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Issue 6.4 of the Review for Religious, 1947. ; JULY i5, 1947 Theolocji~ns and Mary's Assumption ¯ ¯ . ¯ .', Cyril VOl_lerf "Thou Sl~alt T~e Duty of Open My Lips" " ~Richard L. Rooney Hearlncj Mass .¯ . ". . Gerald Kelly Silence. C.A. Herbsf The Will ÷o Perfection . Augustine Klaas Book Reviews Communications Questions Answered Decisions of the Holy See VOLUME Vl NUMBER REVIEW FOR,, REL! IOUS VOLUME Vl JULY, 1947 NUMBER 4 CONTENTS THE THEOLOGIAN AND MARY'S ASSUMPTION~Cyril Vollert, S.J.~ .1,93 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . ' 202 "THOU SHALT OPEN MY LIPS"mRichard L. Rooney, S.J . 203 BROTHERS' VOCATIONS . 206 CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS . , . 206 GENERAL ASPECTS~OF THE DUTY OF HEARING MASS-- Gerald Kelly, S.J. . .x, . 207 SILENCEmC. A.' HerbSt, S.2 . 217 COMMUNICATIONS .0. ! . 222 THE WILL TO PERFECTION--Augustine Klaas, S.J .227 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERSM " 16, "Tiny Particle" Falls on,Communicant, , .". . 239 17. Annual Vacation for Sisters . 239 18. Obligation of Superior and Subject when 'Change Seems Desirable ¯for Reasons of Conscience . : . 242 19.-Disposing of Amputated Limbs ' 247 20. Term of Office of Mother Superior .i. . - ., . 247 21. Informing Bishop of Confessor's Absence . 248 22. Application for Faculties for Retreat . 248 23. "Singular" or "Plural" in Prayers for Deceased Sister . 248 BOOK REVIEWS-- The Three Ages.of the Interior Life: Teresa, 2ohn, and Theresa: Reflec-tions on the Sunday Collects of the Roman Missal . 249 BOOK NOTICES . . 252 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE . 254 THE WORKS OF ST. JOHN EUDES . 255 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Jul'y, 1947. Vol. VI, No. 4. ~ublished bi-monthly: January, March. May, .~uly, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, .by St. Mary's College, St. Marys,Kansas, ~ith ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942; at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S~J. Editorial Secretary: Alfzed F. Schneider, S.J. , Copyright, 1947, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the autho£ Subscription~price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U; S. A, Before writing to us, please consult notice oh Inside back cover. ¯ h oloc i n ary s:Assu .,- .,, ,- ~ 'o. ~ Cyril' Volleft, S:J. WHEN Christ °likened the kingdo~ of God to a graifi ~ o'f mustard, se~d -that eventually produces an. .~ ~mens~ tree, He was~undoubtedly foretelling the future,growthof ~His:.Church: The comparison, may algo serve to illhstrate the ever-increasing knowledge of divine revelation given to. the ~Church by Christ. Revelation,.as. Catholics well understand, came to an end with the death of the last apostle. But the rich treasure of divine truth was not fully grasped from,, the. beginning and is far. from being exhausti;cely~ comprehended today. This is the case espekially with those truths of faith that are not revealed in manifest terms but are couched obscurely in what is explicitly revealed~' With the aid of improved telescopes, astronomers are, constantly discovering "new" stars. The stars are not really new. They have been the~?e a long time. Only our knowledge ~of them is new,. In somewhat the sarfle~ way, ~';new~.- ~ truths' Of revelation: are proposed for belief'from time to time. SuCh truths ar~ not new: in. themselves;, they are only ne~ .to us. ~,They haYe been present in the deposit of ~evelation right aldrig; ~btit ,we get ¢o know some~ of them ofily by degrees as a, restilt, of theological' investigati6n~carried on ~for fnafiy ~centu~ries under the. guidance.of .the Holy Spirit, ~who ~i~ gradually leading 'the Church to ~ fuller understanding. of ~God's truth.,'., ', ¢ . oo~ ¯ ',- ,~,,'°° '~ That a truth may be believed with divifie faith; it need not, have alwa)is beefi,recogniked ,as distinctly revealed. striking iffstante: is .the Immaculate Conception,,,~ which iS CYRIL VOLLERT Review for Religious not expressly attested by ancient tradition and was not kriown:tb,be~ia re~e~led,:i~th until fairly modern tim~s. It was only ~n 1854 that Pius IX, exercising his full teaching authority, declared by an mfalhble, ex catbedra definition th~it thd do~trin~ of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception was revealed by God and that all the faithful must believe it. A' similak event may take place in our own day with regard to Ma~y's Assumption into heaven. Several dear signs point to this. One of them is the~ublication, in 1942, of a mammoth, two-voIume work, Petitiones de Assurnp-tione corporea B. ~. Mariae in coetum delinienda ad Sanc-tam Sedern delatae, by W. Hentrich and R. de Moos, S.J. These two scholars have brought~together and classified the hundieds of° thousands of petitions addressed to the Holy See sinc~ the time of thk Vatican ~Council all begging the Supreme ~Pontiff, to define that the doctrineof the Asstimp-tion. is a dogma of faith'. ~ Without°a very:speci~aI authoriza~ tion the compilers dould not haf, ehad a~c'ess to, the archives iSf the Holy'Office, where most of the documents they pub~ lish are eserved. .' ,; ~,o~ : .~,~ o~, o,~, . ~ Even more~sigfiifica~nt,is ~the~ letter Pope Pius XI,I.has written~'to~all the:,,bisholS~:~of the world~ inviting them~to send to, the~Holy,~See their ,view, si, and those of~,the fait~bful of~ their,~i:lioceses, regardinl~ the, ,Blessed .Virgin(s ~Assump~ tioh. The P6pe wishes~to-khow whether in the opinion, of the~bishops,the:.d0ctrine is capable of~ ,being~,~declared an article ~;of faith and whether~ such a ~,pronouncemei~t is desirdd.,~ E~cide'ntly:~the Holy Fatherc~aas t~ken: the, matter to heart ,a~d is serioi~sly enqisaging a~dogmatic'definitiori of this privilege of Mary's. Pius IX had acted in a similar way before-defiiaiiig the oImma~ulat~ ConcCption. :, ,, ~ " In2such, cases ,,bishops, who, are~ the~ 6fti~ial., teacheks'~of ~hti~t;s: truth~in,~o,their.6wn~odi6cese~s, 6rdinarily c6nlult :,194 .dul~l, 19'47 ~ MARY'S ASSUMP~ION theologians before gi~qr~g an. answer.° ~'The ~Clfiu'rch~, bf course, is iiifMlible v~hen it~ proclaims that i~,~'doctrine '~is an article of fairlY. But infallibility, though it is a'g.uar:inty of. preservat~on from error through ~h~ specia'l "fissistance Of the Holy Spirit',' ~is not a power of giving "f~rth new reve-lations. Therefore, when the question arises of'defining a truth.that may be'obscurely or implicitly revealed, l~ng ~nd careful study must precede to ascertain whether that-triath is actually ~ontained in the deposit of revelation. Is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin such a truth?° Was it revealed by God, at least implicitly, .so that it may be imposed by the Ch~arch for the belief of the~ faithful, although is yet it has not been thus imposed? If a bishop of a diocese, before answering the Holy Father's letter, were to request a theologian to conduct an investigation into this matter, how would 'the theologian proceed? Theologians vary in knowledge and ability and also in their study habits and modes of thinking. ~ But perhaps most of them would set about their inquiry in more or less the way that is out' lined in this article . To make the ~matter clear, let us 4magine a theologian who has .never had occasion to make a detailed .study of the Assumption in his teaching or writing. He, is not a specialist on this subject. He is, however, fully capable of investigating the problem and has access to an adequate library. Beqirmino the Investiqar~or~ The first thing to do, he d~cides, is to acquaint himself with the present state of the question in theological discus-sion. He has known since his childhood that the Assump-tion has some connection with the Catholic religion, for it., is ndmbered among*the mysteries of the Rosary and is cele-brated with more.than ord.inary liturgical ceremony, on the CYRIL VOLLERT Reoiew for Religious 15th of August, as a holy day of obligation. ~ But just what is the relation of Mary's Assumption to Catholic faith? An obvious way to begin the research is to consult some of the more recent theologicaI manuals or textbooks which the inquirer has in his library. These will indicate the sources of knowledge about the Assumption and will refer to important monographs and to major articles in periodicals. As soon as he starts looking into theological journals of the past several years he will discover a book that is hailed as the greatest work ever written on the Assumption, ,Martin Jugie's La mort et l'assomption de la sainte Viecge, published in 1944. He will find that this book lists nearly every item of testimony on the Assumption_ know to schol-arship. Every text from Sacred Scripture that might have some bearing on the question, every reference in the ancient Fathers of the Church, and many of the most important statements of the great theologians are reviewed and sub-ijected to criticism. With this volume as a guide, the inves-tigator may set to work. To avoid the danger of ov.erlooking some sources, a theologian .would utilize many of the other specialized studies, which abound in our day. Examples are. C. Balic, O~F.M., "De definibilitate assumptionis B. 'Virginis Mariae in caelum,"Antonianurn (1946), 3-67,and O. Faller, S.J., De priorum saeculorum silentio circa Assumptionem B. Mariae Virginis, Rome, 1946. A detail thfit would have to be present to the mind of the theologian inquiring into this doctrine concerns .the very meaning of the Assumption as understood by the Church. Ordinarily, Catholics take it for granted that Mary died, so as tb resemble her divine Son even in His death, and that shortly 'thereafter she whs raised from the dead by divine power and transferred, as a complete person with glorified 196 Jul~l, 1947 MARY'S ASSUMPTION body~dnd,sou~l, to the eternal ,beatitude of heaven. That this~rv, i~w is traditional, dating back at least ~to thUsixth century, cannot be doubted. Nevertheless *Jugie thinks that the question-of Mary's death~ is not established with certainty. ~rhat has to be affirmed; he says, is that, if Mary died,:h~r body was preserved from corruption and then was raised tO glorious life. The essential thing is her p~ivilege that goes under the name of Assumption, namely, her living presence ir~ heaven with body and Soul after her departure from this earth. Jugie does not assert that Mary did not die; but he declares that the'matter is doubtful and that the question of death is separable from the question of a'ssumpti~on. In ~other words, she may have been taken up to heaven, bodyand soul, without dying. He believes tha~ the Church could define the Assumption w~thout com-mitting itself on Mary's death. In h~s examination of sources, a theologian would have to watch for evidence on th~s point. Present Mind of the Church on the Assumption The results of the questionnaire sent by Plus XII to the bishops are not 'yet available. However the study ,of the petitionisk movement from 1869 to 1941 made by Fathers Hentrich and de Moos presents an imposing tabulation of views on Mary's Assumption Petitions favoring a dogmatic definition were sent in by 113 cardinals, by over 3,000 archbishops, bishops, and other prelates, by many theological faculties, by 32,000 priests and religious men, by 50,000 religious women, and by'over 8,000,000 of the laity. Most impressive is the number of petitions ~addressed to the Holy See by bishops. They ~epresent some 73 per cent of the dioceses of 'the world, and of these almost 97 per cent request the definition of the Assumption as an article of faith. 197 CYRIL VOLLERT " Re~ieto [or'Rellglo.u.~ .:r. The rfact~that s0me~2:7~.iper~ ~ent of the dig.ce~s~e~. ~re~!.~o~t ihclhded in these figur~s~do~s not mean that their b, iskdps d6 nbt favor the definitibh. ~e~must. remember that the bishops had'not been o~ially asked to submit their views: the petitions were Sent to Rome as a resul~ ofspon~ngo~ desires for the solemn .definition of the Assumption or in c0ns~quen~e of movements privately inaugurated. The .theologian who reflects on these petitions will be aware that they constitute a strong argument in favor of the tenet that the Assumption is a revealed truth. They show that the Church spread throughout the world firmly holds the doctrine; and the whole Church cannot err in matters pertaining to faith. ~The living .~presence of,~ the Blessed Virgin in heaven with gloried body and soul is not a truth that can be known by natural means; the only way it can come to our knowledge is thorough divine reve, lation. ~- Henc~ the ~Ch~rch must have, drawn, it:,f~o~ Sacred Scripture or from a perpetual tradition or frgm;;both these sou~es.~ ~ Witness of the _~i~urgg., ~,,~,., ~ ,.~ One.of the, most~tellin~ items of testimony to ,the, ex.istz ~nce of an~ ancient :tradition 0n the .Assumption is,:the fae~ "that it,has,.been solemnly; ~elebrat~d int~e~ Church ~0e m~n~ centuries. The beginning off,this .annual~cele~ration~,~canr not be.determined;,~,I~, t~e eighth cg~u~y~the !itu~gic~l fes- ;tival ~as" tefer~ed~t~ .by Saints ~obn .Damascene and :~Anz dre~ of Crete~s .ancient. Toward the end ~of~ the sixth Century- the Assumption,: under the~ name of the" Dormitio> ~e~th~ ','gbing to~sl~eff,''' of t~e ~,Blessed, Virgin, ~as assigned to~ Au~st~ 1.~5.th by~ ~a, decree" of, t~ Emp~ror,~Mauri~e~ for celebration, t~rougb6ut .the~ Byzantine Empire., ~ The e~z" peror~di~ not,~of; course, in~gurate~ the ~f~a~t~ but m~rely settled the day for its~obser~a~ce:. ~,~. ~.;. :~ ~,, : -~,~, ~. ~ ~,~ .i98 July. 19~ 7 . MARY'S ASSUMETION, - ~'~ A,?fragment ~of ~a S~riane,~b6~k, ~lating~.~fr&m,the ~fiftl~ ¢@ntur¥;,~)n~,the trar2si~.or transferenc~ of Our I~ad¥ from earth to heaven clearly supposes belief in the.Assumpti6n, of th~Ble~sed:,Virg~n into .heaven with;bodyi~and soul~ 'fol-lo~ vmg-her death. Several other'references to a liturgical ~elebratic~n'~of the '~'M@mory-of the~ Blessed Virgin," apparen'~ly~ commen~orating her death°~nd resurrect~on~ may carry down into the end of the fourth°century. How.-~ ev~r,~scholafs are not iri" complete agreement on theib inter~ pretation. At any rate, .the liturgical celebration of the Assump- .tion, which beg~n !n the ~East, soon made~ its way into Gaul and Spain, and in ~50 was introduced ifi Rome. The Testimony of Tradition The theologian who undertal~es t.o study the sources of our knowledge concernin.g Mary's Assumption, will have to devote most of his time and gnergies to. a direct examina-tion., of tradition. At the end of,his lengthy researches" he will find that his conclusions may:be s.ummarized some .w.hat as follows, During the earliest ages, up to about the fifth century, definite references to,the Assumption are rare. The truth is .hidden and awaits the theological .~enetratiOn of future generations f0r-its 0unfol4ing.~ t~eginning with the sixth century explicit statements a.ppear; by the following century the Assumption is attested throughout the East and the West, The great Fathers. and .theologians _of this period, such as St. Germain of Constantinople, St. Andrew~ of Crete, and St. John Damasdene, a~rm the.Assump.tion serenely and'without,hesitation or extenuation. Th~ way they express themselves shows that they are not deffending a thesis opposed by adversaries but are discoursing on a truth admittedby all their hearers and. readers. The eminent Scholastics~ of the Middle Ages, St. Bernard, ~199 CYRIL VOLLERT Reolew for Relig[ou~ St.:i~lbert.the.Great, St. Thomas, St. Bonaver~ture,.'Scotus, and others teach ~the doctrine of the.Assumption with absolute confidence. From the sixteenth century on, the fact of the. Assump-tion is universally held; theologians are concerned only with the question of determining its degree of certitude and its connection with revelation. Finally, during the nine-teenth and twentieth centuries, the conviction has gained ground that the Assumption is actually a revealed truth capable of being defined as an article of faith. The silence of the early centuries is not nearly as deep as was forrfierly thought. Recent studies, especially that of Fa!ler, have brought out the full meaning of declarations made by two fourth-century writers, Timothy, a priest of Jerusalem, and St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. Moreover, that silence is not extraordinary but is rather to be expected; the theolqgical writings of the early Fathers were almost wholly "devoted to explaining and d~fending the truths~of the Trinity and of-the God-man in an.environment.of heretical 'attack. -Inquirg into:Scripture . After Christ's Ascension into heaven, Scripl~ure relates ¯ that His Mother, the apostles, and~isome of the holy ~c~men were present in an upper room "persevering with bne mind in prayer" (Acts 1.: 13 f.). The New Testament gives us no information about Mary's remaining years on earth or her death, and tells us nothing directly' of her Assumption. ' " ~" ~ Nevertheless, we. may not asse'rt outright th~it the Bible is Silent about the Assumption. Most theologians and scripture,scholars see a solid theological argument in the woids spoken by God to the devil in Genesis 3 : 15 : " I will put enmities between thee and the woman,, and thy seed hnd 200 July, 1947 MARY'S ASSUMPTION her seed;, she shall crush thy head." According to the tra-ditional interpretation of this text, Mary, who is at least typified by the "woman" if she is not directly meant, is associated with Christ in His victory over Satan. Since Christ's victory includes His triumph over death, Mary's identical victory must include a similar conquest of death. Christ died, rose from the tomb, and ascended gloriously into heaven; the parallel between the Savior and His Mother requires a like climax to her earthly life. Furthermore the Blessed Virgin, who was "full of grace" and "blessed among women," was exempt from the universal law of original sin and escaped the doom decreed against Eve and her daughters in Genesis 3:16 about the pains of childbirth. The inference suggests itself that Mary was likewise exempt from the dread punishment: "Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return." That is, although Mary was apparently to die so as to be conformed to her divine Son in His death, she was never to be sub-jected to the corruption of the grave. Thus Mary's Assumption would crown her other privileges, which are definitely dogmas of faith: her divine maternity, her immaculate conception, and her perpetual virginity. This last, especially, seems to indicate God's will that she should forever be preserved from bodily cor-ruption of any sort. As the insight which theologians gradually gain into the truths of revelation becomes keener, . they are seeing more and more clearly that the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin may well be implicitly contained in those, three glorious dogmas. Conclusion When the investigator eventually reaches the ~nd of his prolonged researches, he will ma.rvel at the d~velopment of the doctrine of the Assumption--a development not of 20i CYRIL VOLLERT the truth ~tsdf but of the understanding of the truth. The general outline sketched in this article, confined as it is to generalities imposed by brevity, can give no hint of the cumulative effect of the detailed evidence amassed century after century. Moreover, no theologian has ever denied the Assumption. A few minor voices have occasionally been raised in doubt; but though they are off key, they are too feeble to mar the splendid symphony of universal tradition. At the time of the Vatican Council, some two hundred of the attending bishops and theologians signed a docu-ment which, in part, was phrased as follows: Most ancient and constant is the conviction 9f the pastor.s and faithful of the Church in the East ~nd the West concerning the bodily Assumption of God's Mother. This fact, that a person's body is alive in heaven prior to the final day of judgment, cannot be perceived by the senses or be attested by human authority . Unless, therefore, the tenacious faith of the Church re~gaiding the bodily Assumption: of ~the Blessed Virgin Mary is to be dismissed as unfounded credulity--the very thought is impious--we must un-questionably hold, with utmost firmness, thai it derives from divine-apostolic tradition, that is, from rdvelation. In the seventy-five years that have elapsed Siiace this i~mphatic declaration, the persuasion of the Church's ~eachers and taught has been. grgwing steadily stronger. If bur ~theologian r~orts to his bishop that, in his view, the dbctrine of the 'Assumption is ripe for defifiition as an article of faith, his vote will accord with the verdict already turned in by a vast majority. OUR CONTRIBUTORS RICHARD L. ROONEY is Editor of Queen's Work publications. C. A. HERBST, ~UGUSTINE KLAA$, GERALD KELLY, and CYRIL VOLLERT are members of the FacultF of St. Maryrs College, St, Marys0 Kansas. ~ 202 -=nou Shalt: Open. My LIpS,,,"~ °" ~ ~° Richard L.~Rooney, "]"HE Aperi having been said,arid the Our Father, Hail /1: " MarY, and C~eed h~ving0 been devouilypra ed, the ~ Divine'Office again picks Up the ideas of that .intro-ductory prfiyer.~ There we. petitioned~' now we state con'- fidehtly: Thou shatt open m~/ lips; OLbrd, And m~/ mouth shall annou'nc~ Th~/ praiset. Because it is so contrary t~; our own Us~al etti£ient~;~ ind~ependent American way of thinking and doing even in our prayer life, it is well. for us to recall again a basic idea of the Aperi. We cannot, remember, so much as think of thinking to pray unless.God gives.us the initial impulse to call on His name. We cannot so much as open these lips of ours, so.busy, with their worldly speaking, so slow to pray; unless God Himself opefis them for us. It is amazing that. we forget so easily how utterly, helpless we are~ in ~the realm of God and grace if we are left to' ourselves. On thd other hand, I wonder if we ever pause to think how eager, God toopen ,our lips that.,He ,may hear them. hymning His praises. . ~ ~ . If we realized the first of these facts, we. would utter often the verses we are considering here.~ We would not rush into prayer without preparing our souls. If we rea!iz3d,the .second, we would be alert at all times and in all places to God's impulses to pray, to lift our. minds a~nd hearts in canticles of.praise of Him. How well w~,,wguld d~on tthoe m weamy otori Mzea t~hse~sse, bveefrosre.se! ~Hoourw.: ~wreegllu w!aer" c soeut lpdr au.syee ~thrse,m ~alking ,or riding, or whiling the tim~eo.away waiting for a 203 RICHARD L. ROONEY Rev~eu~ [oroReligious bus, or in a doctor's office, or before dropping off to sleep! We co~Id'~profitably'make them the'object of our moments, of mental prayer also. Pondering over them slowly, we might reflect as follows:° "Thou, 0 Lord" God is the Lord and Master of all things. He brought them all out of nothingness. It is He who has given me these lips, and He wh6 must give me the power to open them. in His praise. He is my God; and of Him I can state this simple, tremendous fact: that He will open my lips, will give me the .grace to spiak t,o Him, will prompt me to speak about.Him, will allow me to hymn His praises. Hence I say, "Thou shalt" open my llps" He will open these lips from which so many millions of words have come, these lips which have been worldly, pro-fane, unkind, ~untruthful, mean, sullied.° He will open these lips that have uttered so much nonsense, from which bare tumbled so many idle words---:qips that were given me for praising Him, but which have been so often used to~sin' against Him. These are the lips which now at last He, is going to open and to make fulfill their d~stiny: the praise of Himself. ¯ ,, What joy is mine--that for this time of prayer at least, my lips will be healed, cleansed, and set to work to do the most, ~the best they can do, .They will be busy, not with vanity, but with God. "And my mou+h shall announce Thy praise" When I open my mouth it is likely togive out anything but the praise of God. From it issue forth bits of news, pfoclamfitions of self-praise, my more-than-half-share of c6nversations about all sorts of things, long and stupid tirades, long and often ~stupid lectures aad advi~e. "Forbid-den words come out,~ too: vulgar, worldly, idle, harsh, 204 July, 1947 "THOU SHALT OPEN MY LIPS" discouraging, sarcastic words. Charity is killed; characters are torn~ Help and harm,, all heedlessly-~'intermingled,.c0me pouring out. ~ But when God opens my lips, my tongue will speak as He would.have it; my tongue will speak His praise~' my tongue~ will speak His praise even as did the tongues of Moses, of David, of the prophets; my tongue will speak today as it will speak in heaven announcing, singing, crying out, that God and men may hear the praise, i'n~ praise, of the Most High God! When I ~raise a good man sincerely, my tongue is at its best use on a human level. When I praise the good God, my tongue is being used at its best on a divinely hum,an plane. How seldom my mouth announces any praise, save of myself. I speak of others, either not at all or with cold indifference, bitter criticism, mild interest, jealousy. Now and again, if it serves rn~/ interest,'I praise another. Less often still do I praise God without any trace of selfishness. I ~speak to Him or of Him in tedium, carelessly, liitlessly; in petition, asking mostly for something I want, only occa-sionally for others. But how infrequently do I burst out with praise just to tell Him how wonderful He is! 'Why is this? Praise is the outward speaking of an inward recogni-tion' of the value, the excellence of someone or something. Instinctively on seeing a beautiful sunset or a beautiful per-son we cry, "How beautiful!" Why do we so seldom deliberately praise God or men? Because we are too busy to look at them, too distorted in vision to see all that is good, true, and beautiful either in the All-High God or in the lowly creature, man. When we state that God will open our lips, we are also implicitly stating that He will open oui eyes. We are 2O5 RICHARD L. ROONEY , implicitly saying ,,that Hd will "let .us see Him, His power; His beauty,'His mercy: His lb~e, everywhere, and in .every: thing, so that we shall gladly cry out His praise:i implicitly hope that He will reveal HihYself,.yet more ~o us so that we may begin here the praise that we shrill announce forever in heaven, We are hoping that He will train:our lips to speak.now as they shall when He grants ~.us the face-to- face visioh of Himself, and we shall cry in ecst~isy: "Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God of Hosts! °The heavens and the earth are full of Thy Glory!" ~ * * * Ves, Lord;Thou shalt open my lips here now, and tl~rd then; and My modth, frded from its habit of self~ interested prayer, shall announce joyously, contin,uall~r~ ~ti~relessly; endlessl~, its praise of Thee, our Go'd!" BROTHERS~ VOCATIONS " There are m':~'ny vocational needs* in~he ChurCh, bti~ pe~rhaEs none as more pressing:than,the need ,for la)~ Brothers. The' assistance'thi:y lend to priest~ who are more directly engaged i~ apostolic labors is~of inestimable value: To egcourage Brothers vocattons, the Soctety of the D,wne Word is Mow publishing aK~httra&ive and informative ~booklet ~entitled ~The M~ssionarg Brother. ~C0ptes of t~e 'booklet can be,obtained from the Novice Master, St. ,Mary's Mission House, Techny. ill~nbis.'~.~ ~ ~ :~ ~ ,~-" ,~. . ~ . ~,, Another i~ter~sting folder on~ the life of a Brother can be :~btained~fro~ the Missionary Servants of the'Most Holy Trinity, Box 30. Silver Sp~ngs. Maryland. This booklet is entitled Spotlight on the Missionary Brotber~" " A. third '~ffective folder 0n this 'same iub~ect is entitled "Behidd the~ S~enes at Notre Dame: The Part of the La~ Brother~ of the Hol~ Cro~#. ~ The, Congregation of"the H~'~Cro~S ~w ~'tWO p;o~ifi~S in- [he United' State~ [he province Priests~and'~the~province of Brothers~ This:folder describes the Brotheri' life. '.It may be obtained from the Reverend Oohn H. Wilson, C.S.C:; Holy Cross Seminary. Ndre Dame, ~ndiana. ' CONCERNIN~ CoMMUNICAtIONS" " ~ The next number "of t~e REVIEW will contain a digest 0f the communications on praydr that hhve note, get been published. ,With~hat; number we shall close the communications on the subject. Communications on other subjects that are of ~n~d~asfti ~. H.elp'r ~ ~o '~religi0hs" are alwhgs~elc~me. , Some of~the c0mmdnications 'on prgyer have been.ratherflong: and the ~itors would appreciate it if those who, send communications would., make them brief and pointed. -It also'helps if'the manuscript ~s typed and double'spaced; 206 ~enera[ Aspects oF ¯ Duty of I-learin9 Mass ~erald Kdly, $.~T. ONLY three of the ~414 cai~ons of the Codeof Canon Law deal explicitly with the° general! law of assisting at Mass. Canon ~1247 lists.the feasts of ~ obligation in the universal Ghurch; canon 1248 prescribes that:.Mass must be heard on these days;0and canon 1249 enumerates the places in wl6ich the faithful may fulfill this obligation.,. Three other ,canons (1244-46)'~1a~ down certain general, rulks :that are applicable not only°to feast days but also to days of fast and abstinence. Pbobably no other law of the Church is as import~int for the ordinary Catholic as this precept of hearing Mass. Every question pertaining to its correct observance is of unFcersal interest; and some of the questions are extremely provocative, not to say irritating, because of the difficulty in"solving them satisfactorily. These intriguing problems are foundiander all the various aspects of the law--general aspects,° the manner of fulfilling the law, and .reasons excusing~from the obligation. Since it w6uld be-impossible t6 treat all these points in a single article in the REVIEW, I am .limiting the present article to a consideration of those points usually explained by moral theologians when they treat of the'general aspects of the law of feast-day obserw ance. The article will deal with all the questions ordinarily discussed under this head, and it "will .lay,, special stress~ on the points that are apt to present sp~ecial difficulties for catechists It helps much to the ,proper understanding and appli= cation~ of°a law to know its origin, ;namely whether it is 207 GERALD KELLY Review/:or Religious divine or human; for different rules of interpretation apply to each. With'regar~l .to th~ duty of feast-day observance a consideration of both kinds of laws is pertinent; and great confusion can result from a failure to make. clear distinc-tions. Not a Dioine Law The divine law, according to accepted terminology, is either natural or positioe. By natural law is meant the law of God as manifested in human nature itself--"written in the human heart," as the saying goes. Granted appro-priate conditions, men with sufficiently 'developed mental powers could know this law, ~it least as regards its main points, just by using their reason--that is, by considering the fundamental relationships existing between man and G6d and between man and his fellowmen, and by drawing logical conclusions from these. This natural law, since it flows from human nature itself, binds all menat all times. The divine positive law includes duties imposed by God through the medium of revelation. In making such reve-lation God 'might merely confirm the already-existing iaatural law, as He does, for example, in the. First Com-mandment of the Decalogue; or He might, add obligations not already contained in the natural law, as He does in pre-icribing the confession of all mortal sins committed after baptism. LUnlike the naturallaw, the divine positive law cannotobe k.nown merely by reason;faith is required. Also unlike the natural law, the divine positive law is not neces-sarily for all men at all times; but such conditions depend entirely on God's own will., in giving these commands. In general, the Church's power concerning law~ is twofold. She can otticially interpret the divine law, as she has done with regard to such things as artificial birth con-t~ ol, divorce, mutilation of the "unfit," and so forth. In 208 Jul~t~ 1947 THE DUTY OF HEARING MASS such cases the' bindihg force of the law is not from tl~e Church but: directly from God. BUt the: Church can also mate laws in the proper and full sense of the:term. ~Thesd laws, made by the Church, are called ecclesiastical 1~iws. They,are human taws, not divirle; and they are to be 'inter-preted ~according to the rules that pertain ~to human l~ws, Applying this discussion of th~ various types of laws to the matter of feast-day worship, the following obierva-tions are in order, o Since men are social beings and since they depend on God not merely as individuals but as a group, the law of nature itself demands that they render to God some kind of social worship. But this law of nature is very vague, It does not prescribe certain days for such worship; it does not clearly indicate how often the worshi~ should be offered; and it does not tell us categorically what religious acts should characterize our social worship, although it cer-tainly seems appropriate that: sacrifice should be one of the community tributes to God.~ From the very nature of the case there is need of some more accurate determination of these points if men are to act in harmony, and obviously this more accurate determination should be made by the existing religious authority. In the Old Testament God Himself sanctioned the religious observance of the Sabbath and of certain special feast days. It is well to note here a great difference between the Third Commandment of the Decalogue and the other nine. The entire Decalogue is revealed; and in this sense all the precepts belong to the divine positive law. In the Third Commandment, however, God went beyond the natural'law, whereas in the other nine Commandments He simply confirmed and stated clearly certain duties "that already existed by reason of the natural law. The Third C0mmaildment; therefore, in its prescriptions concerning 209 GERALD KELLY ~- , Review [or Religio.us the frequency of worship (once a week) and ,the exact day for worship ,(the,Sabba'th)o is entirely divihe positive law, given by God,to' the chosen people and obliging them until. such time as He, would withdraw or change it. Did God withdraw these positive precepts with the promulgation,,of the New Testament? With regard to the special feasts~prescribed for the Jews there is :no difficulty: the duty of observing them certainly ceased; in fact, it Would be a form of superstition to observe them today. But with regard, to the weekly observance there is some obscurity even in theological literature. One view is that the divine law of sanctifying every seventh day.remained in force and that God Himself transferred the obligation from Saturday to Sunday. This opinion has but slight authority to uphold it, and we may safely call it improb-al~ le. Acco[ding, to a second opinion the divine law ,of sanc-tifying one day out of seven remained in existence, but the specification of the Sabbath day was simply withdrawn, and in its place not God, but the Church, assigned Sunday as the day for worship. This view has much more authority than the firsf; yet it is far from being, a common opinion. A third explanation, sponsored by the majority of eminent theologians, is .that with° the promulgation of the NeW Testament God simply withdrew the positive pre-cepts contained ,in the Third Commahdment anti" left it to the Church tO make appropriate legislation. According to this view,, the precept of hearing Mass, as we now have it, is a merely ecclesiastical law in all its particular aspects-- the frequency~ .the exact days, the method of worship. This last is by far the best opinion and the only~ofie that seems in~, perfect'harmony with.the mind of "the Church as expressed in. the~ ~ode:. ~ For the Holy :See claims~ f6r itself~the duly; 1947. THE DUTY OF: HEARING MASS' p0wer.tb 'constitu~e, transfer," and abblish these feast :days. and to dispe'nse~,from their, o.bservance ;(c.f. cations 1244-" 45) : It could not do this ina matter of~divine law. ~, . ~,~ It seems khat .in ~the.early. cefituries,of~ Christiani.t~r thdre~ was. no general l~gislation cbncerning the observanc~ of feast~ days~ : Rather, the faithful, themselves spontaneously' assumed~certainpractices, and thdse practices ~raduaHy acquired ~he force bf law and were'confirmed and crystal-lized by written'~legislation. Sunday was chosen as the. Lord's day, principally because it was the day of the Resur, rection and of ~the coming of the. Holy Ghost. Gradually other special, festivals came to be observed to commemorate special blessings, to recall the victories of the saints, and so forth. In fact, the tendency to add feast days of obliga-tion was so common that much bf the Church's legislation in recent times has been to restrict the obligation lather than to add to it. A ,catalogue of feasts of 6bligation in ~:he univer~gl Church in the time of Pope Urban. VIII, in 1642, lists thirty-five such feasts; b~sides Sundays. Today v~e have' only ten special feasts of' precept! for the" universal Church: Irnmaculai~e CodcelStidn,"~ Christrnds~ Ci~cum, cisi~n, Epip'hany,'St. Joseph; Asc~hsion Thursd~'~, Corpui Christi: Sts. Peter and Paul, Assumption, and All Saints. ° F6r some~cbuntries"the Holy See has ri~duced the number: f6r. exhmple,'in"~he United°State~ g'e a~e obliged to observe onI~r the six itMicized feasts. ' ~ I have gone to ~some length ifi-consiii~i~g the origin bf the precept of .hearing Mass because ~I think ~that :the ordinary way of~explaining the: matter in catechisms and even in moral treatises tei~ds to be~,misleadihg~,, .T, he duty of hearing Mass is" almost invariably~explhined iia~ connec-tion with~the Third Commandment of"the D~calogue; and this leads readily to the.inference that;~like~:the~othero pre-cepts of the~,D&~logue; it is'a divine" hlW,, ~wo serious 211 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious errors are occasioned by this inference. People of lax con~ sdences and weak faith, seeing that the Church can change this precept of feast-day observance, easily conclude that the other Commandments can be changed too and that it will ¯ not be long before the Church mitigates her rigid stand on such things as therapeutic abortion and artificial birth con-trol. These people confuse the human with the divine by reducing the divine to a human level. On the other hand, genuinely conscientious people raise the human to the divine. Finding the law of feast-day observance explained under the Third Commandment, they infer that it is a divine law and thus form exaggerated ideas of its binding A Serious Obligation ~ A young man once came to me with the following difficulty: ~"Father, a group of us werediscussing these laws like going to Mass on Sundays and fasting and abstaining, and we came to a dead stop over the idea ~that breaking .these laws is a mortal sin. You go to hell for a mortal sin, you know. We couldn't figure out why the Church should be so strict about these things; so we decided to ask So-and-So.: He just brushed us aside. He said all we had to do was to keep ~the laws; we needn't worry about the wbgs and the wherefores. It isn't wrong to want to l(now such thin~s, is it? We're not rebelling against the Church; we'd just like to know why she does this." The answer to the young man's question is obvious. It is highly desirable that adult Catholics should know the whg of their obligations. Itincreases their own apprecia-tion of the laws that govern them and enables them to explain them reasonably to others. Ecclesiastical laws are not made arbitrarily; we are 212 July, 1947 THE DUTY OF HEARING MASS not commanded to do certain things under pain of mortal sin merely because some Pope wants to sat.isfy a personal whim. These laws are formed according to certain eminently reasonable principles. For instance, a serious obligation is not usually imposed on the faithful in general unless-these three conditions are verified: (1) there is ques-tion of attaining some very important purpose; (2) the thing commanded is either necessary or highly useful for attaining this purpose; (3) the thing commanded would very likely not be done by the majority of people (the ordinary people, not the saints) unless they were obliged under pain of mortal sin. It is not difficult to see how these conditions are verified with regard to the precept of hearing Mass. (1) The principal purpose of the law is to see that the members of the true Church of God render fitting social worship to God. That this is a purpose of the highest importance seems evident. Moreover, a secondary but very significant purpose of the law is the spiritual good of the worshippers themselves. (2) That the sanctification of one day a week and of certain feast days is eminently useful, if not neces-sary, for attaining these purposes is clear from the fact that God Himself made similar prescriptions in the Old Testa-ment. As for the secondary purpose, in particular, experi-ence confirms the fact that those who do not set aside some time for the worship of God readily fall into temptation and sin. And with regard to the method prescribed by the Church, namely, the Mass--surely no one who realizes the meaning of the Mass will question the fact that it is the best possible expression of social worship. (3) Finally, it is ¯ not hard to imagine how empty our churches would become if this were not.a serious obligation. The Church makes her laws for the ordinary peo~01e, not the saints; and it is simply a fact that most ordinary people are not sufficiently 213 GEI~ALD'KELLY moved by the thoi~ght of "venihl sin" or "counsel" to make the sacrifices ~iecessary for assisting at Mass on ther, days assigned. o Who Must Hear Mass? To be obliged by this law one must (a) be baptized, (b) have completed his seventh year, and (c) have attained the use of reason. All three conditions .must be verified. The Church claims no power to legislate for the unbaptized except indirectly, for example, in the case of a marriage between a baptized and an unbaptized person. The com-. pletion of the seventh year is normally required for subjec-tion to an ecclesiastical law unless the law makes some other express provision. For example, the law of fasting does not bind one until one has completed the twenty-first year; on the other hand, yearly confession and Communion can be obligatory before the age of s~even. "In the present law no special provision is made; hence children under seven, even though quite precocious, are not obliged to hear Mass on Sundays,and holydays.~ It. is praiseworthy to accustom them to attend Mass at an earlier.age; but it is .not obligatory, Finally, even those who .are baptized and are seven years old are not obliged ,to hear Ma~ss if they have not yet attained the use of. reason. The normal .presumption is that those who have completed their ~sevent.h year have sufficient use of reason; but this presumption admit~ of exceptions. However, the mere fact that a child is. "back-ward" is not necessarily a sign that he does not have the use of reason. The ultimate test is his appreciation of :moral right and wrong. , A question of some delicacy in this matter concerns baptized non-Catholics. Strictly speaking, since they are bapt!zedl they are subject to.the laws of the Church unless the Church herself exempts them. Theoretically~, there- July, 1947- THE DUTY OF HEARING MASS foie, it seems ~.tl-iat they ~re obliged.by .this l~w Because the' Church~ ddes not exPlicitly exempt them. Some, theologians and canonists, however, hold that even though no explicik exemption is declared, the Church cannot reasonably be considered to hold them to the law, for she knows that they. will not observe it. This dispute is of .little practical value since the non-Catholics do not know of the obligation, even if it does exist; hence they cannot sin by failing, to fulfill it. 'A iomewhat similar difference of opinion concerns the duty of excommunicated persons. By reason of their excommunication they'are deprived of their right to assist at Mass; hence some moralists argue that they. cannot have a duty to do so. In practice, they may be considered as excused from the obligation; but they certainly hax;e a duty to do what is necessary to be absolved from the excom-munication. Where to Hear Mass We may conclude these genelal remarks about the pre-cept of hearing Mass with a word a;bout the place for ful-filling the obligation. Canon 12'~9 enumerates these places, and in that canon the only explicit restriction has to do with what is termed a private or~atbry. A private or domestic oratory is ushally a chapel in a private housd where Mass may be celebrated for the benefit of an indi'- vidual or his family. Permission to have such oratories with the privilege of having Mass said there habitually can be granted only by the Holy See; and in granting th~s permission the Holy See specifies who may satisfy the pre-cept of hearing Mass there and the days on which it is allowed. Occasionally private chapels are erected in cemeteries. The faithful may satisfy their feast-day obligation by 215 GERALD KELLY hearing Mass in 'these cemetery chapels~ They may also fulfill their obligation, in any church or chapel which is not private in the technical sense explained above; also by hearing a Mass which is said in the open air. All these ,points are explicitly covered by canon 1249. It not infrequently happens tl~at priests get permission to say Mass iia a cabin aboard ship, or in the parlor of a private home, or in some other building or room which is not a chapel in the sense of canon 1249. Can the faithful, fulfill their feast-day obligation by hearing Mass in such places, or is this privilege implicitly excluded by canon 12497 Here again we are in the realm of controversy: some authorities say "yes"; and some say "no." In practice, therefore, liberty prevails: the faithful may satisfy their obligation in these places if they wish to do so. What is to be said of Catholics of the Latin rite who wish to attend Mass celebrated according to the Easterv, rite? The Code explicitly allows this, provided the Eastern Church is truly Catholic, that is, in union with ROme. One concluding remark: the Church does' not i,mpose a strict duty'to hear Mass in one's ownparish church. We should not argue from t~ais, hbwever, that the Church is indifferent in this rfiatter. Certainly the whole spirit of ecclesiastical organization arid' legislation favors an intense parochial life;, and part of.this life is the regular attendance at Mass in one's own parish church. It is not in.accordance with tl~is spirit to encourage the faithful to, attend Sunday Mass habitually in a school or .hospital chapel unless there is some special reason for doing so: 216 Silence C. A. Herbst, S.J. 441~OLITUDE is the home of the saints and silence is ~ their language." I read these simple and beautiful words years ago in a religious house in a great Midwestern city. The place, the time, the room have somehow stuck in my memory. Perhaps it is because the great truth they express has been dear to the beloved in Christ's church for almost two thousand years. The soli-tude of the deserts of Syria and Egypt was the home of those giants in the Christian way of life, the Fathers of the Desert, and they founded there great cities where silence was the language of them all. Surely this was because "Jesus was led by the spirit intothe desert" (Matthew 4:1). He, too, "retired into the desert, and prayed',' (Luke 5:16). From the very first years of the religious life the observance of silence is insisted upon. "The practice of silence is useful for novices," says St. Basil in his Regulae Fusius Tractatae. And he continues, "Unless some special business, or the care of one's soul, or some pressing work, or a question demands it, one should live in silence except for the chanting of the psalms" (Patrologia Graeca. XXXI, 950). Accordingly, as novices we were expected to refrain from unnecessary speaking and from noise; for example, to avoid slamming doors, moving up and down stairs or about the corridor or room noisily, loud talking, and the like. Many a good young religious has had to be given a penance for breaking silence. Perhaps we were told one needs a reason to speak but none to keep silent, and heard quoted the proverb, "Speaking is silver, silence is gold." We read with some humor in Rodriguez: "When 217 C .A. HERBST Reaiew/oc Religious there is no lock to a chest, we thereby understand that there is ~9~hing.valuable inside. When a nut is very light and . bounces, it is a sign tha~ it has no kernel." (Practice of Per-fecffor~, II, "123~)~ Silence may have been a matter of dis° dpline, a thing imposed from without~ but the mechanics of a profes'sion~have fo be learned that way. A disdpl~ine; an external, a mecbani~ Perhaps. And ~mall?~ I am afraid' to apply this word to things'intimately connected with the spiritual l~fe, to ~hings so intimately connected with love for God and with eternal glory in heaven. .At any rate, silence is a challenge to even a brave and mortified man. Let the heroes step forth" gnd accept the challenge of St. Jame's, "But the tongue no man can tame" .(J. ames 3:8). As far as I have observed, the rule of silence is the most consistently and universally violated rule in the religious !ife. I even make bold fo say that experience showsus'eIess talking is not'confined to'women'~a~d chil-dren. It is a man-sized job to "h0id one's tongue:" Nay, more than a man-sized job for the natural man; ~"But the tongue no can can tame:" Who is not so human as. not to have experienced the urge to ask curious and pr,yirig ques-kions? It is hard t6 repres~ the itch for gossip, to-hold back the smart remark, to abstain from criticism: ' It is,hard to wait till the .time for recreation, hard to, breakoff:when.the bell rings. And it is only the strong man. who will crush human respect and remain .silent i.n~the midst of those who will not. This is no longer a small thing, the task of a novice. "But the tongue no man can tame." Speech is a most common, :spontaneous, and "self-full" "expression of the natural man. .A child is born into the f~imily, given a name, and ta.ught with endless pains to speak, o Thereafter one of the most demanding urges of his human nature is to express itself in words. His language ii full of his personality. But tainted as he is by original sin, 218 dulg, 19 4 ~ SILENCE his speech betkays that, too. A man is born again into a religious;~famil#, oftefi takes a new name, and must be taught again .to speak, to express.a personality renewed in Christ. Silence is theschool and the teacher. Advising the ~rbung monk, the Abbot Cassian says,~ "Be careful before all.else ¯ ¯ ¯ to impose the strictest silence on 3~our lips. Thi~ is the first real entrance to an ordered life" (Coltationes, XIV, 9). ~ One must now.unlearn one's evil ways and learn again to speak in God. "And if any man think him-self to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain" (James 1:26). Arsenius, preceptor of empero.rs, is said to have heard an _angel say to him, "Arsenius, flee, keep silence, rest: these are the principles of salvation" (a Lapide, Commentaria in Scripturarn Sacram, XX, 137). To preserve exterior silence for the loire of God is a praiseworthy practice and an exc~llent beginning to a reli-gi. ous life. But its higher value lies in this: it prepares and leads the earnest seeker after God to interior silence, to the silence of the imagination, of the mind, of the soul. It is indispensable to recollection. "He, therefore, who.aims at inward and spiritual things, must, with Jesus, turn aside from the crowd" (Imitation of Christ, I, 20). Od enter.ing a religioushouse wheresilence is carefully kept one cannot help feeling that God is very near. There is~an atmosphere ,of prayer. The place seems to "breathe the Divine Presence. "Silence, prayer, charity, and contineficy are the ho~rses of the chariot drawing the mind toheaven," said th~ Abbot Thalassius (Rouet de Journel, Encbiridion Asceticum, 1315). "In silence and quiet the devout soul maketh progress, and learneth the hidden things of Scrip-ture" (.Imitation, I, ~0). We must shut out the noises~of this wo~ld if we would hea¥ the gentle whisperings ofthe Holy Spirit. A noisy interior is ~ miserable thing. If a 219 C .A. HERBST Review for Religious restless imagination is encouraged by much ~alk to go thumping about within us recollection will be impossible. There is a close and intimate connection between speech and the imagination. Idle and vain words call up idle and vain images in the imagination. These images summon others of a kindred sort, in virtue of what is called the law of the association of ideas. In this way a train of flattering, useless, and egoistic images is started. Thought follows imagination and partitipates in its self-gratifying tendencies. Speech follows thoughts and words flow that do not bear on subjects that have a tendency to supernaturalize the soul either of speaker or listener. In conversation words are interchanged and mul-tiplied; corresponding images are called up; and thoughts follow all the time the direction set by the vocal and mental images. (Leen, Progress Through Mental Prayer, p. 266.) " And so on and on, until we realize how spritually wise we should be were we to follow the old Italian proverb, "'Odi, vedi, et taci, si voi vivere in pace." (Listen,-look, and be silent, if you want to live in peace.) When we read the startling and thought-provoking words in St. James's Epistle, "If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man" (3 "2), our first inclination might be to explain away the exaggeration. But there is no explaining away to be done. There is no exaggeration. "Out of the abundance of the heart tl~e mouth speaketh" (Matthew 1.2:34). A man says.what he thinks and what he feels. The thought is father to the word as well as to the deed. If his words are good, his thoughts are good; his emotioris, his passions are under control. For a while one might sometimes think one thing, feel one thing, and say anotheri but that would not be common for long in most things. If any man offends not in word he has acquired self-mastery, he has perfect control over his interior. This control is an important aim of as fine a SyS-tem of spirituality as the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola: "Spiritual Exercises to conquer oneself and regu- 220 dul~l, 1947 SILENCE la~te one"s life withou't determining oneself through any tendency that is disordered,", the title reads. Words tha~ are charitable, patient, obedient, humble, mortified, well up from a heart that is charitable, patierit~ obedient, humble, mortified. When we meet this happy child of God we shall gladly agree with St. James that "the same is a perfect man." But let it be a woman first, "A Woman Wrapped in Silence," Mary, God's mother, of .whom John W. Lynch wrote so beautifully. Her words were few but very pre-cious. Countless generations have cherished them and pondered them and have seen mirrored in them the Immacu~ late Heart of Mary. "But Mary kept all these words, pon-dering them in her heart" (Luke 2: 19). The Blessed Virgin did not speak many words: filled with grace and light from on high, inundated with the gifts of the Spirit,. she remained, 'silent, in the adoration of her Son: she lived on the contemplation of the ineffable mystery wrought in her and through her: and from the sanctuary of her immaculate heart ~ hymn of praise and thanksgiving rose up unceasingly to God. (Marmion, Chcist, the Ideal ot: the Monk, 3 6 3.) And then a Man, the Lamb of God led to th~ slaughter, "and he opened not his mouth" (Isaias ~3:7). In His lifetime "He retired into the desert and prayed" so that the Christian centuries after Him might understand that "he who aims at inward and spiritual things must, with Jesus, turn aside from the crowd." The Son of God spent thirty years of His short life, that carried within it the salvatiori of the world, in silence. Yet how he must have longed to speak, who was so marvellously eloquent! Must he not have yearned to give forth light, in whom the whole communicative wisdom of the Godhead was compiised? When he was so full to overflowing of beautiful wisdom and ravishing intelligence, must not silence have burned in his Heart like a coal of fire? Must there not have been something in his being the 221 COMMUNICATIONS Reoieto [or Religi6us Father,s '~Wor~d, Ghich,-~wguld" .make" him exult ~in .s'peaking~ of ,. the ~Fath.er, with'his human to~gue.g' ('Foa.ber, ,Beth~lefiera, 0332.) '°~ ~, "But 3.esus h£1d his peac.e,"~ (Matt.hew 26;63). The W,o~ Himself did not'speak he.cause the Word, is Wisdom, Incarnate ommunicaEions ¯ Reverend Fathers: ' A little dose of dissatisfaction with one's own achievements in mental prayer is a necessary.condition of progress. But when the complaints about "bad meditations" extend for years and years, we must asl~ ourselves whether we know what a "good meditation" is? At least fbr ~yselL I have discovered'that ~it the very bottom of these complaints l~es a good measure of selfishness. An analysis of our complaints reveals the causes of our d~ssiatlS~ factioq. They~are: distractions; ar~idity of mind; lack of sehsible joy,~onsolation, and spiritual comfort; lack of taste for ~13rayers.;*s'the lives of.saints tell us that they had. We are satisfied When we e~xperi~ e.n~cre 'jo: yi,r t~ealrs;'conso~atlon, a 1 these ca~es we find OURSELVI~S as the c~nter:of interes~tin p~dyei~ ~-W~ ar~ seekirig personal Satisfaction. !Thi~" is especiall~ trt~e if,,after sbm~e :efforts'~w.e'qui~ making !meditations; because .we, do~ nbt find: ~ezgxpect~d personal satisfaction., This,~ naturally, generates a ~ense of frustration, of guilt,.~nd a certain nervousness about the whole business of meditation. °" The ~medy fo~ this lies in ;realization ~f, the primary ehd of every prayer which is: praise, adoration, admiration of God; thanks2 givin~ for His supernatural and natural, gifts; atonemerit for sins and,. finally, p~etitions for .newl graces. ' aeAs long"as one does make efforts to elicit some of the afore-haention~ d acts, his mental, prayer i~ good, In such a prayer we seek only'God, His gl0~y; His will; He is the center of our prayer, n6t:our own gratification. ' . 222 Julg, 1947 o., :/ .' COMMUNICA,~IONS~ ~I.t'is.always.possiBle to praiseo:God, ~ven in the midsv:of., grea't distractions. (Who could not fill the gaps between invbltintary: dis.tractions~ with praise of God?) It is ~possible to thank Him, exen for~His crosse~s.~ .,~even for the distraction° and aridity themselves;. as~ far.,~,asothey are of ,His make, and not the fruit of our negl.ect of: spiritual~life. It,is possible to expose our wretchedness and misery, a~nd .cry for His help . Should, however, once in a while even that ~be impossible, then it remains possible just to keep oneself respectfully and humbly in His holy presence an'd let the .gaze of:His mercy fall' upon our misery. Once we grasp this, once we sacrifice,our ow~n pleasure in prayers; all anxiety .disappears, peace returns to. one's heart. We know-then when our prayer is good, namely, when we make °efforts to please God, not to satisfy our own selfishness.--A Jesuit Father. Reverend Fathers: 'It seems to me that the follow!ng are among the principal reasons for the:difficulties and the neglect of~mental prayer: ,, 1. Failure to Realize Its lmportance,,~That one's prayer .life is synonymous with one's interior life; that it is the source of real growth in the love of God, by disposing our souls to r.eceive and to profit more fully from the grates 'of ~the sacraments; that it is the. greatest help to purity of soul and to an ever greater hunger and thirst after God. St. Teresa of Avila said: "There is but one road that reaches God., and that is prayer: if anyone s~hows you' anotheri.you ~ire b.ejn~ de~elv'ed." " ~ " 2: Di'sc?uragement. Du~. p~r(nci15al'iy- ~o "judging° by,'Bhd's feehngs. 'We-cannot judgebur praTe~ by our feelings nor by "th~ arhounf,of'dryness or desolfi~ion v~e experience it/ pbayer. As long as~ ~ve' tr~ to make our prayer well,'it is "alt~a(/s pldasing t~5 God ~nd prpfita~ble to us, even though,' at ti~e~s, we seem to do little inor~ t~han siinply fight distractions or temptations! 0 God Uses th~se ;tria~s for'our advancement. ~: . ~ " " 3. Lack of Proper li~struction.~--Sou~Isshould be t.au~h~" to pa~s on (th6ugh,not hurriedly.), from discui:sive n~editation to the ~nore simplified'arid richer forms of prayer. ;To try to keep to dis'cursive meditati6n ,wl~en that no q6nger :sUits the' needs df one's, soul i~harrfi-ful;' as ~ell' as difficult~and r~pugnant: ."In this regard, "I,.heartil~ aplSr~ove of all-ileal, y~oi~r fi~st.~correspO~ld~nt-"in the-,March ~ilsue (pp: 109! ft.). °.said' bfi" th~i~subject.'.- '.H~re0 is :wherh°- dire~tion-~e~en " .-223 C~OMMUNICATIONS Ret~ew for Religious though-just occasional, perhaps just two or three times a year---is a great help. " 4. Failure to Lead an "'All Around" Spiritual Life, Proportioned to Our Prayer,--We cannot expect to make great~ progress in our prayer life and the love of God, unless we are s~riving generously to please God during the other hours of the day. There is much tha~ could be said here, but I can think of_no better way of summing up what I would like to say, than to quote from the regulations that St. Paul of the Cross gave to. his religious. He ends his chapter on prayer by saying: "In fine, let all remember that they will never suc-ceed in the exercise of prayer; nor will it produce in them any satis-factory fruit, unless they endeavor with all diligence to be recollected during the day in the presence of God, to be lovers of solitude, to practice mortification, interior as well as exterior, and to observe with fidelity and exactness even the. smallest precepts of the Holy Rule." The first time we read this quotation, it looks discouraging: it seems like we have to be almost saints before we can begin to make progress in prayer and the love of God. But if we re-read it, we see that all he asks is that we try, though diligently, to practice recollection, to love solitude (i.e. to be detached from the world), to practice morti-fication, and to observe the rule. But I do believe that these admoni-tions are very important.--A Passionist Father. Reverend Fathers: .~ The very word religious, it seems to me, suggests~ a d.aily program of prayer more extensive than Catholics. in general adopt. Every religious enters on her career with her eyes open., if she firm,ly believes she is personally called, not only to her holy state, but also to her particular Congregation or Society, and is instructed during. her novitiate in all her obligations, why not always keep it at heart that in the important matter of her daily program of prayer, He who called her will assist her to fulfill that duty to His satisfaction aiad her merit, if not always to her enjoyment? Itomust be remembered, too, that prayer is first of all for God's sake, then for ours. It may be likened to the incensations during the Hole Sacrifice of the Mass,, acording to, the liturgical versicles, "'Dirigatur, Domine, oratio mea, sicut incensum in conspectu tuo,'" and "'Vespertina oratio ascendet ad te Domine et descender super nos misericordia tua.'" How con.soling to reflect that as the Holy Sacri- 224 1947 COMMUNICATIONS /ice is celebrated around the world, our prayer rises as clouds of incense and, in return, there falls the dew of God's blessings upon our lives! In regard to the formal hour of prayer that begins the day of most religious, it goes without saying that unless the highlights of the subject have been tucked into the mind beforehand, little focussing will-be possible on the subject. Who would think of going into the presence of a dignitary or a professional man without knowing what h~ is going to do or say? St. Ignatius Loyola has given us admirable indications on how to use the time of meditation to the greatest profit. I recall how the list of these directives appalled a young reli-gious I know. She intimated that she felt sure they would ruin her prayer. Rising, however, to intellectual considerations, she decided to analyze an hour of prayer just completed. To h~r joyful amaze-ment, she found tbat she had followed them largely as if pressed by logic. Inflamed with this encouragement, she began accordingly, day 15y day to build up her med{tations synthetically according to the methods of St. I~natius. Her. own words: "I knew that reflection clarified the mind." Al-though unaware of the manner of the op.erations of the Holy Spirit, I realized from time to time that certain thoughts stood out very clearly among others in a Scripture text or a rule, or persuaded me very gently to a higher way of action. Yet something, on my part, seemed deficient. I Wrestled again with the analysis, of my medita-tion, to admit tO myself tha~ I was using 'the three powers of my soul' for a meditation, and my senses for the active contemplations of the mysteries of Christ, but I was not making much of the col-loquy. The next day I wrestled again with the though~t content. Then I put down reasoning, put away reflection, and just knelt before God waiting for a thought to come spontaneously. No books ever printed words like those I spoke to God, but I knew I shouId certain~y have spoken them to those I loved~ my people, my friends-- so why not to God, the Supreme Being? The official Our Father sealed my prayer and obtained its last blessing. "Soon I realized that it was the colloquy that made the difference in my morning prayer. I had tasted~something I had never experi-- ended before. God had made me understand the words of the psalm: '0 taste and see that the Lord is sweet.' " Prayer unites us to God. We must keep that union through a busy day. It may be kept active through the day by ejaculations-- 225 I~oMMuNICATIONS "' ~' "' ~ ,.