life (72%), world news (68%), house problems (68%), the Church (67%), problems of the larger BVM congregation (67%), students and their families (57%), peace and war (56%), and U.S. political issues (53%). Others were indicated as being topics of discussion by fewer than half of the respondents, with hair and clothes being in lower positions than the items of general con-cern in the world, in the country, and in the congrega-tion. Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction The question, "Given your preference, and the absence of any practical consideration that would require other-wise, would you continue to live next year under the same life style," was answered "Yes" by 947 sisters (73%) and "No" by 259 or 20%. Those who answered "No" were asked to check the form of living that they would prefer and the item most often checked was "More regu-lar daily schedule of prayer and house activity." This preference was indicated by. 138 or 10.7% of those an-swering, while the second highest condition checked was "With persons who are more congenial." The results of this section of the questionnaire were broken down in a comparison with the items that were thought to reflect "community" and the results seemed somewhat indefinite. In general, those who would prefer to remain in the same life style had higher "Agree" scores on the positive items and lower "Disagree" scores on those that were negative, and the opposite was true of those who wished to change life styles. For example, on the question, "Communication among the sisters is good," of those who would remain in the same life style, 77% agreed to the statement and 12% disagreed, while among those who would change to another life style 36% -I. + + VOLUME 29, 1970 853 ÷ .÷ ÷ Sister Dorothy REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 854 agreed to the statement and 54% disagreed. There were similar combinations of "agreement" and "disagreement" in the breakdowns of this item with "The sisters often plan together or in groups things that the whole house will enjoy," "Sisters in the house seem concerned for one another," and "Sisters in the house seem ~o like to be together." It is not clear to what extent these differences provide explanations for the desire to change life styles. There may be other explanations not touched upon by tl~is study. Characteristics of Local Communities Part I of the instrument was completed by the Com-munity Representative in each of the convents. No pat-tern of common prayer and liturgical experiences emerged. This might be due to the large number of un-answered items and to uncertainty in interpreting them. The most frequently checked item was "Celebration of the Eucharist" but the range of responses suggests that there were different interpretations to the question; for example, 25 Community Representatives checked "Sel-dom or never." This seems to indicate that there was uncertainty about whether it meant convent chapel or parish church, fora response of 100% daily celebration the Eucharist might have been expected. The rosary is still recited daily in 48 houses with an indication in 24 of them that most of the sisters attend. Vespers is said daily in 43 houses with 23 reporting that most attend. The changing pattern of prayer in the congregation is shown in Table II. Responses on the items concerning financial arrange-ments show the greatest possible variation in meeting most of the ordinary expenses. The sources include com-mon funds, personal stipend, parish, and school, and there were few items that did not fall into each of these. See Table III for items that are included, for the most part, in the three most general categories. Discussion--Interpretative Summary The study of the foregoing material and other details that were not included in the present report seem to provide a message of encouragement. It is evident that those who answered this questionnaire are, in large meas-ure, content in the convent living life style and that they feel their living situation provides them with the condi-tions for personal support that are necessary for Christian community living. A further reason for encouragement lies in the fact that, with few exceptions in the 5-19 year groups, there is no marked disagreement among the var-ious age groups in the congregation. Examination of the results of individual convents TABLE II Frequency and Attendance of Rosary and of Communal Prayer as Reported by Comraunity Representatives k,- Occ~-[Se)do=/ ~ost ~ ] Pew "__._~_~" ~ '_____~_~ s ionMl~y N eve_~_r A tten~ A tten~ 2tte2d Communal Prayerl~l~l~[~l~l~[- ~ TABLE III Methods of Meeting Ordinary Expenses as Shown by Responses of Community Representatives Common Fund Personal Stipend Both Common Fund and Personal Stipend Board/room Per capita Cook Mass stipends Gifts Insurance Spiritual reading books Household expenses Education Medical and dental Clothing Personal travel Entertainment Toll/long dis-tance telephone calls Non-prescription drugs Home visits Memberships/dues Refreshments other than meals Books other than spir-itual Carfare Use of car Professional travel showed great variation in tendencies toward general posi-tive and negative impressions. At this time, no definite score for rati