~,! ,. grains:of, incense again, ~thrown~on°.the.,fir~ dr: chari~y in/the s0ul'. Ejadulations first,in, h'0n6r 6f 7God.,° Bht,~the .background 'of the enti[e:mind, too,.m.ust'be kept fqr God,, filled tho.ugh it mu.st.often be with.:a.,t:hous.and .t_hings call.e~t for. by .duty: ~ An-intruder. ,of high r.ank: is ,the gra~tification, of curiosity.¯ Here iLmust be noted,that $3: Ignatius will not dispense from the examens;of his daily program of prayer. It is .the moment' of detecting intruders into God's kingdom and banishing them,, and Of resolving ~o make ~room for His'allies, one of whiqh is spir4tual readigg. Without this first step in prayer, aqcording to St. Bernard, we~ cannot'expec[ t~he second that rest.s upgn it meditatio.n. In o_ur s.torehouse of the mind, we should keep~ not only choice thoughts from this reading, but also tidbits from conferences heard, direction given-,, holy conversations held. And regarding these, is there any-thing that mak~so earth more like heaven than conv.ersations about God and His ways? A~suredly, the mind must be kept free for God. Clogged with useless matter, it is not receptiv.e when'the hour comes for morn.ing prayer, to the things of heaven, nor is it, if the body is ~rah'ted all its desires during" the day and indulged in every whim. HOwever. it may happen that even with the utmost care expended !n~ p~p~ratio.n,, our morning prayer can seem a failure. St. Paul ~¢:ogni.~ed_sucl~'a situation: "To will is present'with me: but to accbmplish that ~hich is good I find' not.", Again, concentration of in!fi'~:s~em~ i;np~ssible. I~ may be ~s. Our Lord said of confusion of another kind, An enemy hath done thts. Or. the mind seems _'~o~. ;o. . I~ . . ." , ¯ ~, . -, inoperative. , If the trouble continues for an apprectable txme, the remedy wdl come w~th a d~rector s counsel. Hts mtssxon an~ studtes prep~ire him to disc.ern ,wheth,er the s~tuation at'hand ts sloth or "the prayer of faith." the means of sanctifitatio9 of So ,many, saints: :- Moreovdr,,it is .well to re~alI, that~artists work years before they mas.tqr ,,their art. And,-,~he i~sue of ~hei~ lifework is so precarious. But ~e.~vho are called by God Himself to a life of pra, y~r know that while He will never fail to i~elp'us, Who "works both to will and accomplish" in us. we can never fail if we do our part. Whether or n.dt"Go~l calls us_f~om discursive to°higfi~.r_forms~of prayer, we shall not .be h~i~led in persevering, however little or great the relish-our pFaydi: may a~ord us: Fo.r. linked with the Hbl'y: Sacrifice of the Mass, it will be acceptable unto'Go~l's praise'and glory, to out'own ~obd'.afid that 6f the entire~ Church.' " .-~" .: ~ - - 226 Tt e ,.Will t:6, Perrrecfion ' " ~AugustineKlraas: S.J. ~IV]HILE recupera, tmg at hls ancestral castle of Loyola ~ from a serious wound received in the battle of Pam-o ploga, Ignatius, to "while .aw~r the lag~iqg hours, reluctantly took to red&rig the lives of the saints. Grace was at x~ork in his s0ul as he b~an to rep~eat over andover to himself: "Suppose I should do. what Saint Francis did, and what Saint Dominic did? Shint Dominic did it, I should do it too; Saint Francis did it, I should do it too." The will to pe_rf~&ioq, already s~t~ong at the beginn~ing of h!s. cgnv.ersi0.h,,.Ignatitis fostered~and de~elbped throughout° his subsequent life; unfalteringly h~ put it into practice.~ It b~tlght him.t9 th'e 16fty heights" of ~anctity, to the summit of spiritual perfe~ctign, to fellowship with Franc'is, Dgminic, and man,.y ~ore. ~" "° "8piritudl p~rfectioti is'a':rfiatte~bf co-'6perating with" the. graee of G6d Whi&i is~alW~ly~ given hbundantl 9 when. asked for in hOmble prayer. We[wh6:pro~ess to sei~k'p{~ife&ioh ari~ somewtJat like"gai~den plants that receive glorious ~un= light ~ind reftesfiing'&v~ from ~ibove. Biai~ these gra~ious gifts Of G6dare'n6t enough~foiSlift! and growth to matu'r- .ity. The robts'df the'~i~lant ~ust' also go down ~eeP irito the soil to draw from it adequate nourishme'nt. That is the constant co-operation witch grace demands of us, and to achieve it, a strong initial impulse must be given and sus-tained. This 'startirig~ p{ash that. goes on:" developi.ng momeritum is the '~ill~t~o~perfection.~ W~ must will, we m~i~t eaffiesti~; d&ir~i .[w~m.ust~ be ~letermined that at an'~r 0~t we ~a~e going"t8 accumhi~it4 al'l the ~a'nctifying grace we 227 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Reuieu~ [or Religious can and also'acquire the highest activity of the love of God and the nelghbor~ posslble.ln ,the particular circumstances of nature and grace allotted to each one individually by an all-wise Providence. The will to perfection is not something physical, as the knit brow, grim jaw, and taut herves of certain mistaken young religious would have us believe; it is not sentiment or feeling though these are frequently present as by-products; it is essentially something in the spiritual nature of man: in his mind which evaluates perfection as a very great good, and above all in his spiritual will. It is not a mere velleity, a "Lord, Lord . . " and nothing more, a willing and no doing; rather it is an effective willing, a resolve that ei~ds in action. Father Le Gaudier likens per-sons who merely will and do not act to ostriches, which sometimes flap their wings ostentatiously as though about to fly away into the air. But nothing.happens, nothing ever happens: the silly birds remain grounded. Out Lord said to the rich young man, "If thou u;ilt be perfect." (Matthew 19:21 ) .~ The first thing to do then is to will perfection, and-to keep on willing it ever more and more, and then to follow through with steadfast, pru-dent action every day. That is precisely what the young man in the Gospel was not prepared to do. He just did n~t have the efficacious will to perfection; hence he did not co-operate with the special grace given him, and conse-quently he missed his great chance, his call to close intimacy with the Savior. II Holy Scripture in many places recommends the will to perfection indirectly, since it is .included in the prayers; aspirations, and good deeds of all God's holy ones. But also directly, especially in David's Psalms: "My soul bath 228 J-l~t, 1947 THE WILL TO PERFECTION cove~ed to long for thy justificationsat all times" (Psalm 118). "As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God." (Psalm 41). Did not Solomon receive spiritual wisdom mainly because of his ardent desires for it (Wisdom 7:7)? The prophet Daniel was the "man of desires" of the Old Testament (Daniel 9:23), not so much perhaps because he was beloved of God, but because he wanted so earnestly that God's glory be revealed fully in himself and in others. It can rightly be said that the whole of the Old Testament was one great longing for perfection, since it was a longing for Christ, the Savior, the source and model of all spiritual perfection. This yearning for the more perfect life is the insistent motif of the Church's magnificent Advent liturgy. The New Testament confirms the old. "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justness, for they shall have their fill" (Matthew 5:6). "If any man thirst, let him come to me, and let him drink" (John 7:37). And Mary. said: "He hath filled the hungry with good things ¯ . ." (Luke 1:53). Who is the "man of desires" of the New Testament? I thinlY it is St. Paul, that courageous athlete of Christ, and it is manifested on almost every page of his Epistles, for example (Philippians 3: 12-14): Not that I have already secured this, or am already made perfect. Rather I press on, in the hope that I may lay hold of that for which Christ hath laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not. count myself ~o have laid hold of it already. Yet one thing I do; I forget what is behind, and strain forward to what is before, and press on towards the goal, to gain the reward of God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus. Like a runner in a close race Paul "strains forward" to reach the goal of his whole Christian life, world, and suffering. Saint John Chrysostom, commenting on this text, says that not the least of the runner's straining forward is his 229 AUGUSTINE KL/kAS ,' ' ,~ Review for :Religious will: ~and dete~niination to reach the'goal, in this case, the goal .of spiritual perfection. ;Saint Augustine shrewdly remarks that the sum-total of Christian.life is fundamen-tally a matter of holy desires for advancement in perfection: The early ,religious of the primitive deserts were wont to have the aspirant to perfection repeat over and over to him-. self, day and night, for weeks on end this little question: "Why did you come here?" This is what Sai:nt Bernard says (Epistle 341): Did you ever meet with an ambitious man, who, after attaining to one dignity, did not hanker after one of a higher grade? . . . What shall I say of the covetous, are they not ever thirsting after increase of gain? Are dissipated men ever sated with their illicit sex-pleasures? Do not the vainglorious ever go in quest of new honors? If, therefore, the desire of persons who are bent on obtaining the trifles of earth 13e thus insatiable, should we not blush to be less eager after spiritual goods, less eager after perfection? In another letter (Epistle 253) he gives a paradoxical definition: "True perfectidn consists in an unrelenting de-sire of it and assiduous effort to achieve it." Saint Thomas Aquinas' sister, who was a religious, once asked him what she must do to reach perfection. "You must will it," replied the l(arned Doctor of the Church. When with feminine insistence she pressed him with further detailed questions, his only answer was: "You muse will it." And in the Summa (I,.q. 12, a. 6), does he not teach that "desires predispose and render a person apt to receive what he desires"? He writes in his commentary on the text of St.-Matthew (5:6) : " "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after jti~tice: for they shall have their fill.'" The Lord wishes us to thirst fif'ter ~that justice which consists in rendering to every man arid to God first of all what is his due. He wishes us never to be satiated on earth., but rather that our desire,s, bould grow Mw.ays . Blessed are they that bare this insatiable ,desire. , 230 July, 1947 THE WILL TO PERFECTION . Such-is the~.unanim6us verdict~ of the spiritual masters, put into.practice by ~/11 the saints, who valued it highly and even considered it a necessity for advancemqnt~ along the path to perfection; " Let us close this testimony with that remarkable psychologist0 Saint Teresa of Avila; who writes in her Autobiographtj (Chapter 13) : We must have great confidence, for it is most important that we should ngt cramp our good desires, but should believe that, with God's help, if we make continual efforts to do so, we shall attain, though perhaps not at once, to that which many saints have reached through His favor. If they had never resolved to desire to attain this and to carry ~heir desires continually into effect, they' would never have risen to ashigh a state as they did. Against this solid teaching of tradition and experience stands alone the seventeenth century Spanish Quietist, Molinos, who was condemned by Pope Innocent XI for instructing his followers to have ."no desire for their own perfection, nor for virtues, nor for their own sanctity . " III There are certain qualities which the will to perfection shpuld possess. First of all, it-must be supernaturally mo.tivated. God's glory, our own sanctification, the spir-ithal good of the neighbor, these must b.e.the fundamental reasons why we desire to be more perfect in the spiritual lii~e. All-too-human ambition and foolish .vanity are to be excluded. However, a reasonable desire to succeed, to win the esteem of our fellow-religious, to be in the good graces of superiors, and other such merely natural motives, may be profitably utilized in a supplementary way: but the main stress must always be on supernatural motives if our desire for perfection is to be solid and free from illusions. Then it is more apt to be prudent, humble, apd sincere. It must, too, be all-embracing, like perfection itself. It has to include great things and small, hard things and easy, 231 AUGUSTINE KLAAS " Review for "Religio~is the pleasant and the pain'ful; with a special inclination toward the more difficult, and even the heroic, seeing that our actions generally fall short of our laudable ideals. Hence, we may not pick and choose, ~desiring to be perfect in prayer but not in obedience, perfect in our work but not in our play, perfect in pursuing the hobbies andside issues of life we love so much but not in doing our main tasks, perfect in dealing with externs but not with our fellow religious. The list could be considerably lengthened. At the same time, it must be practical, that is, adapted to our particular condition and state of life, in accord with bodily health, mental capacity, and spiritual strength. The universality of our desire for perfection is thus limited, made definite, concretized by our practicality. A teaching religious may have a strong desire to make a holy pilgrim-age on foot to ,Jerusalem--and no doubt his students would approve it, too~but such a desire is normally out of place, at least during the school year. It just is not prac-tical. Another religiou~ may be wanting to lead a more contemplative life by spending a great deal' of time in the chapel, but meanwhile the orphans are creating pandemo-nium, the pupils are hurling erasers, the sick are getting sicker, and the soup is boiling over. It isn't practical. This practicality will be particularly in evidence when we are choosing the means to perfection; and here let me recall that it is not so much the number of actions nor their greatness in the eyes of the world that counts for advancement in per-fection, but rather the more perfect manner of doing a few well-chosen ones. The saints have done nothing if they have not taught us that lesson, namely, that it.doesn't matter so much to/~at we do as bow we do it. Hence, our desire for perfection must take in the whole concrete situa-tion and be eminently realistic; it cannot afford to chase il!usive spiritual butterflies. 232 July, 19 4 7 THE WILL TO.PERFECtION Furthermoie, the desire forperfection must be effective at all times and in all ptaces~ Here the present moment is all-important. -We must desire to be perfect not only when we have taken our first vows, or our final vows, or when we are thirty years old, or forty, or fifty--but now, at the present moment. "'Nunc coepi.'" (Now I have begun.) Like the saints we must learn to value what has been called "the sacrament of the present moment." Nor must the will to perfection be effective just on certain days, on feast-days and not on fast-days, on Sundays and not on Mon-days. The present moment is every moment. No place must be left out: the desire for perfection must be activated in the chapel as well as in the laundry, the classroom, the hospital, the kitchen, the orphanage, the recreation room, everywhere. I like to recall how the sainf of Lisieux struggled With her dislike of that malodorous cheese in the dining room as well as with her annoyance at her neighbor's rattling beads in the chapel. Always and everywhere must the desire of perfection be efficacious, in a simple, .~natural, and balanced way, with no tensefiess, wor.ry, or constraint. Otherwise it can happen, as Holy Scripture sa3is, that "desires kill the ~slothfu1: for his hands have refused to work at all. He longeth and desireth all the day! but he that is just will give, and will not cease" (Proverbs 2:1~:25-26). "Do what you do" is a maxim, which, if followed faithfully, will go a long way towards m~king ~our will to perfection something more than a mere velleity, something more than a will erratically effective only at certain times and places. Finally, the will to perfection must be persevering, so much so that gradually it becomes the dominating desire to which all others are subordinated. "Seek ye first the king-dom of God and His justice . " No more powerful means to .perfection exists than the habitual hunger and 233 thirst-for the higher life of the soul. 2 Indeed, it is an .excel-lent gauge of the degree of perfection a religious has already attained since the desire increases' in ,proportion[ toe his progress in virtue. - IV There are some obstacles to the acquirement and fos-tering, of the will to perfection. Indifference to spiritual perfection itself is, of course, a great hindrance to culti-vating a desire for it. We do not desire whai: we are not interested in. May we lawfully.-adopt.a "don't care" atti-tude of mind towards our own spiritual perfection and consequently neglect to desire and will it? Certainly we may not, and the reason is simply that our greater, perfec-tion is bouiad up with God's greater glory, and no one may b~ wholly indifferent about that: True, one may be of equal mind regarding the various means conducive to per-fection-- riches or poverty, honor~ or dishonor, health or illness, .and the like--since any of them can advance one to perfection and promote God's greater glory. But it is otherwise with perfection itself. God's greater glory, can never demand that we do not seek our own perfection, much less contemn it; hence, we must in some way strive for and desire perfection. " o~ ~ ¯ Perhaps one may admit theoretically what has just been stated, but deny it practically by the tepidity oflone's life. This spiritual torpor, lukewarmness, and Carelessness in the service of God is doubtless the deadliest enemy of perfection and its desire. It warps the judgment; it makes the wiII fickle and inconstant. It is a creeping pa'}alysis which gradually chokes off and Stifles all will to advance in .the 1ore of God and the neighbor, the esSenCe of perfection. It must be resolutely combated;~ it nius~ be replaced by its 0pposit~e, :Which is devotedness, fervor of" sl~iritual life, a 234 Jul~;o~19 4 7 THE WILLTO PERFECTION synonym for the desire of perfection. ",~ ~ . Anothe~r obstacle is what spiritual writers call rnoratism. This is the baneful tendency to be content with the practice of. the moral virtues and with doing only what is strictly obligatoty. The desire for perfection is thus shoit-circuited, human means are relied on rather than divine, our own little schemes and devices are preferred to a generous trust in the grace of God. In a word, it is a kind of naturalism in the spiritual life which reduces the desire of perfection to an ignoble minimum. The remedy, of course, is, a stronger emphasis on the supernatural in our lives and, while not neglecting the moral virtues, a greater insistence on the theolog.ical virtues of faith, hope, and charity, a more determined practice of the counsels. By our desires we must "hitch our wagon to a star."' After all, a Chris-tian should desire to be eery much more than the equiva-lent of a good.pagan, whose ideal of perfection is the golden mean of the natural moral qirtues. Plus XI points to the objective of.Catholic education a's being "thd supernatural man. who thinks, judges and acts consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by t~he supernatural ligh~t of the example and teaching of Christ." If that is applicable to layfolk, how much more so. to religious? There must be no deliberate limiting of ,the desire for perfection, to the lower level of moralism; the desire must surely transcend the minimum observance-of the Ten Commandinents. Similhrly the will to perfection is hobbled by a pre-dominantly negative concept of ~erfection. If we are wholly taken up with avoiding sin and impe'rfection rather than with cultivating the mote positive aspects of spiritual-ity, such as the acquiring of the virtues and the doing of meritorious works, particularly those of supererogation, it is easy to see how this will curtail our desire for perfec-tion. "Accentuate the positive" is an excellent rule to gov-. 235 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Review for Religious ern our spiritual desires and ideals. Finally, the desire bf one's own perfection, if not rightly m'anaged and ~controlled, can make one self-centered, self-complacent,, spiritually~egotistic. Too much concern with knowing down to the last detail where one stands on the ladder of perfection, just how much one is advancing from day to day, from hour to hour, by doing this or not doing that, does not make for a healthy spirituality, because this attitude often leads to excessive introspection, exaggerat~ed solicitude for minutiae and the relatively unimportant, uneasiness, preoccupation of mind, destruction of internal peace, and loss of true resignation and conformity to the will of God. All these things will hamper a true desire for progress in virtue. This evidence of a subtle pride and selfishness must be cast out of the soul, especially by puri-fying the motives for seeking perfection. It is good to know in a general way where one stands on the road to perfection, but it does no. good and can be very harmful to go too much into detail about it. Let God and His loving. Providence take care of the precise degree of perfection reached. A good principle here is not to look backward too much but rather by our desires to keep looking forward and upward to the summit of the mountain of Christian perfection. Eyes on God., rather than on one's own petty self! V To awaken and augment a real desire for perfection we must have a deep appreciation of the value of perfection itself. To this it will contribute to have a correct estima-tion of the worth of earthly things as Solomon had when he exclaimed "vanity of vanities," and also to be thor-oughly convinced of the importance of the "one thing necessary" spoken of in the Gospels. From this will flow a clear understanding that in the scale of values the desire of 236 ,I~l~1, 1947 " THE WILL TO PERFECTION perfection, when tightly comprehended, is .above all other desires. : The grace of God is needed to make this desire habitual and ever more fruitful; hence, for this grace, we must humbly pray. Can there be any more l~recious thing to pray for? Meditations, examens of conscience, spiritual reading, monthly recollections, retreats, all should be directed to arousing and stimulating the will to perfection, ~specially by proposing tO the mind the correct and most effective motives for will-action: God's glory, our own per-sonal sanctification, the spiritual good of the neighbor. Another help to foster and a~tivate the desire ~for per-fection is to study the lives of. Our Lord, of His Blessed Mother, of the saints, and .of other holy persons. Example always has the effect of engendering a desire to emulate. Saint Ignatius Loyola. is not the only saint who found example a powerful stimulus to the perfect life. It will also aid us to be on the alert to take advantage of the various circumstances of time and place to increase our desire for perfection. In this way, our trials, sufferings, failures, even our sins and imperfections, if rightly used, as well as our successes and triumphs, can be made into steppingstones to greater perfection, if only we seize upon these golden opportunities to whet our appetite for God and His love. Lastly, if we now have no real desire for perfection, or only a very feeble one, let us desire to have that desire and pray for it perseveringly. Spiritual writers say that such a manifestation of good will is almost always rewarded by .a gift from God. VI If the desire for perfection becomes the one, all-consuming, all-pervading passion of the religious, if 237 AUGUSTINE KLAAS' de.spising thethings bf earth:,heconq'uers human ,resp'ect;and_ can honestly say with David: "For what have I in heaven?: and besides thee what do l'desire~ upon, earth?, ¯ For thee my flesh and heart hath fainted awaY/:, thou, oart the God of m~ heart, and the'God thatis my portion'forever'', .('Psalm then there willl come into hisAife a~deeposense'of personal freedom, detachment from transitory created~ al,lurements, a"growing generosity in God's service, and an unexpected happiness. For wherever there is generosity of will and intention, there is spiritual joy: And God in His turri will not be outdone. He will pour out His gracesandfavors on the largehearted religiouso as He did of old on Daniel, on Paul, and on all those other men and women~of consuming desire for perfection. He will satisfy.that hunger and slake that. thirst.with His celestial gifts. Hol,y. desires are very meritorious in the sight of God~ even though some particular longings are not realized because oof circumstances beyond the .contro.1 of the reli-gious.~ Sb6uld fiecessity or:~obedience thwart ;i particular desir~e t~o do something .generous for God's gl6ry, that desire .will receiv:e :its .full-reward an~rway, as Saint Bernard cor-rectly notes. (Epistle 77) : .',The. desire is reckoned as the, deed itself by God,,when the deed is hind~ered by necessity." Hence~ it isono~illusion to desire to do great and~ even heroic things for Christ, such as going on the foreign missions, or undergoing martyrdom, and the; like, even, if there,,is little possibility of their, realization. Ir~ a particular case, God may. really want.only the d~sire~ and hence He will reward it as though it had been fulfilled. , ~ . The fruitful desire of perfection is of immense benefit, not only to ourselves, but to the neighbor also. It will blossom into a zealous apost01at.e, it will add honor and splendor to the w, bole' cburcbof G0d) and ~best ofall it will give grea~"glory, t6 God~ not 6ia]~r~in~ this w6rld, -but' 238. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS through6ut eternity. ' ' " ~' To conclu~te With Clement: Of "Alexa~drih, cgmm~nting on Christ's offer of the p~fect life. tb the rich young~ man (Migne, Patr~logid Graeca, IX, 613) : ° "If thou u~ilt~ be perfectly! Therefore he was not yet perfect . . , and the words if thou wilt divinely show the liberty of the soul which is dealing,with the Lord. ¯ It was in the power of the man, who was free, to choose.; to give was the prerogative of God, as being the Lord. He gives to those who will, to those who make an effort, to those,who pray . God after all, does.not force anyone . He gives to those who ask, He opehs to those who knock. Let us then with God's grace will, and do, and pray; and spiritual perfectionwill surelybe ours to God's greater glory andour own everlasting happiness. Quesffons ncl Answers . What should be the conduct "of the r.ec~pient.of Ho|y Communion should a tiny particle of the Host, unnoticed by the priest, fall.upon his person?, " ~ .Because of the words "tiny particle" this question needs cautious answering. Some people are prone to see "tiny particles" everywhere. For them, the only prudent course of ~action is to ignore what they think are "tiny particles." Putting aside, therefore, the question of imaginary particles, the communicant who notices that a Host or a real particle of a Host has fallen upon his person should .wait at the communion rail and call the priest's attention to the fact. --17- Is" there anything in the Code which mlcjhf be construed as; an obliga-tion on the part of higher superiors to give Sisters a one- or two-week vacation annually? ¯ ~ The Code makes no explicit provision for an annual vacation for Sisters--but:we are inclined to wish that it did. Moreover, since some kind 6f vacation appears to be a normal requisite for preserving 239 QUESTI~)NS AND ANSWERS Reoieto for ~Religious good health and for fostering a wholesome,, c'ommu~ity .~pirit, it seems "that superiors have an implicit duty o~f trying .to provide such a vacation. This statement may call for some further explanation, for there seems to be much confusion concerning what constitutes a vaca-tion for Sisters. In some cases "vacation" app~ar~s to be synonymous with "annual retreat." This is particularly the case with regard to hospital Sisters; but it is not uncommonly verified in many teaching institutes in which the yearly round 'of activities may be 'summed up thus: teachm summer school--retreat---clean house--teach. In view of the fact that Sisters commonly make a fervent retreat, it is nothing less I~han fantastic to consider their retreat as a vacation. In other cases the Sisters' vacations consist in visiting their parents for several days. Of course, this is a "break," and in that sense it is a vacation. But it is not a vacation in the true, and par-ticularly the religious, sense of the word. Often enough these visits are characterized by strenuous activity and loss of sleep, and are therefore not even physically relaxing. However, even if in some cases they provide physical rest and release of mental strain, they are hardly a religious vacation. A vacation f0~religious should serve the purpose of intensifying the community spirit: and this purpose is cer.tainly not achieved b~y going off'for a time with one other Sister tO live ampng seculars, even though the~e seculars be relatives and very saintly persons. Still another misnomer for a vacation is teaching in a vacation school. This too may be a "break." The Sisters get away from strict community life for a time; and some find the novelty, very enjoyable, even though the' work may be hard. Nevertheless, though novel, though enjoyable, though mentally relaxing, it is not what we mean by a religious ,vacation. What do we mean by a vacation? Perhaps the following ~tory will illustrate what we mean: A certain mother general who was keenly interested in the spiritual progressl of her subjects, was thinking of having an inten-siv6, spiritual program that would last about thirty days; and she asked a priest friend what he ~thought of the idea. This priest happened to be a man who leans strongly towards what might be called a practical view of life . "Well, Mother,'Y he replied, after having considered the idea, "'if you can spare your Sisters from their duties for thirty° days, I 240 July, 1947 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS think the best thing to do would be to give them an eight-day retreat and three weeks' vacation." "A vacation!" she exclaimed in astonishment~ "ddst what would they do with a vacation? They're often here at the mother-house. It's a lovely, s~0acious place. Isn't that. vacation enough?" "I agree with you~it is a nice place. Nevertheless, a mother-house is a motherhouse. It has an atmosphere of strict discipline and constant occupation. I suppose you could plan for a vacation here; but you would really have to plan it, or you might run into diffi, culties. When I speak of giving Sisters a vacation, I am thinking of your getting a pla~e away from your regular houses--a place that's private, where many Sisters could go together and rest and play games and, above all, get to know one another. Religious can go through the stress and strain of ordinary duties, and scarcely get to know one another. In fact, when they are always under strain, they can build up mutual dislikes that grow through the years to vast proportions. This can be largely offset by a good community vaca-tion. In relaxation and recreation the religious see one another in a new light, and often discover remarkably fine qualities that they never knew existed. In my opinion, there's nothing like a good com-munity vacation for fostering a good community spirit." She thought over his suggestion for a time, and then asked him: "In-this ideal vacation of yours what happens to the spiritual exercises ? "There's an old maxim to the effect that there's no vacation from the spiritual life. I won't deny that; hence I make allowance for spiritual e~ercises in my plan for the ideal religious vacation. But let's confine it to the ordinary exercises and not use this vacation as a time for adding more and more prayers to the usual ones." Thus far the story. Readers may agree or disagree with the priest, as they see fit. For ourselves, we believe that his idea is worth considering a.nd developing. W~e realize, of course, that many superiors who agree wholeheartedly with the idea are handicapped by tre-mendous difficulties, especially financial, in carrying it out. Nevertheless, difficulties are not always as insuperable as they first appear. We believe that some institutes of Sisters have already worked out satisfactory vacation plans. From practical experience these Sisters may have suggestions that would be profitable to others. If they wish to send these suggestions to us, we will gladly publish them in the REVIEW. 241 QUESTI.ONS~ AND ANSWER,S I) Are superiors required by canon law t6 comply with the wishes of a subject who for a worthy cause asks for a change 6f residence? (2) If the subiect!s reason for inak[ng, the ~request is a'problem of conscience,° is, he obli~jed to reveal to the superio'r the nature of this problem? °~Fh'ese. two questions, alth(~ugh'~oming from different sources, are intirrhitely connected. Arid since they,deal with a matter of th~ high~st importance in the religious life, an unusually detailed answer seen~s called for. Ca~on law contains no specific provision concerning the assign-men~ of religious, The first question, therefore, must rather be answered in the'light of the principles concerning"the government of religious. Sir~c~ this government ofight to be paternal, it seems to follow logically that superiors are obliged to grant reasonable requests of subjects unless the superiors have equally good reasons for refusing them. To apply.this principle in a concrete case a religious superior must consider not only the request of the individual subject but also factors that pertain to other individual religious and to the ihstitute as a whole. The individual who asks for a change of residence is quite, naturally looking at the matter from his own point of view; and from this point of view he may have one or more of many good reasons fbr requesting the change. Forinstance: one's health is poor anti'would probably be greatly benefited by a change; there is strife in the present community, and great peace can be expected from a chari'ge;' a~ teacher is doing poorly in his present assignment 'and feels that if. he could go elsewhere and get'a new start all wotild be well an occasion of sin has'developed, and it seems that~the most efficacious means of avoiding sin is to get away from the pre,sent circumstances.', These are dxamples of good reasons for asking for a change., Some are n/ore serious than others; .yet a stibjec't who~for any oneof'these reasons, or for some similar reason, requests a change of residence is certainly asking "for a worthy cause,'Liis the question puts it. The superior who receives such a~request is bound in conscience to give it prudent consideratibn. The first step .in this prude.nt con-siddration is to weigh the reason itself. If the. superior honestly judges that the subject'would not reap ,the expected benefit from the,requested change, he can hardly have an obligation to.grant it. The obligation in this case is rather on the subject; ~he should either appeal, his case to a ihigher superior, if he thinks it. sufficiently serious, or accept this particular disposition of Divine Providence and.~do the best he can 242 duly, 1947 , QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS under the circumstances. Obviously it is possible for the superior to be mistaken in his judgn~ent, for t~e has no charism of infallibility; yet, granted that he has acted prudently and sincerely, he has nothing with which to reproach himself if subsequent events ifidicate th;it he was unwise in denying the request. Even when the superior'judges that th~ requested change~would be beneficial, it is not always obligatory, .or even permissible, to grant it. For, although patebnal government implies an intimate familial relationship between the superior and the individfial subject, it does not° change tl~e fact that the superior's primary~ duty is to seek~ the common good. He must view the individual's need in the light of the needs of otl~ers and particularly of the entire community.or eritire instittite; ~nd he can reasonably grant requests of.individuals only when they do not Conflict with the greater good. That such conflicts can easily arise" seei~S~ obvious, sirice, ~:he reassigning ~f oile religious usfially involves at least one'other chfing~, and frequently it cannot be accomplished without many changes. ~As one example of~, a" Worthy caule for requestii~g a ch,~ange,,~of residence we mentioned the necessity of avoiding an occasion "dr 'sift: A consideration of' this and of othel reasons of co~iscien~e leads'logi-cally to the very delicate problem indic~tei:l by the second question." namely, how much information must be given the superiol Whe~ change is requested for sfich personal rehsons? There seem~ ~obe a difference of opinion here. As' a clear expression of one ~Vie~, ~ve quote the foll6wing from a letter ient to our editorial board by a priest who is much ihterested in this problem. " "The Code," he wrot~, "forbids a'~onfessor to interfere With the internal government of any religious con~munity. Yet very often matters pertaining to commiinity life also pertain t6 the forum of conscience. Mindful of the Code"and mifidful also of the spi/itual welfare of a religious, the confessor may deem it ne~ces~ry o.r veiy imperative that there b'e a change of ~esidence, 6f.assignmfint, of the community doctor or dentist to be visited for professional purposes, and so forth. ThUd advice ~iven us during our cdurse in p~astoral' theology was to study well the case and then to say to t~e/eligious: 'Tell your provincial or local superior that your confessor adviies.you to ask for a change of residence, of assignment, and so forth.' In the estimation of the confessor tha~t_ should be sufficient: a prbble~ of consci~nce'~exists, and a changeowould be definifeiy helpful in sol'ving it. The superiors a're thus° made aware of theproblei6 basefi"6n QUESTIONS AND ANSWER,S Revie~u [or Religious reasons,of conscience (reasons ,which no religious is bound to reveal to the superior). And yet, strange to say, the request has been turned down ! , "How such a refusal can be justified is beyond me. The confessor can err, but he is in possession of knowledge which the superior has not. The reason of exterior regularity cannot outweigh the'spiritual needs of an individual. Is not the spiritual betterment of each reli. gi6us the first concern of superiors? And is there not for the superior who may judge that ~a confessor has been 'taken in' by religious a means to have the confessor changed, i.e.~ by asking the removal of the confessor from the local ordinary, who can change the confessor without giving the reason? Hence it would seem that a request such as was,stated above should be granted by the superior of the religious who forwards it. The superior may have ~doubts, but the doubt should ordinarily favor the religious and especially the confessor of the xeligious. Personally, I cannot see how any superior can pit his or her judgment against a request that is advised or approved by the confessor, especially w.hen abuses can be stopped by a recourse to the bishop." This is one view .of the matter, strongly and clearly expressed. But it seems to us that there is another side, and we should like to indic~ate it. Let us suppose that a religious has a real difficulty of conscience: for example, an occasion of serious sin: and he goes to his superior with a request for a change of residence. He tells the superior that his confessor told him to ask for the change; he does nQ~t reveal in any way the specific nature of his difficulty. Everyone would agree, no doubt, 'that the superior may take a prudent confessor's word con-cerning the spiritual need of his penitent: and if this were the only factor to be considered in making a chlnge of assignment the superior would not need more definite information. But can this question of reassigning a religious always be so utterly simplified? For instance, how is the superior who is ignor-ant of the nature of the subj ct's difficulty to know that the new assignment will not be more dangerous than the present one? And how is the superior to judge who can be safely called upon to replace the religious in his present assignment?. And since changes like this not infrequently in;colve inconveniences for communities, how is the superior to judge whether the subject's need is sufficient to offset these inconveniences? After all, even conscience problems vary greatly in 244 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS degree; and we doubt if it can be stated as an absolutely generalprln-ciple that all conscience problems must take precedence over the external needs of the community or institute. It depends on what these conscience problems are and what these community needs are~ The superior may be well aware of the needs of the community, but he Can hardly make the necessary comparison if the subject withholds all information concerning the precise nature of his personal diffi-culty. W'e wonder sometimes if the view that the superior has no right to know the nature of a conscience problem is not closely connected with a misinterpretation of ~the canonical legislation concerning mani-festation of conscience. From the fact that the Church forbids superiors to exact a manifestation of conscience, many seem to con-clude that a superior never has a.right to know a subject's conscience problem and that the subject r~eve~" has a duty to make known the nature of his problem. It seems to us that these r~ever's are too abso-lute. Taken at their face value and applied universally, they mean that in many instances the Church wishes to sacrifice prudent govern-ment in order to preserve a so-called liberty of conscience even when this might be harmful to the individual. Even i~ we suppose that a subject never has a strict obligation to reveal the nature of a cohscience difficulty to a superior, a good reli-gious': would not be justified in translating this into an attitude .which amounts'to, "My conscience is none of the superlor's business~" The canon law defiiaitely encourages the practice of ~voluntary manifesta-tion of conscience to priest superiors; and if this is encouraged as a normal practice, it is certainly advisable at a time of special n'eed. ~ With r.egard, to manifestation of conscience to lay superiors (for example, to Sisters), we have often heard it said that the Church p~sitively disdourages the manifestation of conscience difficukies .to them. Perhaps this notion is traceable to the Index to the Code; and it may be well to call attention to the fact that this Index is a private document, not officially promulgated by the .Church. Both Father Creusen and Father Schaefer, who are certainly among the best authorities on the canon law for religious, say that the Church neither encourages nor forbids the voluntary manifestation of conscience difficulties to lay superiors: In this opinion, which seems to squar~ perfectly with the wording of canon 530, § 2, the Church simply leaves the matter of voluntary manifestation" of conscience problems to lay superiors to be solved in' individual Cases according to sound 245 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS pastoral principles. ~ ' It is clearl'y contrary to soundp~storal principles to open one's conscience .to a lay superior,°for the purpose, of getting advice that the superior is n0tcompetent to give. But itis quite in ac'cord with these .principles to reveal one'~ conscience difficulties to a lay superior ~in order to get encoura~einent and especially to get the help required for putting a director's or confesso£s advice intd effect. Those who shy that the Church positively discourages the manifestation of conscience difficulties t6 laysuperiors seem to be unaware of this very important distinction between expert advice on the one hand, and such things as sympathy, encourageinent, and practical help on the other. We have g6ne to some length in treating this matter of manifes-tation of conscience because many of the questions and suggestions that we have received in recent years indicate that subjects often lack filial confidence in their superiors; and this deplorable condition seems to exist among both religious men and religious women. And the fault is by no means all on the side 6f the subject. Some superiors give their subjects the impression that they are not interested in the personal, affairs of individuals: they want only efficiency, external achievement, financial success. Othe/ superiors, after listening willinglyto the subject's diffigulties, appear to be unconscious of the grave obligation of secrecy that the very nature of such communica-tions demands. There is need, it seems, of sincere self-examination on both sides.~::superiors and subjects--ifothe ideals.of paternal, gov~ ern_men.t_and filial confiden_ce are to be adequately attained. We conclude with the following direct answers to the questions. proposed : , ~ ~. 1) The superior is obliged to comply with the request'of the subject if,.after having prudently weighed al~l pertinent circumstances (namely,,.the need of the one making the request, the needs of other r.eligious, of the community, and so f0rth),~ he judges that the reassignment is necessary . 2) In general, it may be said that a superior is entitled to all the information he needs in order to make a prudent decision' of a case. It follows from this that a superior who judges that further informa-tion is necessary before making a change is not violating the rights of the_ subje.ct by refusing to make the change without such informa-tion; and in this case of justifiable refusal a subject who is conscious of, a serious need Of. a change in order to. avoid ,a proximate occasion of morta'l sin seems to. have a strict obllgatio.n to reveal the n~ture of 246 JuI~,1947 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS his problem, at. least to the extent required for prudent consideration by the superior. If, on the other hand, the superior is satisfied with such'general statements as "I would like a reassignment as a matter of conscience--because my confessor, or spiritual director, advises it," , the subject is nor strictly obliged to volunteer further information. So much for the obligation, The ideal solution is that such familial confidence prevail between superior and subject that the latter can readily explain the nature of his problem to the superior and thus get the maximum of prudent co-operation. We think that this applie~ to all religious institutes, wl'iether clerical or lay, whether of men or of women. 19 What is the proper method of disposing of an amputated llmb? According to a reply of the Holy Office given on August 3, 1897, the amputated limbs of Catholics should, if possible, be buried in a sacred place. The Holy Office suggested that hospitals have a small plot of blessed ground for this precise purpose. The amputated limbs of non-Catholics should be buried in unblessed ground. In b'oth cases--namely, of Catholics and non-Catholics--if the doctors insist on it, the Sisters may burn the amputated limbs. This reply of fifty years ago is still, taken as the norm for the proper disposal of amputated limbs. It should be noted that the reply" is quitemoderate in tone. It makes allowan& for difficult "cir-cumstafi~ es: *for exampld, in many plades it might be impbssible to have the "small pldt of blessed ground in the garden of the hos- ¯ pital"; in fact, this might be contrary to civil law. According to a quite reasonable interpretation, it also allows for the burning of limbs that are dangerously diseased, and for the saving of amputated" parts for, examination purposes. We suggest that, if there are any special difficulties in this matter, the local chancery ~office be consulted.Circumstances may call for different policies in different places. m20-- Who is the proper authority to decide the term of office of a mother superior? How long may she remain in office? With regard to local superiors, the Code itself is quite explicit, They are "not to bold office for more than three years; on the expira-tion "of 'this term they can be reappointed to the same offices if the constitutions permit it, but not immediately for a third term in the 247 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS same religious house," The term of office of higher superiors is to be determined by the duly approved constitutions. The usual policy of the Congregation of Religious, in ap~proving congregations of Sisters, is to limit the mother general to two successive terms of six year§ each. She may not be immediately re-elected to a third term. ~2 Im If the ordinary confessor frequently fails fo make an appearance and there should be a real need of informing the bishop, who makes the report Ethe superior of the convent or institution? or the chaplain? In the case of a convent connected with a parish, is it the superior or the pastor who makes the report? Whenever there is real need of informing the bishop of the failure of a confessor to make his appearance, the superior should make the report. Neither the chaplain nor the pastor has anything to do with such matters. ~22m In convents, who applies for faculties for retreatsmthe local superior or the chaplain? The practice varies in different dioceses. In some the locai superior requests the faculties; in others, the chaplain; in still others, the retreat master himself; and finally some r~quire that the retreat master's religious superior make the application. The bishop of the diocese should be consulted and his wishes followed. Our constitutions prescribe that for each deceased Sister we say, as soon as possible, the Office of the Dead, or fifty Our Fathers, adding after each Our Father: "Eternal rest grant unto her, 0 Lord," and so forth. Now the rubric in the Office of the Dead prescribes that after every psalm the following be said: "Requiem aeternam dona els . . . E'f lux perpetua luceat els." even if the Office is recited for only one person. If the fifty Our Fathers are said instead of the Office, which is more properly used, the singular or the plural form of the pronoun? While it is true that when reciting the Office of the Dead the plural form is always used, it is also true that the liturgical form for the absolution recited over the corpse after the funeral Mass.uses the singular. Hence it seems quite proper to use the singular when saying the Our Fathers and Hail Marys for a specific deceased Sister. 248 Book Reviews THE THREE AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE: Prelude of Eternal Life. By the Rev. R. Garrlg~u-Lagrange, O.P. Volume One. Translated by Sister M. Timoth'ea Doyle, O.P., Rosary Collecje, River Forest, lll;no~s. Pp. xxiv -f- 494." B. Herder Book Company, St. Louis, Missouri, 1947. Ss.o0. For many years Father Garrigou-Lagrange, the distinguished professor of the Angelicum, Rome, and one of the most eminent of contemporary Dominicans, has been writing on ascetical and mystical themes. Besides many articles in various periodicals, he has to his credit several volumes on spiritual subjects. Some years ago he pub-lished a systematic and formal treatise on the whole field, thus giving a unified, balanced, and complete expression to his ideas on the spir-itual life. Now the first volume of this work appears in English. Perhaps the salient feature of this study is the preoccupation of the author with his thesis that infused contemplation comes within the normal development of the interior life. For a generation and more there has been a great debate over "the question. Father Gar-rigou- Lagrange has been one of the leaders in it, and evidently he is still waging a vigorous battle in defense of his doctrine: "When we' say, in short, that infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith is necessary for sanctity, we mean morally necessary; that is, in the majority of cases a soul could not reach sanctity without,it, We.shall add that without it a soul will not in reality possess the full perfec. tion of Christian life, which implies the eminent exercise of~.the theological virtues and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost which accom-pany them. The purpose of this book is to establish this thesis" (page 23). The whole work is divided into five parts, only two of them being contained in this volume. The first part deals with "the sources of the interior life and its end." It explains certain of the great Christian dogmas that have special relevance to the super-natural life: Thus there are chapters.~on the life of grace, the super-natural organism, the virtues--theological and moral, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, the Mys.tical Body of Christ, the mediation of 'the Blessed Virgin Mary, and so on. After'this dogmatic section comes a discussion of the primary ascetical questions: for instarice, the nature of perfection, the gran- 249 ¯ BOOK REVIEWS Reoiew [or Religious deurs of it, heroism .in. virtue, the passive purgations, the love of God, t~ae,'evangellcat counse!,s?'t~ae special obligations of priests and reli-gious to, pursue perfection, and other such matters. The second, rd, and fourth parts correspond to the tradtttonal three' ways m the spmtual~hfe' ~purgat~ve, ~llummat~ve, and umt~ve. Fmally~ the fi~th ~ar¢ ~i]l'~eal with ~extr~0rdinar~- graces, such as visions', ieve-lations, stigmatlzation,.and oth'e# unusuat ~henome~a. This work, like a much smaller one published some year'~ ago by the sam~ afithor (Les Trois Co~oecsions et les Trois Voles, r932), takes iks name ~om an interesting analogy between the natural and supernatural lives. Both lives consist of three periods or stag~s, and each 0f these three is ushered in by a crisis. Naturally, birth is the fiist crisis and introduces one to childhood. To birth corresponds the 'beginning of One's spiritual life a~ about the seventh year, or wfien~wr one is converted to a really interior life. Beginners are children in spiritual matters: their virtues will not be well devel-oped; their form of mental prayer is rather discursive; special inspi-rations of the Holy Spirit will be latent; there is no great degree of docility to Him; and they will be conscious of self-activity rather than of beifig moved from above. The second crisis in the natural life is pubec&, leading to the age of adolescence, with its~psych~logical as well as physical character-istics. The supernatural correlatives, are the "night of sense" (St. John of the Cross), the" initial forms of in~used (ontemplation passively" purifying the inferior faculties and subjecting them' to the spirit, arid the condition of ~roficientsTgrowing and advancing in-the illuminativ~ way. Now one's virtues become solid, the operaSions of the ~iftS become more manifest, and one assumes more or less the disposition of tile counshls: But if the ~aithful soul keeps striving earnestly and long enough, it will reach and successfully undergo a third crisis answering to "that of first liberty," attaining one's majodtq about the age of twenty-one and'eKtering upon full adulthood. Thd "night of the spirit," a sort of purgatory upon earth, will put one through a most thorough-going and painful purification and will prepare one to ascend th~ highest rungs of the mystical ladder. Then one is~ num-bered among the perfect and is in the uniti#e way. At any point in this supernatural evolution a person may fa~l to go on as he should; if so, he becomes something of a spiritual dwarf or midget. ~. AUG. E~A~, S.J. 250 dul~l, "! 947 BOO.K REVIEWS TERESA, JOHN, AND THERESE:.A Family Portralf of Thr~ee Great Car-melltes: Teresa of Avila, Jbhn of the Cross,~Therese ;f Li'sleu,x.-:o By the Reverend Father Brice, ~C.P. PFi. 336. Frederi¢~ ,Pusfef C6~,mPa~y: New York and Cindnnatl, 1946. $4.00. Few saints are as competent~to, i~spir.e us, to restore and elevate our supernatural vision, to inflame our affections for divine realities, as the Carmelite eagles Teresa, John, and Therese. Each one familiarly known and loved is a powerful aid to sanctity. But a comparative study of the three is .particularly enlightening and fruit-ful. For instance, how many are aware that God's principal tool in fashioning the sanctity of the lovable Therese was the austere John of the Cross? Father Bri& brings competent knowledge to his wel-come study of this spiritual trio; and though his love for all three is deep and sincere, the little Therese is plainly his favorite. Teresa, John/and Therese is adapted to the comprehension qf any intelligent Catholic, religious or.lay. In the mind of the author the three saints exemplify not merely the religious but the Christian way of life. Particular profit, however, is in store for religious and priests who read these pages reflectively. M~ny a brief chapter is fine'matter for meditation, though the work as a whole is perhaps too demanding for table reading. TWo' themes intedbck throughbut; the a~tivity and virtues~of¯ ,, each of th~ thre,e,~ ~ an°d~ ti~ inteyplay. ~ o ,0, of Te'res~i~ ~;nd John. on each. other and of both on Therese. Incident. and quotation, with which'the book abounds,~ are selected car'efully to,give us an ~x~ct and mo~cin~ family portrait. "~ ¯ ~ ~:'~" ~ As~Father Brice intended, we~ leave° Teresa, dohn, oa~t:d Thecese with a keen desire to deepen our acquaintance by firsthand contact. We fiave learnei:I l~d kno~ our ~uides'~eJl eriotigh to entrusl3 ourselves gladly t? i~i~m in the a~c~e~ot~, the' hi~her peaks. R. ~D. Hu8~, ~s~.2-. REFLECTIONS ,ON, THE SUNDAY,COLLECTS ~OF THE~ ROMAN MIS,,SAL. ,~By Sister ¯ Mary, G;nzaga~,Haessly. :' P~p; i32. 'The,Grail: St." Melnradl Ind. 19~,~>. "$~;00: " ' This book brings together, some of the best commentary on the Sunday collects in convenient and usable form. For each of the collects the~e ~s gtven the Latin text with a modern English translation f0ilowed b~ two pages of explan-';tion of the gist of the prayer. Since the collect of each Mass often summarizes the teachihff o~ the Epistle'and the Gosp_el, the bookfis in effect an excellent source for meditation matter reflecting the thoughts and petitions voiced by,the Church during .Sunday Mass from the time of St. Augustine to the present day. Simple re.adingof the explanation of the collect for one,Sunday will sometimes render all °the proper prayers of the Mass for that day vastly, more intelligible. Once in possession of the meaning of. the prayers a religious can more eas!ly make ,their.expres_sion his~o~wn and more fervently lift up mind and heart in union with the Church Universal. 251 BOOK REVIEWS Reoieto for Religio~s In recommending this book we mus( remark ~fia~ the lar~er work of which this is a part was originally written as a doctoral dissertation on the rhetoric of the Sunday collects. In revising the manuscript and adapting it for popular use the au(hor has sacrificed the discourses 9n rhetoric without sacrificing scholarship. roT, L. MACNAIR, S.J. BOOK NOTICES From fragments of letters, diaries, and narratives of Mar~'knoll Sisters in the Far Eastern war areas, Siste~ Mary de Paul Cogan in SISTERS OF MARYKiqOLL: THROUGH TROUBLED WATERS has woven an inspiring account of the war years. There is something about letters

Issue 43.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1984. ; REvll!w I:OR RE~.lt;~Ot~S (ISSN 0034-639X). published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at .Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. R~=.vlt.'.w FOR RE~.~t3~ot~s is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis, MO. @ 1984 by Rl~vll:.w FOR RE~.mlot;s. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two'years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For sub~ripfion orders or change of address, write Rt:v~t:w ~,oR Rt:l.w,~ot~s: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Sept./Oct., 1984 Volume 43 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR R~-:tAGtOOS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~-:v~.:w ~'oR Rt-:t.t~;~oos; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Oul of print" issues and articles not published as reprints arc available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. "On the Strength of His Word": A Meditation on Priestly Spirituality Joseph Ratzinger Oh the occasion of the golden jubilee celebration of Joseph Cardinal H~Sffner, Archbishop of Cologne (October 30, 1982), Cardinal RatTJng~r offered this meditation on the priesthood which many have found helpful. The text is based on the translation which appeared in L'Osservatore Romano, 2 April, 1984, pp. 13ft. Cardinal Ratzinger is presently Prefect of the S. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he may be addressed: 1 -- 00120 Vatican City The past twenty years have witnessed a great deal of reflection and much heated discussion about the priesthood. But in spite of everything, the priest-hood proves to be longer-lived thari anticipated by many of the premature arguments put forward by certain persons who would want to abandori it as a sacred misunderstanding, replacing it with an understanding based on the concept of a merely functional "temporary service." We are gradually°coming to comprehend the presuppositions which at one time allowed such arguments to appear almost incontrovertible. Overcoming these prejudices also enables "us to understand more profoundly the biblical witness in its inner unity--of Old and New Testament, of Bible and Church. We are thus no longer forced to rest content with stale water from cisterns that sometimes trickles away amid conflicting h3ipotheses and sometimes collects in brackish little pools. Instead, we have accessto the living fountains of the faith of the Church of all ages. As far as I can see, the future will have to face precisely this question: How are we supposed to read the Scriptures? During the years when the canon of the Scriptures was being formed--which were also the years when the Church and her catholicity were taking shape--it was primarily Irenaeus of Lyons who had to deal with this question, whose answer decided whether ecclesiasti-cal life was possible or not. In his day, Irenaeus saw clearly that to divide the 641 649 / Review for Religious~; Sept.-Oct., 1984 Bible in itself, and to separate Bible and Church from each other was the basic principle of a Christianity of conformism and rationalism, the so-called Gnosis, which threatened the very foundations of the Church at that time. This basic twofold division was preceded by an inner division of the Church itself into communities which created their own ad hoc legitimacy by a selec-tion of sources. The disintegration of the sources of faith calls forth the disintegration of fellowship or communio--and vice versa. Gnosis attempts to put forth such a division or separation as being the epitome of rationality--divide the two Testaments, separate Scripture from Tradition, distinguish between educated and uneducated Christians--but in truth, Gnosis is a sign of decay. On the contrary, the unity of the Church renders visible the unity of that whence she lives: the Church lives only when she draws upon the Whole, upon the multiform unity of Old and New Testa-ments, of scriptural tradition and the realization of the Word in faith. Once one has bowed to this other logic of disintegration, then nothing can really be put together properly any more.~ It would be inappropriate to the solemn joy of this day were we to enter more deeply into the scholarly disputation just h!nted at--though this dispute must be settled before one can discuss details of the biblical testimony, for instance on the subject of the priesthood. The very joy of this day is itself something of a locus theologicus. The fifty years of priesthood that we celebrate is a reality which speaks for itself, and which gives a concrete context to these reflections. On this occasion, then," ! thought it better not to attempt a scholarly lecture upon the priesthood, but instead to offer a spiritual reflection, one in which 1 should like to explain a few scriptural passages which have come to be important to me personally, and to do this in a meditative way, without any special system or claim to scholarship. The Priestly Image in Lk 5:1-11 and Jn 1:35-42 The first text I have chosen is Luke 5:!-11. This is the wonderful "voca-tion" account which tells how Peter and his friends, after a night of fruitless labor, on the strength of the Lord's word put out to sea once more. They catch a shoal of fish so great that the nets almost break, whereupon :Jesus utters his "call": ~'You shall become a fisher of men!" I have a very special affection for this passage because above it there shines the dawning light of a first love, of a beginning full of hope and readiness. Every time 1 recall these verses 1 remember the fresh brightness of my own beginnings, of that joy in the Lord of which we spoke in the phrase from the old psalter with which we began Mass: "I will go unto the altar of God, to the God who giveth joy to my youth" (Ps 42:4)--to the God in whose nearness the joy oI~ being young is constantly renewed because he is life itself, and hence the source of genuine youth. But let us return to our text which reports that the people pressed upon On the Strength of His Word / 643 Jesus because they wanted to hear the word of God. He is standing on the seashore, the fishermen are washing their nets, and Jesus gets into one of the two boats beached there--it was Peter's boat. Jesus asks him to put out a little from the land; he sits down and teaches the people from the boat. Simon's boat thus becomes the cathedra of Jesus Christ. Afterwards he says to Simon: "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." The fishermen have spent all night toiling in vain. To them it seems quite pointless to lower the nets again in the early morning hours. But for Peter, Jesus has already become so important, indeed so decisive, that he replies: On the strength of your word--"At your word I will let down the nets." The word of Jesus has already become more substantial than what is apparently real and empirically certain. That Galilean morning, whose fresh scent we can almost breathe in this account, becomes an image of the new dawn of the Gospel after the nights of fruitles~ness into which our own actions and: desires repeatedly lead us. And when Peter and his companions return with their heavy cargo-- which required the help of their partners because the abundance of the gift threatened to break their nets--Peter had completed not merely an outward journey, a work of merely human hands. For Peter, this had become an interior journey whose extent is framed by Luke in just two words. The Evangelist reports that before the great catch of fish, Peter addressed the Savior as Epistata, which means "teacher," "professor," or "master." Upon his return, however, Peter, falls on his knees before Jesus and no longer addresses him as Rabbi but as Kyrie--"Lord." In other words, Peter now addresses Jegus as God. Peter had. traveled the road from "Rabbi,' to "Lord," from "Teacher" to "Son." At the completion of this interior journey he is capable of receiving a vocation. At this point the parallels to the first "vocation" account in Jn 1:35-42, practically force themselves upon us.2 There we read that the first two disci-ples, Andrew and an unnamed companion, ~follow Jesus after hearing the Baptist exclaim, ".Behold, the Lamb of God !" They are struck on the one hand by the consciousness of their own sinfulness evoked by this exclamation, on the other hand by the hope which the Lamb of God represents for the sinner. One senses that both of them. are still uncertain; their discipleship is still hesitant.~ Without saying any more, they follow him discreetly, apparently not yet daring to address him directly. And so he turns to them and says, "What do you seek?" Although the reply sounds awkward, a bit shy and embar-rassed, still it comes directly to the. point: "Rabbi, where do you live?" Or, more acurately translated, "Where are you staying?"--where is your abode, your shelter, your real residence, that we too may arrive there?" Here, we must remind ourselves that the idea of "abiding" or "residing" is one of the key concepts of St. John's Gospel. The Savior's reply is normally translated "Come and see!" This corres-ponds with the conclusion of John's second "vocation" account involving 644 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 Nathanael, to whom Jesus says, "You shall see greater things than these!" (Jn 1:50). The meaning of this "coming," in other, words, is becoming perceptive; "coming" means to be seen by him--and to begin seeing with him. As a matter of fact, above his abode the heavens, the hidden sphere of God, are open (Jn 1:51); there man stands in God's own radiance. "Come, and you shall see!" also accords with the Church's "communion psalm": "O taste and see that the Lord is god!" (Ps 34:8). It is only the approach, the "coming," which leads to seeing. Tasting allows the eyes to be opened. Just as the tasting of the forbidden fruit in Paradise once "opened the eyes" in a fateful manner, so too it is true here in the opposite sense that tasting what is true also "opens the eyes," so that one realizes and "sees" God's goodness. Seeing takes place only in coming into Jesus' abode. There can be no vision without the hazard of approaching, of "coming." St. Johweven notes that "it was about the tenth hour" (1:39), in other words very lat~, a time at which one would think it no longer possible to make a beginning--and yet an hour at which urgent and decisive events do take place. According to some apocalyp-tic calculations, the tenth hour is considered the hour of the "last days."3 He who comes to Jesus enters the definitively final age; he makes contact with the already present reality of the Resurrection and of the kingdom of God. "Seeing," therefore, takes place when one '~approaches," and John the Evangelist makes this clear in the same fashion that we noted in St. Luke's account. When Jesus addressed them, the two responded by calling him "Rabbi." But when they return from staying with him, Andrew tells his brother Simon, "We have found the Messiah, the Christ" (Jn 1:14). In approaching Jesus ~and remaining with him, Andrew had traveled the path from "Rabbi" to "ChriSt," he had learned to see the Christ in the te~icher--and this is somethingwhich can only be learned in "abiding." Thus does the inner unity of the third and fourth Gospels become evident: both times the experi-ment of living "on'the strength of his Word" is undertaken, and both times the interior pilgrimage follows a course which permits vision, "seeing," to arise out of "coming." All of us began our joul-ney with the Church's full profession of faith in God's Son. But such an approach "~n the strength of his word," such an entering into his abode, is in our own case, too, the precondition for our vision or "seeing." And he alone is capable of calling others who is himself able to see cleai'ly, instead of merely believing at second hand. This coming or approach, this venturing out "on the strength of his Word" is, today and always, the indispensable prerequisite of the apostolate of priestly ministry. Again and again we shall find it necessary to ask him: "Where are you staying?" Over and over again it will be necessary to approach Jesus' abode from within. Again and again we shail have to let down the nets on the strength of his woi'd, even when it seems quite pointless. It is constantly necessary to regard his Word as more real than all that we otherwise would consider valid: statistics, technol-ogy, public opinion. Often it will seem as though the tenth hour had already On the Strength of His Word / 645 struck, and we shall have to postpone the hour of Jesus. But in precisely this way it can become the hour of his nearness. The two Gospel accounts have some other traits in common. St. John depicts the two disciples as being struck by the Baptist's proclamation of the Lamb. They obviously know from experience that they are sinners. For them this is not some sort of alien religious phraseology, but rather something that stirs them from within, something that is very real to them. Since they realize this about themselves, the Lamb becomes a sign of hope for them, and this is why they begin to follow him. Something quite unexpected occurs when Peter returns to shore with his great catch of fish. We might have expected him to embrace Jesus because of the successful fishing operation, but instead Peter falls on his knees. He does not hold fast to (he Savior in order to possess a future guarantee of success, but actually tries to drive him away because he fears the power of God: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man!" (Lk 5:8). Where man experiences God, there he recognizes his own sinfulness, and it is. only when he really knows that he is sinful--and has grasped the malice of sin--that he.also .comprehends the call to "repent,~ and believe the Gospel!" (Mk 1:15). Without conversion, it is not possible to press forward to Jesus and to the. Gospel. There is a paradox of Chesterton's which expresses this rela-tionship quite accurately: one can recognize a saint by the fact that he knows he is a sinner.4 The fact that our experience of God has grown pale is evident today in the disappearance of our experiential awareness of our sin; and vice versa: the disappearance of this knowledge alienates us all the more from God. Without falling into a false anxiety, we should once again learn the wisdom of the psalmist's word: lnitium sapientiae timor DorninL Wisdom, genuine under-standing, begins with the correct fear of the Lord. We must once more learn this fear in order to acquire true love and to grasp what it means to be able to love him--and to grasp as well .that he loves us. Hence this experience of Peter, of Andrew and of John is a basic prerequisite for the apostolate and thus also for the priesthood. Conversion--the very first word of Christian-ity-- can be preached only by one who has himself been touched by its neces-sity and therefore has grasped the greatness of grace. In these fundamental elements of the spiritual path of the apostolate which are becoming evident here, are the outlines of the basic sacramental structure of the Church, and indeed of the priestly ministry itself, also becoming clearer. If the sacraments of baptism and penance correspond to the experience of sin, then the mystery of the Eucharist corresponds to "coming" and "becoming perceptive," to entering into the abode of Jesus. Indeed, in a sense which we could previously not even imagine, the Eucharist is Jesus' abiding with us. "There you shall see"---the Eucharist is the place where the promise to Natha-nael applies, where we can see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending (Jn 1:51). Jesus dwells and "abides" in his sacrifice, in that act 646 / Review for Religious, Sept:-Oct., 1984 of love with which he conveys himself to the Father, and through his vicarious love he also gives us back to the Father. The communion psalm whi~:h speaks about tasting and seeing also says: "Come ye to him and be enlightened" ([Douay] Ps 33:6). Communion with Christ means communication with the true light that enlightens every man who comes into this world (see Jn l:9)P Let us consider another point common to both gospel accounts. The superabundant catch of fish begins to burst the nets. Peter and his crew cannot master the situation. Thus we read in Luke 5:7 that they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. "And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink." The call of Jesus is simultaneously a calling together, a call to syllabbsthai, as the Greek text puts it: "to take hold of together," to stick together and assist one another, to combine the efforts of both boats. St. John's Gospel expresses the same idea. Returning from his hour with Jesus, Andrew cannot remain silent about what he has found. He calls his brother Simon to Jesus, and the very same thing happens to Philip, who in his turn calls Nathanael (Jn 1:41-5). Vocation tends toward together-ness. Vocation makes disciples of us, and cries out to be passed on. Every vocation has a human element as well: the element of brotherliness, of being stimulated by another person. When we think back over our own lives, each of us knows that he was not struck by a thunderbolt direct from heaven, but that at some point he had to be spoken to by a person of faith, to be borne up or carried by.others. Of course a vocation cannot persevere if we believe only at second hand, "because So-and-So. says so." Perseverance is possible only if, led by our brethren, we ourselves find Jesus (see Jn 4:42). Both aspects necessarily belong together: being led, being spoken to, being ¯ carried, just as much as our own "coming and seeing." It therefore seems to me that we ghould once again develop much more courage to address one another, to speak to one another, and not ,to deprecate positive reactions to the testimony of others. As one of faith's components, "neighborliness" belongs to ihe humaneness of believing, and within this framework one's own encounter with Jesus must mature. Hence it is not only "taking along" and "leading toward" which are important, but release as well, abandonment to the distinctive aspects of a special call--even when these special aspects turn out to be different from what we had intended for the person concerned. In St. Luke's account, these insights are broadened out into a complete vision of the Church. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are there called koinonoi of Simon, which here must be translated as "partners?' In other words, these three are described as a fishing partnership or cooperative, with Peter as head and principal owner.6 And it is first of all this group which Jesus calls, the koinonia (fellowship or communio), the partners in Peter's coopera-tive. In Simon's call, however, his profane vocation is reformed into an image of the new which is to come. The fishing partnership becomes the communio On the Strength of His Word or fellowship of Jesus, and Christians will form the eommunio of this new fishing boat, united by the call of Jesus and by the miracle of grace, which bestows the riches of the sea after long and hopeless nights. Just as they are united in the gift, they are also united in their joint mission. St. Jerome gives a beautiful interpretation of the title "fishers of men" which actually be~longs in the context of an inner transformation of Peter's profession into a vision of what is to come.7 Jerome says that to draw fish out of the water.means to tear them away from the n~tural element in which they live and thus to deliver them up to death. But to draw men out of the water of this world means to withdraw them from deadly surroundings and from a starless night, giving them instead air to breathe and the light of heaven. It means transferring men into the natural environment in which they can live and which is simultaneously light, enabling them to see the truth. Eight is life, because the natural element or environment from which man lives at the very deepest level is truth, which is simultaneously love. Of course, the man who swims in the waters of the world does not know this. Hence he resists being drawn up out of the water. It is as though he believes he were an ordinary fish which must die when pulled up out of the depths. And as a matter of fact. it ~s indeed a death sentence. But this death leads into the true life in which a man really arrives at being himself. To be a disciple means to let oneself be "caught" by Jesus, by the mysterious fish which descended into the water of this world, indeed, into the water of death; who himself,became a fish in order to allow himself first to be caught by us, so as to become the Bread of Eife for us. He allows himself to be caught so that we can be caught by him, and find the courage to let ourselves be pulled along with him out of the waters of our habits and comforts. Jesus became a fisher of men by taking the night of the sea upon himself, by himself descending into the Passion of its depths. One can only become a fisher of men when one applies oneself to the task the way Jesus did. And furthermore, one can only become a fisher of men when one trusts in the bark of Peter, when one has entered into fellowship or communio with,Peter. A vocation is not a private matter, merely taking up the cause of Jesus at one's own expense. The field of a vocation is the entire Church, which can exist only in f~llowship with Peter and thus with the apostles of Jesus Christ. Priestly Spirituality~ in Psalm 16 (15) Since I want to stress the unity of both Testaments in'Scripture, the second passage I wish to discuss is taken from the Old Testament, from Psalm 16 (or 15, according to the Greek enumeration). We older priests once used the fifth verse of this psalm almost like a motto for what we had undertaken when we were made clerics in the rite of tonsure. Every time this psalm recurs (it is now part of Compline on Thursdays) 1 am reminded how I tried at that time to comprehend the rite of tonsure itself by imderstanding this text, so that, once 6tll~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct. 1984 understood, I could carry out and live the rite. Thus, this verse became a precious beacon for me, and it remains today a symbol of what it means to be a priest, and of how priestly existence is realized. The Vulgate text reads: Dominus pars hereditatis meae et calicis rnei. ~ Tu es qui restitues hereditatern meam rnihi. The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup: It is thou that wilt restore my inheritance to me. This sentence makes Concrete what had been said earlier in verse 2: "I have no good beyond Thee!" and it do+s so in a very worldly turn Of phrase, in a pragmatic context that does not appear to be theological at all--in the lan-guage of the occupation and distribution of land in Israel as this is described in the book of Joshua and in the Pentateuch.s The priestly tribe of Levi was not a party to the distribution of the land among the tribes of Israel. The Levite ¯ received no land because "the Lord himself is his possession" (Dt 10:9; see also Jos 13:14) and "I [Yahweh] am thy portion and inheritance" (Nb 18:20). In this passage it is primarily the concrete matter of sustenance which is being dealt with: the Israelites live from the land which is assigned them. The land forms the physical basis of their existence. Through the possession of land, therefore, each individual has, so to speak, his very life apportioned to him. It is only the priests who receive their livelihood, not from tilling their own soil, but from Yahweh himself who is their sole source of life, even of physical life. To put it concretely, the priests live from their portion of the sacrificial victims.and the other cult offerings, in other words from that which has been given over'to God and in which they, as ritual ministers, are entitled to share. Thus two different types of physical livelihood are first of all expressed hire, but both of them neces~sarily lead to a deeper level when viewed from the standpoint of Israel's typical thinking in terms of totality. For the individual Israelite, the land is not merely a guarantee of support. It is his way of participating in the promise which God gave to Abraham and thus his inti-mate involvement in the God-given context in which the Chosen People live their lives. It thus simultaneously becomes the warrant of sharing in God's own vital power. The Levite, in contrast, possesses no land, and in that sense remains without security because he is excluded from earthly guarantees. He is directly and immediately "cast upon Yahweh" and upon him alone, as Psalm 22 says (verse 10). Although in the case of the occupation of the land the guarantee of life can somehow be disconnected from God--at least in the superficial sense of offering an independent type .of security, so to speak--this is impossible in the Levitical form of life: There, God alone is quite directly the warrant of life-- even one's earthly, physica! life depends upon him. If worship were to cease, the very basis of physical life would also disappear. And thus .the life of the Levite isat once p~-ivilege and hazard. Proximity to God in the sanctuary is the sole and direct source and focus of life. On the Strength of His Word / 649 At this point, I think a digression is in order. The terminology of verses five and six is plainly that of the occupation of the land and the different type of sustenance allotted to the tribe of Levi. This means that our psalm' is the song of a priest who expresses therein the physical and spiritual center of his life. The person praying here has not merely interpreted the legal stipula-tions- the external lack of properly, and the living from and for worship in the sense of a certain type of guaranteed livelihood--but has lived all of this in the direction of its real foundation. He has spiritualized the law, gone beyond it toward Christ, precisely by realizing its true content. For us, two things are important about this psalm. First of all, it is a priestly prayer, and secondly, we can here clearly observe how the" Old Testa-ment internally surpasses itself in the direction of Christ, how the Old Cove-nant approaches the New and thus renders visible the unity of salvation history~ To live, not from possessions but from the cult, means for this wor-shipper to live in God's presence, .to locate his existence in the interior approach to him. In this regard, Hans-Joachim Kraus quite rightly points out ¯ that in thiS text the Old Testament reveals the beginnings of a mystical com-munion with God which develops out of the special nature of the Levitical prerogatives? And so Yahweh himse]-f~aa~ becpme the "land" of the worshipper praying this psalm. The next verses clarify what this means in terms of concrete, everyday life. Verse 8 says: "I have set the Lord. always before me." Accord-ingly, the suppliant lives in God's presence; he keeps the Lord constantly before himself. The next phrase varies the same idea by saying: "For he is on my right hand." The core content of these Levitical prerogatives thus proves to be the bei.ng in God's company, the knowing that God is at one's side, asso-ciatirig with him, contemplating him and beipg contemplated by him. Thus God .actually becomes the "land" or the "landscape" of one's own life; thus we dwell and "abide" with him. And at this point the psalm makes contact with what we discovered earlier in .St. John's Gospel. Accordingly, to be a priest means to come to him, to his abode, and thus to learn how to see; to abide in his abode. The precise manner in which this occurs becomes more tangible in the verses which follow. Here, the priest praying the psalm praises the Lord for having "given him counsel," and he thanks the Lord because he has "inst_ructed him:in the night season." With this turn of phrase, both Septuagint and Vulgate texts are plainly thinking of the physical pain which "instructs" men. Education or "instruction" is conceived as a person "being bent into the proper shape" for a truly human existence, and this cannot take place without suffering, In this context, the term "instruction" is intended to be a compre-hensive expression .for leading man to salvation, for that series of transforma, tions ~by which we are changed from clay into the image of God, and thus become capable of eternal union with him. The external rod of the disciplinar-ian is here replaced by the sufferings of life in which God leads us and brings 650 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 us to dwell with him. All of this recalls that great psalm, of:God's Word, Ps. 119, which we now pray during the week in the hora media. It is actually constructed around the basic statement of the Levite'sexistence: "The Lord is my portion" (v. 57; see also v. 14). Thus we find in abundant variety the basic ideas in which Psalm 16 expounds this reality: "Thy testimor~ies., are my counselors" ( 119: v. 24); "it is good :forme that 1 was afflicted, that 1 might learn thy statutes" (.v. 71); "I know, O Lord, that thyjudgments are right, and that in faithfulness thou hast afflicted me" (v. 75). Only then can one grasp the profundity of that petition which recurs like a refrain throughout the psalm: "O teach me thy statutes!" (vv. 12, 26, 29, 33, 64). Wherever life is so truly centered upon God's Word, there it comes about that the Lord "counsels" us. The words of' Scripture are no longer some remote generalities,~but speak quite directly into my life. The Scriptur.es step out of the distance of history and become words addressed to me in person. "The Lord is my counselor"i my very life becomes a word of his. And thus Psalm 16:11 comes true: "Thou dost show me the path of life." Life ceases to bea dark m'ystery. We begin to grasp what it means "to live?' Life opens itself up, and in the midst of all the tribulation of "being instructed," it becomes a joy. "Thy Statutes are.my songs," says Psalm i 19:54, and here in Psalm 16 the situation is not different: "Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices" (v. 9); "In thy presence there is fullness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore" (v. II). When we succeed in reading the Old Testament in the light of its central core, and accept God's Word as the landscape of life, then we touch upon him whom we believe to be God'siliving Word. To me it seems~no mere accident that in the ancient Church this psalm became the great prophecy of the Resurrection, a description of the new David and of the definitive priest Jesu~ Christ. To learn to li~,e does not mean to inaster some sort of technique, but rather it ineans to pass beyond death. The mystery of Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection rise resplendent wherever the suffering of the word and its indestructible 61an vital are experienced. It is therefore unnecessary to make any more applications to our own spirituality. A fundamental component of priestly existence is something resembling the Levite's "apartness," his lack of land, his being ci~st exclusively upon God. The vocation account in St. Luke which we considered earlier closes with the pointed words: "They forsook fill and followed him" (Lk 5:! I). There is no priesthood without such an act of abandonment. Without this sign of uncompromising freedom, the call to imitation is impossible. l think that this point of view renders highly significant, Jindeed makes indispensable, celibacy as being the abandonmerit of an earthly land of future promise, of life in one's own family, so that the basic state of being delivered up to God alone remains intact and becomes quite concrete. This, of course, implies that celibacy m]akes demands on one's entire lifestyle. Celibacy cannot On (he Strength of His Word / 651 fulfill its purpose if, in all other areas, we simply follow the rules of possession and procedure customary in life today. And above all, celibacy cannot last if we do not positively make "settling down with God" to be the center of our lives. Both Psalm 16 and Psalm 119 strongly.emphasize the need for constant meditative association with the Word of God, which cannot become our "homestead" in any other way. The community aspect of liturgical piety which necessarily belongs here is suggested by the reference in Psalm 16 to the Lord as "my cup" (v. 5). In Old Testament diction, this surely refers either to the cup of wine which went r~und at cultic meals, or to the cup of fate, the cup of anger or, of salvation.J0 In this prayer, the priest of the New Testament can find a sp~ci,al reference to that chalice through which the Lord has become our "land" in the most profound sense: the eucharistic chalice in which he distributes himself as our life. Priestly life in God's presence is thus concretized as life in the eucharistic mystery. At bottom the Eucharist is the "land" which has become our portion and of which we may weffsay: "The lines have fallen for ine in pleasant places; yea I have a goodly heritage" (v. 6). And here, two remarks, of fundamental importance emerge. Two Basic Conclusions from th~ Scriptural Texts The Unity of the Two Testaments ~. In my view, aparticularly important aspect of this priestly prayer of the Old and the New Covenant is the fact that here the. inner unity of the two Testaments, the unity of biblical spirituality and its basic manifestations in life, become visible, indeed capable of being lived out in practice. This is so signifi-cant because one of the principal reasons for the exegetically and theologically motivated crisis of the priest's image in recent~times has been precisely the separation of the. Old Testament from the New: Their relationship was seen only in the dialectical tension of opposites, namely "Law" and "Gospel." It was generally agreed that the New Testament ministries had nothing at all to do with the offices in the Old Testament. The fact that one would[ portray the Catholic concept of priesthood as a reversion to the Old Testament was itself regarded as an ironclad refutation of the Catholic idea. It was claimed that Christology meant the definitive abolition of all kinds, of priesthood, the destruction of the boundaries between the Sacred and ~he Profane, and the renunciation of the significance of any history of religions and their ideas of priesthood. Wherever it was possible to point out links between the Church's concept ofothe priest and the OJd Testament, or ideas borrowed from the history of religions, this was done as a sign that Christianity had gone astray in.the ecclesiastical ai'ea; it was urged as proof against the Church's doctrine on the priesthood. But this in fact meant that we were cut off from an entire stream of sources, from biblical piety and indeed from human experience itself. It meant that we were banished into a worldliness whose rigid "Christo-monism" 659 / Review for ReligiousI Sept.-Oct., 1984 actually dissolved 'the biblical image of Christ. This .in .turn is related to the fact that the Old Testament itself had been falsely construed as ~etting forth an opposition between "Law" and "Prophets," whereby "Law" was identified with the cultic and the priestly, while the "Prophetic" element was equated with criticism of cult; and with a pure ethics of humanitarianism that finds God in one's neighbor, not in the Temple. On this basis it was of course possible to refer to thi~ cultic element as "legalism" in contrast to prophetic piety, which was characterized ~is "faith in grace." The result was that the New Testam+nt was relegated to the realm of the anti-cultic, of the purely'humanitarian. In view of this basic attitude, every approach to priesthood :ffas condemned to remain fruitless and unconvincing. The real discussion with this entire~ complex of ideas has not yet taken place. He who prays°the priestlyPsalm 16 along with the other related psalms, especially Psalm 119, will become quite aware of the factthat the supposed ,opposition in principle between priesthood and prophecy of Christology simply collapses upon itself~ This psalm is in fact both fi priestly and a pro-phetic prayer, in which the purest and most profound elements of prophetic piety come to the fore~-but as priestly piety. Since this is so, the psalm is a Christological text. Since this is so, Christianity has since its earliest days regarded this psalm as a prayer of Jesus Christ, which he dedicates anew to us so that we may be permitted to pray it anew with him(see Rv 2:25-29). In this psalm, the new priesthood of Jesus Christ expresses itself prophetically, and in this psalm we can see how in the New Covenant the priesthood, proceeding from Christ, continues to exist in the unity of all salvation history, and indeed must continue to exist~ On the basis of this psalm we can understand that the Lord does not abolish the Law but fulfills it and conveys it anew to the Church, truly "storing it away" in the Church as an expression of grace. The Old Testament belongs to Christ, and in Christ, to us. The faith can live only in the Unity of the Testaments. The Sacred' and th~ Profane And that brings me tO my secofid remark. Once we regain the Old Testament, we must also overcome the disparagement of the Sacred and the mys-tique of the Profane. Naturally Christianity is a l~aven, and the Sacred is not something closed and final but something dynamic. Every priest has been commissioned to "Go, the~refore, and make-disciples of all nations!" (Mt ¯ 28:19). But this dynamism of being sent out, this inner openness and breadth of the Gospel cannot be transposed into the slogan: "Go ye therefore and yourselves become part of the world! Go ye into the world and confirm it in its worldliness!" The contrhry is the.case. The~:e is a sacred mystery of God, the mustard seed of the Gospel, which is not identical with the world but is rather destined to penetrate the whole world. Hence we'must Once more find the courage to acknowledge the Sacred, the courage to distinguish what is Chris-tian-- and that, not in order to separate or to differentiate, but to transform, to On the Strength of His Word /653, be truly dynamic. In an interview given in 1975, Eugene lonescu, a founder of the "Theatre of the Absurd," expressed this with the total passion typical 6f the thirsty, seeking men of our day. 1 quote a few sentences: The Church does not want to lose her customers, she wants to gain new ones. That results in a type of secularization, which is really miserable . The~world is losing itself and the Church loses itself in the world, the parish priests ate stupid and mediocre, leftist petty bourgeois. I have heard a parish priest say in chu.rch, "Let's be happy, let's all shake hands . Jesus wishes each of you a very good day!" It will not be long until someone sets up a bar for communion of bread and wine, and servessandwiches-and Boujolais. To me, that seems unbelievable stupidity and com-pletely non-spiritual. Brotherliness is neither mediocrity nor fraternization. We need the Supra-Temporal, because what is religion or the Sacred? All that remains is nothing; nothing solid, everything is in motion. What we really need, though, is a rock;" In this connection I recall some of the stimulating sentences to be found in Peter Handke's new work, Over the Villages. For example: "Nobody wants us, and nobody ever wanted us. Our houses are trellises of despair standing in emptin~:ss . . . We are not on the wrong road, we are not on any road at all. How forsaken mankind is."~2 I believe that when one hears these voices--voices of men who quite consciously live in the world of today, living, suffering; singing--then it becomes clear that one cannot serve this world with banal officiousness. Such a world does not need corroboration, it needs transformation--the radicality~ of the Gospel. A Concluding Thought: Giving and Receiving (Mk 10:28-31) By way of conclusion, 1 would like to touch briefly upon one more text: Mk 10:28-31. There, Peter says to' Jesus, "Lo, we have left everything and followed you." St. Matthew makes explicit what was obviously the point of the question: "What then shall we have?" (19:27)~ We have already spoken about relinquishing or abandoning, which is an indispensable element of apostolic, priestly spirituality. Let us therefore turn at once to Jesus' astonishi'ng reply. He does not rejrct Peter's question out of hand, as one might expect~ He does not reproach Peter because he expects a reward, but rather admits that Peter is right: "Truly, 1 say to you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life" (Mk 10:29-30). God is magnanimous, and if we look at our lives honestly, then we know that he has indeed repaid every abandonment a hundredfold. He will not allow us to surpass him in generosity. He does not wait for. the world to come in order to repay, but even now gives in return a hundred to one, though in spite of this the world remains the scene of persecutions, sufferings and tribu- 654 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 lations. St. Teresa of Avila expressed this statement of Jesus in the simple formula: "Even in this life, God repays a hundredfold,"~3 All we need is the courage to b~gin by giving our "one,"as Peter did when, on the strength of the Lord's word, he put out once again in the morning--he gave one, and received back a hundred. And so I think that in all our pusillanimity we should constantly beg our Lord for this same courage, and for the faith and confidence that lie therein. And we should thank him for those upon whom he has bestowed this courage, those whom he gives to us as signs of encouragemefit, in Order to invite us to make ouy own leap into the hands of his mercy. NOTES ~From the vast literature on "lrenaeus and Gnosis" see most recently H. J. J~schke, Irenaeus yon Lyon "Die ungeschminkte Wahrheit"(Roma, 1980). 2For the following remarks concerning John 1:35-42. 1 am indebted to the fundamental sugges-tions of C. M. Martini, "Damit ihr Frieden habt. Geistliches Leben nach dem Johannesevange-lium" (Freiburg 1982), pp. 204-9. 31bid, p. 207. 4Cited by ,,Cardinal Suenens "Renouveau et puissance des t~n~bres," Document de Marines 4 (1982), p. 60. On this subject see pp. 37-61 in Suenens" book as well as K. Hemmerle, ~Das Haus des barmherzigen Vaters" (Freiburg. 1982), pp. 17-25. 5The standard translation renders Ps 33:6 (34:5), in light of the Hebrew text, as "look tohim and be radiant," whereas the Lalin Vulgate, following the Septuagint, renders it "Come ye to him and be enlightened." It was precisely the phrase "ye shall be enlightened" which called forth a very strong echo in the philosophy and theology of the Church Fathers, and we are quite justified in regarding this verse in the Septuagint version as one of the key phrases of Christian liturgy and theology. We are of course confronted here with the question of the specific rank to be attributed to the Greek Old Testament. This problem must be reflected upon anew. Noteworthy in this regard is H. Gese, 'tZur biblischen Theologic" (MLinchen 1977), pp. 9-30, esp. 27 ft., and see also P. Benoit, "Exegese und Theol0gie" (Dfisseldorf 1965), pp. 15-22. ~On this see F. Hauck, Koinon~s Ktl.: TWNT 3(1938), pp. 798-810, here especially pp 799, 802, 804. 7JerOme, "In Ps 141," ad neophytos. CChr 78, p. 544. sOn what follows, see H. J. Kraus, "Psalmen I" (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1960), pp. 118-27. '~lbid. p. 123: ~°See H. Gross-H. Reinelt, "Das Buch der Psalmen I" (Diisseldorf 1978)~ pp. 88 ft. ~E. Ionescu, ~Gegengiffe~ (Miinchen, 1979), pp. 158,159. ~2P. Handke, "~lber die Drrfer (Frankfurt, 1981), p~. 94 ft. ~3"Libro de vida," 22/I~ and see U.M. Schiffers, ~Gott liebt beherzte Seelen," Pastoralblat! 34 (1982), p. 294. We Priests Are More Necessary Than Ever John Paul H In the month of February, Pope John Paul twice took up themes of priesthood. Frorfi Februa.ry 13-16, some four hundred priests attended a national convention addressed to the theme, "The Eucharist and the Problems of the Life of Priests Today," spofisored by the Italian Episcopal Conference's Commission for the Clergy, on the last day of which the Holy Father addressed the cqngregants. , ~ ~ Then, on February 23, 1984, to conclude a special Holy Year celebration with priests, the Holy Faiher ¢oncelebrated Mass in St. Peter's Basilica with more than four thousand priests and bishops from, all over the world. This Mass was also marked by a renewal of commitment on the part of all present. The texts of these addresses appeared originally in L'Osservatore Romano, 5 March, 1984. pp. 6 and 8. Beloved Priests: Among the satisfactions that I have been granted to experience during the course of this Jubilee Year, one of the greatest is to be able to meet with the members of the ;clergy, with my confreres.in the priesthood. Very gladly, therefore, in welcoming the request of the organizers of your convention, I am here among you to let you know in a tangible way that the pope is near you, follows you in your work, shares your joys, your anxieties, your fears, at such a significant time for the life of the Church. Your meeting in Rome has taken, place in the deeply spiritual climate of this year of grace that is now approaching its end, and I sincerely rejoice in knowing that you have been engaged during these days in reflection on a theme of such great common interest, "The Eucharist and the Problems of the Life of Priests Today," a theme intended to foster that ever greater commu- ,656/ Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct, 1984 nion of sentiments and works, that spreading of ideas, that ,exchange and comparison of experiences, which today especially are indispensable for adapting, the exercise of the priestly ministry to the needs, the aspirations, and the development of the ecclesial community. To you, therefore, my greeting, my encouragement and my blessing. But you ce~rtainly are expecting also a word about the specific Subject of your reflections in order to know, through the pope's voice what the Church expects of you today, that you might live ever more effectively and authenti-cally the gift of yourse.lves to the Lord and to souls. This I will very gladly do, expressing to you above all my appreciation for "the objective of your conventiori, which very opportunely coincides with the aim of the Jubilee Year, whose goal, namely, to profit in a more intense way from the benefits of ~he Redemption, is none other than a new, urgent appeal to conversion addressed to all the faithful, and in. particular to priests. If conversion for a priest means returning to the grace of his vocation it-self' in order continually to rediscover the dimensions of the priesthood and to acquire new thrust in his evangelical dynamism,, what greater theme for ~eflection can be offered than the one which makes us bet'ter understand the vital and pr~ofound relationship that unites the priesthood to the Eucharist and the Eucharist to the priesthood? The priest cannot be understood without the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the reaSon for our priesthood. We are born priests in" the eucharistic celebra~.t~on. Our principal ministry and power is oi'dered to the E~cha~:ist. The Eucharist could not exist without us; but without the Eucharist we do not exist, or we are r.educed to lifeless shadows. The priest therefore can never r.e~ach complete fulfillment if the Eucharist does not become the center and root of his .life, so that all his activity is nothing but an,irradiation of the Eucharist. It is important to recall these truths at a time when we hear insidious voices that tend to disregard the primacy of God and of spiritual values in the life and activity 6f the priest. And this happens in the name of adjusting to.the times--which instead is conforming to the spirit of the world, sowing doubts and uncertainties about the true nature of the priesthood, its primary func-tions, its right place, in society. ,Beloved brothers, never let yourselves be influenced'by these theories. Never believe that the yearning for intimate conversation with the eucharistic Je.sus, the hours spent on your knees before the tabernacle, will halt or slow down the dynamism of your ministry. The exact opposite is true.What is given to God is never lost for man. The profound demands of spirituality and the priestly ministry remain substantially unchanged throughout the centuries, and tomorrow, just as today, they will have their fulcrum and their reference point in the eucharistic mystery. It is the grace of ordination that gives the priest the sense Of spiritual fatherhood, through which he presents himself to souls as a father and leads Priests are Necessary / 657 them along the path to heaven. But it is eucharistic love that daily renews his fatherhood and makes it fruitful, transforming him ever more into Christ and like Christ, makes him become the bread of souls, their priest, yes, but also their victim, because for them he is gladly consumed in imitation of him who gave his life for the salvation of the world. In other words, a priest is as good as his eucharistic life, his Mass above all. A Mass without love, a sterile priest. A fervent Mass, a priest who wins souls. Eucharistic devotion neglected and estranged,a priesthood that is in danger and fading. But the centrality of the Eucharist in the life of the priest goes well beyond the sphbre of personal devotion. It constitutes the directing criterion, the permanent dimension of all his pastoral activity, the indispensable means for the authentic renewal of the Christian people. The Second Vatican Council wisely reminds us: "No Christian community can be built up unless it has its basis and center in the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist. Here, there-fore, all education in the spirit ofcommunity must originate" (Decree Presby-terorum Ordinis, 6): Therefore, if we want Christian love to be a reality in life;,if we want Christians to be a community united in the apostolate and in,the common attitude of resistance to the powers of evil; if we want ecclesial communion to become .an authentic place of encounter, of hearing the Word of God, of .revision of life, of becoming aware of the problems of the Church, every effort must ,be made to give the eucharistic celebration its entire power to express, the event of the salvation of the community. This involves a pastoral program-mingthat will'incorporate the Eucharist into.the dynamics proper to human life, to .personal land communal living: A good catechesis would certainly render the ecclesial community a great service by shedding light on and exter-nalizing the lifestream that exists between the Mass celebrated in Church and the Mass lived out in one's daily commitments,. This is how the eucharistic celebration will be the expression of the living faith of a community that discovers and relives ithe experience of the disciples on the way to Emmaus who recognize their LoCd and master in the breaking of bread (Lk 24:3 I). This is the witness that the Church demands of you today; beloved priests. Always offer this witness readily and generously, in serenity and happiness. It is a beautiful thing.that this commitment is reaffirmed by -you here before the pope, in response to the common expectations of the Jubilee Year, so fruitful in graces. I encourage you to resume your work in the sacred ministry with a spirit of faith and sacrifice: I will pray for you to Mary most holy, Queen of Apostles, that she will help you to persevere in your holy .resolutions, and as she proclaimed the greatness of the Lord through the gift of the Savior and kept every word in her heart and served him with love and complete dedication, so may you also beable to express your joy in thanksgiving for the Eucharist you celebrate by ever.more deeply rooting your life andyour apostolate in it. With my apostolic Blessing. 658 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 II The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; He has sent meto bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captivesr and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor (Is 61:1-2). Dear, brothers in the grace of the Sacrament of the Priesthood: A year ago I addressed to you the letter for Holy Thursday (1983), asking you to proclaim, together with myself and all the bishops of the Chu. rch, the Year of the R(demption: the extraordinary Jubilee, the Year of the Lord's Favor. Today I wish to thank you for what you have done in order to ensure that this Year, which recalls to us the 1950th anniversary of the Redemption should really be "the Year of the Lord's Favor," the Holy Year. At the same time, as I meet you.at this concelebration, the climax of your Jubilee pilgrim-age to Rome, 1 wish to renew.with you and make still more vivid the aware-ness of.the mystery of the Redemption. the livingand life-giving source of the sacramental priesthood in which each one of us shar~es. In you who have gathered here, no.t only from Italy but also from other countries and continents, I see all priests: the entire presbyterate of the univer, sal Church. And I address myself to all with the words of encouragementoand exhortation of the Letter to the Ephesians: Brothers, "I. beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called" (Ep 4:1): We too--who have been called to serve others in the spiritual renewal of the Year of the Redemption, need to be renewed, throfigh the grace of the Year, in our blessed vocation. I will sing of your steadfast love, 0 Lord, forever (89:1). This verse of the responsorial psalm of today's liturgy reminds us that we are in a special way "servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Co 4:!), that we are men of the divine economy of salvation, that we are conscious "instruments" of grace, that is of the Holy Spirit's action in the power of Chri.st's Cross and Resurrection. : . What is this divine economy, what is the grace, of our Lord Jesus. Christ-- the grace which it was his wish to link sacramentally to our priestly life and to our priestly service, even though it is performed by men who are so poor, unworthy? Grace, as the psalm of today's liturgy proclaims, is a proof of the fidelity of God himself to that eternal Love with,which he has loved creation, and in particular man, in his eternal Son. The psalm says: "For your steadfast love was established forever, your faithfulness is firm as the heavens" (Ps 89:2). This faithfulness of his love--his merciful love--is also faithfulness to the Covenant that God made from the beginning with man, and which he renewed many times, even though man so many times was not faithful to it. Priests are Necessary / 659 Grace is thus a .pure gift .of,Love, which only in Love itself, and in nothing else, finds its reason and motivation. The psalm exalts the Covenant which God made with David, and at the same time, through its messianic content, it shows how that historical Cove-nant is only a stage and a foretelling of the perfect Covenant in Jesus Christ: "He shall Cry to me, 'You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation~'" (Ps 89:26). Grace, as a gift, is the foundation of the elevation of man to the dignity of an adopted child of God in Christ, the only-begotten Son. "My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him and in my name shall his power be exalted" (Ps 89:24). Precisely this power that makes us become children of God, as is spoken of in the Prologue to Saint John's Gospel--the enti~:e salvific powder--is con-ferred upon humanity in Christ, in the Redemption, in the Cross and Resurrection. And we--Christ's servants--are its stewards. The priest: the man of the economy of salvation. The priest: the man formed by grace. The priest: the steward of grace! I will sing of your steadfaJt love, 0 Lord, forever. Our vocation is precisely this. In this consists the specific nature, the originality of the priestly vocation. It is in a special wayrooted in the mission of Christ himself, Christ the Messiah. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound., to comfort all who mourn~' (Is 61:!-2). In the very heart of this messianic mission of Christ the Priest is rooted in our vocation and mission too: the vocation and mission of.the priests of the New and Eternal Covenant, It is. the vocation and mission of the proclaimers of the Good News: - of those who must bind up the wounds of human hearts; - of those who must proclaim liberation in the midst of all the many afflictions, in the .rriidst of the evil that in so many ways "holds" man prisoner; , - of those who must console. This is our vocation and mission as servants. Our vocation, dear brothers, includes a great and fundamental service to be offered to every human being.t Nobody can take our place. With the Sacrament of the New and Eternal Covenant we must go to the very roots of human existence on earth. Day by day, we must bring into that existence the dimension of the Redemption and the Eucharist. We must strengthen awareness of divine filiation through grace. And what higher prospect, what finer destiny could there be for man than this? 661~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct,. 1984 Finally, we must administer the sacramental reality of reconciliation with God, and the sacramental reality of Holy Communion, in which the deepest longing of the "insatiable" human heart is met. Truly, our priestly anointing isdeeply rooted in the very messianic anoint-ing of Christ. Our priesthobd is ministerial. Yes, we must serve. And "to serve" means to bring man to the very foundations of his humanity, to the deepest essence of his dignity. It is precisely there .that--through our service--the song "of praise instead of a faint spirit" must ring out,'to use once more the~words of the text of Isaiah (61:3). We Act with the Power of Christ Dearly beloved brothers! Day after day, year after year, we discover the content and substance which are truly inexpressible of our priesthood in the depths of the mystery of the Redemption. And I hope that the present Year of the extraordinary Jubilee will serve this purpose in a special way! Let us open our eyes ever wider--the eyes of our soul--in order to under-stand better what it means to celebrate the Eucharist, the sacrifice of Christ himself, entrusted to our priestly lips and hands in the community of the Church. Let us open our eyes ever wider--the eyes of our soul--in order to under-stand better what it means to forgive sins and reconcile human consciences with the infinite Holy God, with the God of Truth and Love. Let us open our eyes,ever wider--the eye~ of our soul--in order'to under-stand better what it means to act in persona Christi in the name of Christ: to act with his powers-with the power which, in a word, is rooted in the salvific ground .of the Redemption. Let us open our eyes ever ~wider--the eyes of our soul--in order to under-stand better what the mystery of the Church is. We are men of the Church! "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the One hope that belongs to your call, one Lord,'one faith, one baptism,one 15od and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all" (Eph 4:4-6). Therefore: seek "to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:3). Yes. Precisely this in a special way depends on you: "to maintain the unity of the Spirit." At a time of great tensions that affect.,the earthly body of humanity, the Church's most important service springs frbm the ':unity of the Spirit," so that not only she herself will not suffer division coming from outside but she will also reconcile and unite people in the midst of the adversities 'that increase around them andwithin themselves in today's world. My brothers! To each of us "grace was given. ~ according to the measure of Christ's gift., for building up the body of Christ'~ (Ep 4:7-12). May we be faithful to this grace! May we be heroically faithful to this Priests are NecessaO, / ~ grace! My brothers! It is a great gift that°God has given to us, to each of us! So great that every priest can discover in himself the signs of a divine predilection. Let each one of us basically preserve his gift in all the wealth of its expressions: including the magnificent gift of celibacy voluntarily consecrated to the Lord--and received from him~for our sanctification and for the build-ing up of the Church. Christ is More Necessary Than Ever! Jesus Christ is in our midst and he says to us: "1 am the good shepherd" (Jn I0:I 1-14). It is precisely he who has "made" shepherds oLus too. And it is he who goes about all the cities and villages (see Mt 9:35), wherever we are sent in order to perform our priestly and pastoral service. It is he, Jesus Christ, who teaches ~!. : preaches the' Gospel of the kingdom and heals every human disease and infirmit3~'(see ibid), wherever we are sent for the service of the Gospel and the admihistration of the sacraments. It is precisely he, Jesus Christ, who ,continually feels compassion for the crowds and for every tired ahd exhaiasted person, like "sheep without a shep-herd" (see Mt 9:36). Dear brothers! In this. !liturgical assembly of ours let us ask Christ for just one thing: that each of' us may learn to serve better, more clearly and more effectively, his presence as Shepherd in the midst of the people of today's world! This is also most importan~t., for ourselves, ,so that~we may not be ensnared by ttie temptation of "uselessness," that is to :s0y.the temptation to feel that we are not needed. Because it is not true. We,~are more necessary than ever because Christ is more necessary than ever! We have in our hands--precisely in our "empty hands"---the power of the means of action that the Lord has given to us. Think of the~word of God, sharper than a twg-edged sword (see Heb 4:12); think of liturgical prayer, especially the Prayer of the. Hours, in which Christ himself prays with us and for us;' and think of the sacraments, in particular the sacrament of penance, the true life buoy for so many cofisciences, the haven towards which so many people also of our own time are striving. Priests should once more give great importance to,this sacrament, for the sake of their own spiritua.l life and that of the faithful. There is no doubt about it, dear br6thers: with the good use of these "poor means" (~bu! divinely powerful ones) you will see blossoming along your path the wonders of the infinite Mercy. And also the gift of new vocations! With this awareness, in this shared prayer, let us listen once more to the words which the Master addressed to his disciples: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Mr 9!37,38)~ 669 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 How relevant these words are in our time, too! So let us pray! And let the whole Church :pray with us! And in this pra.yer may there be manifested awareness, renewed by the Jubilee, of the mystery of the Redemption. Renewal of Priestly Promises During the concelebrated Holy Year Mass for priests, after the Pope's homily, the Hol.v Father led the priests in the renewal_of their priestly promises. Following is the form that was used. Dearly beloved brothers: Through a most special gift of Christ, teacher, priest and shepherd, you have been called to the Order of Priesthood. Every day you must make yourselves more worthy of this vocation of yours and renew your commit-ment to the service of the People of God. May the Spirit of Holiness always assist you, that you may be able .to fulfill with his help what through his gift you have promised with joy . Therefore, during this Jubilee celebration of the Holy YeAr of the Redemption, do you, ministers of Christ and administrators of the mysteries of God, recalling the day of youro,priestly ordination, intend to renew the promises you made before the bishop and the People of God? Priests: 1 do. Do you intend to unite yourselves intimately to the Lord Jesus, model of our priesthood, denying yofirselves and strengtfiening the commitments which,, urged by the love of Christ, you have freely assumed toward his Church? Priests: I do. Do you intend,, in particular, to strengthen the holy commitment of celi-bacy, as a testimony of iovb for Christ with an undivided heart .and as a guarantee of interior freedom for a fuller ecclesial service, in joyful e~xpectation of the kingdom promised? Priests: ! do. Do you intend to be faithful dispensers of the mysteries of God ihrough the celebration of the Eucharist and the other liturgical actions, and to fulfill the ministry of the Word of Salvation after the example of Christ, head and shepherd, letting yourselves be guided not by human interests, but by love for your brothers and sisters? Priests: 1 do. Then addressing the deacons and seminarians, the Holy Father asked: And you deacons and seminarians, who have generously accepted Christ's call to follow him more closely in order to become ministers of the New and Priests are Necessary/663 Everlasting Covenant. do you intend to persevere, with his help along the path you have undertaken? Deacons and Seminarians: 1 do. And the Holy Father asked the faithful present: And do you, dear faithful, do you intend to pray always for your priests, that the Lord may shower upon them the abundance of his gifts, that they may be faithful ministers of Christ the High Priest and lead you to him, the only source of salvation? Faithful: 1 do. Then to the whole assembly, the Holy Father said." Do you also intend to pray for me that I may be faithful to the apostolic service entrusted to my lowly person, and become among you more everyday a living and authentic image of Christ the High Priest and lead you to him, the only source of salvation? All: 1 do. The Holy Father then concluded: May the Lord keep us in his love and lead all us, shepherds and flock, to eternal life. All solemnly sang: Amen! Amen! Amen! Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development by Philip D. Cristantielio Price: $.60 per copy, plus postage. Add ress: Review for Religious Room 428 6301 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Cruciform Obedience Boniface Ramsey, O.P. This is the third of Father Ramsey's articles on the vows of religious perceived through a Christocentric focus. These three articles will be brought together and offered as a single reprint, the details of which are given elsewhereSn this issue. ~ , Father Ramsey continues to reside in the Dominican House of Studies; 487 Michigan Avenue~ N.E.: Washington, DC 20017~ n two previous issues of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I discussed the vows of poverty and celibacy from a Christocentric perspective.~ In this issue I would like to complete a trilogy by speaking of obedience from very much the same~ perspective. Of the three great vows, there is little doubt that obedience is the most difficult both to execute and to reflect upon. Probably it has caused more suffering than either poverty or celibacy. For whereas th6 Struggle attendant upon poverty and celibacy may be waged complet~!.y withiia the person of the religious who is fighting to subdue his or her passions, ob~lience is the vow that, so to speak, intrudes another person (the superior) in(o the life of the religious--a person who, at least in times pa~t~ was understood to have a quasi-universal control over one's life. How often this control was abused, and on what flimsy pretexts! Even.the superior:s own sanctity was no guarantee that he or she might not act in the most arbitrary fashion. And from this arbitrariness there was usually little recourse. Small wonder that a desire to escape out from under the excessive "demands of obedience and to regain a sense of one's own independence has been the primary cause for many choosing to leave religious life. This is the case, moreover, even where obedience, is not objectively abusive, or even p~rceived as such, for obedience can hardly be perceived as not touching upon human autonomy, a strong rei~lization of which is absolutely necessary to proper human behavior and to self-respect. 664 Cruciform Obedience / 665 Frequently it happens that, when no other means of expression seems possible, this independence or autonomy is asserted by the religious through acts contrary to poverty or celibacy, which are then mistakenly understood to be the person's problem area. This suggests that obedience is the most basic of the vows, and indeed maybe it is. It is a classical teaching, in any event, that poverty and celibacy in fact touch upon rather narrower aspects of the human personality than does obedience? Whether this remains true even when poverty and celibacy are construed as broadly as 1 have tried to construe them in my two previous articles is a moot point. What is certain is that poverty and celibacy deal with relatively easily recognizable specifics, whereas obedience is occupied with something far less tangible, or at least with an area of our nature with which we are much less familiar--or are much more hesitant to face. It must be said from the start that the reason why obedience is so difficult is that human life is so radically marked by disobedience. "1 find it to be a law," Paul writes in Romans (7:2 i-23), "that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members." In The Oty of God Augustine ~emarks that the original sin was one of disobedience impelled by pride. The result of this-original diSobedience, he goes on to say, is a terrible disharmony within the human person: In a word. what is the punishment for that sin of disobedience but disobedience? For what other human misery is there but the disobedience of a person to himself--so that, because he did not wish what he was able to do. now he wishes what he is unable to do? For in paradise, even if he was unable to doall things before the sin. y~t he did'not wish to do whatever he was unable to do: and therefore he was able to do everything that he wished to do. But now, as we recognize in his offspring~ and as Holy Scripture testifies, a human being is like vanity. For who can count how many things he wishes to do that he cannot do, since he is not obedient to himself--that is, since his very mind and his flesh (which is inferior to it) do not obey his will? For. despite himself, his mind is greatly afflicted, and his flesh suffers and grows old and dies. And we would not be suffering unwillingly whatever else we suffe.r if our nature completely and every respect obeyed our will.3 Whoever has not lived this conflict, to a greater or lesser degree, has not lived reflectively. Disobedience, then, is part of human nature. According to Augustine, the very illimitable desires that contribute to human transcendence and that set the human being apart from other earthly creatures~ are, on their shadow side, stumbling blocks and provocations to overweening demands that cannot be satisfied and that must qualify as the urgings of disobedience, of sin. Sad to say, as tragic as this disharmony is, we nevertheless learn to live with it. It is a disharmony that is, after all, part of us and familiar to us. We could hardly imagine living with those overweening demands, not stifled (which would render us inhuman), but under control--in that state of tense 666 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 and watchful virtue that the Greek Fathers referred to as apatheia. So radi-cated in our nature is this disharmony that we purposefully and self-right, eously pursue the wrong things as though they were good for us. So radicated is it that--the upshot is--to correct it is to act contrary to our nature, a process that causes intense pain. We are like a man whose broken leg has been set improperly. The man learns to walk with a limp and can, indeed, go about with relative ease, yet the limp in turn becomes responsible for 'a gradual deterioration in other areas of the body. For health to be restored, to the extent possible, the leg must be broken again and reset. Learning obedience is like breaking and setting a limb that has already been broken and set once before. This is surely the insight of the Desert Fathers, e~pecially as it is,implied in a narrative such as the following, which dates from the fourth or fifth century: It was said of the abba John the Dwarf that, having gone off to Scet~ to an old man of Thebes, he remained in the desert. His abba took a dry stick and planted it and told him: "Water this every day with a flask of water until it bears fruit." But the water was so far away that he would leave in the evening and return in the morning. After three years, though, it came to life and bore fruit. And the old man took the fruit, carried it to " the church'~ahd said to the brethren: "Take and cat the fruit of obedience."4 The story of the dry stick is a famous one, perhaps even a frightening one, for it seems to smack more than a little of the arbitrary exercise of authority that we mentioned earlier. The distinction betWeen the old/nan of Thebes and a neurotic novice-master or novice-mistress might be hard to discern from the outside, but presumably the motivation is different. Whatever goal the latter may be pursuing, the old man of Thebes was concerned with the painful restoration of human nature, the resetting of a once broken limb, and John was his willing disciple. The story of the 'dry stick compels us to confront the mysterious and unavoidable link there is between obedience and suffering. What we hear of John the Dwarf and his three years of toil imposed by his abba is no more than what we hear of Jesus himself, whose own suffering and death are so frequently ex'pressed in terms of obedience. Jesus' agony in Gethsemane is nothing other than the struggle to be obedient to his Father: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Mt 26:39). So it is also characterized in the great hymn of Philippians: "And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Ph 2:8). It appears likewise in the Letter to the Hebrews: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb 5:8). The difference, of course, between Jesus and John the Dwarf or any other human being is that Jesus' obedience was not therapeutic or restorative, since he was without sin and its tragic effects, whereas our obedience is precisely for the sake of our sinfulness. Yet even for Jesus to drink deeply of the cup of human nature, his obedience had to entail suffering, as ours does. Based upon the model of Jesus himself, we may say that to be obedient is Cruciform Obedience / 667 to submit to the cross, with all its mystery and suffering. We may also say that the cross is the thing outside of us, the thing which is representative of God's will and which intrudes disturbingly upon us. Inasmuch as it is identical with God's will it is an objective good, the objective good. It is, indeed, the great objectivity that we refuse because of our own self-centeredness. It is the great objectivity to which we must conform ourselves and which we must put within ourselves if we are ever to have peace, as expressed in the words of Dante: "In his will is our peace.'~ And it is the process of interiorizing what is presently exterior to us that does us violence and causes us pain. This means shoulder-ing the cross--not the cross of our own choosing (which, after all, would be the product of our subjectivity) but the ineluctable cross of God's choosing, for only in that cross is his will, and hence our peace, certain. In the case of John the Dwarf the cross was an adherence to the absurd demand of the old man of Thebes. In the case of Jesus it was a willingness to set his face to go to Jerusalem (see Lk 9:51), with what that implied of suffering and death, because this was the Father's destiny for him. Perhaps religious men :and women today, in contrast to religious men and women of twenty or more years ago, think of obedience for the most part as a vow that is rarely exercised. Itcomes up when a person is transferred from one assignment to another, and even that is usually done with consultation. Oth-erwise superiors make demands with relative infrequency, and they hardly dream of asking the very difficult, never mind the absurd or the impossible. Obedience is invoked almost exclusively as a functional necessity, and so it has come to be seen: it is required for the smooth operation of a religious house or an apostolate--entities that ordinarily run themselves'without the intervention of a "higher authority." But the view that religious obedience is an occasional or a functional thing is as erroneous as the view that poverty and celibacy are occasional or functional. Obedience, instead, like poverty and celibacy, is a constant disposition. In my previous articles 1 suggested that poverty and celibacy represented an attachment to Christ as human and as desirable respectively; consequently they are dispositions that have a quality of permanence and that are always operative. Obedience too is a constant and always operative disposition, spe-cifically with regard to the will of the Father, which in turn implies the cross. For, in Jesus' own experience, the cross was not merely at the end of his life but rather was the end to which his whole life was directed; it colored his life and, we might even say, gave it its meaning. If.we think of the Father's will as something constantly set before us to be accomplished---because therein consists the only restoration of our dishar- " mony and thus the only possibility of our happiness--we shall no longer conceive of oi~edience as a sporadic or occasional thing. Where do we discern this will? The traditional answer, of course, is that we discern it in the laws and customs of the Church, in Scripture as it is properly interpreted, in the constitutions and customs of one's particular religious con- 661~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 gregation, in the daily schedule or horarium, in the demands of one's assign7 ments, in the will of the superior as that is legitimately expressed, in the promptings of one's own conscience, in requests that are made of us and that it is possible for us to fulfill without difficulty. Similar things could be added along these lines. But these are by no means the only instances of the divine will, as though it were concerned only with some things and not others. The divine will is expressed in every aspect of reality, in every objective thing that occurs, that it behooves us to accept and somehow take into ourselves. Thus we must hearken to and obey the reality of other people's personalities, which are not our own and hence are often h~rd to appreciate; the outcome of elections and other such processes in which we may have taken positions opposed to the prevailing view; accidents that could not be avoided; the weaknesses that burden us as we get sick or grow old; the vagaries of the weather and of other natural phenomena. These things too are manifestations of God's will that are proper subjects of our obedience, that it profits us nothing to complain about or rail against. In them, indeed, there is a loving design for us. Although the "objectivities" mentioned are all unpleasant or at least diffi-cult, and one or two even tragic, we could as well say that God's will is also expressed in the many good things that befall us--in friendships and successes of various sorts, for example. Yet since these are so often things that we ourselves have had a hand in bringing about, or that we would gladly have brought about if we could, they do not have the same quality.of objectivity as do the others. Nor is there question of bending our will to them, and for that reason there is perhaps no question of obedience either. According to this way of thinking, then, we could characterize obedience in terms of "patient endurance." It is the vow by which the religious person promises to accept the reality that can be identified with the divine will, and that inevitably brings with it the cross. Moreover, the religious makes this promise in the firm conviction that in enduring or accepting this total reality, he or she will find the peace that the world cannot give (see John 14:27). All of reality, the whole of the universe, is in fact permeated with the mystery of the cross: This is a theme common in the earliest Church, and expressed strikingly by lrenaeus at the end of the second century when he writes: And because [Christ] is himself the Word of God almighty, who, in his invisible form, pervades us universally in the whole world, and encompasses both its length and breadth and height and depth--for by God's Word everything is disposed and adminis-tered- the Son of God was also crucified in these, imprinted in the form of a cross on the universe: for he had necessarily, in becoming visible~ to bring to light the universal-ity of his cross in order to show openly through his visible form that activity of his: that it is he who makes bright the height, that is, what is in heaven, and holds the deep, which is in the bowels of the earth, and stretches'forth and extends the length from east to west, navigating also the northern parts and the breadth of the south, and calling in all the dispersed from all sides to the knowledge of the Father.6 Cruciform Obedience / 669 Where Christ is, there is the cross: it cannot be avoided; it is wriften even across the face of our joys. Do we not acknowledge the dominance of the cross in our lives, do we not symbolically submit ourselves to it when we sign ourselves with it from forehead to breast and from shoulder to shoulder? The principal .objection to what has been said thus far must surely be that it appears to foster passivity--a kind of mindless, heedless acceptance of and submission to Whatever comes one's way. It must be added, then, that Jesus' own obedience to his destipy, which was the reality of the cross that constantly intruded into his life, was not mindless or fatalistic. We know from the gospels that Jesus was always aware of what he was doing and that he approached this painful destiny in complete freedom. He offered himself freely to the Father, although not without a struggle, as the episode in Gethsemane tells us, to conform his will to the Father's. The sovereignty of Jesus' obedience is wonderfully manifested in the most ancient depictions of the'crucifixion, dating from the fifth century, where he is shown on the cross as a figure in.complete possession of himself--not hanging in agony but erect, and with a noble and peaceful countenance. Yet it is important to realize, asthe gospels inform us, that Jesus endured suffering on the cross. The ancient artists only stressed, one aspect of the crucified one. Moreover, it was Jesus' custom to make his disciples conscious of the sufferings that lay before them, so that they too might be free to accept the cross or not. It is clear from his example, therefore, that Jesus did not consider obedience to be an abdication of self. That Christian obedience is not passivity is still more clearly illustrated from the fact that, in numerous instances, Jesus actually resisted what other-wise might have been construed as his "destiny." That is, he often spoke against those who opposed him rather than simply bear their provocations in silence. This resistance on Jesus' part introduces an element of complexity into the practice of obedience. It suggests that there are times when religious obedience may be modified by some sort of resistance. When this may legiti-mately occur is problematic; it is a classic instance of the conflict between conscience and authority, particularly inasmuch as the authority here con-cerns the subject of areligious vow. This is, nonetheless, in keeping with the doctrine of the divine permissive will, which teaches that God permits evil to occur and to run its course, evenif he does not countenance it. This pe.rmissive will, to the extent that we may call it a will at all, may in many circumstances be resisted--although if Matthew 5:39 is to be taken seriously, it ought not always to be resisted. One thing, however, is certain in this regard: one may not resist an author-ity merely because it imposes something that is difficult or painful upon the one who is expected to obey. Suffering in and of itself, unless it is qualified in some significant way (if it were seen to be unbearable, for example, or if it would somehow radiate out to others who ought not to be affected by it), is insufficient reason for opposing an authority. If one were to resist an authority 6711 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 merely on account of the foreseen suffering (assuming its bearability and so forth), one would in effect be seeking to empty obedience of its content, and one may no more seek to do this than to empty Christianity of the cross. In fact, Jesus' own resistance, his refusal to endure certain unjust situa-tions, hastened his destiny rather than delayed it, and Jesus himself seems to have known this~ What this suggests, while not condoning passivity, is that the authority has the benefit of the doubt vis-a-vis the person placed under obedience. The-presumption on the part of the one who obeys should be that the assignment imposed is to be carried out except under certain unusual circumstances. On the other hand, the person in authority ought not to misperceive the desire to talk about an, assignment, or about any other imposed obedience, as a sheer unwillingness to obey. For the superior is also obliged to obedience, and specifically to the obedience of ministry--which includes listening. In sum, we are left with this, that religious obedience partakes of the mystery of the cross--"mystery" at least in part because it is so often absurd and inexplicable. Although human insight may show us that there is in each of us a terrible disharmony that causes us suffering, nothing but faith can tell us that the divine plan which includes the cross is a plan for our good, and one that will :ultimately bring us peace and harmonY. Indeed, only faith tells us that the things to which we must submit are from God, since we ~would often just as soon avoid them by asserting that they have nothing to do with God at all--that they come from superiors who do not understand "us, or that ~they represent situations that ought to be~changed instead of endured. Only this kind of faith will make obedience work. For the truth is that we must be obedient anyway to objectivity and reality as these have been under-stood in .this essay. We cannot control other people's personalities, or the weather, or our own health and well-being. We cannot avoid the cross, which is omnipresent, unless we choose to retreat into an imaginary world of our own making; and even then it is doubtful that we would succeed in our escape! The wisest thing that we can do is to set our faces to go to Jerusalem, for the cross is best borne willingly. Conclusion Two themes have been common to these three essays on poverty, celibacy, and obedience. The first theme is that of the Christocentric ~nature of the vows of religion. The person of Christ is the specific ;reason for a Christian and a religious to choose to do even what he or she might otherwise have decided to do--since poverty, celibacy, and obedience can make sense quite apart from the Christocentric context. But they make sense only to the extent that any-thing without Christ makes sense to the Christian--they cry out for comple-tion, for Christ is Alpha and Omega. In the case of obedience, we may translate "Christocentric" as "staurocen-tric'-- a word we have coined from stauros, meaning cross. The distinction Cruciform Obedience / 671 between Christo- and stauro-centric is a very fine one. In fact, the cross, thus understood, cannot be conceived apart from Christ. It is true that Christocentric seems to emphasize the person of Christ in a way ~hat staurocentric does not. In poverty and celibacy as I have written of them, we seem to touch Christ directly as the object of our love and desire, whereas in obedience it is the will of God, symbolized by the cross, which is the goal of our actions. In commenting on this, three observations must be made. Firstly, in embracing the cross we do the same thing that Jesus did and love the same divine will that he loved. We imitate him. Secondly, before Jesus was crucified it was possible, indeed proper, to think of the cross solely as something horrible. But since his crucifixion he has stamped this instrument of suffering ineradicably with his own personality. Finally, the divine will is not something abstract or impersonal, as though we were obeying a computer. Rather it is identified with God himself, who is personal, and whose personality is love (see ! .In 4:8). For these reasons, then, we can say that obedience, like poverty and celibacy, has its focus in a person--whether the person is seen as Christ, or as God.This focus is absolutely necessary for the religious, for it gives a meaning to life that nothing else can. We live ultimately for persons. The second theme common to these three essays and to the three vows discussed in them is that of mystery. In large part we are speaking here, not of a good that is fully able to be grasped by the intellect alone, but of one that must be perceived and pursued by the emotions as well. But when we speak of the emotions, and of things susceptible to the emotions, we are immediately in the realm of "mystery," as 1 Sugge'sted at the conclusion of the essay on celibacy.7 Because the intellect cannot grasp fully the divine mystery, love must make up--to the extent that this is possible--for what the intellect cannot seize. This divine mystery, in turn, has for its subject, not a project or an ideal, but rather the divine personality--for only a person has the infinite depth and infinite capacity for change that defines the mysterious. Projects and ideals, on the other hand, are soon exhausted. If this depth and inexhaustibility are central to the human personality, as anybody who has ever been in love realizes, how much more central are they to the divine personality! This is the truth that the vows must affirm and mirror: in the end, we do not commit ourselves to Christ or God for any other reason than himself. And this reason is inexplicable to anyone who does not love, who has not seen the mystery, and has not been seized by it.8 672 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 NOTES ~See "The Center of Religious Poverty," in 42 (1983) 534--544, and "Christocentric Celibacy," in 43 (1984) pp. 217-224. 2See; e.g. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2-'~, q. 186, a. 8. 3De cir. Dei 14.15. 4Apophthegmata Patrum. De abbate Joanne Colobo I (PG 65.203), 5One may also recall the motto of Pope John XXIlh "Obedience and peace." 6Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 34, trans~ by J. P. Smith, in Anciem Christian Writers 16 (Westminster, Md., 1952)pp. 69-70. 7See "Christocentric Celibacy," pp. 223-224. ~This essay, completed on the day of his ordination to the priesthood, is dedicated to Kevin Kraft, O.P, Christ the Center of Our Vowed Life by Boniface Ramsey, O.P. Father Ramsey's three articles on the vows of religion are available as a single reprint: i - The Center of Religious Poverty ii - Christocentric Celibacy iii - Cruciform Obedience Price: $1.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The Renewal of Contemplative Orders Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. Abbot Keating was formerly abbot of the Trappist monastery in Spencer, MA. His last article in our pages, "Cultivating the Centering Prayer" (January, 1978) was written while there. Presently he resides at St. Benedict's Monastery: Snowmass, CO 81654. Part I: Monastic World Views The monastic vocation is a personal intuition into the mystery of Christ's invitation to follow him along the radical lines proposed in the Gospel. One may not be able to articulate the reason why one wants to be a monk or nun and yet have a true call from Christ. Or again, two people may articulate entirely different motives for wanting to enter a monastery, and both may .have a true call from Christ. The reason for this,is the fact that monastic values can be articulatCd in more than one world view or conceptual frame of reference. Obviously, one's response to the monastic call has to be expressed in somoframe of reference, but it must always be kept in mind that no one set of structures fully expresses'the mystery of that call. It would be a mistake, therefore, to identify the mystery of the monastic vocation with any one particular set of symbols or structures. Many cloistered monks and nuns in monasteries of the contemplative lifestyle are unaware that a radical shift in Western thinking has taken place over the last fifty or sixty years. This shift is centered in the development of historical consciousness. In the words of David Tracy, "This phenomenon can be described as man's realization that individually he is responsible .for the life he leads, and collectively he is responsible for the world in which he leads it."~ A significant part of this change of perspective is due to the discoveries of modern science, the development of historical criticism, and the shift in philos-ophy and theology from a static world view to an evolutionary one. Paul Tillich has given the names heteronomic and autonomic to the two compre- 673 674 /~Reviewfor Religious; Sept.-Oct., 1984 hensive world views that are polarized in contemporarythinking. The tension arising from these opposing world views appears in the Church at large, but especially in religious and monastic life, where tensions within the Catholic world community tend to be emphasized. The conflict is not merely between liberal and conservative positions, but is much more profound. It arises from the unquestioned assumptions of two completely opposite ways of looking at the world and at oneself, each of which lays claim to one's deepest loyalties. The heteronomic world view, which was commonly held by the Catholic community until fifty or sixty years ago, is essentially a negative world view; or to be more exact, it is an other-worldly world view. It sees the sacred as opposed to the profane. Thus it seeks to reject the profane in order to find God, and as a consequence, emphasizes the value of renunciation. The present world is perceived as a sinful environment which has to be rejected. In a monastic milieu, this conviction translates into an attitude of determined separation from the world and the studied avoidance of any involvement in the society of one's time and in its problems. Since the primary focus of this world view is eternity, preparing for the life to come is conceived as the principal, or even the only, duty of a monk or nun. In either case, it follows that the legitimate pleasures of life must be renounced in order to find God. Thus, austerity of life and ascetical practices become the norm of spiritual progress and the touchstone of genuine dedication to God. This world view, developed and exemplified by the monks of the fourth century, had a significant influence on the spirituality of the Church as a whole. The formation of the liturgy; for instance, was influenced by this viewpoint. Catholic education was imparted and still, in large part, is imparted 'from this viewpoint. Most young people applying to monasteries today, however, are influ-. enced, at least in some degree, by the autonomic world view. The autonomic world view is the result of the gradual secularization of religious symbols, rituals, and institutions, together with the development of the historical con-sciousness. In this perspective, the profane is sacred. Renunciation of the good things of human .life is regarded as unrealistic or irrelevant. The positive aspects of the present world, rather than its evident evils, are emphasized. Time is the opportunity to change both ourselves and the society in which we live. Our personal decisions and actions make history and the future. Conse-quently, we have to assume personal responsibility for what happens to us and to the world. We are part of a process (evolution), and in order to reach true personal fulfillment, we have to take into account the well-being of the com-munity in which we live. Moreover, the community for which we are respon-sible is gradually extending itself, through mass communication and travel, to embrace the whole human family. The development and the shaping of the world community is, therefore, a profoundly religious and contemplative con-cern. Eternal life is not only in the future, but immanent in time. Moreover, there is a strong tendency to reject the patterns and lifestyles of the past as The Renewal of Contemplative Orders / 675 adequate paradigms for the future: Translated into a monastic milieu, this world view has a genuine attraction for the fundamental values of monastic life, but tends to distrust the tradi-tional structures in which they were enshrined. It rejects any kind of isolation, while esteeming the value of true solitude. Permanent commitment is a special problem for people~ with this perspective, because they feel a responsibility to adjust to the future as it becomes present. To commit oneself in advance to a single lifestyle or to one expression of monastic values seems to them a refusal to take,,responsibility for themselves and for what God might some day call them tO do. They want to be free to respond to the future in ways that may be new or even incompatible witha particular:monastic lifestyle that, in principle, can never be changed. Each of these world views has much to recommend it. Each sees the truth from a particular cultural perspective. Neither can claim to be a complete view of the mystery of the monastic vocation. Both have limitations which must be transcended in order to reach human integration and the fullness of the christian life. It is interesting to note that during his'monastic lifetime, Tho-mas Merton seems to have moved from a heteronomic to an autonomic world view, and then to have'transcended both. Such is the impression given by his. remarkable essay, "Final Integration," in Contemplation hi A World Of Action, Chapter 13. Elsewhere he writes, "Historical consciousness and con-templation are not incompatible, but. necessary." Father Raimundo Panikkar has discerned another world view in addition to the heteronomic and autonomic world views delineated by Tillich.2 He calls it the ontonomic world view or the contemplative dimension of life. It is a higher perspective, rather than a synthesis of the heteronomic and autonomic world views. It ~is a state of higher consciousness (faith) that integrates the sacred and profane by perceiving the presence of the sacred in ordinary events and .in the most secular of situations. It flows from the awareness of the universe as a unity. Its fundamental attitude is complete detachment--freedom from compulsions, prejudices, and preconceived ideas. The contemplative dimension is a vision of reality in which the "egoic" or false self is no more. The ultimate experience is non-duality. Panikkar characterizes it by the term "tempiternity,'.' which/he identifies as the experience of eternity-and-time in each passing momentand event. To find the eternal in time is the crux of the experience. ~ Translated into a monastic milieu, this experience of mature contemplation must lead to action, even if it is only to transform the local monastic environ-ment. The Contemplative monk seeks to discover what he is, not what he will become. He seeks to cultivate the core of his humanness, which is more than historical existence. Thus, the ontonomic world view is a form of transhistori-cal consciousness. It is outside and above political considerations and histori-cal concerns. At the same time, it does not take a merely negative posture toward institutionalized injustice or the whole evils of contemporary society, 676 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 but offers a positive alternative by establishing a lifestyle based on the con-templative dimension of, the Gospel. Thus, fuga mundi becomes, not flight from a world that is evil in itself, but flight from the "system" by refusing to be a part of a political or social establishment that supports institutionalized evil. Here is one example of how these world views operate in monastic com-munities. The contemporary monk, influenced consciously or unconsciously by the autonomic world view, feels that he cannot reach his own unique spiritual development without the well-being of the human community of which he is a part. F~or him, a strict, rule .of silence means isolation, not solitude. One of the older monks, having entered the monastery fifter a Catholic education that emphasized the heteronomic approach to life, may look upon him as one who has an exaggerated need for contact with others. For this older monk, picnics and community gatherings with. casual conversa-tion and banter are clearly mitigations of the rule of silence. He cannot wait to get back to his private room, to his books, or to his prayer, because his expectation is that he can attain union with God only through the renunciation of ordinary human society and its legitimate pleasures. The older monk believes in loving his brothers width his will. He may be embarrassed by feelings of affection, and even feel a du.ty to confess them as sins or imperfections. The new arrival, for his part, regards the older monk as simply incapable of relating. This polarization of attitudes becomes acute on the .occasion of commun-ity meetings. The older monks tend to make speeches while the younger, consumed with frustration, try in vain to engage them in genuine dialogue and interaction. These and similar situations can be poignant as well as just plain painful. Each monk, coming from his own respective world view, is completely sincere, motivated by loyalty to what he understands to be the structure enshrining the values that are to lead him to union with Christ. Consequently, the same community event or decision of the supe~rior will be interpreted positively or negatively according to one of these two basic monastic world views. Neither seems to beable to separate the religious symbol, ritual, or behavior pattern from the value wi~ich is being expressed in and through them. To be able to do so, of course, would require't,he kind of profound conversion that is presupposed by the ontonomic World view, or the contem-plative dimension of life. This perspective is able to express monastic values in different structures or with different symbols without being tipset. It recognizes intuitively that the value is what matters, not how it is expr~essed in particular circumstances. It can move ,from one symbol or set of symbols to another, and still express its total dedication to monastic values. Because it is not bound to ex.press these values in a particular way, it does not judge others or their observance critically. It can adjust to the signs of the time, recognizing with ease when iexceptions are called for, and acknowledging the primary impor-tance of flexibility in applying the common rule to individual circumstances, The Renewal of Contemplative Orders / 677 The contemplative dimension is the goal of monastic structures and obser-vances. Those who have espoused the heteronomic or autonomic world views in their early monastic experience may move beyond their own particular world view as life advances, and come finally to embrace, or at least tolerate, the other. Ultimately, those in the heteronomic or autonomic monastic world views are both calledto transcend the limitations of their respective world views and to reach the contemplative dimension. The contemplative dimension is to live not only in God's presence, but also out of that presence. In other words, the presence and movement of God become the source of one's moti-vation both in prayer and activity. The contemplative dimension can express itself inside of existing structures or create new structures when circumstances call for them. It is not so much the structures that are important, but the motivation which prompts them. In the Gospel~ motivation is everything. The contemplative dimension can infuse life into the most stagnant of structures. The question, however, may be asked whether this is always the best use of this incomparably creative energy. Perhaps enough has been said to see a fundamental root of the problem of mutual understanding and communion in communities of contemplative life today. It is not a question of persons in the community having a liberal or a conservative temperament, di.sposition, or set of convictions. That is to be expectedin every human grouping. It.is rather a question of two deeply held perspectives regarding the essential rfionastic values, based in large part on one's early religious training and cultural conditioning. It was possible in days gone by to enjoy the blessings of unity when everyone shared the heteronomic world view. It is impossible today to avoid or suppress the ideas and attitudes that are characteristic of the autonomic world view. 1 have seen monks enter the monastery with the heteronomic world view, pass a number of years living and articulating their monastic experience in that frame of reference, and then change radically, reacting against the heteronomic'world view with all the force that is characteristic of a profound conversion. Such change is all the more acute in those who have repressed their talents and legitimate feelings for the sake of the heteronomic world view. There is really no solution to this polarization as long as it remains on the level of conceptualization. The same events, directives of superiors, or deci-sions by the community will continue to be interpreted in two opposing wa~,s. The heteronomic world view sees as disaster what the autonomic world view perceives as a great step forward. Similarly, what the autonomic world view considers regression, is interpreted by the heteronomic mind-set as a retu,rn to fundamentals, or to "the good old days." Some might think that monks and nuns who are deeply committed to these world views should live in separate monasteries, at least as an experi-ment. Actually, though, if we could recognize our own conscious or uncons-cious commitment to one of these monastic world views, and accept the fact that the other is also legitimate, we could live together with a certain mutual 67~1 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 enrichment--provided, of course, that our objective was not to obliterate the other, but to transcend our own world view and attain to the higher perspective of the contemplative dimension of life. The superior in monasteries today has to be someone who has great sympathy for both the heteronon~ic and the autonomic world views and can see the values and the limitations of each. Unfortunately, the monks will judge the superior's decisions according to their own respective viewpoints, and thus everything the superior tries to do will be a source of dissatisfaction to one side or the other. There needs to be a massive re-education of the members of contemplative orders if they are to understand the dynamics that areat work in their communities today and which are really .outside anyone's control. These dynamics are what Pope John XXIII called the "signs of the time." The two opposing world views are not going to go away. We have either to adjust to them, separate, or tear each other apart. The formulation of new constitutions is not going to solve this problem. In fact, the efforts to stabilize constitutions could prudently be postponed until more fundamental issues are resolved. One. of these, of course, is how to train the young. If postulants and novices in contemplative orders are oriented toward the contemplative dimension from the beginning of their monastic lives, and can be persuaded that genuine monastic values can be incarnated in more than one way, it: will then be possil~ieto emphasize the right things in their formation and avoid diverting their energies with useless regulations or conceptual conflicts. There must be serious discipline. This consists primarily in perseverance in contemplative (non-conceptual) prayer. Neither liturgy nor any other practice can supply for this. Silence and solitude initiate the dynamic of self-knowledge and the purification of the psychological unconsciousness. This shotald be fully understood by those undertaking the contemplative way of life. Contemplative prayer will enable them to adjust to this dynamic, persevere in its difficulties, and benefit from its insiglits. Two hours of such prayer every day seems like a suitable norm for postulants and novices. In communities where the work is more demanding, the divine office--and not contemplative prayer--should be reduced. For contemplatives, liturgy can only be an effec-tive means of formation in dialogue with silence and prayer in secret. Part II: Principles Monastic formation is not an assembly line. ~Monks and nuns cannot be mass-produced. The monastic environment is a choice of means designed to facilitate growth in the contemplative dimension of the Gospel. It is aimed at self-transcendence and transformation in Christ. Each monk and nun in a particular monastery is in a different place in the spiritual journey. Only great sensitivity on the part of the community toward the spiritual and human growth of its members can adequately meet this situation. Newcomers to Renewal of Contemplative Orders / 679 monastic life, of course, must submit to the same rule for the first few years of their initiation. But to apply this principle to the whole of life, even into old age, is another matter. In contemplative orders right now, the big question is not new constitutions, but .whether the observances as we practice them lead the average monk and nun of our time to that level of spirituality which Father Merton called "final integration." Without a certain number of persons living on that level in a monastery, the Rule cannot be properly observed. Institutions have an uncanny ability to be blind to whatever challenges them to constructive change.: This tendency increases in proportion to one's close-ness to the center of administration. Survival is an instinct in every human institution, as it is in individual human beings. Only those who have expe-rienced deep purification are free of this compulsion. When the inspiration of a charismatic founder or group of founders is no longer present, the second generation tries to preserve their spirit and insight by means of rules and customs. These work well so long as the spiritual understanding of the observances perdures. But if this spiritual understanding peters out, observances begin to be practiced merely externally, and may come to be experienced as a straight jacket. In a lifestyle as severely restricted as a cloistered monastery, such an environment could even become neurosis-prone. This can occur when monks or nuns start keeping~the rule for the wrong reasons, or isolate themselves from the concerns of the local and world church and community. Monastic rules, including St. Benedict's, were composed without the knowledge we possess today of the psychological and sociological factors involved in human development and in the formation of community. Monastic founders had extraordinary insight into these matters, but they did not have at their disposal the experience and research of the last century in psychology and sociology. The renewal of the contemplative orders has to take these new insights into account., 0 The renewal also has to take seriously the work of historical criticism. To separate the essentials of monastic life from its cultural conditioning in the course of the centuries and to re-express these essentials today is no small task. Still, it has to be done if monastic life is to be a viable alternative for people in the twenty-first century. Moreover, these essential values have to be expressed not only in a con-temporary way, but in ways appropriate to different cultures. As new monas-teries spring up in. various parts of the world, great sensitivity must be shown to the culture in which they are inserted. Established monasteries also: need to develop a keen sensitivity to the particular cultu.res of which they are already a part because these are ev.olving at a constantly accelerating rate. Such sensitiv-ity requires a certain level of interior freedom and a capacity to evaluate the ¯ signs of the time. To ascertain where we stand in this regard, communities might ask them-selves such questions as these: 6~11~ / Review for Religibus, Sept.-Oct., 1984 i. Do we provide space for people to grow, to make mistakes, to relax, to get a different perspective, to relate normally with their peers, to grow in responsibility, and to respond to the needs of others? 2. Can damaged persons find healing and human growth in our community? 3. If in our community there is evident lack of healing and of human and ¯ spiritual growth, is there som~ething in our way of life that makes this happen? 4. Do we develop the human and spiritual gifts of the individual members of the community, and are they then used for the good of the community? 5. Does self-support require draining a certain number of people by over-work, excessive responsibility, or by leaving them in jobs which they expe-rience as drudgery without hope of relief?. 6. ls stability in the community an absolute ora relative value? Should there be more opportunity to serve in other houses or to,experience other forms ~of Christian service for a limited time? ~. 7. What do we perceive as the goal of our contemplative way of life? is it personal salvation, penance, intercession for others, contemplative prayer, eremiticism, strict observance, togetherness, or what? 8. Are the present structures of our order the right ones for our time, culture, and circumstances? In particular, does the liturgy as we do it truly express our prayer, or is it cast in a mold that is excessively dualistic and historically conditioned? ¯ 9. Why are there so few potential superiors in the average monastery of contemplative orders? More important than any answers we might come up with, is the level of honesty and openness to truth that would permit communities to raise such intimate and personal questions in the first place. James W. Fowler3 shows how the development of Christian faith corresponds to the various stages of human growth. Basing his reflections on the work of Piaget and Kohlberg, Fowler points out that the level of faith development in a particular commun-ity is normally dependent on the communal ideal which the majority have embraced. The community tends to raise its members to this level, but does not encourage them to grow beyond it. This is not a deliberate and explicit refusal, but a subtle coercion exercised on everyone to accept the approved level of development as the norm. This dynamic is evident in certain charismatic communities which tend to discourage their members from practicing con-templative prayer even. when the attraction of grace is clear. Fowler mentions that most of the Christian churches in the United States which he investigated were at the level of faith in which religious symbols were inseparable from their accepted meaning by the community. By'religious symbols, he means rituals, practices, and behavior patterns that give the group its identity and express its value system. In these communities, it is difficult for ~ individual members to separate religious symbols from the meaning give~n them by the group as the expression of their common values~ and to ri~-express these values in other forms. The Renewal of Contemplative Orders / ~1 It is easy to see how a monastic community, which has the responsibility of fostering the interior freedom of its members, would be greatly hindered by a hidden agenda which effectively prevented them from moving beyond the letter of the Rule or the common observances. The common good of a monastery is not the exercises of common life as such, but the growth of bach of the members toward self-transcendence and transformation in Christ. The martyrdom of conscience, which Anthony of Egypt identified with the monas-tic vocation, may require some monks and nhns to express common, values in other forms--for instance, as hermits, pilgrims, teachers of contemplative prayer. Monks and nuns in the Benedictine-Cistercian tradition often have hesita-tions about the principle of personal growth because of their conviction, based on their experience, that the complete surrender of oneself to the common life is a tremendous leap forward in the spiritual journey. This view of stability maintains that changes in attitudes and dispositions, considered as ascending levels of faith, will take place interiorly in the course of one's monastic lifetime, without having to make any significant modifications in one's external obser-vance or environment. The question may be asked, however, whether this is always true. ISertain external changes could facilitate interior growth during a period of crisis. If everyone in the community is really growing, periods of crisis for one or other member will not be exceptional, but of frequent occurrence. However, for appropriate modifications of observance on behalf of the particular needs of individuals to be fully accepted and supported by.the community, the superior ¯ has to be a person in. whose discernment the community has complete confi-dence. Alternatively, there must be a level of communication that is so well established and free-flowing that persons at different stages of growth can easily understand and accept each other. Whether a large community (more than twenty) can develop or maintain such a degree of communication is a question that should be studied by contemplative orders. Most s6ciologists would have serious doubts about it. As a. further consideration, it would.seem that leadership in monastic communities today has to be an "enabling" rather than a ,determining" kind of leadership. Members of the community have to be encouraged to function on their own initiative, taking responsibility for themselves and for the group: This level.~of regponsibility obviously requires effective communication. A superior should be one of the group as much as he can. He should be intelli-gent, but not someone who inspires either awe or dependency. He should be supportive, affirming, straightforward, and open to new ideas; not someone who prefers things to people, or good order to human needs. No one should exercise religious authority who has not first come to terms with °his own solitude and isolation, for only then can he understand and relate to the solitude and isolation that others may feel. The monastic milieu is not a place where people are to be changed, but where they can change themselves. 6112 / Review for Religious; Sept.-Oct., 1984 Two principles of renewal deserve special consideration in the formation of the young' in our time. These are: flexibility in regard to observances, and emphasis on the contemplative dimension of the Gospel. How the latter is to be carried out should be the subject of study and dialogue in each monastery becahse, without a plan and practice to foster this contemplative dimension, observances will be useless. There is a fairly widespread notion in monasteries that contemplative prayer and monastic observance~are somehow incompatible. Unless this mis-conception can be dispelled by adequate education and formation, the future of these communities is extremely uncertain. , Flexibility is the most practical means of approaching individual needs at different stages of the spiritual journey. By comparison, Fowler writes, the institutional approach to the good of individual members is a buckshot approach. It presumes thatthe same religious symbols are always going to be neci~ssary for ~everyone for the whole of each one's life. Experience, on the other hand, points to the fact that most persons need to,be detached from particular religious symbols at a certain point in their spiritual journey in order to make further progress. Opportunities for human growth should be provided in cloistered monas-tic life as a necessary foundation for spiritual growth. To begin with, the contemplativ.e dimension of the Gospel cannot develop normally without a certain spontaneity. It is necessary for the members of every community to get to know one another on the human level early in their monastic lives. If there are several no.vices or temporary professed, they should have the chance to discuss monastic;values among themselves, without the novice master or dean being present. For a limited :period of time they could benefit from a "gut-level" exchange of feelings about one another and the community, moderated by a qualified facilitator. The sense of belonging is indispensable for the health of every community. This is not easy in a large group. This is probably why Benedict, with his far-sighted wisdom, recommended deaneries (a community of communities) for expanding monasteries. Sub-group structures are not divisive if their pur-pose is well understood and accepted by the community. At the very least, the opportunity to speak with one's peers in small informal groups and one-to-one should be encouraged. Friendships, both within and outside the community, can be enriching, especially'when they are supportive of one's i;piritual journey. At the same time, periods of stricter silence, as during Advent and Lent, or for a week or two every few months, might be introduced to provide the experience of a deeper and°more extended silence. Intensive periods of silence and prayer open up new areas of insight and hasten the process of purification. The rules of enclosure could also benefit from greater flexibility. Work-shops can be stimulating and broadening for those who are interested in a particular subject or craft. With the introduction of cassette TV, programs of genuine value izould help to educate and bring the community together. Uni- 7he Renewal of Contemplative Orders versit'y life tends to be a special kind of environment, somewhat withdrawn from the real world, but the genuine need of training professors, completing a monk's education, or developing particular talents, justifies this experience. Besides educational motives for modifying the strict interpretation of the rules of enclosure, permission to go home for an annual family visit instead of having the. family come to the monastery could be beneficial for the monks and nuns--as well as easier on their families. To allow selected persons to live in the community as residents for a prolonged period of time is already being done in some monasteries with good results. Interaction with dedicated per-sons in other walks of life is stimulating as well as broadening. Retreats for both sexes and varying degrees of participation in the liturgy are presently common practices in a number of contemplative communities and should be encouraged. The need for physical exercise is obvious in our day when monasteries of men and women have had to replace manual work by machinery. Factory work and the sedentary employment that is forced upon a community by secretarial demands do not provide the kind of psychological space that used to be provided by labor in the fields or in the woods. Modern forms of earning a living are less simple and usually demand more in the way of mental concen-tration. New ways of providing for the balance of activities prescribed by the Rule of Benedict have to be found or invented. It may look strange for monks to be playing sports, running around in jogging shorts, or takirig'long hikes; but. if they do not get enough good exercise to replace the manual: work of the past, they are going to find themselves in a constant state of tension. Com-munity or small group picnics, celebrations, outings, and trips can also pro-vide useful relaxation and strengthen the bonds between the members of the group. A change of pace in the horarium would be helpful from time to time, like the opportunity for a day of solitude without any structure once or twice a month. The annual retreat c

Issue 37.5 of the Review for Religious, 1978. ; Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development Immortality, Old Age and Death Developing Constitutions and Directories Volume 37 Number 5 Septe~mber 1978 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is edited in collaboration with faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. © 1978 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $8.00 a year; $15.00 for two years. Other countries: $9.00 a year, $17.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor September, 1978 Volume 37 Number 5 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gailen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Not As Demanding an Answer Mary Corona, F.M.D.M. Sister Mary Corona, nurse and mid-wife by profession, has been a religious for 23 years. After fifteen years of service in Zambia, she is presently w6rking at a nursing home of her com-munity: Mount Alvernia; Bramshott Chase; Portsmouth Rd., Near Hindhead; Surrey, En-gland. Recently someone quoted a sister as saying that she will remain in religious life until or unless Mr. Right comes along. With the greatest respect for those who see the crises which presently exist in our religious communities as lying e!sewhere, I would submit that here, in this attitude, is both nut and kernel of the~ pyoblem. How big this. problem is might be difficult to assess, but it would seem fair to suggest that it is as large, or as small, .as the number of sisters dragging along who are oriented in this way. It is true that religious life is bedeviled with all manner of other diffi-culties, but these will never destroy consecrated living. Indeed, they never could;;for consecration is of the heart, and is able to stand against the ebb and .flow of contrary tides--but not that of the uncommitted heart. An-chorless, it drifts aimlessly to and fro. One can only feel a deep compassion for sisters living in this way. They have missed out on both sides of life, and the wonder is that they stay so long. Our way of life has little to offer once theheart grows cold, for all that remains is an existence Centered on regulations, work, meals--and frus-tration. Religious life was never rheant to be like that. It was never meant merely to provide board and lOdging while our heart plays elsewhere. It was never meant simply to provide a base to which we return every so often to pick up our mail and clean clothes. We did not make vows of religion just to obtain financial security, material comfort, and freedom from the re- 641 642 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 sponsibility of rearing a family. Yet all this, and much more, is implicit in an attitude of waiting for some one or something "worthwhile" to come our way. If we come to the point where we see our:institute as something separate from the Person who calls us, there is little wonder we lose our love for it. No one can really love an institution on its own merits. No sane adult waxes lyrical over the government, or glows with love about the local housing department. Institutions, especially legislative ones, are just not things which warm our hearts. Our own institute can soon come to be viewed in much the same way.-.:Once we have lost our focal point all else begins to diSintegrate. Riales become restrictive, authority becomes oppressive, ac-countability is no longer acceptable, and our eyes start roaming the world for a way out. Ways out are not difficult to find, and so the further we get from our committed attitude of heart, the more normal it seems to be wandering abroad. We may still talk bravely about the love of God. But words do not feed a hungry heart, and we are hungry---craving for love as only a woman can crave. Separated from the trtie center of our lives, we will v.ery soon seek out its counterfeit. Borderline friendships, such as sincere married women would consider out of the question, are accepted as offering "meaning" to our drifting lives. Social activities unbecoming to a life consecrated by vow are welcomed as a relief from boredom. Fantasies, imaginings, unrealistic day-dreams eat away at us until, predictably, we file our petition for dis-pensation. What started off as something so glorious finishes with a slip of paper authorizing us to go our way. It would be pleasant to think that this unhappy pic(ure is an exaggeration. But one only has to look back through religious perio~licals covering the last few years, and pick out the articles written by sisters, to find a substantial proportion containing material,of this depressing kind. So, what should our lives be? Although we rub shoulders with many another on our journey through life, in the final analysis it is our own individual experience that shapes our views and convictions. My own con-victions concerning religious life have been crystallized and refined in many a furnace. Therehave been times when it seemed that I, like many another, just did not have the necessary courage to go on. St. Paul seemed to me to have missed the mark when he said, "You will not be tempted beyond your strength," for on those occasions I was being sorely tempted, in a way that seemed to have far outstripped my strength. , Yet it was at this very point each time that help came. Some tremendous force seemed to pluck me out of the fearful void and I was set down once again on firm ground. I now know experientially what I had known pre-viously only on theory, that St. Paul was right in what he said,just as I also know that my vows were a bilateral contract, and God on his side has an obligation to care for me--and he will. I know that however far he tosses Not As DemandinR an Answ~er / 64~ me, he will cradle me again. I know that my life is as inextricably bound up with his as his is with mine. He cannot do without me any more than I can do without him. I might be dispensable to others, but he will never throw me hway. He calls me by my name, softly and gently, not as demanding an answer, but as begging a surrender. I am his cherished one, his beloved child, and all that I do, all the wrong that is in me, will s6mehow be colored by his great ~lo~ve for me. As I grow on awarenes~ of his love, I begin to drop my masks and lower my barriers; I unfold and develop, unconscious of the strength of his con-cern. I'no longer worry~ whether I am worthy to be loved by him--such questionings are futile, for his love is already a fact. I no longer fear to accept his love, worried over my shabbiness, because near him my tatters are transformed. ~. I am aware of my weakness, my need for help, my sometimes inability to "go itS' alone. 1 know that I nee~d friends, I need. encouragement, I n~ed acceptance and love from those around me, for the stuff of my being is human and craves these ~hings. But I do not need a lover, I do not need a Mr. Right. I would have no room for him. I would not know what to do with him, for all the time I would spend with him my heart would be crying out for my true lover, my Lord and Master. I wear His ring on my finger and there it will remain until in death another will remove it, for then all need of visible signs will have passed. I know I have many faults--some glaring, ¯ some tucked away--so be it. He will not allow me to persist in dangerous or damaging attitudes for long, but he will love them out of me, and in his tenderness will leave no scars. I_will never leave him, not through any strength or goodness of mine but because he will not let me go. He bargained for me at too great a price. Why should I want to leave him anyway? What fault can I find in him? Where has . he failed? What promise has he not kept? When has his love grown cold and~ his eyes sought out anothe~r in preference to me? I can accuse him of none of these things. Through~ut my life others have let me down, but him-- never! I have pained and anguished him. I have demanded my head, and he has given it to me. I have argued and tossed the ball with him, provoking a reaction and, having exhausted myself, found his long, beautiful patience waiting quietly to take me back again. I have never received a reprimand, not even in the deepest places of my heart, but in any wrongdoing I have only ever been conscious of his heartbreaking quietness while he waits, and, as we set off together again; it is as though the wandering past had never been. And so my vows and my ~religious life are only means to a glorious end. They are not my life, but the !oom on which the fabric of my life, the fabric of my love is being woven. They will hold all things together for me until the One I have loved so imperfectlyin this life will invite me to quit it and come with him, where, because he will never leave my side, I shall do all 644 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 things perfectly. And then, in the words of that delightful English medieval recluse, Julian of Norwich, "All will be well. All manner of things will be well." This then is what was promised to us on making our religious profession. We were assured that if we faithfully observed all that was implicit in our vows we would attain to eternal beatitude. We took the unknown future on trust, and in its unfolding we have doubtless experienced great joys and rich blessings, both interwoven with a handsome share of heartbreak. Things have changed, people have changed, we ourselves have changed. No one ever promised that it would be otherwise. Yet in all the movement in which we are caught up, God has remained constant. He has not, he does not, he will not change. So infinitely lovable, tantalizingly beautiful, how is it possible for us to want another? We have our Mr. Right, maybe we never stood still long enough to recognize him. Maybe we have never moved in closely enough to experience him. It is never too late, for in his constancy he is still waiting. He has not moved. He will always be waiting while there is the smallest hope that we might turn back. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS HAS MOVED! As of June 19, the editorial office of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS has relocated from its Grand Boulevard location to its new address: Review for Religious Room 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63108 Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development Philip D. CristantiellO Dr. Cristantiello is a consulting psychologist to St. Joseph's Seminary, St. Vincent's Hospital School of Nursing, the Dominican Sisters of Newburg and to Elizabeth Seton College. He resides at 130 Sherwood Ave.; Yonk.ers, NY 10704. Once upon ~. time a person could reiy on .his certainties. They accom-panied him as comfortable companions throughout life. For example, just about everyone knew that the priestho6d was limited to men, that homo-sexuality was not only different but also deviant and that no child born Robert would become, an adult called Roberta. It wasn't even necessary to discuss such matters. They were considered self-evident. Now, however, we have come uncomfortably to the realization that society has taken many of our "knowns" and chan.ged them to."maybes." So it is fitting to discuss the subject of psychosexua! maturity with a certain degree of caution. The views expressed in this paper are directed particularly toward pro-grams of preparation for the priesthood. It is likely, however, that many of the comments will apply to all who have chosen a celibate way of life. After briefly identifying some of my working assumptions, I shall discuss toe topics of sexuality, psychosexual maturity, intimacy and celibacy. In ad-dition, some questions about the effects of a homogeneous environment on preparation for. celibacy will be raised. The final section of the paper will offer some guidelines to seminary educators. Since each of these topics is so complex, 1 have focused my thougl~ts on their psychological aspects. My intent is not to minimize the moral and theological dimensions of these subjects. They are simply beyond my competence and are appropriately left to others. ~ 645 646 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 Some Working Assumptions My discussion of psychosexual maturity is based upon certain assump-tions derived from empirical studies of healthy and mature persons and concepts of biological normality.~ These assumptions are: ---All forms of sexual expression are not equally reflective of normal psychosexual development; e.g., homosexuality. --The criteria for judging mature behavior in non-celibates will not necessarily be the same for celibates; e.g., procreation is normative ¯ for the species but trot for religious. --The absence of, or seeming immunity from, sexual striving and stresses is trot necessarily indicative of psychosexual harmony; e.g., the absence of conflict may be due to such mechanisms as repression. ---Mature individuals are not invariably stable or immune to dis-organization; e.g., a priest may have a personal crisis which tem-porarily disrupts confidence in his vocation, but over the long run the quality of his commitment can remain high. ---Strong, persistent motivations will assist the celibate in organizing purposeful-behavior; e.g., Christian directional stability helps one cope in an unstable, value-changing society. --The validity of concepts of psychosexual maturity does not rest upon their being evidenced in the personalities of most religious; e.g., in the Kennedy-Heckler stud), of the priesthood most priests were found to be underdeveloped. This does not mean, however, that psycho-sexual maturity is impossible in the priesthood. ---It is unlikely that I can propose a universally a6cepted concept of psychosexual maturity. The diversity and complexity°w, hich one may find in the experiential world of well functioning celibates has not been adequately researched and studied. Sexuality ' ~ ' The Sexualization of Celibate Life Sexuality is increasingly selected as a topic of discussion by celibates. The appearance of books, workshops, and articles devoted to various as-pects of this subject attest to this assertion. There is an apparent readiness on the part of many persons in religious life to address the phenomenon of "human sexuality. Indeed, there has been a curiously sudden emergence of "expert commentators" on the subject. In the past it was not that religious could deny that sex was a fact of life, but that many celibates simply did not regard it as a useful fact and could more easily avoid its role in their lives. It was not unusual for both religious and laity to think of celibacy as a state of being asexual. Today, with our widespread cul(ural relativism and appearance of psychological sophis- ~Douglas H. Heath, Explorations of Maturity (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1965), pp. 32-34. Warren J. Gadpaille, The Cycles of Sex (New York: Scribners, 1975), pp. 5-7. Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development / 647' tication, many old views are being displaced. "Experts," even though they be far removed from formation programs, seem capable of speaking at:great length and with great conviction about the preparation of men for priest-hood. However else we may describe these times, most certainly it will not be called an age of humility. Another sign of how sexuality has saturated our culture is that the noun "celibate" appears more and more frequently in print with modifiers like "sexual" or "genital." This facile use of terms does not automatically signify any real move toward maturity; it merely misleads some into think-ing they have made a substantial step in that direction. In such a climate we may start to believe that using the language of sexuality is,synonymous with being mature. The articulated vocabulary of sexuality doesn't easily trans, late into the nonverbal language of behavior. Despite the recent proliferation of publications and the shifts in attitude, I am inclined to believe that the practice of celibacy and the sexuality of celibates is I,argely an unknown. There is .little available evidence from serious, systematic study which adequately describes the impact of celi-bacy on the~lives of~priests and other, religious. We have operate~ with many assumptions and assertions about how difficult ',c, elibacy is, its"impact on personality functioning, and what resources prove us.eful, and which do not, in sustaining a p,erson in a celibate vocation. There is relatively little verifiable information about the d~gree of'sucCess which priests and reli-gious have achteved !,n rema~mng faithful, and not much common agree-ment as to the criteria for defining a healthy celibate life. In addition, the relationship of successful celibate commitment to type of preparation, per-sgnality, work satisfaction and age has not been clearly delineated. It may seem overly ~imple ~to state.my next observation in relation to the practice of celibacy, but sometimes the obvious is neglected. Sexual ab-stinence, like sexual gratification is a part-time, not a full-time experience. Persons who actively gratif.y t.heir sexual needs do not do so continuously any more than celibates have to rehounce genital e~prgssion continuously. The point is that sexual abstinence may have to be continual in religious life, but that d0es" not mean it i~ continuous." While it may be true that we now live in a society which insanely operates as though desire and gratificatio.n were synonymous and need to be experienced simultaneously, we may have been equally absurd in the past by overplaying the sacrificial nature of abstinence. Ih a sense, ~then, in efforts to redress some of the problems associated with an asexual approach, our concept of celibacy now seems to have become rather Sexualized, Education for Sexuality The celibate may a,,ccept~the~fact of his seXuality but it may not help him very ,much because the meaning of this fact keeps changing as the celibate zContinual refers to an indefinite succession or recurrence of events while continuous implies ,an uninterrupted experience with unchanging intensity and'withou~ modulation. Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 advances in age~ He soon learns that becoming an enlightened and re-sponsible sexual being is a life long challenge. Education for a celibate life is not just a task for the young seminarian. Sexuality presents different demands and has different meanings at different points in a person's life. For example, an individual may find the stresses ofa celibate priesthood. more manageable when he is young because a certain proportion of his interactions provide indications that he is regarded as an attractive male. As he ages, such reassuring experiences may0become infrequent and his self-image threatened. He may then become more imprudent in seeking con-firmation of his attracliveness as a man. In addition tothe changing nature of one's sexuality seminaries for the most part did not make it easy for students to acquire the knowledge, attitudes and skills which would enable them to understand what a celibate life-style entailed. While the introduction of courses on human sexuality has been of some help, there is still insufficient opportunity for students to discuss celibate life with priests and women religious because there still exists a sense of vulnerability and embarrassment among these groups. Preparation for a life of celibacy must involve more than such discrete events as coml61etion of a course in human sexuality, making vows or becoming ordained. Such events are no more a guarantee of mature sexual functioning for celibates than falling in love, gel~iing married and procreat-ing are for non-celibates. The seminary should strive: to impart to its stu-dents that the understanding, enjoyment and management of their sexuality is a continuing responsibility which must be shared wiih other persons. This responsibility does not cease with ordination. Al~ter a man leaves the semi-nary, he should be able to look forward to assistance from diocesan-spon-sored programs which will help him fulfill his commitment. Some Problems in Understanding Sexuality It is easy to assert that an understanding of the effect of sexuality on one's vocation depends upon comprehending the nature of sexuality. Such insight, however, is difficult to achieve. Our comprehension of human sexuality has been shaped as much by folklore and fantasy as by science and clinical experience. Our sources of knowledge have often been lacking in reliability. We have been limited as much by resistance in the scientific community as by social inhibitions. And what is perhaps more to the point, it is practically impossible for any individual to know at any given moment how his sexuality is affecting him any more than he generally knows how his circulation is affecting him. High sounding phrases like "sexuality is a fundamental aspect of personality functioning" are not much help in im-proving anyone's understanding of the role of sexuality in the priesthood or any other vocation. In fact, such statements often increase the dilemma because they make many persons feel secretly stupid not knowing more about what is so basic to their nature. For example, is a person':s sexuality minimally operative if he declares, "I do not need relationships with women Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development / 649 to know that I am male," because this is a fact that he can be sure of by referring to the anatomical evidence at hand? And is his sexuality maxi-mally operative when he admits "I need a woman to feel masculine," because masculinity is not a fact but a value which cannot be judged in the same .way?3 In the first instance the criteria to be used are physiological, whereas in the second they are cultural and subject to changes in value as circumstances of time and place vary. In short, discussing the influence of sexuality may be likened to dealing with a ghost. One can seek it out but never touch it. Psychosexual Maturity While we may readily acknowledge that sexuality is a real and com-prehensive aspect of our relationships with others, we are still left with the question of defining .psychosexual maturity. It is one thing to say that sexuality goes beyond genital expression, quite another to identify a healthy integration of the psychological and physical dimensions of one's behavior. Sexuality's potential is also its problem. A person brings to any human interaction a host of needs, vulnerabilities, attitudes and defenses, and he can manipulate them in a variety of ways. For example, if.an individual wishes to deny responsibility for his sexual acts he may rationalize by saying his behavior is determined by instinctive drives over which he has no control. If he is threatened by the changing roles of women he can extol the importance of tradition and the accuracy of existing male-female stereo-types. If he needs to reassure himself about his masculinity he can refer to the strength and passion of his sex drive. What I hope I am making clear is the complexity associated with psychosexual functioning. It takes a great deal of knowledge, experience and honesty to know whether one's sex-uality is operating as a mature or immature response to another person. There are several other reasons why it is difficult to define psychosexual maturity. First, the characteristics that constitute maturity may simply be those that are esteemed by the author of ttie definition, i.e., the definition may have little to do with objective reality but reflects the personal values of the author. It would be wise to acknowledge, however, that values do play a legitimate 'part in formulating a concept of psychosexual maturity. Even a developmental concept such as Erikson's eight ages of man which rests upon the assumption of an inborn sequence of phases coordinated to the social environment is not readily divorced from the issue of values.4 Secondly, mature men are not static stereotypes. Their individuality aFor a discussion of the differences between males and females, and the distinction between sex and gender, see: Ann Oakley, Sex. Gender and Society (New York: Harper, 1972) and Corinne Hutt, Males and Females (Baltimore: Penguin~, 1972), 4Some of the difficulties associated with defining maturity will be found in: Leon J. Saul and Sydney E. Pulver. "The Concept of Emotional Maturity." Comprehensive Psychiatry. Vol. 6, No. I. February. 1965 and reprinted in Cur~e.nt Issues in Psychiatry. Vol. 2 (New York: Science House, 1967), pp. 231-244. 650 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 remains viable because they haven't allowed themselves to be put into a mold. Studies indicate that "the further., a person develops, the more finely sketched is his individuality."''~ Stereotyped behavior is more com-mon with immaturity. Rogers has pointed out that a mark of maturity is openness to experience and that as this increases the less predictable the person's behavior will be. The person's behavior will be dependably ap-propriate, but not rigidly patterned.~ In short, we cannot expect that all psychosexually mature men will exhibit behavior which is exactly alike. Defining Psychosexual Maturity In offering a definition it is important to distinguish between appropriate and mature behavior. During childhood, adolescence or youth certain di-mensions of an =individual's behavior might be regarded as psychosexually appropriate. That is, his thought, affect or action might be suitable for or fit the appropriate growth period according to Freud's or Erikson's stages of psychosexual development. He would not, however, in my view be characterized aspsychosexually mature because he had not had the fullness of time to permit the development of a deep understanding, full acceptance and ample ripening of his capacities. Psychosexual maturity is evidenced in the fuller, accrued development and harmonious interplay of the individ-ual's psychological and sexual capacities within an ordered and ethical value system. Before discussing some of the behavioral aspects of this 9onstruct, several other generalizations may help clarify my position. Why is a reference to values included in the definition of psychosexual development? Menninger has stated that, "Insofar as choice determines behavior, it stems from some considerations of value.' ,7 Since it would be inconceivable to speak of mature persons without this dimension of choice, psychosexual development cannot be isolated from the influenc(~of values. There is no realistic way of separating the two. Adolescence is not successfully outgrown by sit'ply developing con-fidence in one's sexual and occupational identity. Development toward maturity rests upon the individual's ability to evolve an internalized value system? The individual making such progress, will not only recognize the personal reality of his sexuality, but will seek to identify, question, refine and incorporate a sexual ethic. Thus, the maturing individual discovers not only the vitality of his biological capacities, but also seeks to appreciate their value, understand their meaning and assume personal responsibility '~Roy Heath, The Reasouable Adventurer, A Study of the Development of Thirty-six Under-graduates at Princeton (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964), p. 38. Also, Douglas A. Heath, Growing Up In College (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1968), pp. 4-19. 6Carl R. Rogers, "The Concept of the Fully Functioning Person," Psychotherapy, Theory, Research and Practice, Vol. I, No. I, August, 1963, pp. 17-26. tRoy W. Menninger, "'No Escape From Values," comment in Current Issues In Psychiatry, Vol. 2, p. 253. 6Warren J. Gadpaille, The Cycles of Sex (New York: Scribners, 1975), p. 338. Psychosexual Maturio, in Celibate Development / 65"1 for their use. His freedom to choose raises the prospect of making enduring commitments to fundamental values. This freedom to choose on the basis of what he values is a "strength-giving and maturing realization. It is the key that opens the door to adulthood.''9 Programs of spiritual development can make significant contributions toward encouraging this aspect of the matUring process. Psychosexual maturity is an approachable ideal but probably not an achievable end. It is more a direction than a destination. Psychosexual maturity is never completely static. Physical maturation, physical and psy-chological needs and human relationships are never finalized. The interplay of desire and control must be addressed again and again. The celibate cannot bank on earlier resolutions to provide certain and continuing pro-tection throughout life. Since personality resonates in response to life events, the celibate cannot be expected to acquire psychosexual maturity during his period of seminary training and possess it securely throughout his ministry. If he faces the vicissitudes of life, his development wili be an ongoing process. On the other hand, if he tended to avoid life's recurrent challenges his development will be retarded. Psychosexual maturity and immaturity will be basically reflected in the motives, feelings and actions that are part of one's interactions with others. In the following sections I shall try to identify psychosexual maturity and immaturity in more specific terms. Idehtifying Psychosexual Maturity Erikson has commented that "To know that adulthood is generative, does not necessarily mean that one must produce children. But it means to know what one does if one does not.''~° In assessing psychosexual ma-turity, one must ask what happens to the celibate's deferred generativity. Does it, like the poet Hughes puts it, "dry up like a raisin in the sun"?~ If we follow Erikson's thought, the potential to be generative exists in all celibates who concern themselves with the "establishment, the guidance, and the enrichment of the living generation and the world it inherits."v' It is clear, therefore, that potential ig not sufficient. Thus, the psychosexually mature celibate must keep his creative powers alive and utilize them in some publicly identifiable way. There must be a behavioral service to others, guided by an enlarged sense of communal responsibility for the enrichment and enhancement of the whole cycle of life. The mature celibate's generativity is principally demonstrated by an expansion of his ego-interests. An example of this might be a faculty mem-ber investing his energies in the development of seminarians. The young would not be suspect or feared. The faculty member would view his stu- ~Peter Koestenbaum, Existential Sexuality (Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. 1974), p. 143. ~0 Erik H. Erikson, Dimensions of a New .Identity (New York: Norton, 1974), pp. 122-123. ~Langston Hughes, Selected Poems (New York: Knopf, 1959), p. 268. ~-"Erik H. Erikson, p. 123. 652 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 dents as a "welcome trust" for future generations. His work would be motivated by a caring commitment to help others share in the benefits that have accrued to him. The more mature a celibate is, the more his vision will extend beyond the topography of skin. Relationships with members of the opposite sex will be less a question of responding to a physically attractive person and more a caring response for what is good in the person. Such a view permits the celibate to direct his sexuality beyond genital expression. His attentiveness to others' needs is flexible rather than fixated. His sexuality functions not only to make him attentive to the sexuality of others, but also to be in-sightful. Without insight his sense of celibate commitment will not find appropriate expression. This means being able to experience and acknowl-edge the attraction between himself and a member of the opposite sex without, as Farber put it, "the intervention of sex as motive or compul-sion.'' 13 He experiences his sexuality without guilt or denial and he pursues his relationship without the motivation of physical union. When he touches another person it is an expression of warmth, not a covert maneuver to incite physical arousal in himself or the other. The psychosexually mature celibate loves individuals, not an abstract form of humanity. He can be psychologically intimate with persons of either sex without domination, possessiveness, jealousy or genital expression. When problems arise intra-psychically or interpersonally he assumes responsibility for getting help without protracted delays. The psychosexually mature adult is able to recognize and commit him-self to values, cope with value conflicts, and assume responsibility for the consequences of his choices. The more mature he is, the more voiced values will coincide with his private thoughts and behavior. His sexual urges will not put his value system and behavior "out of sync." In ad-dition, what he values will be prized and not treated routinely. He will see his ethical principles as having validity apart from, but not necessarily opposed to, the authority figures in his life. In other words, his valuing process is alive and well--not latent, deferred or unconscious. While it is impossible to delineate all aspects of psychosexual maturity, there are three additional points of reference which may be useful in as-sessing psychosexual functioning. The first is that the more mature a person is the more he will possess awareness. His mental life will not be walled off from his bodily functioning and powers. The mature celibate will be able to recognize and draw inferences from his sexual responses as they affect his interactions. The second is that his response to the requirement of celibacy will be more than acquiescence or conformity. He will have understood what he was choosing and was willing to accept it without bitterness. The more that an individual finds celibacy an ifiaposition, the more it will di-minish his degree of psychosexual harmony, just as the more he is re- ~Leslie H. Farber, "'He Said, She Said," Commentary, March 1972, p. 53. Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development / 653 pressed sexually the more his awareness will be constricted. The third point of reference is the individual's commitment to synthesis. If he is unable to take the various dimensions of himself and integrate them with his Christian commitment be'will be a fragmented personality. There must be a harmony bet.ween thinking, feeling, and acting if the individual is to move toward psychosexual maturity in religious life. Recognizing Psychosexual Immaturity When a celibate's thought, affect or behavior becomes absorbed with compensatory processes, his level of maturity may be questioned. Some examples of immature compensatory measures for the lack of genital ex-pression are: vicarious participation in the heterosexual experiences of parishioners or psychic over-involvement in seminarians' conflict about celibacy; absorption with making one's physical appearance attractive so as to gain admiration as a substitute for the absence of sexual contact; denying or demeaning the value and pleasure of genital expression.; and taking refuge in consoling fantasies of sexual gratification and conquest. A per-son's psychosexual development will not endure the challenges of celibacy very well if it rests upon a foundation of compensatory measures. The way in which a celibate experiences required heterosocial limita-tions and sexual abstinence is indicative of his level of psychosexual ad-justment. Neither gratification nor frustration exist in abstract form; both have cognitive aspects which affect emotions and behavior. For example, sexual abstinence can be experienced by the individual as frustration, i.e., lack of opportunity to achieve a desired pleasure, or it can be experien.ced as deprivation, i.e., something which he has been unfairly kept from en-joying. The difference between experiencing a sense of loss and sacrifice (frustration) and a sense of being forcibly dispossessed (deprivation) is a fine distinction in perception. Nonetheless, it is one which will profoundly color the celibate's response, influencing both his mood and behavior. The first type of perception can lead to the learning of tension and frustration tolerance which is an essential ingredient in healthy ego development. The second type of perception can lead to covert gratifications and severe intrapsychic conflicts. More generally, the more that a person's relationships are determined by subjective states of deprivation (e.g., loneliness) or physical drives (e.g., erotic urges), the more easily his judgment will be impaired, his behavior driven and his communication pressured. Under such conditions his sex-uality will keep him awake but not very alert or smart. It will be increasingly difficult for him to keep from narrowing the focus of his attention, and his interactions with others will be directed toward goals which he indepen-dently determines. The more that a person ,has been unable to accept and integrate his sexuality, the more he will use defense mechanisms like re-pression and projection to alleviate h.i~guilt. t554 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 Psychosexual immaturity is bound up with the individual's personality dynamics. A comparison may help clarify this generalization. A passive-submissive celibate is likely to wait for a seductive situation to short-circuit his own vague intentionality, while an obsessive-compulsive will rely on some feared imperative to insulate himself from his sexuality. The pas-sive- submissive tends to relinquish his own indefinite goals under someone else's influence while the obsessive-compulsive, unable to compromise his perfectionism, seeks an unquestionable tenet to banish doubt from his decisions. The first exaggerates the extent to which his behavior has been determined by external circumstance, the second invokes an authoritative precept to relieve him of personal responsibility. Both suffer from a de-ficient sense of autonomy which in turn diminishes the degree of psycho-sexual maturity. An attempt to recognize immaturity is not a trivial matter. There is no universally accepted compendium or list of mature and immature behav-iors. In addition, the attempt is to illuminate psychosexual behavior not codify it. One cannot take a complex concept like psychosexual maturity and reduce it to a systematic and definitive collection of behaviors. This does not mean, however, that questions about a celibate's psychosexual maturity are to be dismissed cavalierly. The difficulties associated with such an assessment do not negate the fact that the quality of a person's psychosexual functioning impinges upon the effectiveness of his ministry to others. Immaturity is not a private affair. Wherever it exists it draws at-tention to itself and spreads like a contagion sapping energy from the maturity of others. Celibacy and Intimacy , Intimacy The. term intimacy enjoys a leading place in the popular idiom of celi-bates almost to the point of being accorded reverential respect. Despite the difficulty of offering fresh comment on something so in fashion, the subject is ,too central to be avoided. One reason why intimacy attracts such concern is the interpersonal mobility required of priests. Many pastoral contacts are so compressed in time they end up being fragmentary relationships. In addition, each time a priest takes a new assignment, a certain number of friends are lost. Replacement of such friendships is difficult, especially for those with limited flexibility. These factors, combined with others (e.g. ,job dissatisfaction) can create an overpowering sense of isolation and thereby threaten one's psychosexual adjustment. In spite of our tendency to venerate intimacy, it is not a universally desired experience. The prospect of closeness may repel as often as it attracts. In intimacy one gives up control of what is seen by the other. One cannot enjoy privacy without being, in a sense, "public." Thus, a major question facing a person who commits himself to celibate life is deciding Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development / 655 whether he will share his real identity with that of others. If he did not choose the vocation to avoid intimacy, he assumes a major task in deter-mining how to share his personal self. To what extent can an adult ex-perience love or develop close relationships with other adults when geni-tality is renounced? A loving sexual union permits a truly intimate self-disclosure; an unfeared self-abandonment and loss of ego boundaries that non-genital friendships seemingly cannot match. How is the celibate to prevent an atrophy of his capacity for intimacy and not isolate himself with self-absorption? These questions are important because the strength de-rived from successfully managing the issue of intimacy vs. isolation is necessary for further psychosexual development. The usual answer to the questions posed is that a celibate can satisfy his needs for intimacy in non-genital friendships. This, of course, can be a normal and satisfactory means of self-disclosure for experiencing oneness with another. In this regard one of the usual cautions cited is that "celibate people need to be aware of the difference between intimacy, tactility and genitality.''~'~ I do agree with Goergen's suggestion that celibates need to distinguish these dimensions of relating. I think, however, that in otir warn-ings to celibates about the dangers of touch and sexual expression in friend-ships we have neglected an aspect of non-geriital relating that is more likely to impede a successful resolution of the intimacy vs. isolation question. This negative'aspect of relating to which I refer will be termed protective partnerships. Erikson has defined readiness for intimacy as the capacity to commit oneself "to cbncrete affiliations and partnerships and to develop the ethical strength to abide by such commitments, even though they may call for significant sacrifices and compromises.''~ While many men in seminaries do develop group affiliations and personal friendships, these relationships sometimes reflect an unhealthy degree of mutuality. We have all heard about the possessiveness of "particular friendships," but the issue I wish to address is more a question of protection than control. A protective partnership involves a largely unrecognized conspiracy of two or more persons to maintain isolation and distance from others. The partners in-dulge each other's' sensitivities in a form of pseudo-intimacy. ~his relieves them of having to deal with the challenges of being intimate with others outside their clique. The partnership also serves to protect those involved from psychic injury and thr~ats ofdisconfirmation (e.g., from the needs aiad ideas of those outside the group). Individuals caught up in such protective alliances are uncomfortable with expressing personal needs and feelings outside the partnership. It makes them feel infantilized or overly vulner-able. Intimacy outside the safe confines of the partnership is avoided be- ~'~Daniel Goergen, The Sexual Celibate (New York: Seabury, 1974), p. 159. ~Erik H. Erikson, "'Eight Ages of Man," reprinted in Current Issues In Psy,chiatry, Vol. 2., p. 253. 656 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 cause of distrust, anticipated ridicule, .fear of increased dependency or loss of control of emotion. They will rarely offer or accept intimacy outside the partnership. Protective partnerships are an inadequate resolution of the intimacy question. They pose more danger to an effective ministry than sexual in-discretions. Since they permit only weak identifications with persons out-side the boundaries of the partnership, such relationships discourage the development of empathy for others and set the stage for a righteous in-sularity. Thus, the celibate while believing he has become intimate has actually developed a Woclivity for provincialism and isolation. His further development toward stages 9f generativity and ego integrity is impaired. P. sychosexual maturity, particularly for the celibate, requires the ability to develop expanding rather than constricting identifications. Another thing which will hinder possibilities for genuine intimacy is an inadequate concept of celibacy. Individuals who have neglected serious examination of their own concept of celibacy or who operate with only a vague set of feelings about its meaning are unprepared for intimacy because they are unprepared for commitment. Celibacy without conviction is a form of sexual suicide. In an excellent paper on the psychology and asceticism of priestly celibacy Pable offers several sophisticated insights which can help remedy such limitations.'~ For the young person in a formation pro-gram, however, there are more basic points that need to be addressed, First, it is not uncommon to find that seminarians will become rather insecure if they discover a discrepancy between the degree of confidence they feel about a call to the priesthood and their acceptance of the celibacy requirement. Often they do not become aware of this lack of internal con-sistency until they are in advanced stages of preparation for their vocation. The way in which seminarians deal with this dilemma varies of course, but frequently the conflict is inadequately evaluated or avoided. Avoidant be-havior is not confined to students, however, for seminary educators are sometimes equally adept in delaying or delimiting opportunities to discuss celibacy. The inclusion of formal courses in human sexuality rarely rem-edies this situation completely. Often a main effect of such courses is to bring such conflicts to a level of consciousness without resolution of the concomitant anxiety. Secondly, when sexual fears and impulses are regarded as signs of weakness and as constituting a grave threat to one's vocation, attempts at emotional overcontrol are set in motion. A premature identification with celibacy is one means of putting such concerns to rest. Then, at some later stage, sufficient ego strength will have occurred permitting these concerns to resurface. For these reasons it is important to have competent counseling services on hand so that students can be readily assisted in understanding and dealing with such conflicts. Many of these students can eventually make a sound commitment to celibacy. ~nMartin W. Pable. ~'The Psychology and Asceticism of Celibacy," Seminao' Newsletter Supplement, No, 5, Vol. 13, February 1975. Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development / 657 Clinical experience indicates that one should not assume the existence of a secure, firm acceptance of the celibacy requirement simply because students do not verbalize their uncertainties. On the other hand, seminary educators should not be quick to judge a student as unsuitable if he does raise questions or expose his doubts. Instances in which the celibacy issue was deferred or submerged until some external circumstance disturbed an earlier, and sometimes premature adaptation to the requirement are not unusual. Such a state of affairs may simply indicate that other aspects of the individual's development (e.g., intellectual learning) had to occur before the meaning of celibacy could be faced. Increasingly, students are taking initiatives in bringing their questions about celibacy into an open forum. Yet, there still remain in the minds of many seminarians strong fears that, if one were to air his true feelings, reprisals in the form of peer rejection and dismissal from the program might result. Thus, many go their own way for protracted periods of time without assistance in dealing with such internal tensions, thereby creating more ¯ problems for themselves and others. It is essential that seminary educators provide the kind of climate in which students feel secure enough to expose where they are at in their development. In the absence of the trusting climate, self-concealment reigns. In an untrusting climate the prospects of self-disclosure are decreased. This leads students to believe intima~cY is only possible in exceptional relationships. In such a climate associations with peers and fa6uity will be reduced to role playing in which the student seeks to conceal important dimensions of his psychosexual development. Even when he seeks inti-macy his tendency will be to obtain reassurances rather than candid en-counters which could challenge self-assumptions and expand knowledge of the quality of his psychosexual functioning. While any move toward intimacy is fraught with risks, e.g., rejection, exploitation and protective partnerships, it is nonetheless essential for healthy personality development in the young. Intimacy helps attenuate attitudes of egocentrism, suspicion, jealousy and omnipotence--all of which represent substantive obstacles to an effective ministry. Human sexuality is a stimulus to move toward others and away from self-cen-teredness. Without the challenge of intimate relationships the seminarian's potential for genuine altruism remains quiescent. A third point deserving consideration is the common practice of re-ferring to celibacy as a gift. This gift analogy can be psychologically mis-leading to the young person. Much of one's youthful experience indicates that a gift is a material thing, and that one can (or must) accept a gift whether one wants it or deserves it? With such an orientation to the gift analogy the seminarian may fail to give sufficient attention to his own readiness for celibacy, thereby setting the stage for problems after ordination. For when celibate Status is viewed as a thing given rather than attained, it is more likely to be passively possessed until "stolen, lost or given away." Thus, Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 if one insists, on using the gift analogy it should be stressed that the gift is a sacred trust and that its possessor has an obligation to prepare himself before it can be put to proper use. The proper exercise of such a gift depends upon personal effort to acquire the necessary knowledge and maturity. It should be evident at this point that my discussion of celibacy has proceeded in an explicitly psychological fashion. However, the question of celibacy obviously has religious value and theological meaning. Have I, then, given short shrift to these important dimensions of the celibate com-mitment? Specifically, has my concentration on personal development and effort slighted the importance of God's call and grace? I think not. Indeed, .my persuasion is that psychological analysis and theological insight are complementary. Grace does not replace the human process of develop-ment. It strengthens and perfects that process. And for God's call to be fruitful, it must be integrated into the mature growth of the human subject. Thus, the theological language of "gift" must be complemented by the psychological insistence upon mature human development if the entire sweep of human experience is to be engaged and the full implications of commitment are to be grasped. Creativity in Intimacy and Celibacy In completing this section on celibacy and intimacy I want to introduce the~subject of creativity for two reasons. First, I want to counter the popular tendency, to view intimacy solely in term~ of close and affectionate personal relationships. Such a concept of intimacy is too limiting, particularly for persons who will be living a celibate life. There is need to recognize another kind of intimacy which, while involving deep understanding and sensitive response, does not depend upon a mutual opening of hearts. I am referring to what, fof lack of a better label, may be termed creative intimacy. The person who is capable of this kind of intimacy has reached a level of psychosexual development which permits committed and perceptive re-lationships without the reassuring prerequisite of secret emotional ties. The research physician who invents a novel and needed procedure, the archi-tect who designs appropriate housing for unique terrain and the scholar's treatise which brings order out of confusion are all examples of a com-mitment to intimacy. Each establishes a link between the complexities of external demands and inner personal resources. A celibate who is. capable of involved interest with a subject (e.g., Scripture), a place (e.g., his parish) or a group (e.g., the aged) is not apt to suffer from a sense of isolation. In short, it is possible to relate intimately to life by being deeply affected by and responsive to ideas, situations and problems without requiring sexual union or an emotional heart transplant as a condition for an enriching experience. The creative person's contributions to society are evidence of this unconventional form of intimacy. A second reason for focusing on creativity is that its place in the prep- Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development / 659 aration of men for celibate life has received insufficient attention despite the fact that it has long enjoyed a respectable status in educational circles. By way of illustration consider the following questions: (1) What priority do psychological screening programs place on identifying creative capacities in candidates for priesthood? (2) How much do we know (or utilize what is known) about how creativity may be linked to the sub-limation of the sex. drive? (3) To what extent are seminary educators con-tentto rely on those tired, thoughts which assert that creative individuals cannot survive seminary environments, are troublesome to superiors, and that creativity is largely a product of inheritance? It seems ironic that we who identify God as Creator, and man as having been created in his image can manage to prepare men for a celibate priesthood with so little emphasis upon the identification and encouragement'of creativity. Seminaries have yetto acknowledge through curriculum design that a celibate's creativity is a most valuable resource in coping with the daily stresses of life. In a previous section the question was asked, "What happens tO the celibate's deferred: generativity?" Perhaps another way of answering this question can be found in linking celibate status with creativity. Specifically, celibacy can be viewed as a distinctive means of being consciously cre-ative. In associating celibacy with creativity I am thinking of MacKinnon's statement that true creativity fulfills at least three conditions: (1)originality, (2) adaptiveness, and (3) realization .~7 As for the first (originality), celibacy is an idea that is always novel, unique, or at least statistically infrequent. As for the second point, celibacy is adaptive in that it serves to fit the situation of ministry to accomplish some recognizable g0al. And to the third condition (realization)~ celibacy involves sustaining the original work of Jesus and further extending it in time. With this perspective we may de-crease the likelihood that celibacy will be viewed as a static, asexual status. Instead, celibacy will be seen as a more active, generative relationship with the world. The Homogenous Environment Life in an all male environment is not an asexual experience. The stu-dent's premises about his sexual identity, his level of self-esteem and his interest in persons of either sex do not remain static during the seminary years as though preserved in a time capsule. They continue to be chal-lenged, modified and shaped' by the character of the environment. For many years the average seminarian lives, studies and recreates in an environment which provides minimal contact with or input from women. What lesson is learned by this absence of women? How well does this help seminarians make the transition to our highly seductive society? How does this prepare them to develop more than a theoretical understanding of the lrDonald W~ MacKinnon, "The Nature and Nurture of Creative Talent." Lecture given at Yale University,New Haven, Conm, April I I, 1962. 660 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 needs, abilities and conflicts of women who may come to them for counsel? Celibacy has to be lived in a heterosexual society. Rules against hetero-social contacts during periods of formation do not guarantee proper de-velopment. If seminarians have to compensate for the lack of women in their edu-cational experience, they will attempt to do so without the guidance of their faculty. They will use apostolic assignments or vacations to seek both heterosocial and heterosexual experiences which would otherwise be de-nied them during regular periods of education. In some instances, the relationships which develop will be maintained in secret. Such experiences are often invested with many romantic and sometimes bizarre fantasies of meaning. They also provoke much guilt and tension and sometimes incite fears which are repressed, producing unconscious conflicts with conse-quent anxiety. It has become increasingly evident that when problems of relating to women have to be faced in secret it makes for lonely failures. The seminarian who is separated and/or alienated from women for whatever reason (fear, ignorance, choice or official policy) must turn with more urgency upon himself or others in his immediate environment to meet his needs for recognition, affiliation and love. In such homogenous popula-tions, expressions of affection and physical contact are cautiously exposed and become over-invested with meaning. There is an ever present fear that such gestures will be interpreted as, or turn into, homos6xual intimacies. This kind of tension often remains unacknowledged, but is nonetheless virulent. It produces much frustration and resentment which is often en-countered by the psychologist in the form of depression, displaced ag-gression, problems of concentration, coldness in interpersonal contacts, compulsive masturbation, isolation, and the rise of tight cliques. Each institution should provide appropriate opportunities for seminarians to learn about, and become comfortable with, members of the opposite sex. "Social restrictions" and "sexual abstinence" should not be confused. The concepts are not isomorphic. Policies and regulations which forbid or delimit heterosocial contacts do not automatically insure healthy attitudes toward self-regulation or guarantee the development of the capacity for abstinence in later life. Celibates also need to realize that abstinence does not automatically confer the capacity to love people in general any more than incontinence in marriage increases love for someone in particular. Neither the frustration nor the expression of the sex drive is innately di-rected toward the good. The capacity for sex in humans simply endows them with the potential of becoming psychosexually mature. It is in inter-actions with others that opportunities for growth and understanding de-velop. The Environment's Models Seminary administrators must realistically assess the extent to which members of their faculty are prepared by virtue of education, experience Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development / 66"1 and personal disposition to participate in those aspects of the formation program which relate :to human sexuality. Many priests have had poor preparation and limited experience and would be ill at ease or unsuited for such responsibility. It would be unfair and unwise to neglect such con-siderations. If present faculty are not comfortable with their own sexuality or are incompetent in their understanding of it, they cannot project them-sel~, es as adequate role models or teach effectively. Example is stronger than precept. Students need visible proof that it is possible to be mature and well-integrated sexually in the priesthood. There is nothing more demor-alizing to seminarians than examples of underdeveloped faculty charged with responsibility for their preparation of a life of celibate ministry. Modeling is a powerful force for formation and growth. It assists the seminarian in coping with the stresses of his environment, aids in the development of responsibility and helps perpetuate the valu6s that define the priesthood. More than anything else, a seminary must offer models who are worthy of imitation. Such models should be capable of candid con-versations concerning celibacy. They should exhibit desirable patterns of male-female interaction. They should be persons who have not distanced themselves from their own sexuality. They should not be overly constricted academicians or overly eager confidantes who take students under their wing to protect them from conflicts with celibacy. The, y should be able to take questions from Students without becoming overly threatened, angry or embarrassed. They should be the kind of advisers who are not impelled to define venereal sin whenever a student discloses a sexual problem. I emphasize the importance of appropriate role models because they are the most available source of identification with the priesthood. Good mod-els teach and motivate simultaneously. On the other hand, poor models lead to unhealthy identifications and raise the anxiety leV,el of students. For example, seminarians exposed to poor models are apt to say to t.hemselves, "Will I turn out like him ?" when they should be saying about a good model, "I want to be like him." Healthy identification reduce~ fear and anxiety about the priesthood. When a seminarian can identify with an exemplary person, his sub-jectiv~ benefit is that he believes he is part of the exemplary person. When that happens, he is freer to ease away from infantile or regressive tend-encies. He gives up his more childish and selfish desires because he is acquiring positive, generative adulthood in return. Good faculty models can illustrate that genital expression is not the essence of warmth, masculinity, and friendship. Seminaries, like other educational institutions, have faculties which possess a range of competencies and wide variations in levels of maturity. This is not the issue. The significant issue is how we recognize this fact of life. This recognition should take the form of careful assignment of re-sponsibility in this area, use Of competent consultants, and support for regular in-service training and continuing education for the faculty. 662 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 With a view toward offering more specific suggestions for helping semi-narians' progress toward sexual maturity the following guidelines are offered: I. Maintain high standards in the selection of candidates. This would require'defining criteria, and training the admissions committee to do its job well. The seminary environment is not suited to be a place where major reconstructive therapy can be conducted. Persons of weak char-acter, sociopathic tendencies and serious personality defects may find the seminary environment a haven for their limitations, but once or-dained they do not make good priests. They eventually create compli-cated and expensive personnel-management problems, alienate the laity, perform po6rly and thereby threaten the work of their colleagues, and remain visibly inadequate models for attracting future vocations. 2. Provide professional counseling as a regular part of seminar3, services. This will enable students with relatively minor psychological problems to be assisted in their development. In addition, each seminary envi-ronnhent will inevitably produce certain situational dist~arbances in a proportion of its students. These are transient disorders from a mild to severe nature which occur without any underlying mental pathology. They represent normal reactions to such stressful factors as disruption of previously established interpersonal relationships, fear of faculty dis-approval and unfamiliar academic demands. It is important to detect and recognize such adjustment reactions quickly and have counseling ser-vices available to help students cope. Sometimes an orientation course for first year men will head off some of these situational disorders. 3. Course offerings in the area of human sexuality and the practice of celibacy should be characterized by providing: (a) competence: they should offer suffi~:ient scientific content and contemporary material to enable s, tudents to learn the facts, social attitudes and real problems associated with human sexu.ality; (b) comfort: opportunity to discuss, question and dialogue without threat of ridicule, embarrassment, or fear of faculty or peer censure; (c) conviction: conveying in unmistakable terms.that growth in psychosexual maturity is a life long task which is part of every individual's priestly responsibility. " 4. Include women in the program in more than token fashion. Women can contribute as lecturers, panelists, and consultants. A feeling of security with women and an appreciation of their needs, values and competencies cannot be acquired in an all-male program. Their inclusion should not be prompted by condescension. For example, they should be included not to demonstrate that "women think diffeyently," but rather that they do think. The exclusion of women .hampers seminarians' development more than it insures it. 5. Exercise greater care in assessing readiness for celibacy. Programs of formation may need to place greater emphasis on assessing an indi- Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development / 663 vidual's psychological readiness to commit himself to celibacy. One must not assume that a seminarian's advancement in academic prepa-ration is indicative of other aspects of his readiness for priesthood. Conclusion In this paper sexuality and maturity were discussed in relation to celi-bate development. By general comment and specific illustration I attempted to show that psychosexual maturity is not only an abstract concept .but also an identifiable reality. I also tried to indicate that progress toward psycho-sexual maturity is made more by choice than chance, more by intelligent effort than passivity. In the process of offering these comments much emphasis was placed on what seminary educators can do to foster healthy celibate development. It would be misleading to leave the impression that I wished to understate the role of the individual. The young celibate must be encouraged and assisted to develop an increasing level of personal accountability for his psychosexual functioning. This can only be accom-plished if we view immaturity as a responsibility, not a crime to be followed by punishment or self-hate. Now Available As A Reprint Psychosexual Maturity in , Celibate Development by Philip D. Cristantiello Price: $.60 ~per copy, plus postage. Address" Review for Religious Room 428 6301 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Spiritual Staying Power: Homeostasis Robert F. Morneau Father Morneau's name is familiar to our readers. He resides at Holy Reedemer Center and teaches at Silver Lake College; Manitowoc, WI 54220. In teaching people the truths about his Father's kingdom, Jesus often used examples from nature: the simple sparrow, the lush lilies of the field, the unfortunate fig tree, the nonverbal clues of the sky, the miraculous yeast. Through these concrete images, deeper mysteries were unveiled opening the minds and hearts of people to the marvels of God's gracious love. We can do no better than to fall back on nature to attempt, through the use of analogy, to ponde~ the multifold facets of our faith. From the world of biology comes the notion of homeostasis which can assist us in under-standing the necessity of grounding our lives on solid rock. Dr. Hans Selye summarizes the essential meaning of this biological principle: It was the great French physiologist Claude Bernard who during the second half of the nineteenth century--well before anyone thought of stress--first pointed out clearly that the internal environment (the milieu interieur) of a living organism must remain fairly constant despite changes in its external environment, lie realized that "'it is a fixity of the mi6eu interieur which is the condition of free and independent life.'" Some fifty years later, the distinguished American physiologist, Walter B. Cannon suggested that "the coordinated physiological processes which maintain most of the steady states in the organism" should be called "'homeostasis" (from the Greek homoios, meaning similar, and stasis, meaning position), the ability to stay the same, or static. Homeostasis might roughly be translated as 'bstaying power."'~ ~Hans Selye, M.D., Stress Without Distress (New York: J. B. Lippincott Company,1974), pp. 34-35. 664 Spiritual Staying Power: Homeostasis / 665 The homeostatic principle, as applied to the external world, needs little documentation as to its importance due to the writings in the field of ecology. What needs considerable reflection is the importance and meaning of spiritual homeostasis, that reality in our spiritual lives which is the force enabling us to maintain a certain level of stability despite radical and often-times violent changes in our external environment. Spiritual homeostasis is the cultivation of a certain internal stability, developed through grace and discipline, that enables a person to "weather" the trials, temptations and sufferings of life in a reasonable manner. Several examples from observable nature might help in understanding the notion of homeostasis. A palm tree survives the violence of a hurricane because its roots (homeostatic elemen~t) are deeply embedded in the soil; the March kite maintains a modicum of stability because of its carefully attached tail; the sailboat does not become the plaything of the strong breeze because of its rudder. Roots, a weighted rag, and a vertical board each provide stability despite elements of stress and strain. By way of comparison, each of us must face the demands of life, demands arising from within and without. If we are not to be carried away by the high winds of life, there must be some grounding element providing continuity and sta-bility. This essay is a consideration of this grounding, of our spiritual homeostatic principle. A note of caution is in order: the inward journey, made either to con-struct our inner principles or to examine the ones that already direct our lives, involves risks and the universal fears 9f travelers. Carl Jung wrote of these risks: Wherever there is a reaching down into innermost experien~:e, into the nucleus of personality, most people are overcome by fright, and many run away . the risk of inner experience, the adventure of the spirit, is in any case, alien to most human beings,z Of a!l the reasons for hesitating to make the journey, perhaps the great-est fear lies in the possibility that we will find nothing there--no homeo-static principle grounding our lives in "substance." For all our talk, re-flecting and apodictic shouting, the interior could be empty--and who could live if that were true? Dante, in describing the precious coin of faith (the ultimate homeostatic principle) and its fine attributes, dares to ask the fatal question: Well have we examined The weight and alloy of this precious coin; But tell me if thou hast it in thy purse? 3 ~C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffa, translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage Books, 1961). pp. 140-141. 3Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, translated by Lawrence Grant White (New York: Pantheon Books, 1948), Canto 24, p. 171. 666/Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 Just as the kite's tail needs periodic mending, just as the sailboat's rudder needs annual repairs', just as the tree's roots need constant contact with the dark rich soil, so each of us must make our own inward journey, despite risks and fears, to examine the quality and growth of our ho-meostatic principle. Let us take St. Paul as our "case study" and attempt to isolate his homeostatic principle. Even if the attempt fails, enough insight, might be provided for each of us to either clarify or construct our own spiritua! anchor. Pauline scholars might opt for one of the following passages as being central to Paul's spirituality, central in that all of life's experiences might be related to it for meaning and insight: Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, and n6t on things that are on earth, because you have died, and now the life you ha're is hidden with Christ in God.4 And I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me? Though not excluding the central~messages in the above two passages, my own personal choice of Paul's homeostatic principle comes from a passage in his letter to the Ephesians: Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who has blessed us with all ihe spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence . ~ Taking as an hypothesis, that "to live through love in his presence" was Paul's spiritual cable, what are some of the implication's of this homeostatic principle? To Live: Union with the Spirit The Pepsi generation shouts out the challenge: Come alive! Whether or not a carbonated soda can achieve such a towering feat ~could be ques-tioned; the challenge cannot. We are called to choose life (Dt 30:15-20), to share in the fullness of life (Jn 10:10), to live injustice, love and faith (Mi 6:8). Yet, because of collective and personal sin, our existences are frag-mented and our potential lies dormant under piles of "shoulds," "tomor-rows," and "new years." We see but do not comprehend, listen but do not understand, touch but remain unaffected. Walter Kerr sees our dilemma in this light: If I were required to put into a single sentence my own explanation of the state of our hearts, heads, and nerves, 1 would do it this way: we are vaguely wretched because we are leading half-lives, halfheartedly, and with only one-half of our minds actively engaged in making contact with the universe about us.r 4Colossians 3:2-3. (All scriptural quotations are taken from the Jerusalem Bible.) ~Galatians 2:20. 6Ephesians 1:3-4 (italics mine, indicating the Pauline homeostatic principle). 7Walter Kerr, The Declhte of Pleasure (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), p. 12. Spiritual Staying Power: Homeostasis / 667 Every so often someone crosses our path whose very spirit exudes life. Sparkling eyes, a lightness of voice, gentle responses, all mark a sense of meaningand motivation. A personal creativity overflows, smoldering wicks and healing,crushed reeds (Is 42:3). Such a presence is anticipated with longing and remembered with joy. He gives life because he has life within. A .quality of transparency allows all he meets to. taste and see life itself. In the presence of such a life-giver the question spontaneously arises: "What is all .this juice and all this joy (Hopkins)?" The Christian traces such a spirited life to the Spirit. God the Father and "therisen Lord haye sen't, into all creation their Spirit. Whoever receives this Spirit truly comes alive. Whoever refuses the Spirit or fails to recognize the the Spirit's presence lives in darkness, half-alive, wallowing in ignorance and fear, fretting'in anxieties and tears, doubting the meaning of existence. A spiritless Macbeth, no longer able to sustain his guilt, attempts to pre-serve. a modicum of sanity,by denying,the meaning of life: Out, bul brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And t.hen is heard no more;it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Sign.ifying nothing,s Without the Spirit darkness reigns and we curse that darkness. Life be-comes a burden too difficult to bear,and freedom a poisonous responsibility. St. Paul was graced with the gift of the Spirit. To live was to be in conscious, personal union, with this Reality and to act from this center. Three basic forms of acting out a Spirit-transformed mind and heart include a spirit of loving attention, a spirit of joyful mortification and a spirit of courageous action. Aliveness in Paul's life embraces a balanced life of prayer, asceticism and apostolate, all flowing from his being loved by God and attempting to live in return. The quality and tonality of,the response is crucial. Each of these three areas, though of significance in and of them-selves, is entirelydifferent when shared in fellowship with the Spirit and is essentially response, to a personal invitation to communicate with, to suffer with, and to work with the Spirit of the Father and the Son. This divine companionship doubles all the victories in .building up the kingdom and halves the apparent defeats. Spirit of loving attention. It is possible to be attentive to someone or something without love. The hostile stare or the crowded "personless" elevator ride are two instances. A vague'love is also possible, unable to center on a defined object: "I love humanity but find it difficult to love individual people." Such forms of attentiveness and unspecified love do not allow us to live fully, God's Spirit draws us to truly :see, perceive, com-prehend the creation in which we live. Pausing to be embraced by a spring 8William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, sc. v, lines 23-28. 661~ / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 flower, stopping suddenly to be swept heavenward by a starry night, being swept off one's feet by a warm night breeze are strains of deeper mysteries and realities. So many layers blocking our sensitivity must be penetrated if we are to be touched by outside realities; so much cluttering has made us inattentive to the voices of friends and the needs of the wounded, Poets are eternal prophets calling all of us to attention, to a loving attention of truth and beauty: Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! 9 The homeostatic principle ("to love . . .") in the life of St. Paul con-tained a deep love and a profound concentration as he journeyed through life. Because of this not only the man but his writings are so alive. Spirit of joyful mortification. Paradoxically, life embraces death, self-actualization of necessity involves self-denial. Without reflecting on this phenomenon, most of us would have to struggle to accept the comple-mentarity of the living-dying mystery. Yet if we glance for a moment into the lives of people who have evidenced life to the full, we come across the fact of much voluntary suffering and dying. Teresaof Avila, called by God to reform her religious community, freely accepted the ridicule and ha-rassment that went along with this leadership role; Thomas More, request-ed by his king to sign his name to a document which would mean that his life would be spared, freely accepted death rather than lose his integrity and be unfaithful to his God; Cardinal Newman, drawn to the Roman Catholic Church, followed his religious belief in the face of the pain of being alien-ated from friends and kin by such a decision. In each case there was tremendous suffering; in each case there was new, powerful life. The de-mands were not limited to a giving of one's time and energy, rare com-modities in themselves, but a giving on a much deeper levbl: the giving of oneself. A denial of self for the sake of life we identify as mortification. Is it possible to speak of joyful mortification? Two considerations come to mind. First, there is joy in the act of mortification because the focus rests not on the suffering, though it is the immediate fact, but centers on the life that comes through the self-denial. Had Teresa of Avila dwelt on the sneers and raised eyebrows of some members of her order, her call to reformation could well have been delayed for some time; had Thomas More dwelt on the pain of execution, his commitment to the truth might have been threatened; if Cardinal Newman had centered on the anguish and affliction resulting from separating himself from so many dear friends, his conversion would have become increasingly difficult. The secret of their ability to deny them~ selves and accept the price of asceticism wasa vision of the good that would be achieved. "Joy is the knowledge that we possess something that is good" (Abbot Marmion). And though the good may well be miles down the road and a matter of long-range consequences, those who see are.enabled to joyfully deny themselves. 9Gerard Manley Hopkins, "'The Starlight Night." Spiritual Staying Power." Homeostasis / 669 A second, more powerful and more personal reason for joy lies in the fact that the Christian practices mortification in union with the. Lord. Just as Jesus suffered freely in reconciling the world to the Father, so too the Christian must pick up his cross voluntarily if he truly desires to share in the risen life. Failure to suffer in union with Christ runs the risk of self-righteousness, false pride and inevitable sadness. The grace needed is the generosity to do all things in Christ. Our fasting, our giving of time, our withhOlding that "brilliant insight''~° so that others might be free to speak, are all forms of denying self but in conjunction with the Lord. Joy results in sharing life together--whether that embraces health or illness, success or failure, peace or conflict--the important thing being the mutuality and not the positive or negative experience. Mortification takes on ful[ reality as one means of participation in the life of Christ. This fellowship, this partic-ipation, is the source of our joy. St. PauFs aliveness is characterized by both joy and mortification. His letters to the early ~Christian churches, permeated with so much suffering yet with an ex~ravaga~at generosity, provide us with sufficient evidence that Paul might well be a paradigm for all aspiring ascetics: For 1 am certain of this: neither death nor life, no angel, no price, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord?~ We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us. We are in difficulties on all sides, but never cornered; we see no answer to our problem, but never despair; we ~ have been persecuted, but never deserted; knocked down, but never killed; always, wherever we may be, 'we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may always be seen in our body. Indeed, while we are still alive, we are consigned toour death every day,.for the sake of Jesus, so that in our mortal flesh the life of Jesus, too, may be openly shown. So death is at work in us, but life in you?z Paul's homeostatic principle dealt directly witch the external pressures that could have possibly destroyed his internal equilibrium. Graced with the Spirit of joyful mortification, those pressures and possible destructive forces were turned into growth experiences. Spirit of courageous service. Living involves doing. Through the in-carnational activity of enfleshing one's mission in word and deed, St. Paul strove to realize his calling as the apostle to the Gentiles and to bring about the reconciliation which was the work of Christ. Paul's metabolism was seldom low. ,~fter rechanneling his energies beginning with the Damascus experience., he responded to God;s call in building up the kingdom of God. His activism flowed from interior prayer and self-denial. Paul's life was balanced and full. ~o,,. and when he saw that the splendor of one of his pictures in the Exhibition dimmed his rival's that hung next to it, secretly took a brush and blackened his own." Essay by R. W. Emerson entitled "Character." ~Romans 8:38-39. ~z2 Corinthians 4:7-12. 670 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 One central dimension of Paul's apostolic work was bearing witness to the good news of Jesus Christ, God's love made visible to the world, A typical example is recorded in the Acts when Barnabas and Paul arrive at Antioch. How many times this type of sharing must have happened: On their arrival they assembled the church and gave an account'of all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith to the pagans.~3 In this particular instance the message and faith sharing was received with openness and joy, and they remained in Antioch for some time. More often, in attempting to fulfill the task of being an instrument of God's saving power among men, Paul was rejected and sometimes 6eaten (Ac 14:19; 2 Co l l:24ff). Speaking the truth involved paying a pric~. But since the truth - leads to freedom, the goal of the spiritual life, Paul had to speak it to remain true to his calling. He did not take the adx;ice of the old Turkish proverb: "He that would speak the truth must have one foot in the stirrup.''14 Missioned, being sent, seldom is limited to verbal sharing. Such was the case with St. Paul. He was commissioned to heal by living out the message he preached. Paul was a battle scarred disciple: Paul's concern for the poor, his gathering of money, evidence a social consciousness; his commitment to and vision of God's universal salvific will elicited extravagant energies to actualize this goal; his unwillingness to impose himself on others, thus being a burden to them, meant the retention of his tent mak!ng profession. Sensitive to'a variety of human and spiritual needs, skilled with the competencies and graced with love, Paul reached out to his fellow pilgrims helping them to grow as humari beings and preparing them to experience the good news of God's mercy and love. "To live" embraces loving attention, joyful mortification and coura-geous service. Paul is a fine model in that he followed Christ so well. Every Christian is challenged to get caught up into this way of living. The fi~st integrating ribbon on the tail of.our March kite provides solid material for homeostasis. It balances, stabilizes, as well as anchors the Christian in some depth realities. "To live" is to be one with the Spirit of Jesus and the Father; it involves a sharing in the Spirit ofcontemplatik, e prayer, voluntary asceticism and social concern. Through Love: Union with the Risen Lord The central experience of human life is being loved. So important is this experience that without it there is no hope of happiness and~minimal ex-pectation for sanity. The good news contained in the life of Jesus testifies once and for all that everyone is loved, "that our own existence in fact testifies to nothing less than our being loved by the Creator.''~5 Objectively 13Acts 14:27. ~'~See John W. Gardner and Francesa Gardner Reese, Know or Listen to Those Who Know (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975), p. 233. ~SJosef Pieper, About Love, translated by Richard and Clara Winston (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1972), p. 31. Spiritual Staying Power: Homeostasis / 671 this is the~ase; Subjectively, whether ornot we come to taste the truth of God's love, this is the most significant question of our lives. St. Paul experienced God's love: what was objectively true from the first moment of his existence became subjectively a reality when he surrendered to the call of grace. Love experienced meant a rebirth which radically changed his entire existence. Throughout the rest of his life's journey and beyond, he lived "through love" in God's presence. Though Paul knew that God's love for him was triune, it was in and through Jesus that the Father's fidelity and the Spirit's indwelling were revealed. Thus, we can focus on the quality and texture of Christ's personal love for Paul as we examine the second element in the suggested Paulirie h6meostatic principle. In doing this we realize that Paul knew that c~on-version was primarily an interior reality touching the mind and hdart. His being thus transformed interiorly showed itself in the external conversion of life-style. It is the transforming presence of Christ in our hearts and the knowledge of this love in our understanding that brings about spiritual renewal: Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowle~dge, you are filled with the utter fulness qf God.~ ' To live through love means to live in Christ Jesus; to allow his wisdom to shape our attitudes, to surrender'to his affectivity which transforms our hearts, and to .be enabled through his power to share with others the gifts that we have received. Jesus' Wisdom To live in union with the loving Lord necessarily means to be embraced by his wisdom and to share in that gift. In the book of Wisdom we are told that the gift of wisdom has these traits: 1) wisdom is the consort of God's throne; 2) to lack the wisdom is to count for nothing; 3) wisdom knows God's works; she was present when the world was made; 4) wisdom under-stands what is pleasing in God's eyes; she teaches this; 5) wisdom knows and' understands everything,lr Insight and deep knowledge can be cold and sterile. Such is not the case of the wisdom of Christ in whi~zh Paul shared. Rather it was a loving knowledge leading the intellect to true and full understanding. Throughout the ages various writers have noted the' relationship between love and the cognitive dimension of human knowing: Thus love is the parent of faith.l~ ~SEphesians 3:16-19. ~TWisdom 9:1-6, 9-11. iSJohn Henry Newman, "Holy Scriptures" in Essays and Sketches (New York: Longman, Green & Co., 1948), p. 328. 672 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 We could almost say he sees because he loves, and therefore loves although he sees?9 What ha~ to be healed in us is our true nature, made in the likeness of God. What we have to learn is love. The healing and the learning are the same thing, for at the very core of our essence we are constituted in God's likeness by our freedom, and the exercise of that freedom is nothing else but the exercise of disinterested love--the love of God for his own sake. because he is God. The beginning of love is truth, and before he Will give us his love, God must cleanse our souls of the lies that are in them.2° To live through love means that the truth given us enables us to see and to believe. Jesus' love provides us with a vision of reality thereby scattering darkness and ignorance. Wisdom is to know the Father, a Father of loving fidelity and infinite mercy; our wisdom is to live from this central insight. "Through love" contains both a passive and active dimension: we are first loved in truth (passive) and then are missioned to reach out in deep concern (active). In the spiritual classic The Cloud of Unknowing, the importance of living and acting within God's love is stressed: The work of love not only heals the roots of sin, but nurtures practical goodness. When it is authentic you will be sensitive to every ne6d and respond with a generosity unspoiled by selfish intent. Anything you attempt to do without this love will certainly b~ imperfect, for it is sure to be marred by ulterior motives,z~ St. Paul told the Philippians to have the same attitude that Christ had. This exhortation was grounded in lived experience, for Paul had himself put on the mind and attitudes of Christ. Paul's vision, his judgments and con-ception of life resembled those of Jesus who focused on the Father. In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul gives evidence of how gifted he was with God's loving wisdom when, in his letter, he describes the divine plan of salvation (Ep 1:3-14). Two verses of that magnificent passage provide sufficient wit-ness to that wisdom: He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, the hidden plan he so kindly made in Christ from the beginning to act upon when the times had run their course to the end; that he would bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth.22 Jesus' Affectivity To live through love for Paul was to experience transformation of one's heart. Paul was a man deeply in love; how else explain his commitment and unmatched zeal. The love of the risen Lord touched the very center of Paul's being in an intimate and personal way, resulting in a response of deep affectivity; his heart was on fire with the concern that Jesus showed him. Several centuries after Paul, another Christian underwent a spiritual heart ~9C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: The Seabury Press, 1961), p. 57. Z°Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948), p. 451. ~The Cloud of Unknowing, edited by William Johnston (New York: Doubleday, Inc., 1973), ZZEphesians 1:9-10. Spiritual Staying Power: Homeostasis / 673 transplant after much struggle. This was St. Augustine. He emerged from "surgery" with the strong convi6tion that true life must flow from the heart: Follow the Lord, if you will,be perfect, a comrade of those among whom he speaks wisdom, who knows what to distribute to the day and to the night, so that you also may know it and so that for you lights may be in the firmament of heaven. But this will not be done unless your heart is in it.~ If wisdom touches out.minds with truth, God's gracious love seeks to touch our hearts. Why is it that so many defense mechanisms come into play at this level? Perhaps the fear of intimacy makes us cautious; what will be-demanded if I allow the Lord entrance into my life? Paradoxically we seek and' need intimacy yet flee when it is offered. The conditions of intimacy--commitment, self donation, giving up self-sufficiency--give us cause to hesitate. The tragic possibility of "having no heart" or allowing our hearts to become hard and calloused are dreadful alternatives to intP macy. Literature often speaks to this point: But 1 feel nothing, she whispered to herself. I have no heart.~4 Pity me that the heart is slow to learn What the swift mind beholds'at every turn,~5 ¯ His sorrows will not be slight. His heart is proud and hard.2~ Jesus came to save the'whole person, and ali people. His love for us was integral and he sought a total response. Using the book of Deuteronomy, Jesus. teaches: "and you must love the Lord your God. with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength" (Dt 6:4-5). Realizing in faith that God first loved us, now weare to respond in love to a God who desires our hearts. Having' been gifted with love, we return that gift. by loving the Father as Jesus did and by serving in the building up of the kingdom. Jesus' Power As God's gracious love transforms the interior of the Christian life, creating a new heart and shaping a new mind, there are external mani-festations indicating a new, powerful wayof life. The power of Jesus was evidenced in his love, joy, peace, in his constant patience, goodness, kind-ness, in his trustful'ness, gentleness and self-control (Ga 5:22). Through these signs of the Spirit, the Father's love and mission were incarnated. Following the Master, Paul challenged the Galatians as well as hin~self~to live out these values. For the sake of clarification, Paul's letter to the people of Galatia also provided concrete instances of what happens when internal renewal of heart and mind has not taken place. The "old self" of indulgence and weakness surfaces when these results are present: ZSThe Confessio;~s of St. Augustine, translated by John K~ Ryan, Book XII1, Chapter 19 (New °York: Image Book, 1960), p. 350. 24Thornton Wilder, The Bridge ofSatt Luis Re3' (New York: Washington Square Press, Inc,, 1955), p. 112. ~Edna St. Vincent Millay's "'Pity Me Not Because the Light of Day." Z~Herman Hesse, Siddhartha. 674 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 fornication, gross indecency and sexual irresponsibility; idolatry and sorcery; feuds and wrangling, jealousy, bad temper and quarrels; disagreements, factions, envy; drunkenness, orgies and similar things. 1 warn you now, as I warned you before: those who behave like this will not inherit the kingdom of God'.27 In using the power given him by the Father~; Jesus brought about change and renewal in the lives of many. In calling Zaccheus down from the tree an entire household was converted; in washing the feet of the disciples they came to realize that to follow the Lord was,.t0 serve; in calling Mary by name in the garden, depression and fear gave way to hope and joy. The very presence of Jesus was power, transforming darkness~into light, doubt into faith, apathy into love. His gaze, the tone of voice, the transparency of the Father's love were creative for anyone with the eyes. of faith. When that faith, was not there, Jesus experienced the pain of powerlessness and he bore that cross with much pain: Wherever growth took place, Jesus, in humility, realized that it was rooted in the Father's abiding presence and an expression of the Father's love. Paul lived through love which Christ had for him; this love power m~ade the apostle to the Gentiles into a new man. Then, having experienced the burning power of God's call in Jesus, Paul was enabled in love to exert power in bringing others to the Father. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes the source, purpose and strength of the Christian way of life: It is all God's work. It was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation. In other words, God in Christ recon-ciling the world to himself, not holding men's faults against them, and he has'entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled. So we are ambassadors, for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ's name is: be reconciled to God.28 To accomplish the work of the Father, power was necessary. Paul was well aware that the gifts and energies given him were not for personal gain but for others. What mattered was that all people might be in union with God, that reconciliation become a fact. The vision of faith was translated into life through the strength and ~courage given by the Father. Paul became an ambassador; a messenger entrusted with precious news. Through the power of proclamation and the courage of deeds, Paul shared the message of God's loving forgiveness with the people of his day, and with. us who are privile'ged to read his letters in faith. To live through love, then, meant for Paul a dwelling in the love of Christ Jesus. Through grace he would take on the mind and heart of the Lord as well as the power of his hands. Living through love implied an imperative: through his personal love for his fellowmen, Paul must continue the process of conversion in the lives of those whom he was called to serve. The gift given, God's love and forgiveness must be passed on. 27Galatians 5:19-21. 282 Corinthians 5:18-20. Spiritual Staying Power: Homeostasisr / 675 In His Presence: Union With the Father Several years ago~ I was speaking with a friend about the well-being of a former classmate. His response was simple and profound: "He's all right, he lives in His presence." This type of centering provides peace and be-comes the source of a "holy" life. Monica, the mother of Augustine, lived in the land of faith. Her son writes: o ¯ . . and she h'ad you (God)oas her inward teacher in the school of her heart . Whosoever among them khew her greatly praised.you, and honored you and loved you in her, because they recognized your presence in her heart, for the fruit of her holy ¯ life bore witness to this3~ C. S. Lewis, after the death of his wife, recorded an experience of presence that analogously applies to the God-man relationship: ¯ . . she seems to meet me everywhere. Meet is far too strong a word. l don't mean anything remotely like an apparition or a voice. I don't mean even any strikingly emotional experience at any particular moment. Rather, a sort of unobtrusive but massive sense that she is, just as much as ever, a fact to be taken into account,a° Faith draws us to the basic fact that the Father is always with us in a variety of ways.~The:problem is not so much cognitive as it'is experiential; through a lack of pro~er disposition we live outside of God's presence (this is sin at the deepest I~vel). God is still with us but w~ live as though this were not the case. ,, In his excellent treatise The Problem of~God, John Courtney Murray emphasizes t.he importance of presence: Over against the inconstancy and infidelity of the people; who continually absent themselves from God, the Name Yahweh affirms the constancy of God, his un-changeable fidelity to his promise of presence?~ He (God) is present as the Power. Presence involves transparency; one sees through the veil.of otherness into the other and knows his quality, intentions, attitudes. Thus, through h~s mighty works, God becomes transparent to hts people. He ts known to be present m ffi~thful goodness. : . . In all h~s works of judgment as of rescue, Yahweh becomes transparent, known to his people, who name him'from their experience of his works,a2 St. Paul cam~ to experience the pror~ise of God's dwelling with his people throug.h grace. Then, empowered;l~y the Spirit and 'h~aled through the power of JeSus, Paul could write to the Romans that "everyone moved b-Y the Slbirit is a son of GoiJ'~ find that it is~this Spirit that "makes us cry 6ut, ~abba, Father! . (Rm ~: 14-!$). Assuming the identity bf h so~, Paul j.ourneyed to the Father. ' ¯ zaConfessions, Book IX, Chapter 9, p. 220¯ abA Grief Observed, p. 22. aUohn Courtney Mut~'ay, The Proble'm of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), p. 11~ 321bid., pp. 14-15. 676 / Review for; Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 Father's Covenant The covenant theme is central throughout all of scripture. God's word reveals the mystery of his desire to dwell with his people in a close intimate relationship. God committed himself to beour Father~ and callS us to be his people. Thus in forming a nation through. Abraham; in giving the law and the prophets, in sending Jesus to reconcile, in forming a Spirit-filled Church, the Father continues to dwell in history, the God oftimg and space. St. Paul experienced the covenant relationship with the Father; he dwelt in the Father's tent, listening to the Father's voice and venturing f?rth to share that word with others. Refusal of God's covenant is sin. Acceptance of it is grace and life. Our home is to be with God. The psalmist knew the joy of dwelling with Yah-weh: A single day in your courts is worth more than a thousand elsewhere; ~, merely to stand on the steps of God's house is better than living with the wicked,a3 Paul had spent years living out the covenant relationship: With the encounter and surrender to Christ, he gained access to the Father'.s dwell-ing. Having tasted darkness, he now knew the warmth and light of grace. To live in his presence meant life itself; anything else was death: But because of Christ, I have come to con~ider all these advantages (of the Law) as disadvantages. Not only that, but I believe that nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Cl~dst and be given ~ place in him.a4 Father's Kingdom and Will ,~ To live in the Father's presence means necessarily to get caught up into the kingdom and the will of God. "God's kingdom is no fixed, existing order, but a living, nearing thing. Long remote, it now advances, little by little, and has come so close as to demand acceptance. Kingdom of God means a state in which God is king and consequently rules."35 Indeed, for St. Paul the very presence of the Father within his life was synonymous with the surrender of his freedom. Decisions now w~re made in faith and out of love; freedom given meant freedom gained. By relating all to the furthering of the kingdom, a deep singleness of the heart (purity) governed and unified the apostle's life. All was new. The kingdom is achieved by doing the Father's will. Jesus' obedience unto death was the paradigm. Paul's highly developed sense of discernment allowed him to hear the voice of the Lord and the grace of the moment meant a response in faith. This listening and responding pattern charac- 3aPsalm 84:10. a4Philippians 3:7-9. a~Romano Guardini, The Lord (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1954), p. 37. Spiritual Staying Power: Homeostasis / 677 terized Paul's life; it meant that the Father's will was being accomplished. Paul's prayer for the Colossians indicates the centrality of God's will: ¯. we have never0failed to pray for you~ and'what we ask God is that through perfect wisdom and spiritual:understanding you should reach the'fullest knowledge of his will. So you~ will be able,~to lead the kind of life which the Lord expects of you, a life acceptable to him in all its aspects; showing the results in all good actions you do and increasing your knowledg~e of God.a6 Knowledge of the Father's will is no intellectual abstraction; it demands commitment and actions which are pleasing to God. This holy pragmatism stresses the dynamism of Paul's ministry and his challenge to those who follow tile Lord. To,~iive in his presence, with the implicit willingness to promote the kirigdom by doing the Father's will, means that selfishness and non-scrip-tural behavior are elements in opposition to the life of Christ. Yet these elements never t6t~lly disappear from life. There is that constant struggle to allow the Lord to truly be I~ord ofourqives; there are the perennial temff-tat~ ons that lead toward' idolatry and~ wedge things and people between ourselves and the Father. Paul's life had; to face the'se struggles; his life was one 'of continual conversion. His candid confession in his letter to the Rom~ins"(7:14-15) magnificently expresSes the inward division of every person. Only through the grace of Christ does healing take place and only through that grace can we center bn the Father's kingdom and will. Without it we flounder on stormy waters. Father's Honor and Glory 'Life invol~'es two essential questions: what we do and why we do what v~E ~o. This latter question deals with the motivation. Our intentions not only reve~al our philosophy of life bu~ ultimately give us our sense of iden-tity.~ The Christian challenge 'is to Center our lives on God, to serve and love for his honor and 'glory. Self-serving and self-preserving tendencies block purity of'intention. Constantly we a~e invited to ever deeper levels of convei~sion as we strive to focus our attention on the mystery of God. Often Paul directly called the people he served to recognize to whom all honor and glory belonged: Glory'be to him whose power, working in us', can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine3 glory be to him from generation to genera~tion in the Church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.3r Glory to him who is able to give you the strength to live according to the Good News I preach, and in which I proclaim Jesus Christ. the revelation of a mystery kept secret for endless ages, but now so clear that it must be broadcast to pagans everywhere to bring them to the obedience of faith. , . . He alone is wisdom; give glory therefore to him through Jesus.Christ forever and ever. Amen.36 a~Colossians 1:9-10: aTEphesians 3:20-21. 38Romans 16:25-27. Review for ReligiouS, Volume 37, 1978/5 In return, my God will fulfill .all your needs, in Christ Jesus, as lavishly as only.God can. Glory to God, our Father, forever and ever. Amen.as Honor and glory are due to God because of his majesty. The believer breaks forth in praise when God reveals himself. It is, impossible to remain silent when Truth and Goodness and Beauty inundate the human spirit. Faith allows us to encounter the living and true God; Our response is that of praise. Using Thomistic theology, Gabriel Braso describes well the meaning of honor and glory: , Glory is clear knowledge together with praise of the excellence of a'nother: clara ' notitia cure laude. Honor is the ackno~vledgment of this same e~cellence. Honor and glory, then, are acts by which our intellect recognizes an excellence existing in another being and finds it worthy of praise. Our will, on its part, accepts this superi-ority as a good to which it is well to tend, and, rejoicing in that good which another. prssesses, proclaims it and bears witness to it before others.4° The atmosphere in which Paul lived, namely,0the loving presen~ze of the Father, provides the springboard for his work, personal relationships and prayer. Not only did the apostle~ attempt to do. what was good for the well.being of others, he also lived from a very specifi~ level of.inten-tionality; he lived for God's honor and glory. Certainly the quality of this motivation varied at times, but the ideal was ever before Paul and he strove for it with tremendous zeal and dedication. Because .of this, he could write to others that they should follow his example. Conclusion The spiritual life is our participation in the paschal mystery. By means of principles and guidelines we h~ive some directions providing a perspec-tive from which to live this life in Christ. A homeostatic principle,is .~n internal reality giving continuity and stability to the faith life, especial!y when experiences of fragmentation tend to upset that life or when doubts attack :the human heart stripping it of meaning and feel,i, ng. Each person is challenged to discover and cultivate a personal homeostatic principle; it may remain constant throughout life or be modified in various ways. Be-sides St. Paul, other believers have articulated well what possibly might be their grounding point in the Lord: Yesterday 1 had a good morning. Once again when I recollect myself, I again find the same simple demands of God: gentleness, humility, charity, interior simplicity; noth-ing else is asked of me. And suddenly I saw clearly why these virtues are,demanded, because through them the soul becomes habitable for God and for one's neighbor in an intimate and permanent way. They make a pleasant cell of it. Hardness and pride repel, complexity disquiets. But humility and gentleness welcome, and simplicity reassures. These "'passive" virtues have an eminently social character.41 3aPhilippians 4t29-30~ 4°Gabriel M. Braso, O.S.B., Liturgy and Spirituality, translated by Leonard J. Doyle (Col-legeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1960), p. 59. o ~ 4IRaissh's Journal, presented by Jacques Maritain (Albany, NY: Magi Books, Inc.,1963), p. 71. Spiritual Staying Power: H~meostasis / 679 . my sole desire is that His name be praised, and that we should make every effort to serve a Lord who gives us such a reward here below . 4~ Lord, who has form'd me out of mud, And has redeem'd me through thy blood, And sanctifi'd me to do good; Purge all my sins done heretofore: For I confess my heavy score, And I will strive to sin no more. Enrich my heart, mouth, hands in me, With faith, with hope, with charity; That I may run, rise, rest with thee.4a Human life is lived at various levels. At times the surface of our lives can be filled with turmoil and anxieties while there is peace deep within. At other times, extei'nal forces are calm but our hearts are agitated and rest-less. This essay suggests that St. Paul was able to deal with the pressures, anxieties and trials of life because his life was grounded in God's life. Paul's desire, was "'to live through love in His presence." This homeostatic prin-ciple provided' stability and continuity as he sought to "run, rise, rest" with God. 4~The Complete Works of St. Teresa of Jesus, translated by E. Allison Peers, II (London: Sheed and Ward, 1946), p. 268. 43George Herbert, "Trinity Sunday." All I Needed Was the Violet The overwheimin~ evidence of your magnitude, O God, i~sdisplayed in the sequ0yia forest,~ the snow,crowned towering mountains, the throbbing pulse of the swaying oceans, the~ measureless ga!axies of tinknown space, and also in the perfection and beauty of a tiny violet. To believe in you, an~l to bow down in worship, all I needed ' was the violet. Everywhere I find you, , Your bountiful, awe-inspiring, praise-producing, heart-stirring, mind-boggling, argument-ending remin~lers are just too overwhelming for me. Viola Jacobson Berg 5 Roosevelt Ave. Malverne, NY 11565 Mount Athos: The Holy Republic Michael Azkoul Father Azkoul, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, has taught Church History at St. Louis University, as well as in other institutions. Presently he is attached to Seminex (Luth-eran Seminary in Exile) of St. Louis. He is married, with two children. He resides at 912 Bellstone Rd.; St. Louis, MO 63119. Mount Athos or "The Holy Mountain" is situated in northern Greece, on the Chaicedonean peninsula. Since 1922 this colony of monks has been a republic, a legally constituted political entity, a cluster of monasteries-- stauropeion, as the Orthodox say--immediately subject to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Holy Mount is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin who, it is said, led its first inhabitants, perhaps as early as the sixth century, to establish this religious sanctuary where no female is allowed--nor "female animals-or beardless boys." There have been as many as 40,000 monks on this tiny strip of land jutting into the Aegean, but now Athos can hardly boast of 400 Who have surrendered themselves to the "life of the angels." The Holy Mountain has been crucial to the life of the Orthodox Church. Its monks have produced great music, art, theology, and given t6 the Church some of her greatest bishops and saints.1 Moreover, the history of Orthodoxy shows that monks, especially those of the holy mount, have been "defenders of the faith." No more typical example can be found than their behavior during the Iconoclastic Period when the Empress Theodora found the support of monks indispensable in her effort to restore icons to the Church. Her victory is commemorated on the first Sunday of the "Great ~Monk-saints of Athos are usually called Hagiorite, that is, of the holy (hagios) mountain (oros). 680 Mount Athos: The Holy Republic / 68"1 Lent," as the Sunday of Orthodoxy. This Christian triumph over Hellenism was as monastic as it was,ecclesiastical. The historical value of monasticism to the Church notwithstanding, its importance to Orthodoxy as the supreme embodiment of her Weltan- Schauung is what concerns us here: Mt. Athos as the microcosm of the whole, of Orthodoxy and monasticism, this is the special object of our attention. In truth, one cannot understand the Eastern Church unless one grasps the meaning of her monasticism. In other words, monks are not a class above the Church, but the highest stratum within the Church. They are "'the true and authentic Christians," as St. Basil the Great called them. Monks and nuns are the dynamis of Orthodoxy, its spiritual heroes, the archetypes of its piety, models of chastity, the totally committed who most perfectly express the first principle of Orthodox spirituality, "voluntary obedience.'" They are those Christians who mysteriously perfect the Church and the entire human race by perfecting themselves. Recognizing that the Church is divine and human, even as Christ himself, we come to understand what it means that they are eager to sanctify time, to bring creation closer to the end for which the Christian economy was re-vealed- the deification of the cosmos. The Nature of Orthodox Spirituality The Orthodox Weltanschauung is ascetical. This means that monks are not an erratic or exotic element in the Church, but her chief representatives. Their lives are a statement of denial as well as of affirmation: monks affirm the Christian revelation as the introduction of new life into an age domi-nated by the devil. Satan is the "god of the age," its very zeitgeist. He is the one to whom mankind was yoked by Adam's sin, the ancestral sin which rendered his posterity the heirs of bodily corruption and death. "Where-fore, as by one man sin entered the world and death by sin," St. Paul teaches, "0n account of death all have sinned" (Rm 5:12). In other words, man is not so much a scoundrel as a victim. Human suffering is not the result of God's punishment or vengeance, but the consequence of the devil's power over us through death--the last enemy. Thus, God became a man to destroy the devil and death, not to satisfy some debt incurred by humanity through the sin of Adam.~ For the Orthodox, there is no "original sin," as Augustine and the West have so long believed, only an act of disobedience which inaugurated de-monic tyranny. Baptism, therefore, does not eradicate an "inherited guilt" transmitted by procreation. How, indeed, as Pelagius asked the Augus-tinians, is "original sin" passed to the children of baptized parents if bap- ZSee J. S. Romanides, "'Original Sin According to Saint Paul," St. Vladimir Seminary Quar-terly. IV, I-2 ( 1955-1956), pp. 5-28. Fr. Romanides blames Augustine of Hippo for altering the Church's traditional understanding of Adam's sin and its consequences: and, therefore, the Christian theology of baptism. Review for Relig, ious, Volume 37, 1978/5 tism washes it away? Nor does baptism involve the complete regeneration of human nature--which would necessarily destroy even the capacity to sin. Rather, baptism removes the individual from the tyranny of the devil and incorporates us into the life of "the Second Adam," that is, the Church, the body of Christ, the new humanity, "the race of Christians," as St. Justin Martyr referred to the People of God. Moreover, the mystery of baptism initiates the process of deification--"the new birth," the process of our spiritual perfection through grace (which in Orthodox theology means God's "uncreated energy" extended to creation). We belong to that level of being in which the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, the "Giver of Life," becomes our r?tison d'ktre. In Christ, he is the Deifier. In the Church, the process of deification (salvation) involves, to be sure, prayer, fasting, the Mysteries (sacraments), saving knowledge (the "knowl-edge" of spiritual things, gnosis) and the constant struggle with the pas-sions, the struggle to overcome our Adamic nature, our mortal nature, .to overcome death, wrestling with devil while ascending the "ladder of per-fection," to borrow a phrase from St. John of the, Ladder (Climacus). The passions darken reason and enervate the will: they destroy freedom. Freedom is an internal condition, "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free., from the yoke of bondage" (Ga 5:1). Thus, it does not mean, in the first instance, political or economic rights. These cannot exist unless we have been unchained from the Evil One who, as we have implied, seeks our negation through the passions, the perverse powers of our fallen nature, our nature yoked to death, to dying. We recognize the passions as pride or self-love, jealousy, lust, hate, contentiousness, despair, etc. There are passions of the body and passions of the soul, as St. Gregory of Sinai reminds us. They dwell in us from birth :and are aroused and strengthened by our environment, that is, by the devil working through our psyche, or by persons and things. The devil combats grace by the passions. Despite the Holy Spirit, our guardian angel, the ¯ intercession of the saints, we can lose our souls if we do not perceive the guile of the devil and undertake to oppose him; indeed, without the struggle, the Christian will soon fall away from the Church and into the power of the devil once more. As we have said, the passions are the means by which the devil seeks to recapture.us. He can get us back by winning our "heart," the spiritual citadel of man, the "subconscious," as some Orthodox theologians call it. (Orthodoxy, following the Fathers, has never viewed the "heart" as "the seat of the emotions~ especially love.") All instruments of reason are im-potent to search the abyss of the heart, although, as St. Symeon the New Theologian observed, discursive reason is given the role of "sentinel." The heart is that by which we believe unto salvation, by which we see God if our heart is pure (Mt 5:8: Rm 10:9), but also that from which, according to the Lord, "proceeds evil reasoning, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, lying, blasphemy .'" (Mt 15:19). Mount Athos: The Holy Republic No wonder, then, the Fathers admonish us to "guard the heart," to protect it from anything or anyone who might injure it, from any situation which leads to separation from God's grace. We may "'guard the heart" through obedience, humility, chastity, prayer, the Mysteries and, in par-ticular, by controlling the faculty of the "imagination." This is that power of the mind whereby it creates images, which forms sense-data into co-herent patterns, which allows the mind to visualize and, consequently, to judge and act. As the Greek Fathers say, every passion is the result of a "'sinful image." Reason may alert us to the danger, but if we cherish the "'sinful inlage,'".ifwe nourish and remember it--as one might past insult or betrayalBthen it overwhelms reason, penetrates the systems of conscious-ness and plunges into the heart. The "'sinful image" reemerges as a "pas-sion," the irrational force which comes to determine our thought and con-duct. Only strenuous ascetic exercise can purge the heart thereafter. The great weapon of protection and purgation is "the name of Jesus." His name is a terror to the devils, said St. Barsanuphius. We may pray, 'bLord Jesus Christ, Thou Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner." The "desert fathers" recommend that this prayer be repeated slowly, quietly, sincerely. When said with.faith and understanding, it is not "vain repeti-tion." It becomes important to spiritual and mental health. Some Fathers have been known to have recited the "Jesus rPrayer'' all through the night--a prayer "without ceasing." Rightly practiced, it will eventually pass to and mysteriously, effortlessly, beat witti the organ of the heart. The "Jesus Prayer" becomes.the automatic "'Prayer of the Heart." Admittedly, those who have reached this perfection are very few. They are also those men and women who may preview already on earth the joys of heaven."~ Let us make one thing clear before we proceed. According to the Ortho-dox Church, "the religious experience" is never wholly "private" and never "anti-establishment." To be sure, the quality and intensity of that experience depends upon the holiness of the individual, but it is an ex-perience which transpires within the Church. We may call it "mystical," if we wish, but it is not the "'mystical experience" of a special person, a psychedelic, insulated, isolated, exotic, mayhaps erotic experience. In Orthodoxy, the "religious" or "'mystical experience" of any of her mem-bers- including the holy monk and nun--is the experience of the entire Church, relative, as we said, to the degree of sanctity. The Church is a soborny, a mystical, organic fellowship of believers, if for no other reason than that of the Holy Eucharist, "the mystical supper~" as St. John Chrysostom called it, enjoyed by all the faithful. " In connection with this matter, too, is the teaching of'the Eastern Church that truth is the product of mystical experience, that is, dogma is the product of holiness, not of ratiocination. But if truth follows from holiness, 3The Orthodox Church rejects the idea of the "'beatific vision" if by that is meant beholding the Essence of God, whether in this life or the next. The saved will see only the deified Christ "'face to face" (see Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God: London, 1963). 684 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/5 then there is no surer vehicle of divine revelation than the monk, he who has committed his entire life to the fight with the devil and the struggle with the passions. As a matter of historical fact, the greatest teachers of the Church have been monks, whether clergy or not. It is correct to say, however, that the supreme witnesses to the Christian faith have been monks who were also bishops, since bishops have almost invariably drawn from the monastery. The bishop has sometimes been an abbott or "'elder" (staretz, geron) whose reputation for holiness and wisdom is unsurpassed. Historically, he was the confessor and counselor of kings and queens. Furthermore, the Orthodox Church has never failed to contain .great women ascetics, many of whom have been found in the convent. Through-out the centuries, they have been persons to whom Christians have turned for wisdom and consolation. Although women cannot teach in the Church nor become priests, they have been miracle-workers, iconographers, poets, models of virtue. St. Mary of Egypt dwelt in the desert for more thanforty years. By her miracles and preachment, St. Nina was ,the converter of Georgia in Russia. Numerous women saints have been given the honorific title "Equal to the Apostles," such as St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. The abbe

Issue 66.3 of the Review for Religious, 2007. ; Spiritual Legacy Challenges The Feminine Apostolic Direction QUARTERLY 66.3 2007 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ Pontifical College Josephinum 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2007 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~gournalof Catholic Spiri~uali[y eview for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Webmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehmer ASC Martin Erspamer OSB Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ QUARTERLY 66.3 2007 contents prisms 228 Prisms legacy spiritual 230 Christian Mindfulness Ernest E. L~lrkin OCarm shares an understanding of Christian m~ndNlness that integrates this spiritual practice with recollection, the practice of the presence of God, and the sacrament of the present moment. This article is published in a slightly different edited form as chapter eight in Larkin's posthumously published book, Come'i~. plative Prayer.for Tod~y: Christian Meditations, Medio Media, 2007. challenges 248 Clericalism ,and the Religious Life Edward L. Krasevac oP discusses how various entidements that are mar,ks of "clericalism" manifest theinselves in seven different styles of living out the ministerial among male religious who are priests, priesthood Questionfs ,o' rR e felc t i o n is/Dcussion 265 Conversati],'ons on Eucharist Patrick Scan~ Moffett CFC suggests some ways of reviewing the role of ~e daily Eucharist in our lives as we face possible days when there is no Eucharistic celebration accessible. Prayer Review for Religious 276 283 the feminine ~ Mary and the Magnificat Damian C. Ilodigwe proposes that Mary's life challenges us to take seriously the responsibilities that accompany the privilege of being a Christian. Margaret, the Woman of Becchi Leo Hereto SDB relates the story of Margaret Bosco, the mother of John Bosco, and her influence on the beginnings of the Salesian mission. 288 apostolic direction Discernment in Common as Cooperative Inquiry David Coghlan SJ introduces cooperative inquiry as a form of action research that is compatible with the kind of faith activity that discernment is and accords with how discernment in common may be conducted. 302 Early Jesuit Strategies John P. Mossi SJ points out that early Jesuit strategies found in the Spiritual Exercises and Jesuit directives regarding discretion and empathic listening can be helpful in fostering reform and unity today. Questions for Reflection/Discussi0n 316 32O departments Scriptur,e Scope: The Great Journey in Luke's Gospel Canonical Counsel: Sharing Information in Confidential Matters 326 Book Renews 227 66.3 2007 prisms 228 P. rayer is a subject that merits consistent attention by writers in every age. In our own time it probably would take quite a long bibliography to list the titles of books written on prayer in any one year. In this issue of our journal, we feature the last article on prayer written by Father Ernest Larldn OCarm shortly before he died (1922- 2006). The article itself has been published as the eighth and final chapter of his book pub-lished posthumously, Contemplative Prayer for Today: Christian Meditation, Medio Media, 2007. Father Larkin's interest in prayer and his shar-ing of insights and personal experience mark his apostolic ministry of teaching, writing, and con-ducting retreats. Larkin served on our advisory board from 2001 to 2005 when because of health reasons he excused himself a year early from finishing his term. As editor I was especially delighted that he had agreed to serve on the advisory board. Surely he brought the gifts of his Carmelite her-itage, his teaching acumen, and his rich pasto-ral experience. But for me Father Ernest Larkin brought much more. He had been my mentor, along with Father Kieran Kavanaugh OCD, and my dissertation director during my doctorate Review for Religious studies at Catholic University of America. Both of these men initiated this Jesuit into the world of spirituality and mysticism, especially viewed from a Carmelite perspec-tive. I am forever grateful. Because of the intensity of dissertation supervision, Ernie Larkin and I spent a good deal of time together. He was always gracious, he was evidendy holy, and he could be gendy demanding--a most wonderful set of qualities to get a doctorate student to finish his dissertation on time. One example. After reading and research for one semester, I met with Ernie Larkin, who announced that he wanted a first chapter written now in two weeks' time. Weakly I protested that I still had more reading to do. He smiled and said I could read and I could also write. Ever thereafter I was kept to a regular schedule, and I finished within the semester. We always remained friends, though seldom interacting until he accepted my invitation to be a board member. Why would Ernie want to be remembered especially for his interest in and contribution to our lives of prayer? He would simply say that our most important relationship is with God. If a relationship is to develop and deepen, it demands time spent together. Conversation is most important as a way of sharing, but sharing takes many forms, often just being together in rest and in activity. We are talking about prayer, sometimes with words, at other times with still presence. Prayer, our relationship with God, was the center of Ernest Larkin's life. As he often said, "pray and God will ¯come." That is what he shared with us, even in his final book. May he be enjoying his eternal presence with God, the God of his life. ¯David L. Fleming SJ [229 66.3 2007 ERNEST E. LARKIN Christian Mindfulness spiritual legacy 230] Several classic disciplines in traditional Christian spirituality cultivate attentiveness and awareness of God and divine things. They are recollection, the practice of the presence of God, and the sac-rament of the present moment, all venerable exer-cises in the Christian life. Recollection, a concept and practice dear to St. Teresa of Avila, means in her words that "the soul collects its faculties together and enters within itself to be with its God.''1 She goes on to say that the soul is "cen-tered there within itself." Recollection allows one to meet God in the depths of one's being. The practice of the presence of God is cultivating alertness to one of the many ways God is pres-ent and relating to that presence by brief acts of recognition and prayer. The sacrament of the present moment sees each activity in life as an opportunity to meet God. Mindfulness is similar Ernest E. Larkin OCarm wrote on aspiratory prayer for us a year ago. He died shortly after writing the present article. Revieva for Religious to these three practices, but with its own emphasis. As a Christian practice it is a newcomer on the block. Its name and its particular approach come from the East, particularly from Buddhism. Christian mindfulness adds to God's presence special attention to the concrete and finite aspects of each action. The present article examines Christian mindfulness for the light it throws both on Christian Meditation itself and on conduct between the times of formal meditation. Mindfulness is precisely what we endeavor to do in the practice of Christian Meditation, in which saying the mantra is the prayer. In the rest of the day, we~ cultivate mindfulness to make it a prominent feature of our ongo-ing consciousness. The older practices highlight awareness of God's pres-ence and will be a diredt line of communication between the person and God. Here lies a possible limitation, which might be called abstractness. It is too easy for the remembrance of God's presence, especially on the run, to be a mere nod of the mind to a theological truth with minimal resonance in one's being. Mindfulness offers the missing piece, namely, a real presence to what one is doing at a given moment. Mindfulness emphasizes the presence of our total selves in the moment. Actually true recollection demands this too, but the full presence is too easily forgotten. Mindfulness will not let us forget this aspect. So the two disciplines, recollection and mindfulness, together and separately, emphasize full commitment of one's whole being to the moment at hand. They demand the aware-ness of one's self, the actidn, and the God who is there. The shorthand for true recollection and Christian mind-fulness is presence to the moment, a phrase we hope to elucidate in this paper. Presence to the moment is concentrated or focused attention; it means being "all there." Often we are only 66.3 2007 Larkin ¯ Christian Mindfulness Presence to the moment is concentrated or focused attention; it means being "all there." half there, present in body but miles away in thought. John of the Cross alludes to a well-known scholastic adage when he writes that "the soul lives where she loves more than in the body she animates.''2 The schoolboy is already out on the playing field as he impatiendy looks at the clock and waits for it to strike the end of the school day. In mindfulness we are present in love to what we are actually doing. We are present contemplatively, that is, with our whole person-- body, soul, and spirit--and not just with our mind or half-hearted will. We do not act absentmindedly or on automatic pilot. True presence is steady, nondiscursive attention, which at the same time is relaxed and self-possessed. St. Th4r~se of Lisieux is a perfect example of mind-fulness. According to Ida Friederike Gtrres, she "accom-plished the apparently impossible feat of being, every moment, in a state of sharply focused, intensely controlled alertness, and at the same time completely spontaneous in all that she did.''3 Monica Furlong says that Th4r~se gave up fantasies and impossible dreams in favor of living in the present and making her little acts of love and acceptance. "Her 'Little Way,'" she writes, "was, in some curious way, the reversal of everything she had been taught, the inflated form~of Christianity with its dreams of sanctity and mar-tyrdom. Now she saw that all you were asked to do was follow the will of God, whatever it might be, and to give yourself unreservedly to that life and to no other.''4 Thgr~se, according to her novice mistress, was "mys-tic, comic, everything . She could make you weep with Revi~ for tCetigious devotion and just as easily split your sides with laughter during recreation.''5 That is full presence to each chang-ing moment of the day. Hans Urs von Balthasar concurs with these words about Th~r~se: At each moment, her sole concern is to carry out the will of God as it was revealed to her second to second. ¯. Th~r~se never tries to dominate the course of events. In a very womanly fashion, she simply tries to receive everything, and to receive it lovingly. For her, every moment comes so fresh and immediately from the hand of God . [Th~r~se writes:] "I just keep concentrating on the present moment. I forget the past and preserve myself from worries about the future."6 There are also plenty of examples of the opposite of mindfulness. Here is one example from Tilden Edwards from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.7 Calvin does not like to relate to real experiences, because they are not clear; they are unpredictable and hard to figure out. He prefers to stay on the outside of things, and that is why he likes life filtered through television. That way he doesn't have to think. He can follow the action with "_,lazed eyes and partial attention. Everything is neat ano tidy, but very superficial. Reducing reality in this way is to take the mystery out of life. It is to fail to be fully present to the moment. Mindlessness is lazy thinking or failure to think at all. It allows one to gloss over things. But if we want to live intentionally with commitment to what we are about, we have to gather up ourselves in recollection and be involved in what we are doing. It is a short step to being in touch with the God hidden in the moment. That is what the Christian practice of recollection and mindful-ness attempt to do. Two entries in Thomas Merton's journals illustrate the contrast between mindfulness and mindlessness. They 66.3 2007 Larkin ¯ Christian Mindfulness occur at the end of the time he was working through an experience of falling in love with a young woman, the nurse who cared for him in the hospital. He registers in detail the emotional roller coaster he was on over a period of several months. Toward the end of the struggle he made this entry, which is an experience of mindfulness: June 15, 1966 . . . This morning for the first time, really since going to the hospital, I have real inner free-dom and solitude--I love M. but in a different way, peacefully and without disturbances or inner tension. I feel that once again I am all here. I have finally returned to my place and to my work, and am beginning once again to be what I am.8 Contrast this presence to himself with the fragmentation a month later, indicating that the struggle to deal with his emotions was not over: July 14, 1966 . . . Noted general dispersion and dis-tractedness all yesterday, obviously [because of being busy on errands in town], and all night. Only recovered a real awake mindfulness after about 3 hours of reading etc. this morning. The other state was of an anxious, disoriented consciousness, not properly centered, and making erratic and desperate acts calling on God, try-ing to recover orientation, thinking of M., questioning self, fearing consequences of imprudence etc.9 Note how Merton tried to regain mindfulness from his distracted mind by reading, reflection, and no doubt prayer. The need is to enter into one's, self; just being busy is a challenge, but often an excuse for many-mindedness or mindlessness. Mindfulness is one form of pondering events in the way Mary does in the Gospels. It is not enough to be amazed as the shepherds were at Bethlehem. We have to ponder them as Mary did and enter into them, seeking understanding, tuning in to the divine presence mani-fested there. We need to listen with a third ear and sit with mystery. Each moment is a revelation, a unique gift Revie~ for Religiou~ from God. We enter it with wonder and gratefulness and with a receptive heart. This is contemplative living; it is living in God's presence and cultivating the moment. Buddhist Mindfulness Mindfulness has an Eastern flavor and is practiced there in various styles of yoga and meditation and martial arts. In its Eastern practice it has a different philosophi-cal foundation and a different goal from the Christian form. But the Buddhist practice is transferable to a Christian setting by the simple but immensely important addition of the presence of - God. In Buddhist mindful-ness the only object is to be totally present to what one is doing. It does not make any reference to God, because Buddhism is non-theistic and has no personal God. The Absolute, the God of the Buddhists, is outside their purview of reality; God is unavailable and totally unknowable, beyond the grasp of the human mind. So Buddhist mindfulness settles for seeking total presence to the moment without distraction or divided attention. We believe that we can learn to be present from this practice, but also to include God in the presence. In this way we are baptizing it for Christian usage. We call it Christian usage. We call it Christian mindfulness. Our standing Christian tradition teaches us to go to God through creation, through the finite and the con-crete. All experience of God is mediated. The East can tell us something we always knew. It can help us see our tradition in a new light and realize how important the finite and the.concrete are in the spiritual life. We find The more down-to-earth i,we are the less we fly off in flights of fancy. 66.3 2007 Larkin ¯ Christian Mindfulness 236 God by going through the human. It is only a manner of speaking for us to say that we get beyond creatures to find God. Our goal is ultimately awareness of the Trinity and participation in life with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We attain this goal best by paying attention to the vehicle that brings us there, that is, our created activity. We are helped by being rooted in the existential moment. We are a sacramental people. The more down-to-earth we are, planting our feet squarely on the ground, the less we fly off in flights of fancy and the closer we are to reality and therefore to God. We are an incarnational people, and we believe we find Christ in every crevice of the human condition. Since the incarnation, and espe-cially since the resurrection, Christ is at the center of the universe and part of every human action. Listen to these words of Karl Rahner, who puts them in the mouth of Christ: "I am the blind alleys of all your paths, for when you no longer know how to go any further, then you have reached me, foolish child, though you are not aware to it."~° We find Christ by going through, not around, creation. This is to follow what is called the "analogical imagination" by writers like David Tracy, or the "Catholic imagination" by William E Lynch SJ or Andrew Greeley. Mindfulness helps us reclaim our birthright. The Buddhist teaching on mindfulness can help us see these truths more clearly. A signature example of the Buddhist mode is wash-ing the dishes when you are washing the dishes. It is the quaint trademark ofthe Vietnamese Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book The Miracle of Mindfulness. He writes: While washing the dishes, you might be thinking about the tea afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea. But that means you are incapable of living dur- Review for Religious ing the time you are washing the dishes. When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must the most important thing in your life. Just as when you are drifiking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life.ll The inner meaning of the Buddha's teaching on mind-fulness is found in the Sattipatthanda Sutta, and it is summarized in the following words of a Buddhist com-mentator: Mindfulness deepens mental concentration (samatha) in the direction of meditation insight (vipassana). In mind-fulness the disciple dwells in contemplation of the body, feelings, and thoughts. Through being concentrated and mindful of these factors of our life, and by clearly comprehending through insight their true nature, the hate and greed, of sorrow and grief, is overcome and Nibbana [nirvana] is attained,lz Samatha and vipassana describe two different kinds of Buddhist meditation, the former seeking tranquillity and the latter insight.13 Both goals are the fruit of total pres-ence. Listen to Nhat Hanh's description of washing the dishes: "While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes.''~4 The total presence is the heart of meditation in the East. A similar presence, but with the addition of a Trinitarian component, is the goal of Christian Meditation as taught by John Main. When I engage in the practice of Christian Meditation, I do not imagine God or anything else. I simply try to be totally present to my deepest self and to the God who dwells there. To the extent that I am successful, I am giving my full focused attention to my interior being and to the Trinity. I am not thinking about God or about any thing. I am practicing contemplation, that is, I am in communion with the real and the Real. 66.3 2007 Larkin ¯ Christian Mindfulness 238] It is important to know that John Main does not equate contemplation with special psychological experience of God. Contemplation for him is an existential act; it is participation or communion with God. In true mindful-ness I am acting at the level of my being's spirit, and I am truly free and loving. I touch both the reality of God and my own deepest reality. Free and loving presence to the present moment is the essence of mindfulness and meditation. You wash the dishes to wash the dishes, intentionally and with as little distraction as possible, not to impress your neighbor or even to provide clean dishes. These motives are extrane-ous and pertain to the future. You want to stay in the now. To accomplish that you need to be present to yourself. Here is a wise story from Mobi Ho, the translator of The Miracle of Mindfulness. She recalls in the preface an inci-dent when she was cooking furiously and had to stop and search for a missing spoon. She was obviously agitated. Thay came into the room and smiled and said, "What is Mobi looking for?" "The spoon," she answered, perhaps a bit petulandy. Thay answered with another smile: "No, Mobi is looking for Mobi.''15 Why Mindfulness Is Important Our distractions come from our divided and disordered selves. Our desires are the product of our many-minded-ness, and this in turn comes from our lack of integration. Our desires need to be integrated with our whole person and with what we are about at the moment. Our thought needs to be one-pointed and simple, an accomplishment that takes practice,, discipline, and grace. Practice in meditation and in mindfulness will develop the virtues needed and give me a handle on my desires. Perfect mindfulness will neutralize the warring factions within me and let me be absorbed by what I am doing. Review for Religious In this latter case I will have achieved what the psycholo-gists call the deautomatization of my desires. This means that I have neutralized the impulses and desires I do not want. Instead I can concentrate on my true wishes. The unwanted desires dry up and atrophy for lack of nurture.16 From a moral or spiritual point of view I have let my faith inform and animate all my behavior. I have attained true freedom and perfect love. I have achieved what John Cassian called purity of heart. Nhat Hahn celebrates the personal freedom in mind-ful activity in these words: The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is wondrous reality. I am being completely myself, following my breath, my presence, and con-scious of my thoughts and actions. There is no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves?7 The Christian adds the further element of the good inten-tion and remembering God's presence. I am present to God and receiving the impact of his presence, which is a fact before and after I am aware of it. I do not consti-tute that presence. I am alive with the presence of God. This aspect is not something extraneous and accidental. It belongs to the nature of things, to the immanence of God in all of creation. God's delight is to be with the children of this world, in our sorrow and in our own delights. This presence is for our sakes and our salvation. Christians emphasize the presence of God in all things, but they may tend to forget the envelope that contains it. Persons, actions, events are the medium through which God comes. The given moment is the only place one can meet God. In God there is no time, only the eternal now. God lives in that now moment on the other side of the veil that separates time from eternity. We enter the ves-tibule of that "now" when we concentrate on the present 66.3 2007 Larkin ¯ Christian Mindfulness 240 moment. Our beloved God is there, and it behooves us to be there as well. To enter the now moment is to let anxiety fall off our shoulders and to be renewed in hope by touching the God who loves us. The more that a person possesses herself, the more present she can be. She must be "all there," alert, aware, attentive, in a word, fully present. Intellectualizing or head knowledge is of little value. An abstract recall or thinking about God's presence in the here and now is not enough. The knowledge must be holistic and experiential, beyond mere thinking, beyond mind alone. What we need is heart knowledge. I am more than my thoughts or my mind, and therefore I must not identify with my mind or my ego. In mindfulness we stand before the Lord, "watching and waiting." We do not control the relationship, and we are there to receive a gift. Every moment is a gift from God, and we are aware of that fact. Every moment can be an occasion of contemplation, that is, an opportunity to realize God's love. The contemplative walks in the pres-enceof God in a moment-to-moment experience of God's love. The condition for the gift is to be present there, body, soul, and spirit. Mindfulness fights the enemies of wholeness and culti-vates full presence to God. The enemies of wholeness are what divide us, such as our addictions and compulsions, our unfreedoms and attachments, our sins and imperfec-tions. They undermine our love of God. Mindfulness faces these temptations head on by maintaining attention to the call of faith. We are thoroughly present to the moment because it is God's call for us at that time. Mindfulness recognizes distractions, calls them by name, then lets them pass, all the while gently focusing on the moment. As focused or nondiscursive attention, mindfulness helps us rise above what John Main calls the "monkey chat-ter" of the distracted mind. Mindless persons are unrooted Revie~ for Religio~s and tmcentered, so they tend to flit about from one distrac-tion to another, dissipated in their energies, prisoners of unrecognized consumerism and self-glorification. Mindless persons live outside themselves and engage only the part of themselves that is needed to satisfy the passing whim. They tend to be dilettantes and escapists. They have no depth or solid ground within themselves on which to rest commitments. They are more vulnerable to the winds of change around them and readily given to worry and anxiety simply because they do not realize that "God is near" (Ph 4:5). Excessive "busyness" is lack of mindfulness. Busyness is a cultural demon of our time, an escape or excuse from the hard work of concentration and the duty one is trying to avoid. Busyness is a wolf in sheep's clothing, because it looks like virtue but actu-ally is a whole array of self-interest clustered around pride or self-indulgence. It is an ego trip and the enemy of charity. Look more closely at its manifestations and you will find a driven and com-pulsive spirit that hurts one's health, peace of mind, and awareness of others. Over-busy persons are trying to prove themselves by the sheer quantity of their output. The more they do, the more they feed their self-satisfac-tion, basking in the imagined plaudits of the multitude. There is little charity in this addiction, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. The motivation in busyness is ego-enhancement, the desire to impress, even to show up the neighbor, Busyness is ersatz zeal. The reason why mindfulness is good and its opposite bad is that one is the expression of the true self and the Our unfreedoms and attachments Undermine our loveof God. 66.3 2007 Larkin * Christian Mindfulness 242 other the offspring of the false self. The true self comes from the deeper strata of our being, from our spirit, and it carries body and psyche with it. Thus it incarnates more of ourselves in its choices than does the splintered false self. The true self acts from the heart and not from self-deception or flee-floating emotions. It acts virtuously because it is rooted in God. Sensibility, our superficial self, is the home of our false self, because ego is at home there and ego goes its own way. The false self is self-serving by nature. It comes out of primitive experiences of life that set in place ways of coping with threats to one's security or self-importance. Our sensi-bility has to be redeemed and put at the service of charity by being ordered and integrated into our lives. Then the ego serves rather than seeks to be served. In these cases the true self has taken over. Wholeness has been restored and the Holy Spirit has become the fountain of living water spring-ing up to eternal life (In 4:14 and Jn 7:3 6-3 7). Mindfulness is a sign that the good spirit is in possession. How Do I Get It? One important final question is the practice: how do I become more mindful? The answer is: cultivate a vibrant spiritual life. Mindfulness is a by-product of mature holi-ness. But are there special means for growing in the prac-tice and skill? How can I become more mindful? I want to suggest two special means. One is meditation itself; the other is the basic condition of all prayer, purity of heart. These are the two arms for embracing God, the pincer movements of the spiritual life. They will bring us to mindfulness. First, mindfulness is the outcome of faithfulness to the two periods of Christian Meditation each day, since medi-tation itself is explicit and prolonged mindfulness. Practice makes perfect; obviously meditation will foster the habit Re~ie~ for Religious of mindfulness. Conventional wisdom says: find God in daily prayer and you will find God everywhere. The Sufi came out of his prayer room and said: I went to the mar-ketplace and found God everywhere. The contrary is also true: without prayer life you will not find God. General mindfulness throughout the day is a diffuse presence to God. How could this be maintained, if it is not nourished by a focused or concentrated presence? How be mindful of God in the comings and goings of the day if one never takes time to meet God face-to-face? We need to focus on the Lord, to come aside and find rest for our souls. Otherwise we will not recognize God when he appears in the disguise of other people or works of charity. The two periods of Christian Meditation come from a long tradition. One of the outstanding teachers of recol-lection, the contemporary and early teacher of Teresa of Avila, Francisco de Osuna, recommended two periods of formal meditation a day, each of them an hour's length. Osuna writes: "You are to retire into your heart and leave all created things for the length of two hours, one hour before and the other after noon, at the most quiet time possible."18 During the rest of the day the mind is to be occupied with lectio divina, the author agreeing with St. Bonaventure that "no one can call himself devoted to the sacred passion unless he spends most of [the day] contem-plating it in one manner or another."19 The two hours a day suggested by Osuna may be beyond the possibilities for many people, and periods of twenty to thirty minutes have proved workable for most people today. The second way to cultivate mindfulness is. purity of heart. It is as important as formal prayer, because the measure of one's purity of heart is the measure of one's prayer. Again this is the constant teaching of the Christian tradition.from John Cassian to Teilhard de Chardin. What is purity of heart? It is detachment, and specifically affec- 66.3 2007 Larkin ¯ Christian Mindfulness Affective detachment comes from effective detachment, tive detachment. This is the freedom of the will before choices. This freedom is cultivated especially by effective detachment, which is the actual renunciation of what-ever stands in the way to one's service of God. Affective detachment comes from effective detachment. In the Western traditon, renundation is the way to recol-lection. Writers like Frandsco de Osuna, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross underline the gospel teaching that we must leave all things to follow the Lord. A recent exponent of this age-old tradition is Pope Benedict XVI, who put the teach-ing in fresh language to his interviewer, Peter Seewald, shortly before the death of John Paul 11: "When it comes down to it," Cardinal Ratzinger said, "everyone has to undergo his own Exodus. He not only has to leave the place that nurtured him and become independent, but has to come out of his own reserved self. He must leave himself behind, transcend his own limits; only then will he reach the Promised Land, so to speak,m° Christian teachers generally emphasize the physi-cal renunciation of legitimate goods and pleasures, such as marriage or possessions or worldly honors; they call for the renunciation of all desires. These are refrains in their writing, and modern readers are easily put off by such total demands. But contemporary readers need to be reminded that these classic directives are always in the context of God's will. God's particular will for each person is the controlling factor for renouncing goods. The wholesale rejecton of desires applies to disordered desires. Discernment identfies the immediate will of God, and this is the criterion for choices. 244 Review for Religious The language in this tradition can betray us. Osuna, for example, presents recollection as the way to divine union, and it involves transcending, that is, going beyond all creatures. The person must be "blind, deaf, and dumb to everything that is not God." We need to "guard the heart with all vigilance, unburdening and clearing it of all created things, so that the one who created it may emerge with the life of grace.''2~ The cost of divine union is "not less than everything." The sweeping language might make one think that the whole of creation must be rejected. Not so, these authors tell us. The everything to be by-passed is the all that is in competition or opposed to God. The teaching on recollection attributes the same high efficacy as mindfulness, but also makes the same demands for its functioning. Karl Rahner in an essay on the Holy Eucharist says that recollection demands letting go of all false and harmful things.2z The teaching is founded on the pas-chal mystery, the death and resurrection of the Lord, which is "the innermost law of our lives." Baptism initiates us into this mystery and the Holy Eucharist renews the commit-ment. Eucharistic life, he writes, embraces the total profane life of the Christian, the "everyday" of the followers of Jesus. We die and rise with Jesus Christ, not only at Mass and in Holy Communion, but in our everyday behavior. How can we manage so sublime a calling? Rahner's answer is recol-lection, which he defines as "withdrawing into ourselves" and from there making the right choices at each moment. Withdrawing into ourselves is not copping out or fleeing the scene. It is being our true selves and living intentionally. Get beyond the distractions, turn off the constant radio, stop the "empty talk and gossip," avoid wasting time with worthless reading, and pull back from the "over-busy and all devour-ing fulfillment of one's duty, [from the busyness which is] an excuse for avoiding our real duty."~3 Enter into yourselves, so that you are your true selves. 66.3 2007 Larkin * Christian l~lindfulness 246 Recollection is no flight from life, but "ricing uP to ourselves as we really are, confronting ourselves instead of seeking solace in chatter, conversations, mere external dissipations." Holy Communion commits me to "accept my everyday just as it is. I do not need to have any lofty feelings in my heart to recount . I can lay my everyday before [God] just as it is. in all its pettiness and trivial-ity." z4 Christian recollection is another word for Christan mindfulness, and these two are at the heart of our search for God that comprises the two daily periods of contem-plative prayer that are Christian Meditation. Notes I The Way of Perfection 28.4. 2 Spiritual Canticle B, 5.3. 3 Cited from Ida Friederike G6rres's Hidden Face in John Donohue SJ'S article "Th~r~se of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church," America 177 (13 December 1997): 16. 4 Monica Furlong, Thdr~se of Lisieux (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), p. 96. s Cited in Donohue, "Th~r~se," p. 16. 6 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Two Sisters in the Spirit: Th~r~se of Lisieux and Elizabeth of the Trinity, trans. Donald Nichols and Ann Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco: Ignatius press, 1992) pp. 66-67. 7 "Valuing the Living Moment," Shalem News, cited in Kinospirit (November 1995): 2. s Learning to Love: The~ournals of Thomas Merton 6, ed. Christine M. Bochen (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), p. 84. 9 Merton, Learning, p. 95. 10 The Great Church Year: The Best of Karl Rahner's Homilies, Sermons, and Meditations, ed. Albert Raffelt (New York: Crossroad, 1993), p. 51. 11 Thich Nhat Hahn, Miracle of Mindfulness (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), p. 24. 12 Ven. Dr. Dhammarakkhita, "Mindfulness and Loving-Kindness Meditation," The Gethsemani Encount~ ed. Donald W. Mitchell and James A. Wiseman OSB (New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 35-41, at 35. 13 William Rehg SJ, "Christian Mindfulness," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 34, no. 3 (May 2002): 1-9. Review for Religious 14 Rehg, "Christian." is Rehg, "Christian." t6 Philip Novak, "The Practice of Attention," Parabola 15 (May 1990): 10-12; Arthur J. Deikman, "Deautomatization and the Mystic Experience," Psychiatry 29 (1966): 324-338. ~7 Thich Nhat Hahn, Miracle, p. 4. ~s Francisco de Osuna, The Third Spiritual Alphabet, trans. Mary E. Giles (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), p. 388. ~90suna, Third, p. 177. 20 Paul Elie, "The Year 0fTwo Popes," Atlantic Monthly 297 (January- February 2006): 71. 2, Osuna, Third, p. 132. 22 Karl Rahner, "The Eucharist and Our Daily Lives," Theological Investigations 7, trans. David Bourke (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), pp. 211-226. 23 Rahner, "Eucharist," p. 221. 24 Rahner, "Eucharist," p. 222. Metronome Fingers nimbly running up down over ebony and ivory Unfolding medleys of joy mourning glory Euphoric allegro highs., soaring Plummeting . soulful adagio lows Soothing largo interludes inviting Carefree scherzo playfulness., dancing With rhythmic rhapsodic blues Tapping to the tempo Of happy-go-lucky whim or deep contemplation A symphonic score of a life grace-fully written Melodically enjoyed harmonically played Ticking to a metronome's beating heart. Walter Bunofsky SVD 66.3 2007 EDWARD KRASEVAC Clericalism and the Religious Life challenges Many descriptions and definitions of clericalism have been suggested since the Second Vatican Council, and a number of them seem to have this characteristic: a sense of entitlement,1 as if the priesthood were something other than a ministry of loving service in imitation of Christ or as if its center of gravity were in something other than such service. Indeed, I understand clericalism largely if not exclusively as a spu-rious entitlement, an entitlement to privileges that do not stem from the following of Christ in his ministry of service, but rather from prosaic aspects of human nature.2 Clericalism has often been understood with reference to secular or diocesan pastors and their relation to the people under their pastoral care, 248 Edward L. Krasevac OP is professor of theology at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. In 1987 he wrote for us about Eckhart and John of the Cross and in 2002 about the relation of temperaments to lib-eral/ conservative stances. His address is 2301 Vine Street; Berkeley, California 94708. ekrasevac@dspt.edu Review for Religious to their peers and bishop, and to the structures of the diocese and church, rather than with reference to reli-gious priests, who usually live a quite different style of priesthood, one heavily influenced by the structures and charisms of their religious institute. But I surmise that clericalism is alive and well among religious priests also, although it is heavily colored--and often camouflaged-- by the dynamics of religious life) Clericalism is not the only source for the entidements I will describe below, but I think it is often operative in the seven styles of being a religious priest that I will describe. Each of these styles manifests habits that undermine the service character of the priesthood. The types are not exclusive, and some of us bear characteristics of more than one in our lives as priests. In what follows I hope to stir up self-knowledge among religious priests so that our priesthood may not easily become something other than it was meant to be. In reflecting unwarranted entidements, the various types appear "negative," but positive elements appear in them, too. I will take note of these in the hope of showing that at least some of the types are legitimate ways of being a religious priest. The Ambitious Priest The "ambitious priest" loves the possession or exercise of authority, with the accompanying prestige and perqui-sites. Some priests seek the simple possession of author-ity (in the congregation as a superior or in the church as a bishop); other priests seek not only the possession of authority but also its exercise. The religious priests who are ambitious only for the possession of authority often lack the drive and discipline to exercise it effectively; they are content with the prestige and perks of office. Their ambition may stem from a desire not to have to obey others or from their own insecurities. These priests are t249 66.3 2007 Krasevac ¯ Clericalism and the Religious Life Ambitious p iests are usually committed,to values of collaboration, consultation, or collegiality in! the exercise of authori usually not energized by authority itself. It is not author-ity itself that draws them, but rather the accoutrements of authority. Their possession of authority does not make them dangerous--they generally do not hurt others or the common good by their exercise of it--but, negatively, their office is not used for the good of their brethren and those the congregation serves. Other ambitious priests seek authority precisely in order to exercise it, and are often energetic and talented (they may, of course, also be interested in the prestige and perks of office). There are many reasons for this type of ambition: a need to control others, a desire to redress per-ceived injuries done to them by their brethren, the imposition of their own deeply felt values on others (in cases where more collegial methods of persuasion have failed), or sim-ply the exercise of power for its own sake. Ambition in these cases is usually ambition for author-ity as power over others in contrast to authority as service to others. And so ambitious priests, in either of the senses just described, are usually not committed to values of col-laboration, consultation, or collegiality in the exercise of authority,4 but tend to understand it as a personal privi-lege that should be possessed and exercised according to their own best lights and interests. Ambitious priests can have two quite different rela-tionships to ministry. In some cases they are not much involved in ministry at all, at least not very effectively, Review for Religious because they always have their eyes on "what's next," the further rung of the ladder (which requires, among other things, lots of time and energy given to internal politics). Those they serve often feel that they are only half listen-ing or responding, because their heart is elsewhere. In other cases ambitious priests throw themselves into min-istry because they know that a crowded rdsum6 can bring advancement sooner. But this success assumes effective- . ness that can be measured quantitatively, such as financial or building success. Nonetheless, ambitious priests in the second sense are often disciplined and hardworking and can appear outstanding in ministry. The entitlement operative here is for authority as power over others: a priest deserves to exercise authority and receive obedience, even if that authority and obedi-ence are not direcdy exercised in the service of his breth-ren or those whom he serves in ministry.5 Although ambition for authority as power over others is a false entidement of clericalism, ambition for author-ity as service to others may well be warranted, taking the form of actively seeking office or accepting it when prof-fered even against one's desires. Since holding office in the church these days is more often a burden than a blessing, the church needs those with the talent, motivation, and ¯ generosity for service to step forward. But, since ambition for power can be present under the mande of ambition for service, strict personal honesty is crucial. For this, dia-logue with others is essential to discerning Whether I wish to serve others in seeking or accepting a particular office, or rather wish to serve myself. Part of this discernment might be to ask myself whether I am willing to forgo perquisites of office that are not necessary for its effective exercise, or am willing to step aside if a more appropriate candidate emerges. Ambition for authority in the church requires, it seems to me, that people go through such 66.3 2007 Krasevac * Clericalis~n and the Religious Life a searching and often painful purification before being allowed to have authority in our lives. The gentleman priest is usually not bossy, and may be quite humble in his relations with others. The Gendeman Priest or Priest of Leisure As the ambitious priest loves the possession or the exercise of power, the "gendeman priest" loves the good life in at least some of its forms. Fine restaurants, the opera or symphony, the art museum, a rich social life among those who are well educated and well-off are often characteristic of this style of being a priest, as is a penchant for travel to culturally rich destina-tions. It is also impor-tant, when the gentleman priest is at home, that the table be a good one and there be enough employ-ees (or other religious) in the house to serve his needs in a style that might recall servants of old. Ministry is important to such a priest, but usually is carefully controlled so as not to interfere with the gentleman priest's other pursuits. He does not consider the real possibility of "breaking a sweat" in the Lord's vineyard, and the ministry of service is often seen as a distraction from more important callings. Comfort is important to the gentleman priest, and a decent cash flow is obviously required; poverty is not the queen of his vows. As in all forms of clericalism, a strong sense of entitlement is operative in the gentleman priest, an entidement not so much for authority as for a lifestyle that befits his education and tastes and, needless to say, his understanding of the priesthood. ¯ On the plus side, the gentleman priest is usually not very bossy, and may be quite humble in his relations with Review for Religious others.6 He is often a pleasant fellow, gracious and gener-ous to others in spontaneous and endearing ways. He is generally a person whom it is hard to dislike, and can be a delight in community (when he's there). The gende-man priest is, after all, a gendeman, one who is sensitive to other people, thoughtful, polite, well mannered. He treats others well and brings to religious life and ministry the values of culture and respect for others. And because, in the familial atmosphere of religious life just as in the domestic family, the familiar and familial may conceal or seem to excuse insensitivity to others in word and action, the formality that the gentleman priest brings--an infu-sion of genuine courtesy to and respect for others--can be a boon for both our communities and our ministries. The Gossiping Priest We religious talk a lot to each other, and a lot about each other, and about those whom we serve. This is a normal and essential part of the familial in our communal life. We should be interested in what our brothers are doing, in their ups and downs, in the joys and sorrows and accomplishments and failures of their lives. It is only when we have such knowledge that we can respond fra-ternally to them in their needs, and sometimes get some comic relief as we laugh at their foibles. Conversation and the knowledge of each other that flows from it are essential to the common good of our congregation and to the good of the individuals within it. The "gossiping priest" also loves to converse, but for very different reasons, sometimes having to do with "inno-cent curiosity," sometimes from less charitable motives (knowledge can hurt others as well as help them). Even in the case of curiosity, however, much damage can be done both to other individuals and to the common life by such conversation. Information may come to light and 66.3 2007 Kra~e~ac ¯ Clericalism and the Religiou~ Life damage or destroy a brother's good name by the very fact that it does come to light. Violations of privacy can often result from the need to know what everyone else is doing, and why; great amounts of energy can be expended in creating and maintaining elaborate networks of commu-nication, energy that could better be focused elsewhere; such networks can easily lead to an exclusivity in the com-munity that direcdy damages the common life; and the effectiveness of superiors who are trying to deal charitably and jusdy with complex personal problems of the breth-ren can be compromised by such a "need to know." In other words, "innocent curiosity" may have anything but innocent effects, and the gossiping priest (whose life is largely based on knowing and conversing about the lives of others) is too often not honest with himself concerning the reasons for and the effects of his gossip. In addition, the possibility that the confidentiality of privileged con-versations-- say, that of chapters--may be broken in the course of gossiping has a chilling effect on the freedom of a community to deal effectively with its legitimate but sensitive concerns. The entidement here is for knowledge of other peo-ple's doings, usually for the very sake of that knowledge. A priest, after all, is almost by definition one to whom secrets are communicated, one who is supposed to be privy to matters of conscience. The devastation that can be caused by the gossiping priest is in direct relation to those weighty privileges which are abused by the false entitlements of clericalism.7 More positively, in most cases the gossiping priest's life is centered on the concerns of his community, whether at the local or regional level, as on his family--and this is a good thing. In a time when the pressures are great which lead to detachment from the community and to "private life," the gossiping priest witnesses in his own Review for Relig~o~,~ way to the value and importance of our life together in the community, for the community is the major concern of his interests and his conversation. Once purged of its negative effects, the conversations of the formerly gos-siping priest can become genuinely community building and enhancing. The, Romantic Priest This manifestation of clericalism in the religious priest normally applies to those whose experience of the church is postconciliar, because the "romantic priest" is largely driven by nostalgia for the past--for what he did not per-sonally experience, but has read about and longs for. The romantic priest is not usually concerned with matters of doctrine or even authority (and thus is not necessarily a legalist); rather, he is more concerned with matters of dress, style of liturgy, the particular traditions and prac-tices of his congregation, the dignity of his priesthood, aesthetic matters, and certain (traditional and sometimes dying) devotions. He is often genuinely pious, one who is committed to his vows and the way of life that they entail. But the romantic priest loves to play a role which is largely defined by these kinds of things, and above all by the past. The complexities of contemporary life in the church and world hold little interest for him, as do the complexities of most ministries; his world and his inter-ests lie elsewhere. The entidement here is for the power to define the priesthood idiosyncratically, that is, in relation to his per-sonal interests rather than in relation to the following of Christ and the needs and interests of those whom he serves in ministry along with the needs of his brothers and sisters in religious life. The romantic priest is preoccupied with the dignity of his priesthood and tends to impose his romantic view of the church, the priesthood, and the fol- 66.3 2007 I&asevac ¯ Clericalism and the Religious Life lowing of Christ on others, both those whom he serves in ministry and those with whom he lives in community. The romantic priest brings to his community and to the church important values of Catholic culture that many people today miss; he brings a strong sense of tradition and its place in Catholic life. Grounded in something other than the contemporary and the rapidly changing, the romantic priest's rootedness in the genuine values of the past assures that he will not be enamored of every new fad in liturgy or ministry; he sees the present from the perspective of the past, because of his lively sense of the past, and can be an important witness to contemporary Catholic culture, if he does it with balance and without the entidements of clericalism. The Narrowly Focused or Dependent Priest On the face of it, the "narrowly focused priest" is a good priest indeed (much like the romantic priest). He is often quite dedicated, disciplined, prayerful, obedient, and in some (perhaps narrow) senses responsible and chari-table. He does everything that is explicidy asked of him in community and in ministry: he does what he is told, follows the rules, and is thus seen as a responsible priest, even a fine one. One of the roles he does not normally fill is to take the initiative either in ministry or community life. Others-- usually religious superiors (whom he scrupulously obeys) and statutes of his congregation--set the parameters for what is required of him. To deal with the inevitable and complex problems that arise in ministry and in the life of his community is not his calling; this is what supe-riors are for. The problems of community life in par-ticular-- at both the local and provincial levels--are their concern, not his. Further, the narrowly focused priest is often afraid to acknowledge the existence of problems Review for Religious within the ministry or community, because he might then feel the obligation to face them. Hence he may be naive about people in general and naive in choosing those who will bear the authority in his community. Much like the romantic priest, the dependent priest shies away from the complexities of real life, but rather chooses to live in a different world defined by his explicidy spelled-out obli-gations; he is content to bury his head in the sand and let others face the difficult challenges of the ministry and the common life. In both cases there is a kind of escapism to ideal worlds. Although incorporating many of the genuine values of the priesthood and religious life, the dependent priest is a burden on his community precisely insofar as he "leaves it to others," thereby escaping his own responsibility for the common good. Superiors of dependent priests appear "burned out" because they are left to deal with the dif-ficult and often intractable problems of their communities without concrete help or support. Their congregations can be severely damaged by the na'fvet6 that elects incom-petent or otherwise unworthy superiors because depen-dent priests prefer to remain uncritical regarding the real needs of their community and the character and ability of those whom they elect. Entitlement here is for the privilege to define one's obligations as priests and religious in the narrowest of terms, terms which, require litde personal responsibility, litde stress, litde compromise of one's ideals of an essen-tially trouble-free and straightforward ministry and com-munity life. The narrowly focused priest is very close to being a fine priest. He is not normally ambitious, nor a gossip, nor embittered, nor a legalist; rather, he is often humble and obedient, and loath to meddle in the affairs, of others. He generally prizes the "regular life," and lives that life 66.3 2007 Kras~ac ¯ Clericalis~n and the Religious L~fe in a disciplined and balanced way. He is, in a word, com-fortable in his role as a religious priest, largely identifying with it. And he serves both his community and those in his ministry in predictable and necessary ways. Perhaps the key to understanding and overcoming the dependent priest's perceived entidements is in recognizing that "not being of the world" as a priest and religious does not exempt one from having to deal with many of the problems of the world that nevertheless appear in com-munity life and in ministry. These problems cannot be ignored, nor quarantined to be dealt with by others. They are often very real and must be engaged as they arise, even if such engagement cause ruptures in the carefully worked-out and much respected routines of the narrowly focused priest. The Enforcer Priest One of the roles of the ministerial priesthood is to render judgment on people and their acts in the light of the gospel and the church's teaching and with a view to their repentance and salvation. The "enforcer priest" takes this role seriously and is constantly concerned that the misdeeds of others (both the laity and his own brethren) be corrected. Since he rarely if ever takes time off from this mission, his presence is generally felt to be a burden by those around him; he is rarely challenged, however, as his very presence is usually intimidating. Although judgment is a necessary aspect of the priesdy role, the enforcer priest seems preoccupied with it (and often with the punishment that should follow) to the extent that he forgets its end: human salvation. This can happen when judgment is isolated from or allowed to dominate mercy, when the enforcer priest lacks self-knowledge of his own need for mercy, when the ambiguity of all human actions in the external forum is forgotten, when prudence Review for Religious fails to suggest that a particular intervention may be inef-fective or even counterproductive regarding the person's overall good, or when he assumes an almost infallible ability to interpret the law (moral, canonical, liturgical) and its application to a particular situation,s The enforcer priest may be preoccupied with error and judgmentEboth in what people think (orthodoxy) and what they do (orthopraxis) for - a number of rea-sons. He may be threatened by the actions and beliefs of others to the extent that they are perceived to call into question his ° own (perhaps frag-ile) values, beliefs, and lifestyle. He may be emotion-ally unable to live with diversity, ambiguity, and the lack of psychological certitude. He may have fears of ecclesial anarchy if laws are not swiftly and effectively enforced. The entidement here is the ~resumption that a priest may speak for Christ and the church without mercy, with-out prudence, without the nuance that comes from expe-rience and compassion, that he may apply the letter of the law without regard to its purpose, and that (in some cases, at least) he may judge others without first judging himself with rigorous honesty. On a more positive note, fraternal correction is a gos-pel imperative and a crucial need in most religious com-munities (and, of course, in the church at large). We are Alfhough judgment is a necessary a~pect of t~ prestly role, the enforcer priest seems preoccupied with it to the extent that he forgets its end: human salvation. 66.3 2007 260 responsible for one another's well-being in all its aspects. But fraternal correction--if undertaken prudendy, effec-tively, and in a true gospel spirit--is also a particularly difficult task. One who corrects one's brother or sister risks anger, alienation, and the loss of friends. It is much easier to ignore the true needs of one another and to just get along with them peacefully. Real courage is necessary to practice fraternal correction, which sometimes compels us to confront those who need confronting for their good and for the common good. The enforcer priest can show us the way to this responsibility, provided that the cleri-cal entitlements associated with this style of priesthood are held in check. The enforcer priest must learn not to undertake fraternal correction according to his own likes or dislikes, desires, insecurities, preferences, or ideologies, but rather for the sake of the other's true and necessary good, or that of the community, and without intent to embarrass or punish. The Embittered Priest The "embittered priest" has been deeply hurt by cer-tain experiences in ministry or in the life of his religious community (usually the latter) and has tenderly nourished that hurt for a number of years. Perhaps he was slighted by notable others (whether in authority or.not), perhaps never given the responsibility in ministry or community that he thought he deserved, perhaps denied a second term as superior, or perhaps he has just never received the respect from others that he thinks he deserves. As a result, the embittered priest has largely disen-gaged himself from both ministry and community life. He "deserved better" in his many years of priesthood and has now "opted out" of the life that has treated him so poorly. Often older, and sometimes suffering from illness (including alcoholism), the embittered priest is unhappy Review for Religious himself and cannot but make those around him--who are often the ones taking care of him--unhappy also. He sees his clerical entidement as coming from the very fact that he is a priest and religious, rather than from his achievements, character, or talents. He feels this enti-dement so deeply that without it he must withdraw from his basic responsibilities as a priest and religious (although he still feels entided to the rights that his canonical status entails). The life and experiences of the embittered priest point to the reality that we do hurt each other in religious life and that the wounds we inflict can be lasting. We all have different tolerances for being hurt, and we need to be sen-sitive to the harm we can do to others less resilient than ourselves. In addition, the continuing presence of these men in our lives calls us to care for them in their distress even when they neither want nor appreciate our help, but need it. They call us to be Christ in ways that we might not otherwise be. Ideals and Compromises Our following of Christ and our loving ministry in imitation of him in the particular way characterizes the ministerial priesthood is a high ideal, one difficult to achieve and always at risk of compromise. The com-promises we sometimes make may simply stem from our manifold weaknesses and lack of love and then be rec-ognized, repented of, and borne in stride as we take up pursuit of the ideal once again. But our compromises may also stem from our conceptions of the priesthood itself and hence may be more difficult to recognize and repent of. These compromises stem from the ideologies of cleri-calism, 9 ideologies that affect the exercise of the priest-hood of Christ in particularly invidious ways. It is only by recognizing the clerical compromises in the ways we live 66.3 2007 Krasevac * Clericalism and the Religious Life 262] our priesthood in our religious communities that we can begin to address them)° Notes i It is interesting that a sense of entidement is a classic character-istic of all forms of narcissism. 2 How do these entidements arise from clericalism? Perhaps par-tially from an exaggeration and ideologizing of the sacramental differ-ence that holds between the ministerial priesthood and the priesthood of all the baptized, perhaps because priests who have "given up all" for the sake of the kingdom come to believe that they "deserve" some-thing by way of entidement in return, perhaps because the structure of secular society with its manifold entidements has unduly influenced the life of the church 3 Dynamics such as the manifold forms of governance in religious institutes; those institutes' often rich cultural heritages and particular liturgical, doctrinal, and aesthetic traditions; the familial contexts of most forms of religious life, with many religious living closely with each other for many years; and the educational and cultural possibilities generally available to religious priests, and also their mobility. 4 The roots of the word "authority" have to do with "causing to grow." This has obvious meaning for parents' authority over their chil-dren, but it also adds depth to the idea of authority as service; supe-riors and bishops bear a special responsibility to deepen the faith and the personal development of those over whom they have been given authority. 5 The desire for power that stems from clerical entidement may take a different form in religious priests who do not seek authority for themselves, but for those whom they will be able to control. Generally intelligent and shrewd, they care little for the prestige or perks of office, but seek control of those in office, perhaps because they believe that such power is a right of their intelligence and farsightedness. Often this ambi-tion stems from a fear that their brethren will not "get it right" through the normal democratic processes of deliberation and election, or from a fear that if their enemies were elected they would be vulnerable to their attacks. This ambition can also stem from their unwillingness to accept public accountability for their positions and actions. The dynamics of entitlement, however, are essentially the same in all cases of ambition-- entitlement for power over others rather than in service of others. 6 A variation of the priest of leisure is the "hobbyist priest," who loves, not so much the good life of culture, but other aspects of the good life, such as a fascination with computers or a preoccupation with Revie~v for Religious domestic concerns. Hours, days, even weeks can be spent on equiva-lents, with little attention given to traditional responsibilities of the priesthood. Here the hobby provides not a well-deserved respite from priesdy work, but a substitute for it. The entidement issues are essen-tially the same: the priesthood "deserves" (if not requires) a life of leisure, the time and resources to pursue their interests largely unfet-tered by the ministry. 7 One further negative dynamic often present in the lives of gos-siping priests is that they become friends with others who have similar habits of gossiping. Their friendship is not about something good that can lead to their growth as human beings and as religious and priests, but about something that can compromise their friendship at its core and impede their growth in goodness. 8 Unlike the romantic priest, the enforcer priest usually is a "legal-ist," that is, one who is so preoccupied with the letter of the law that he forgets the end to which the law is ordered (ultimately the realization of the good of human salvation) or sees it to be of secondary importance. A certain .myopia prevents the enforcer priest from understanding the relation of means to end, the relative nature of the former to the latter. The enforcer priest and the romantic priest usually believe that oth-ers should live according to the values they think important (values of right belief and conduct / romantic, values). One difference is that the romantic priest is usually not inclined to impose his values on others and is content to live according to them himself and to persuade others of their merit in more subde ways. 9 Ideologies are "views that serve to rationalize the vested interests of some group." "The ideology both justifies what is done by the group whose vested interest is served and interprets social reality in such a way that the justification is made plausible." Peter Berger, An Invitation to Sodology: A Humanistic Perspective (New York: Penguin Books, 1963), pp. 54 and 130. ~0 As mentioned above, a sense of entidement is a classic character-istic of all forms of narcissism (both individual and group), and hence one may expect that narcissistic attitudes will be part and parcel of the phenomenon of clericalism. This is displayed most clearly in those cases where the priesthood is understood as being primarily about the self rather than about Christ and service to others. In these cases the priesthood is seen to be primarily about me and hence is "defined" in terms of my needs and my desires, rather than the needs and desires of those I have been called to serve. In both the gendeman priest and the gossiping priest, there is often a fascination with things "churchy," that is, with the accidentals or outward trappings of church life; this may be true of the romantic 263 66.3 2007 Krusevac * Clericalism and the Religious Life and enforcer priests as well. This concern with "churchiness" may be an enduring aspect of clericalism and is probably bound up with the narcissism that is characteristic of clericalism--focus on the self in its more superficial aspects. Questions for Reflection]Discussion Whether I am a priest or someone exercising ministry in the service of the church, do I find myself described in one or other of the categories proposed by Krasevac? How would I want to add to Or negate some of the qualities? What other major catergories would I want to identify? Do people see a kind of "clericalism" in religious life as lived by both women and men? What forms does this "clericalism" take in religious life? How might we live differently if we religious were to be free of such a designation? 264 Review for Religious PATRICK SEAN MOFFETT Conversations on Eucharist T~Eucharist in its entirety, inclusiveness, and uni-sality is an integral engagement of the worshiping Body of Christ. It constitutes the singular act, par excel-lence, of the believing community. The lay people, priests, and religious of the Roman Catholic Church understand the Eucharist to be the source and summit of the spiritual life (LG §11, Catechism §1324). The Eucharist, and for many centuries the daily Eucharist, has provided aspirants to holiness with sustenance, moral instruction, corporate bonding, and strengthening of belief. No Mass today? On days when there is no Eucharistic celebration accessible, daily communicants might welcome, alone or with others, spiritual engagements that include some of these elements: word and act, thanks and praise, offer-ing and communion. Should such days multiply, daily communicants may need to revisit the grounding of our spirituality. Patrick Scan Moffett CFC wrote for us in 1984 and 2001. He may be addressed at Christian Brothers; 4949 N.E. 2nd Avenue; Miami, Florida 33137. 66.3 2007 ~loffett ¯ on~er~atiom on Eucharist 266, As we extrapolate current trends in priesdy vocations and the growth of the people of God, we perhaps see a time when Eucharist as we know it today will not be readily accessible to much of the church. Some feel called upon to anticipate such an eventuality by reducing the frequency of their own participation in Eucharist. For some formation directors, that decision is extended to those whom they prepare for future service to the church. Others prefer to engage fully in what is currendy avail-able, trustful that either the trends will change or that they will be blessed with the strength to confront such challenges if and when they occur. Age will be a factor in deciding for oneself. Older men and women might see no need to alter a way of life that can safely carry them through their remaining years. Deciding for others calls for serious discernment. No matter which strategy is chosen, we will do well to review the role of daily Eucharist in the spiritualities that have helped to shape .our lives and those of our dis-tant and more recent ancestors. Theologians, canonists, spiritual writers, and spiritual directors have much to contribute to a reexamination of theories and praxes of Eucharistic spiritualities. Conversations on Eucharist, such as those referred to in what follows, could be useful starting points. For purposes of this article and from the perspective of a psychologist, I will offer some preliminary samplings of the interface of Eucharist and the ongoing processes of belonging and self-definition. Varying perspectives will suggest what might need to be considered before defining new paths to holiness. The Eucharist in the lives of daily communicants Recently I have been inviting some daily communi-cants to engage in extended conversation about the place Review for Religious of Eucharist in their lives. The questions I ask and my understanding of responses they evoke are surely con-ditioned by my experience as a religious and as a psy-chologist. What I recognize as themes of agency, identity, relationships, belonging, and development have deeper and richer meaning both for those who are speaking of their insights and for their listeners, who bring their own experiential and intellectual perspectives. The selection of participants is by no means a random sample. Preliminary conversation has indicated that they have been daily commu-nicants for a significant '~ part of their lives and that they are comfortable in sharing their thoughts and feelings. Those who welcome the invitation need little prompting. They readily attest to the ~ centrality of the Eucharist with respect to most of the other engagements of their day. They describe the Mass as bringing together the sacred and the mundane, the joys and the struggles, the fears and the hopes, the hurts and the healing that shape their day. As the initial response concludes, I ask if any moments in the ritual have particular significance for them or bring together what they have just described. Some respond immediately, others pause and then report resistance to singling out any part of the entire experience. One religious, responding to my probing on such aspects of special focus during the Mass, identified the moment of Communion and what he saw as the "all too brief time after Communion." He went on to note that his ordained friends, on the other hand, tend to place the i ask ifany moments " in the ritual have particular significance for them. 267 66.3 2007 Moffett ¯ Conversations on Eucharist 268 emphasis on the Consecration or the Invocation of the Spirit over the gifts. I ask myself and.others: Who are the protagonists in this sacred event? We begin in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. How is the Trinity experienced? Who is With me at Eucharist? Who else is present :around the altar, in the pews, dispersed about the earth, or in the heavens? Who comes from afar, or from long ago? Who of my sisters and brothers, family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, acquaintances are especially present to me during the Mass? Whom do I make present with my thoughts, memories, and prayers? I understand that part of my role is to gather guests from the highways and the alleys. All are welcome. The Master seeks a full house for the sharing of the banquet. Levels of belonging Belonging, as an action and as a consequence of group engagement, contributes to the identification of both the individual and the group. Each member has a creative role in the formation of both the "I" and the "we." Eucharist ritualizes and celebrates who we are as a people and who we are becoming. Observers of human development chart stages of growth. Infancy, childhood, pubescence, adolescence, and young adulthood are seen as steps toward full maturity. So too in groups there are successive levels of belong-ing.~ Members move from acceptance to participation, from participation to engagement, and eventually from engagement to proprietorship. Individuals understand themselves increasingly in terms of the group. Eucharist provides a forum for affirming membership. I have been accepted into the people of God. I am a Catholic. I do what Catholics do. I believe. My engagement in the lives Review for Religious of my brothers and sisters in the church expresses the essence of who I am and who we are. We are the Body of Christ. While there might be a sense in which we "make belief," Pope Benedict XVI has urged caution: Here I think it is very important to stress one essential point: no one believes purely on his own. We always believe in and with the church. The creed is always a shared act: it means letting ourselves be incorpo-rated into a communion of progress, life, words, and thought. ¯. We must let ourselves fall, so to speak, into the communion of faith, of the church. Believing is in itself a Catholic act. It is participation in this great certainty, which is present in the church as a living subject. ¯ . . Day after day we must deepen our communion " with the holy church and thus with the Word of God . Only when we are united in the church do we belong to the church, do we become members of the church, do we live by the word of God which is the life-giving force of the church. And those who live by the word of God can only live it because it is alive and vital in the living church) Identity Those schooled in scholastic philosophy might recall the struggles around the principle of individuation. Prime matter, the amorphous "substance" common to all being, affords no differentiation as such. Form (anima) serves to distinguish between levels of being, but is common to all members of the same stratum of being. To arrive at differentiation, attention is directed to the baecceitas, the "thisness" of a particular being. Form is imposed on the universal matter in the here and now (see Th.Aq., De Veritate 2.6-7). The action yields an individual being. What might also be attributed to the seemingly infinite possibilities of constellations of DNA is explained as deriv- 269 66.3 2007 Moffett * Conversations on Eucharist ing its uniqueness from the moment of incarnation. Word is made flesh and dwells among us. At some moment in time and in a particular place I am, we are. A series of events earns me a name, a role, and a his-tory. They bond°me with clusters of other human beings, groups among whom I have an ever more distinct place as both individual and member. I belong to a family, a group of friends, of associates, a community, a country. I am an alumnus, a professional, a supporter of causes, a member of a party, or perhaps one of the group that shuns such memberships. These group-forming events may be circumstantial or intentional. I do not choose my family. My first friends tend to be those in Participation in daily Eucharist confirms an aspect self-definition and en ga ged,me in a process of ego ,extension. the immediate vicin-ity or at my school. Gradually I become more selective. I go away to a university. I choose a profession, opening new possi-bilities of bonding. I marry. I am ordained. I join a religious congregation. Each choice helps to define me and also the others I include when using the first per-son plural. Participation in daily Eucharist confirms an aspect of self-definition and engages me in a process of ego extension. 270 Prayer in the first person plural The Eucharistic ritual may be viewed as an exercise in gathering. Whoever is present joins with the priest and others "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Each successive "Amen" serves to expand and to confirm this bonding among those who Review for Religious seek mercy, offer praise, listen to the word, and proclaim "Thanks be to God." Together we express our belief in all that defines us individually and collectively as people of God. We ask God to hear our prayers. The celebrant invites us to ask that our sacrifice be acceptable. We lift up our hearts to the Lord. From the end of the offertory through the Eucharistic Prayer, the first person singular occurs only in the words of Jesus: This in my body, my blood. Do this in memory of me. We unite in the Memorial Acclamation and begin to acclaim our larger sense of who stands with us in the pres-ence of our God: our ancestors, saints, angels, all who have gone before us, our sisters and brothers, the church throughout the world. Together in the unity of the Holy Spirit we proclaim the great Amen. The Our Father makes repeated use of the first person plural. The first person singular returns with the Communion. I am not worthy, but I will be healed so that I may join with the others in sharing the bread. The ritual concludes in the communal blessing, again in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and with a com-munal Amen. In union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world In the conversations on Eucharist, the daily partici-pants often express the belief that what is happening in their local church or chapel is part of a larger, continu-ous gathering of the church throughout the world and throughout the ages. They refer to the Last Supper as the initiation of an event that is as much a present reality as it is the deposit of the faith of their ancestors. Several reli-gious have noted that, while religious formation helped shape their understanding of Eucharist, they brought the practice from their families. 271 66.3 2007 Moffe~ ¯ Conversations on Eucharis~ They go on to indicate that the time of the Mass itself is not necessarily when they have the most powerful expe-rience of the presence of the Lord. They speak of cen-tering prayer, lectio divina, or moments in ministry or service as the source of a joy that they will later bring to the Eucharist. Visits to the Blessed Sacrament The preservation of the Eucharistic species for pur-poses of cult is minutely regulated by tradition and decree. Today's priesthood, the ordained and the nonordained participation of the laity, has reset the bounds of the sacred. Devotion takes new forms. The liturgy empha-sizes the immolation of the sacrificial Victim and the communal consumption of the divine banquet. Our times are marked by fewer priests, fewer celebrations, multifunctional worship spaces, limited visiting hours--scarcity issues and vagrancy concerns. Ecumenical unease marks practices that others might not distinguish from idolatry or superstition. And yet churches in retirement areas are reporting that the chapels of the Blessed Sacrament are centers of vibrant and steady worship. Youth leaders attest that silent time before the Blessed Sacrament has a unique attraction for many of today's adolescents. They willingly participate in quiet beholding. Behold announces some of the more powerful moments of the Scriptures. Adam and Eve have such a moment, and it evokes fear. Jacob experiences the Lord poised over Youth leaders attest thdt silent time before the Blessed Sacrament,has a= unique attraction for many of today's adolescentd. Review for Religious him and marvels: "Indeed, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know" (Gn 28:17). Mary is shaken by the words of the annunciation and responds, inviting reflection on what she is experiencing. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." Generations have waited to behold the Wonder Counselor, the Prince of~ Peace. John the Baptist identifies Jesus: "Behold the Lamb of God" (Jn 1:35). And years later a peasant is asked to explain a daily ritual. Coming home from work in the fields, he visits a chapel, slips into a pew, and simply sits for half an hour before the tabernacle. To what end? "I look at Him and He looks at me." Perception The beholder and the beheld enter into a moment of profound access to each other. Each delights in the other, the Creator and the created, the Redeemer and the redeemed, the Spirit and the confirmed. Past and future converge in an experience of the divine Presence, Self-absorption? Me and Jesus? The communicants claim that the Eucharist makes it much more. There under the sign of bread are the lives of those, united in banquet and sacrifice, who do all in memory of the Lord: the priest called from among the people to articulate their hurts and hopes, one with. them in uniting their daily lives to that of Jesus, believers and those helped in their unbelief, those commemorated, the living and the dead, a communion of the faithful. This is the Body of Christ, the people of God, the church. Here I am at once at home and in the world, with those I know and love, with those I do not know but seek to love. We forgive and are forgiven. Agency Conversations afford an insight into the perceived "agency" of the speaker.3 In describing my actions I 66.3 2007 Moffett * Conversations on Eucharist acknowledge aspects of my engagement that come from within. I choose to go, I seek out, I attend, I listen, I pray. I work past dis.tractions, past reservations about the celebrant or my fellow congregants. Yes, I am an agent in the process. Those who accompany me are also agents. We chose to act together. The Lord is, in a similar sense, the principal agent of the Eucharist. Paul teaches that the Lord whose kingdom is among us and whose will is being done on earth and in heaven is transforming us as individuals and as a group. Scriptures reveal a God who is "forming a people particularly his own" (Tt 2:14). We profess that as we engage in Eucharist the Lord is doing great things among us. In the last analysis my agency is simply one of consent-ing to what the Lord is doing to me, to us. Here a psychol-ogist invites others to carry forward the conversation. Choosing to stay the course--the joy of the journey This brief summary of what I am hearing from a very small set of the faithful brings us back to the conclusion of the first recorded conversation on Eucharist. John had Jesus' listeners requesting "Give us always this bread." Jesus indicates that they do not fully understand what they are asking. '¢I'his is the bread that has come down from heaven; not as your fathers ate the manna, and died. He who eats this bread shall live forever" (Jn 6:59). Jesus challenges his listeners. Some depart. Others join Peter, a bit perplexed, but willing to stay the course: "To whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.We have come to believe and to know that you are the Christ, the Son of God" (Jn 6:69-70). Peter does not always get it right. Paul calls him to task on the issue of who is invited to the feast (Ga 2:12). A postresurrection conversation on the way to Emmaus moves two early disciples. They seek out the others and Review for Religious share with burning hearts what happened along the way and in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24:33). That conver-sation continues and needs to continue in our day. Notes 1 P.S. Moffett, "Promoting Agency among Children and Adolescents at the Margins" (Invited Address, American Psychological Association), Journal of Pastoral Counseling 30 (1995). 2 Discourse/speech of Pope Benedict XVI with the Clergy of Rome, 2 March 2006. See the Vatican web page. 3 Dan P. McAdams, The Stories We Live By (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993); David Bakan, The Duality of Human Existence: Isolation and Communion in Western Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996). Prayer Lord, do you now therefore, speaking through my lips, pro-nounce over this earthly travail your twofold efficacious word: the word without which all that our wisdom and our experi-ence have built up must totter and crumble~the word through which all our most far-reaching speculations and our encounter with the universe are come together into a unity. Over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day say again the words: This is my Body. And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, speak again your commanding words which express the supreme mystery of faith: this is my Blood. Teilhard de Chardin, The Mass on the World from Hym .of the Universe, p. 23. 66.3 2007 the feminine DAMIAN C. ILODIGWE Mary and the Magnificat 276 The church teaches us that the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed into heaven body and soul at the end of her earthly life, to share in the glory of her Son. This is what the solemnity of the Assumption celebrates. It is the victory of Christ over sin and death. Mary was the first beneficiary of this victory, and that is why God preserved her body from decay, not allowing it to undergo corruption. But the victory of Christ is also our victory, as the church affirms in the mystery of faith when we proclaim "Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus, come in glory." Like several other feasts of Mary, the Assumption underlines the place of Mary in Christian life. This derives from her privileged choice as the Mother of the Savior. It is not as if she was chosen for this important assignment Damian C. Ilodigwe'is a priest and a lecturer in philoso-phy at Ss. Peter and Paul Major Seminary; P.M.B. 5171, Secretariat P.O; Ibadan, Nigeria. dammychuks@yahoo. tom Review for Religio~s because of anything she was. The choice was gratuitous, depending wholly on God's grace. It is only fitting and proper that mankind should also honor her after she was so honored by God. From the text of Mary's song of thanksgiving in response to the greeting and commendation of her cousin Elizabeth, it is evident that Mary was not oblivious of the significance of her ~privileged choice. She was aware that it was the work of the Lord. And the reality of her choice filled her with immense gratitude and appreciation, to which she gave expression in the celebrated words .of the Magnificat: My soul proclaims the greamess of the Lord, and my spirit exults in God my savior, because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid. Yes, from this day forward all generations will call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name, and his mercy is from age to age for those who fear him. (Lk 1:46-50) Mary, Privilege and Responsibility We share in the sentiments of appreciation that Mary expresses here. We all enjoy one privilege or another, and, when we come to appreciate the value of what we have, it is often with gratitude. Consider, for instance, the joy of motherhood or fatherhoo& It is a unique privilege to be the father of a child just as it is a unique privilege to be the mother of a child. None of us ever chooses our parents. They are one of those things that are given to us. In the case of his only-begotten Son, God. made the choice of his mother and Mary was the woman. But the joy of mother-hood is not in any way diminished. On the contrary, it is elevated to a greater height because Mary's child is not just any child, but the savior of the world, the Son of God. It is one thing to say that .the joy of motherhood is unique. It is another thing to be a good mother. One is a 277 66.3 2007 llodig~e ¯ Nlary and the ~lagn~at privilege and the other is a duty. For every privilege there is a corresponding responsibility. Being a good mother is the responsibility that goes with the privilege of being a mother. In the case of Mary, she not only enjoyed the privilege but was also a good mother. She took seriously the duties that follow from being a mother. And this we can confirm from the various episodes in the life of Jesus right from the moment of his conception to the time he was buried.1 What we notice is an inseparable union between mother and Son, with the mother doing all she could .to care for her Son. She shared in the sufferings of her Son and remained with him when the going became tough and everyone deserted him. Little wonder she is called the mother of sorrows, given that she was fully united with her son in his passion. The two hearts were one in suffering. It is only logical, then, that when Jesus achieved his glory he should make sure that his mother shared in his glory. This is the logic that underpins the mystery of the Assumption of Mary into heaven. We can regard it as an explicit reward for Mary's fidehty,z True, by the privileged choice of God, she became the mother of Jesus, being preserved from original sin. But it was .by her own cooperation with the grace of God that she preserved her virginity and remained sinless all through her life, so that in her we witness the triumph of life over death, a result that awaits all who walk in the footsteps of Christ. 278 The Example of Mary and Our Contemporary Situation We might ask what all this means for us. The truth is that we too ~are privileged to be followers of Jesus. It is a privilege to be a Christian, and by virtue of our being Christians we carry Jesus in,our hearts. Jesus dwelt in the womb of Mary for nine months and through this medium Review for Religio~ was introduced to the world. Mary's womb was the origi-nal .locus of the mystery of the incarnation. The Word took flesh first in the womb of Mary before he was born in Bethlehem. By the power of divine grace, this same action takes place when we are baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Word made flesh makes our heart his abode and dwells with us and among us, and through us he is intro-duced to the world. So it is always a unique moment when we step forward to receive Jesus . in Holy Communion. This moment is fundamental to the definition of our Christian identity in the sense that it invites us to become what we receive. While it is a privilege to bear Jesus in our hearts, we need to ask ourselves how well we fulfill the duties deriv-ing from this privilege. We need to ask how we are living as Christians. I suppose this is where the life of Mary speaks to us. We should be concerned to know whether we are giving our best to our Christian commitment. There is no question that the challenges of being a Christian are enormous. They call for a great deal of sacrifice, and it is unlikely that we shall measure up unless we are supported by the grace of God. To love God with all our hearts and serve him with a single-minded devotion is not something easy. It will often require us to do what we would rather not do. And sometimes it may mean having to put off our plan and agenda in order to allow God to have his place in our life. It means preferring God to self and to any other human being. This is what it means to love God in all things and above all things. ~ It is a privilege to be ,. . ~ a Christian, and by virtue of our being Christians ¯ we car~Jesus in,our hearts. 279 66.3 2007 Ilodigwe ¯ Mary and the Magnificat Given her status as protodisciple of Jksus, we can confidently turn to her to teach us how to be disciples of her Son. 280] The demand is radical. But we need not be afraid because in Mary we have an example of one who has passed through this challenge. We see, for example, how she strug-gled through the challenge of accepting God's plan and putting aside her original plan of marrying Joseph. It is not as easy as it sounds. We must consider that it was really a painful choice, as it will be in deciding for God in difficult circumstances in our life. With Mary, however, her faith was the secret of her success. We cannot forget easily her celebrated fiat, which should be our own attitude to all that life brings to us, especially when it seems to run contrary to our desires. "Let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38) was her response to the angel's invitation to be the mother of Jesus, despite all the confusion and trouble that the thought of this caused her. It is always best to prefer the will. of God to our own will or the will of any other mortal. We may not see the point immediately, but it always turns out that our peace truly lies in the will of God. There are probably no saints who did not come to realize this basic point at some time in their life. It is the same point that St. Augustine expresses at the summit of his search for God when he says, "Our hearts are made for you, O God, and we remain resdess until we rest in you." This has remained the deepest spiritual truth that all disciples of Jesus must learn if they are to attain the life of blessedness, which is the ultimate reward of discipleship. Mary was the first to teach this lesson and live it out by the manner of her life. Review for Religious Thus she was not only the Mother of Jesus, but also the first disciple of Jesus. She was the first to follow him as he deserves to be followed. And in following him she did not spare herself. She gave everything she could give, so that the bond between mother and Son was no mere physical bond, nor was it a mere biological bond. True, they were bonded physically and biologically. Yet the most crucial bond proved to be the spiritual bond, since mother and Son were one in heart and mind. Because of this deep spiritual bond, the mother was prepared to be spent for her Son and, true to Simeon's prophecy, her heart was pierced with sorrow,6 so that like the man of sorrows she became the mother of sorrows, identifying most fully with her Son's predicament (see Lk 2:21-3 5). On one occasion Jesus had been teaching, and there came a message that his brothers and sisters were waiting to see him. In his characteristic manner, he turned to the crowd and responded by asking, "Who are my brothers and sisters?" He then went on to answer that "my broth-ers and sisters are those who do the will of my Father." We may say the question is startling. But the answer conveys his meaning, that the spiritual bond is more important than the biological bond, so that it is not our physical affiliation with Jesus that matters as much as our spiritual affiliation with him. Of course there is no opposition between the two. Yet to ignore the claim of the latter at the expense of the former easily empties discipleship of its true meaning. We must say that Jesus' emphasis on the spiritual serves to preclude this possibility. No one other than Mary under-stood the demand of both affiliations. Indeed in her we find an excellent integration of both demands. Beyond the fact that she was the mother of Jesus, she sought above all to realize the will of God in her life even at the cost of great pain and sacrifice. 66.3 2007 Ilodig'we ¯ ~/~ary and the ~Vlaffnificat Given her status as protodisciple of Jesus, we can confidendy turn to her to teach us how to be disciples of her Son. We can turn to her to teach us how to love and serve her Son with all our heart. As she was always there for Jesus, she is always there for us, since by the gift of her Son she has also became our mother, and what a good mother she is! She continues her work still on behalf of us her children from her heavenly throne, where she reigns with her Son in the glory of the resurrection. She continues to labor to ensure the fulfillment of her Son's wish that all people be saved. Thus, on a day such as the solemnity of the Assumption, we must ask her for the grace to grow in our knowledge, love, and service of Jesus. We must ask her to obtain for us the grace to be faithful to our Christian commitment, so that at the end of our lives here on earth we shall .have the privilege of entering into the glory of the Lord. Notes ' See Federico Suarez, Joseph of Nazareth (Abingdon, England: Scepter, 1982), chapters 6-7. 2 See Mark Miravalle, Introduction to Mary: The Heart of Marian Devotion and Doctrine (Santa Barbara: Queenship Publishing Company, 1993), chapter 2. Review for Religious LEO HERETO Margaret, the Woman of Becchi Mthargaret Bosco was the mother of John Bosco, e diocesan priest who began the Salesian soci-ety for the education of poor and abandoned youth in Turin, a congregation that soon spread through Italy and around the world. Today it is in 192 countries. Hugh of St. Victor declared in the 12th century that the aim of all human activity is the recovery° of Eden and that Eden's very nature is to be unchangeable. In the garden two persons, a man and a woman, failed. The story is stark as narrated in Genesis 3:1-20. In John Bosco's life a woman played a most important part. It is a hundred and fifty years since this woman, Margaret Occhiena, passed away, but her profound influence remains in the Salesians of St. John Bosco. When we think of vocations to the priesthood and to consecrated life, we must never underestimate the feminine dimension. Vocations seem to spring from the womb of women devoted to God and his divine will. When her father in his patriarchal way decided on marriage for his daughter, Leo Hereto SDB writes from Don Bosco Technical Centre; Postal Box 124; Apia, Samoa. 66.3 2007. Hereto * Margaret, the Woman of Becchi 284 Margaret Occhiena married the widower Francis Bosco, a young farmer twenty-seven years old. He had lost his first wife after six years of marriage and was left with a three-year- old son, Anthony. At her marriage in June 1812, Margaret was twenty-three. This marriage saw the birth of Joseph in 1813 and John on 16 August 1815. Francis was to die in May 1817 after suffering what appears to be some type of pneumonia. Before dying he asked Margaret to "take special care of our baby John, who is just twenty-one months old." At twenty-nine Margaret was left with three children, her stepson and her own two boys, and her mother-in-law, the children's "Nonna." Her catechetical method was not what she learned from books, for she was unable to read, but she empha-sized living in the presence of God. The children were taught the importance of duty, openness to others, and never to say no to anyone in need, whether that person was a beggar or a fugitive from the police. Margaret would spend the night with dying people, holding their hands and consoling them. Her children were three dif-ferent characters. Anthony had lost his mother at three and his father at nine, and these deaths had left a scar on his character that made him hostile and nasty in the family. He was "like a bear with a sore head." When his grandmother ("Nonna") died in 1826, he often became violent. He had a deep dislike for his stepbrother John. When John set a book down on the table, the young man would toss it with a great deal of bravado into the wood stove, stamp his foot, and say, "We are workers, and only workers are accepted in this house." Margaret treated this little "Pharaoh" with great calm and concern, never beating him for his misbehavior and always treating him with great kindness as her husband's son. Anthony would sometimes hurl cutting and hurtful words at Margaret, often using the Italian word for stepmother (matrigna), a Review for Religious word with harsh and insulting overtones. Margaret never made an issue of this, but treated him gently but firmly. The Time of Great Decision. In 1835, as John reflected on his vocation, he felt the appeal of joining the Franciscans who had a center among the hills of Piedmont. Poor peasant that he was, he knew that his mother would find it hard to provide the fees for the seminary at Turin. So,he met the prior of the Franciscans, who made him sit for an examination. He passed it very well and was ready to begin his pos-tulancy that year. When John's parish priest heard about this desire of his to join the Franciscans, he rushed to Mama Margaret and told her in shock of her son's proposal to become a Franciscan. Faithful parishioner, the good lady listened to him and reflected on what he said. Later that day, when John came home, his mother with womanly wisdom said, "I have nothing to say to you regarding your vocation, except that you should do what God inspires you to do! Do not be concerned on my behalf. You owe me nothing. Never forget that I was born in poor circum-stances and have lived in poverty all my life. I am happy to die poor. I tell you this seriously. If you ever become wealthy, I shall never cross your doorstep!" John went to the seminary. After his first Mass at Becchi, Margaret had something to confide to her son. "John, you area priest. You will be , "!Neve~rforget that I was born in poor circumstances and ~ ' havk lived in poverty all my life. , i am happy to die poor." 285 66.3 2007 Hereto ¯ ~largaret, the Woman of Becchi 286] celebrating the Eucharist, and so you will be closer to Christ. Remember, John, that to begin to celebrate Mass is also to begin to suffer. You will not realize this at once, but you will gradually become more and more aware of it." In 1844 John finally finished his postsacerdotal stud-ies and began his apostolate for the benefit of boys and young men. He found that without some type of hostel his work for boys would be in vain, He managed to buy a place, the "Pinardi shed," in the "red light" area of Turin. Close to this shed was the villa Gioiosa, notorious for the characters that fitted into this industry. Don Bosco gradu-ally built up a kind of club consisting of boys who were orphans or were seeking work in the big city or had been driven there from the countryside that had been ravaged by drought in recent years. Spending time with these young men, he would have heard people cry, "What are you doing with these young-sters?" His mother was the answer to this problem. She was fifty-three years old, matron or rather queen in her home at Becchi, surrounded by her children and her chil-dren's children. But, when asked by her son to be a part-ner in his apostolate, she packed a small basket with her few clothes, her folded wedding dress and not much more, and went with him to face the chaIlenges of an apostolate among the rejected of society. With this wise mother of his, he would discuss things. And she did the cooking for two hundred, mending their torn clothes, looking after the sick. She became so involved in this apostolate that to.some it seemed rashness or misdirected faith. When a poor beggar came to the door looking for food, Margaret looked at her wedding ring and gave it to him to help feed his large family. Love is limidess. Her wedding dress sym-bolically became a vestment for the Lord. As the rough and at times uncouth young men streamed into the shed at night, she would offer them a thought for the day. Review for Religious In Salesian tradition this became what is called a "good night" (buonanorte) In November 1856 the little lady of Becchi was fast fading away. With deep faith she received her son's bless-ing and the anointing of sick. On 25 November, at sixty-three years of age, this woman of grace gave her soul back to God. Like Monica she asked John not to fret over her going but to remember her at Mass. In her little room were a few old clothes, patched and repatched. Pope John Paul II said of her, "She was a woman of God." Sonnet for the Fall The story of our ancient discontent, Or myth, or fable, or a rueful guess, Catching the heart's sense of slow, sad descent, From fresh to stale, from much to less and less; The arriving, never quite where we went, Words, never quite sufficient to express Exactly what we mean, or thought we meant, The failure even of seeming success. "You'll learn," we tell our children and they will, As we have learned, whose parents learned it, too - The lesson only living can instill, Teaching us Augustine's prayer anew: Lord, thou hast made us for thyself and we Fall, ever, till we fall to rest in thee. Ian T. White 66.3 2007 DAVID COGHLAN Discernment in Common as Cooperative Inquiry apostolic direction 288 The special issue of The Way Supplement in 1996 reflected on the experience of communal discernment. After what it described as a tidal wave of enthusiasm and unrealistic expecta-tions in the 1970s, it noted that "the process of group discernment now holds real possibilities for effective understanding and action."' It is in this context that I explore discernment in com-mon and introduce cooperative inquiry, a form of action ~esearch which is compatible with the kind of faith activity that discernment is and accords with how discernment in common may be conducted. The word research is associated in most peo-ple's minds with theories. Research is conducted in the world of ideas and their formulation. This model has shaped the social sciences since the 17th century. Research, on this model, examines David Coghlan SJ is a lecturer in organizafon development at Trinity College, Dublin. His address is 129 Morehampton Road; Dublin 4, Ireland. dcoghlan@tcd.ie Review for Religious an "objective" truth which exists outside of the world of the researcher and is disconnected from the action of everyday life. Research techniques are thus concerned with objective impartiality, with forms of knowledge that can be defended propositionally and so are considered to be valid and to apply universally. Social sci-ence no longer works with this model alone. When postmodern-ism began to emerge some thirty years ago, people became more aware of language, and in particular of how our experience is influ-enced as much by the language we use as by any objective reality. Others have come to regard human inquiry as seeking knowledge not simply for its own sake, but also for the enhancement of good practice in everyday life. Now, it is argued, is a time for science in action rather than just about action.2 Action research is such a science in action. Action research is research that aims at both taking action and c~'eating knowledge or ,theory about that action. What Is Action Research? As the name suggests, action research is research that aims at both taking action and creating knowledge or theory about that action. The outcomes are an action and some new knowledge, not knowledge only. In effect, action research is about creating forms of inquiry that people can use in the conduct of their lives and involves changing what we take as knowledge. It reflects a con-cern for an "action turn" to replace the linguistic turn of postmodernism.3 It has origins and roots in diverse fields: the social psychology experiments of Kurt Lewin, 66.3 2007 Coghlan ¯ Discernment in Common the pragmatic philosophy of John Dewey, the emergent field of organization development, the liberationist work of Paulo Freire, Catholic action, liberation theology, and feminist thought.4 Ignatian spirituality and action research have a lot in common, and action research contributes to spirituality research. There are some striking overlaps between motifs of Ignatian spirituality--a spirituality in which "action" is a central motif---and the features of this new pattern of thinking in the social sciences called "action research.''5 There are striking convergences between the idea of action research and Ignatian teaching about the interplay of prayer and action. The technical concepts developed by action research theory help sharpen the reflection encour-aged by Ignatian spirituality. Though the methods of the social sciences are sometimes reductive, either ignoring the religious or else translating it into other allegedly more accurate terms, the epistemology and processes of action research are quite appropriate to the knowledge born of grace and religious faith. In this vein, it can be proposed that there is an Ignatian approach to social science. It has been apparent to me for many years that Ignatius was very modern in his approach to reflexive inquiry. This article is a development of an earlier one and continues the endeavor to bring Ignatian spirituality and action research together.6 The purpose is twofold. First, I want to introduce a stream within action research prac-tice, balled cooperative inquiry, and show how it can have close links to discernment in common in the Ignatian tra-dition. Second, I wish to advance further the articulation of an Ignatian approach to social science research so that the practice of discernment in common may be given a voice as research. The contribution, therefore, is to those who undertake research in spirituality and may use action research in researching discernment in common. Review for Religiou~ One contribution that action research theory, can make to Ignatian spirituality comes from the idea that an integrative approach to research incorporates three differ-ent practices, which are called "first person," "second per-son," and "third person.''7 Ignatian first-person practice is concerned with how people find God in their own expe-rience. Ignatian sec- ~ ond-person practice focuses on people's relationships in their shared inquiry about their life together as Christians. Ignatian ~, third-person prac-tice moves beyond the direcdy personal ~ and seeks to enrich the life of the church and the world. In this article, I introduce cooperative inquiry as a form of second-person practice to link with Ignatian second-person practice of discernment in common. The knowledge born of faith and prayer (experien-tial knowing) is expressed in presentational form through our images of God, through the language of our prayers, through religious art and music. This experiential and presentational knowing is articulated in propositional form in the statements of our faith, in the creed, in how our beliefs are formulated and understood through theol-ogy. All this is expressed in practical knowing as we apply ourselves to trying to live the Christian faith. Action research, too, works with ways of knowing that go beyond the propositional form that we think of as research.8 With this brief summary of links between Ignatian spirituality and action research, I now introduce cooperative inquiry as a specific stream of expression within action research. Action, rese arch works with ways :of knowing that go beyond the propositional form , that we think Of'as research. 66.3 2007 Cogblan * Discernment in Common 292. Cooperative Inquiry9 John Heron and Peter Reason define cooperative inquiry "as involving two or more people researching a topic through their own experience of it in order to (1) understand their world to make sense of their life and develop new and creative ways of looking at things and (2) learn how to act to change things they might want to change and find out how to do things better.1° As John Heron puts it, "it is a vision of persons in reciprocal relation using the full range of their sensibilities to inquire together into any aspect of the human condi-tion with which the transparent mid-body can engage.''1~ In cooperative inquiry each person is a co-subject in the experience phases by participating in the activities being researched and a co-researcher in the reflection phases by participating in generating ideas, designing and managing the project, and drawing conclusions. Cooperative inquiry goes something like this. 1. A group agree on what they want to explore. The group may be formed specifically for this purpose. The group talk about their interests and concerns, agree on the focus of the inquiry, and develop together a set of questions or proposals the members wish to explore. As an example, Reason mentions a group of obese and post-obese women who met to explore their experience, how they were stereotyped in society, and how it was difficult for them to obtain appropriate attention from doctors. 2. The group bring actions from their everyday situ-ations into the inquiry after initiating some actions and observing and recording the outcomes of their own and each other's behavior. 3. The group members as co-researchers become fully immersed in their experience. They may go deeper into the experience, or they may be led away from the original Review for Religious ideas and proposals into new fields, unpredicted action, and creative insights. 4. After an agreed period engaged in phases two and three, the co-researchers reassemble to consider their original questions in the light of their experience. Cooperative inquiry works on iteration, or cycling through the four steps. Repetitions--perhaps between six and ten cycles on an inquiry topic--can help toward better understanding of an issue, an improved grasp of the whole issue and its parts. An important element of cooperative inquiry is that it works with the different ways of knowing we discussed earlier. In cooperative inquiry, inquiry is deeper and richer if the different ways of knowing work together, "if our knowing is grounded in our experience, expressed through our stories and images, understood through ideas which make sense to us, and expressed in worthwhile action in our lives."12 Cooperative inquiry is a way of doing research that is radically different from the traditional way. It involves people examining their own experiences and action in collaboration with others who share similar interests and concerns. The heart of the learning process is threefold.13 First, learning takes place through iterative cycles of action and reflection. Second, this learning takes place in a cooperative inquiry group of peers who provide mutual support and challenge. Third, through the process partic-ipants develop a quality of self-reflective inquiry whereby they learn to attend to their own experience and learn how to learn from experience. Heron emphasizes that there is no one account of cooperative inquiry and that his comprehensive presentation should not be construed as the account.~4 This is an important point, for it opens up the possibility of exploring discernment in common as cooperative inquiry. 293 66.3 2007 Coghlan * Discernment in Common Having presented a brief outline of action and research and a general introduction to cooperative inquiry, I now explore how cooperative inquiry and the Ignatian tradi-tion of discernment in common may be linked. To do this They held, as principle thatGod l .,. is kind and gift-giving~ndI ~ / that they should earnestly ;~ seek what God wantedoff ~hern~ .,,. ~ I focus on one partic-ular discernment in common, namely, that of the early Jesuits who met in 1539 to discern their future as a group.~s It is not my intention to focus on discernment in common as such, nor to explore its nuances and processes, nor to do a textual analysis or engage in discussions of the Deliberation's place in the development of discernment in common.~6 In this article my aim is first to introduce the Deliberation in summary form and second to see if the elements of cooperative inquiry can be found in the Deliberation. 2,94 The Deliberation of 1539 On 13 August 1534 at Monmartre in Paris, Ignatius and his six companions pronounced vows of poverty and chastity and a vow to go to Jerusalem, and then they dis-persed. In January 1537 the seven, joined by three others, met in Venice. They spent the next two years in Venice and Rome, preaching and working with the poor. This group of priests was held together by the love of Christ, dedication to apostolic work, the authority of the pope, and the leadership of Ignatius. The time came when dis-persal was imminent, for the pope planned to send them in response to requests from bishops all over Europe. The question was whether this would be the end of the group Review for Religious as a~ group or whether it would seek to establish itself more formally as a group. In 1539 the group deliberated on what it wanted to do. There was a diversity of nationalities in the group, French, Spanish, Savoyard, and Portuguese, and there was diversity of feeling and opinion. Accordingly, the first issue they dealt with was process. They held as principle that God is kind and gift-giving and that they should ear-nestly seek what God wanted of them. There were prepa-ration steps and procedure steps. During the day each man would meditate and reflect on the questions and in the evening share his thoughts with the group and in par-ticular share his reasons and judgments. The intention was that "all with one mind would embrace the truer way of thinking, tested and commended by the more powerful reasons and by majority vote" (187). The first question they confronted was whether to bond together so that geography would not separate them or to cut their ties and disperse. "In the end we estab-lished the affirmative side of the question, that., we ought not split apart what God had gathered and united" (192). The reasons were their shared history and the signs they saw of what God was doing in them. The second question was whether, along with their vows of chastity and poverty, it would "be advantageous [to] pronounce a third vow, namely, of obedience to some-one from among us" (194). This opened up the ques-tion of authority in the group and, in effect, whether the group would form a religious order or not. "Then we had persisted in prayer and thought for many days without hitting on any satisfactory resolution of our uncertainty. We. started to cast about for better ways of working out such a resolution" (195). Given the impasse they were in, would it be better for the group to go away to a hermitage and be secluded, 66.3 2007 Cogblan ¯ Discernment in Common 296 Each was to ready himself through prayer, Masses, and meditation to reach the or should they stay in the city and continue their apos-tolic ministry, or should they delegate a few to reach a conclusion on behalf of the group? They opted to stay in the city and continue their apostolic ministry and give half of every day to their deliberation. Each was to ready himself through prayer, Masses, and meditation to reach the right dispo-sitions. Second, none of the companions was to communicate with any-one else about the issue. right dispositions. Third, each was to think ' ~, ' of himself as a stranger ~ to the group and so to be more objective and not caught up in the emotions of a group member. These preparations were to enable each member to make an individual contribution to the whole process, presenting his personal view. When the group convened, it used another proce-dure, also aimed at shifting the impasse. "Each one was to declare all the disadvantages which could be brought against obedience [by vow, to one of our group], all the reasons which presented themselves, and which anyone of us had found in his own private reflections, meditation, and prayer. What he had gathered, each in his turn was to make known" (201). "On the next day we argued for the opposite side of the question, each one putting before the group all the advantages and good consequences of such obedience which he had drawn from prayer and medita-tion. Each took his own turn to present his reflections" (203). Eventually they reached their outcome. "During many days, from this side and that, we worked over a mass of Review for Religious data related to the resolution of our problem, we exam-ined and weighed the more forceful and important rea-sons and took time as usual for prayer, meditation, and reflection. By the Lord's help, we did at last, not [just] with a majority judgment but without a single dissenting voice, come to this conclusion: Obedience to one of us is highly advantageous and highly necessary in order to ful-fill more effectively and exacdy our primary desire of ful-filling God's will in all details of life, in order to preserve the Society more assuredly, and finally in order to pro-vide properly for all the detailed matters of spiritual and temporal business which arise" (205). The Deliberation took almost three months. As Jules Toner comments, the success of the more fully developed method for discern-ment was not only the reformulation of the process from the first question in order to deal with the more complex second question: it was also their establishing a method that they used on many other questions over a longer period of time (208). The Deliberation as Cooperative Inquiry Now I discuss how the Deliberation may be viewed in terms of cooperative inquiry, drawing on the four-point process that I oudined above. The first point is clear. A group had an issue that its members needed to explore together; the group met to seek where God was leading it, whether toward dispersal or formal ties between its mem-bers. While it had an informal leader of great influence in the person of Ignatius, the group met as peers. Second, it did not convene just to make a management decision but to engage in a reflective process that included each

Issue 63.3 of the Review for Religious, 2004. ; Communal Discernment . Heritages Prayer Vocation QUARTERLY 63.3 2004 Revlew for Rel~igious helps people respond'and be faithful to Goit~s universal call to holiness "by making available to ~be~° tbe spiritua! legiicie~s tbat flow from the cbarisms of Catbolic,~consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ° Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ ~reb site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ St. Joseph's Provincial House 333 South Seton Avenue ¯ Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2004 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. 0 for religious LIIV~NG OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Column Scripture Column Editorial Staff Vdebmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann" Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehme~ ASC Steve Erspamer SM Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukerids CSJ QUARTERLY 63.3 2004 contents 230 communal discernment Election and Communal Discernment: Goals, Myths, and Gifts Ted Dunn clarifies some of the reasons for using communal discernment as a method for electing leadership. 244 249 heritages Frances Siedliska's Mystical Life Barbara Sudol CSFN enters us into the mystical prayer experiences that marked the life of Frances Siedliska, foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Is Even More Good Coming from Nazareth? A. Paul Dominic SJ gives witness to the new form of religious life represented in the Little Brothers of Jesus. 263 274 prayer Not for the Faint of Heart: Journaling into Honest Prayer Ren~e Nienaber SND shares her experience of journaling in prayer that brings both focus and perspective in our relationship with God arid with others. A Hidden Treasure of the Ignatian Exercises J. Thomas Hamel sJ describes experiences in the life and writings of St. Ignatius Loyola which give an insight into prayer as "looking." Review for Religious Fidelity and Commitment: Letter to a Young Marist Brother Sefin Sammon FMS as superior general writes a letter to his brothers below age forty about nurturing the commitment to their vocation. 305. Vocations and Vocation Discernment Charles J. Jackson sJ describes vocation in terms of the initial call people experience and their ongoing responsiveness to God's action in their life, and then uses this description to explain vocation discernment in terms of preconditions and repeated process. 316 Why One Younger Religious Stays Terri Emslie PBVM reflects on her own growth in religious life in the face of personal gaps and the gaps of others within the same congregation. 228 Prisms 323 Canonical Counsel: Religious Institutes as Juridi~ Persons in Reconfiguration 329 Book Reviews 63.3 2004 prisms Everyone receives the divine call to be holy. For God is the One who calls us all to "be holy as I am holy." The Vatican II docu-ments re-emphasized this universal vocation to holiness. In our Catholic tradition, vocation tends to remain a word restricted to the calls of priests and bishops and women and men vowed in the consecrated lifeform. But everyone is being called by God to grow in holiness, that is, in his or her relationship with God. And everyone is called by God to a way of living out this holiness. To learn God's idea of this way of living, we need to pray, especially to listen to God. We need to reflect with the word of God. We need to take in the opinions and advice of others, especially friends and those who know us well. In other words, we need to be in a process of discern-ment if we are to attune ourselves to the way that God seems to be drawing us to fulfill our basic vocation to holiness. As one recent writer notes, there is no lack of vocations in the church. Rather there seems Review fbr Religious to be a lack of awareness among church members of the twofold call: to holiness and to a particular ~ay that God has in mind--for us to respond to. If all Catholics took seriously the personal calling from God, we would find ourselves in a church and a world in which the kingdom of heaven was being made the more visible. We would have a church that was alive with people in the tradi-tional ~service roles. Listening for and responding to God's call is the necessary foundation for a continuing Pentecost experience in our day. Closer to home, there have been a few different "call-ings" among the Review for Religious advisory board members. Brother Adrian Gaudin SC left the board some months ago when he found it necessary to cut back on his commitments. Sister Raymond Marie Gerard FSP has been assigned to new work in the Roman headquarters of the Daughters of St. Paul. Bishop Carlos Sevilla SJ has completed his six-year term. Brother Steve Erspamer SM, artist and liturgical design consultant, brings his expertise to our journal world. Sister Kathleen Hughes RSCJ, currently provincial of the United States province, offers her liturgical and theological wisdom. Bishop Terry Steib SVD, bishop of Memphis, Tennessee, contributes his experience of religious life, along with his ecclesial vision as bishop. As editor, I acknowledge my debt of gratitude to our three retiring board members. At the same time, I wel-come with great pride the three new members who bring such wonderful gifts in their counsel for Review for Religious. David L. Fleming sJ 63.3 2004 communal TED DUNN Election and Communal Discernment: Goals, Myths, and Gifts discernment For fifteen years my wife, Beth Lipsmeyer, and I have, as facilitators, been privileged to accom-pany many communities through communal dis-cernment leading to the election of leadership teams. We have discovered that there are not only wide-ranging views on what communal dis-cernment is, but also varied expectations regard-ing what it will achieve. In other words; beyond the election, What does communal discernment offer communities and what does the "commu-nal" part mean? On this topic there are myths, commonly held beliefs that no longer apply. In addition, while increasing numbers of commu-nities are using communal discernment, many of them focus so much one the outcome (the election) that they fail to see the gifts they are receiving along the way. I offer here some reflections on what I con-sider the worthwhile goals, common myths, and Ted Duma is a clinical psychologist. He and his wife operate Comprehensive Consulting Services; 6217 Mid Rivers Mall Drive, Suite 294; St. Charles, Missouri 63304. Review for Religious subtle gifts of communal discernment. There is, of course, no one right way to understand communal dis-cernment; every community defines its own objectives and ways of using it. With this article I invite your reflec-tions. I hope communities will dialogue among them-selves about how to get the most from the communal discernment they use in their elections. Goals of Discernment Like flipping a coin or agreeing that the majority rules, discernment is, after all is said and done, just another way to make decisions. Unlike flipping a coin, however, there is nothing random or quick about it. Discernment is intentional and requires a great deal of time if it is to be done well. Unlike a simple, democratic vote, in discernment it is the Spirit, not the majority, that rules. In communal discernment it is deepening partnership, rather than well-conducted campaigning, that ensures integrity and brings persuasion. The communal discernment we are discussing seeks the election of the best leaders. It is, however, about more than just choosing leaders. Another goal is to engage you in the drama of a deeper story, your collec-tive story, as it continues to unfold. In communal dis-cernment, bonds of partnership are formed and re-formed, woven together with your charism and your traditions and with questions of who you are called to become. Communal discernment offers all members the opportunity to influence how your leadership should function, to shape the team's values and style of working. A third goal .of communal discernment is to shape the nature of the partnership between elected leadership and membership. I would like to elaborate on this, for it appears central to the yearning of many communities. Communal discernment can create new ways for leadership and membership to be together. This includes 63.3 2004 Dunn ¯ Election and Communal Discernment sharing the same vision. To do this, to have the same vision living inside each member, they all must have some degree of ownership of it. Looking toward the future, they must, as partners, share in some detail how they envision it and what they hope to contribute to it. Communal discernment invites this kind of heartfelt talking and listening, such fostering of shared hope. Communities yearn to be able to share one another's gifts more fully, to affirm one another more fully, to feel more deeply the possibilities and power inherent in their being together in one community, no matter what their individual positions or ministries. Communities appear to be struggling for a deeper kind of partnership laced together by their personal commitments to, and their emotional investment in, their collective future. They want to become freer by having greater personal respon-sibility. This kind of partnership does not just happen. It may be a promise of faith, but it is formed by experience, tested by challenges, and re-formed through expressions of care, the anguish of confrontation, and the hard work of reconciliation. In communal discernment, opportu-nities abound to shape the partnerships you aspire to achieve. Communal discernment enables you to reflect, both personally and collectively, upon where your com-munity seems to be heading, what your vision of the future is, what your communal needs are, and what indi-vidual and collective gifts you possess to work with. Ideally, communal discernment will affirm and assist each and every one of you in your search for clarity and wisdom as you together appreciate your collective truth through a new kind of partnership. Thus, along with (1) choosing your leadership, com-munal discernment also enables your communities (2) to discover the values and style of leadership you want for yourselves and (3) to build the kind of partnership Review for Religious between elected leadership and membership that will enhance your preferred future. Myths of Discernment What follows are seven myths that I commonly hear expressed in our work across communities. While I have my opinions about these myths, I do not have definitive "answers" about them. My purpose in mentioning these, however, is to evoke conversation among you about what you believe. Eliciting your own understanding of your attitudes and belief about these seven so-called myths may help you to appreciate the terrain through which you will make your way during any future communal discernment efforts. Myth 1: Discernment is primarily between me and my God. Traditionally this has been true. Discernment has traditionally emphasized one's deeply personal and prayerful search for God's will. In recent years, however, communities have developed and emphasized the inter-play of personal and communal prayer. Beyond individ-ual prayer, communities are stretching the boundaries of personal discernment to include conversations as a way to hear what the Spirit is saying. In communal discernment, open dialogue pools the wisdom of your personal efforts so that together you can discover God's intentions. Personal and communal prayer, personal and shared reflection and dialogue, are increasingly the norm for the discernment used in elec-tions. Discernment is no longer just a private matter between you and your God. It is between you and your God, but also with and among all your fellow members bringing their God-given inspirations and longings and wisdom. Myth 2: Leaders are elected to represent what I want and believe. In a democracy, leaders are elected to "repre-sent" their constituency. People cast their votes for the 63.3 2004 Dunn ¯ Election and Communal Discernment In discernment the emphasis is on the process, not on the outcome, the election itself. candidates they believe will best represent them and speak up for their interests. These politicians are elected, in part, as conduits for the voices of their constituents. In discernment the emphasis is on the process, not on the outcome, the election itself. In fact, in the process there must be "detachment" from the outcome. This is necessary for people to hear what God may be asking, to hear the truth as it unfolds. Detachment from the outcome is meant to aid in listen-ing honestly to what is really being revealed rather than to what you already know, or expect to hear, or want or do not want to hear. In other words, if what someone tells you, or asks you to look at, seems to assail the out-come you prefer, you might stop your ears from hearing it. Setting aside your preferred outcome helps you to listen more honestly. If communal discernment has been done carefully, the subsequent voting expresses the wisdom of an enlightened group, not contentious efforts to put one's own candidate into the office. The power of individuals to enlighten, to forge partnerships, to stir vision, to cooperate in one another's future, is not limited to vot-ing. Your community's power in discernment is limited only by your difficulties in listening, your inhibitions about speaking, or your complicated efforts to get oth-ers to'speak for you. Discernment invites all of.y6u to give full voice to your most authentic truth. In a dis-cerned election, voting is only one of many oppor(-uni-ties (perhaps the least influential of all) to have your voice heard. Leaders called forth in this way are not so much elected to represent what you believe and to speak Review for Religious for you, but rather are affirmed to partner with all mem-bers in forwarding the movement of your community's mission. Myth 3: Discernment is primarily for those who are endorsed. From my perspective, and in our preferred approach to facilitating, communal discernment involves everyone in the community from beginning to end, not just those endorsed. Everyone goes through each phase of communal discernment, and everyone is invited to participate in processes along the way. Individual and communal prayer takes place throughout, Individual and shared reflections take place throughout.The interplay between personal and communal discernment is a dance that begins.with the preparations for endorsements and concludes with the election. While sometimes separate and sometimes together, all members (not just those endorsed) are engaged in discernment, and any process that is done separately needs to reconnect with the whole so that. there truly is a communal discernment. Our approach to communal discernment encourages the pooling of wisdom from past leadership and from those endorsed, from supportive,~ collaborative, .and deliberative members. Everyone is invited to submit endorsements, and these are the basis of invitations to the first discernment gathering, such as a discernment weekend. Those who attend come with the wider com-munity's blessings, input, prayers, and concerns, includ-ing expressions of desires and critical issues. Afterwards these persons bring to the community, at the "discern-ment assembly," their presumed group enlightenment. They share what they have found helpful and pertinent, and in turn they listen carefully to the wider commu-nity's wisdom--so'that all have a better basis for their continuing discernment. No matter how many phases or gatherings there are, the emphasis in communal discernment is to bring t 63.3 2004 Dunn ¯ Election and Communal Discernment together into unity the fruits of every individual or group discernment. Open dialogue, sharing discoveries along the way, and making decisions (such as to withdraw from the process) only in the context of the whole--all of these bolster trust in the overall discernment and in one another. Myth 4: Those with fewer endorsements are not serious contenders. Those with one, five, or fifty endorsements are of equal voice and value to the communal discern-ment. Each person endorsed, regardless of numbers, has been validly called. All are asked to consider themselves potential leaders and to discern with the Holy Spirit and the community. The Spirit is present to all, whether endorsed or not, and not more or less present according to the number of endorsements. It is a mistake to think of endorsements as a straw vote or, worse yet, as a reflection of the number of friends you have that believe in you. Endorsements are signs that people believe that you may have the quali-ties needed at this time in this leadership position. Numbers are not as important as what the endorsements invite you to explore. Those with the most endorsements may not be elected, and those with :one endorsement could be. We facilitated an election wherein a sister with one endorsement was ultimately elected after discern-ment had its deep effect on both her and the commuo nity. Endorsements are a departure point for conversation, an invitation to dialogue, and not a straw vote or a test of popularity. Do not expect numbers to satisfy your discernment questions, about either your faith or your future. Myth Y: Discernment means logically weighing pros and cons. Discernment, at its heart, is about searching for what God intends. While reason and logic are impor-tant, they are not of preeminent value. In discernment the irrational is not irreverent. Irrational processes of Re~iew for Religious cognition, such as our intuitions and our hearts' desires, are very much pa.rt of what leads us to God. We are made of head and heart, body and soul, mind and spirit. All of these are real. All are valid. Perhaps we can learn and appreciate better what God intends by allowing our-selves to be more fully ourselves, to embrace our human-ness in all its dimensions. That reason and our intuition, or logic and our feel-ings, may sometimes conflict is not itself a problem. Nor are we called to ignore one in favor of the other. Each of these different kinds of infor-mation needs to be understood in its own right. The invitation here is for deeper integration, not muting one in favor of another. What you think is right may conflict with how you feel. What you know may conflict with what you intuit. What you should do may conflict with what you want to do. Conflicting emo-tions and reasoning and intuitions .are signs that your dis-cernment is not as complete as it could be. The journey of faith often invites us to explore pos-sibilities beyond the boundaries of what reason and logic would dictate. Discernment is, in its essencE, a faith jour-ney, and, because there is a communal dimension to this, you are invited to make this journey with one another. Pros and cons are important to look at, and so is spiritual growth. Filtering the qualities needed for leadership is important, and so are opportunities for reconciliation. Assessing your future needs is important, and so too is the struggle to reinvest in community when your past wounds would urge you otherwise. Reason is important, and so is grace. Myth 6: Tbe election is where my voice really matters. Some may think that all this discernment talk is nice, What you think is right may conflict with how you feel. 63.3 2004 Dunn ¯ Election and Communal Discernment but in the end "I'I1 get my vote, and that's all that counts anyway." This is perhaps the biggest myth of all. In years past, when some were chosen to be delegates at chap-ters or senates, votes were the ultimate expression of the voices that mattered. If you were not chosen,, your del-egates carried your voice. If you were a delegate, your voice, expressed through voting, had the same weight as that of other delegates. Your vote expressed not only your own desire, but also spoke for those members not in attendance. The delegates were .often seen as privi-leged, and indeed they were, for only their voice was the one counted in the end. Whether through Robert's Rules or other rules, the voices heard at the time of election were confined to carefully laid-out rules of procedure. Votes equaled voice, and this voice was .the power of a privileged few. Most communities have moved to,open chapters or senates, whereall of you are invited to choose your own mode of participation .(supportive, collaborative, delib-erative). Everyone is offered the privilege of voting and, more important, the privilege of discernment. Your abil-ity to affect the shaping of your future, and to deter-mine the leaders to help you do so, is entirely~ dependent upon your personal choosing. You can be of little influ-ence if you choose minimal .participation:or have a great deal of influence if you involve yourself more deeply. Your voice matters at every step of the discernment, not just during the few hours you spend casting ballots. Your votes will be counted in the end, but, during the months that precede the voting; itis your discerning voices that count the most. In communal discernment the ones who shape the ultimate outcome are the ones who dialogue along the way, who listen and share, who invest in this faith journey and in one another. Myth 7: Discernment is mainly about cbtosing the most qualified. From our perspective, focusing upon the most Review for Religious qualified is as flawed an approach to discernment as its countercorollary, that you should elect only those per-sons who see eye-to-eye and can get along well. I believe that it is important for team members to have differ-ences and be able to work with them, that process is as important as outcome, that tasks are as important as rela-tionships, and that the ability to work as a team is as important as any team's constellation of gifts and tal-ents. You could elect the best and brightest, but, if they cannot get along, if they cannot gel into a cohesive work-ing unit, you will not see the best of what they have to offer. Likewise, if you elect those that get along with-out regard for the differing gifts and talents needed, you will not get a leadership adequate to your needs. From our experience of working with a variety of teams, the composite of its members' talent is effective only to the degree that the "team" functions as a team. In other words, the talent will have its desired proper effect only if there is also a commitment to. stay in the struggle: not give up on one another or the tasks at hand, deal with conflict rather than avoid it, work through dif-ferences honestly and directly, do the hard work of repairing trust when it is broken (mend wounds and clar-ify misunderstandings), speak out of principle and com-passion, and so on. Discernment can assist communities in electing indi-viduals who have the flair and the desire or willingness to work as team members, but teams are not elected. Rather, the individuals elected form themselves into a team. It is, however, incumbent upon those electing to look at more than the composite of talents, at more than the rtsum~s. How homogeneous or different the team members are in their styles, beliefs, and abilities is impor-tant only insofar as the composite captures what you have collectively claimed is important. No one person has all of these gifts, but as a whole the team you elect 63.3 2004 Dunn ¯ Election and Communal Discernment should resemble what the community has discerned to be necessary both in mixture of talents and in preferred style of working together. Gifts of Discernment: Wisdom, Relationship, and Light At any given time some of you can see farther and better than others. Some of you are around the curve and up the hill before others. At another time someone else may have the greater vantage point and see what is on or over the horizon. On journeys everyone has a unique perspective to offer. Some can see what has been, others can see what is, and still others can see what is probably ahead. All of you play a part in understanding and discerning the collective truth. One sign of a discerning group is that it allows for its communal "truth" to be born from the womb of the whole. The truth that r~diates from everyone, if shared by all through open dialogue in the Spirit, can become a wisdom that is beyond the sum of all the contributions. When imbued with the Spirit, communal discernment can transcend individual wisdom and thereby bring a deeper understanding of God's intentions. I would like to offer a quotation (source unknown) that expresses what I consider the heart of communal discernment: "I sought my God and God abandoned me; I sought my soul and it eluded me; I sought my brother and sister--and found all three." This is very much the essence of discernment. It is a spiritual group pilgrimage inspired by our strong human desire for relationship and our search for love and understanding. It is persohal, but it is also spiritual and relational. Communal dis, cernment involves private and shared prayer, private and shared reflection, private and shared understandings of how the Spirit is experienced within each of you and among all of you. You choose this journey in search of Review for Religious God's will in order to decide personal and shared direc-tions. You commit yourselves to this soul-searching, truth-telling pilgrimage out of your yearning to be closer to God and one another. Communal discernment is, without question, an invi-tation to walk intimately with one another. Communal discernment is not a side-by-side experience wherein you share fruit that you found by yourself in prayer. It is an ever deepening conversation about your faith and your experience of one another along the way. You are invited to share not only good things you have found, but also your labor: you are to share in giv-ing birth. It is an awesome invitation to meet God in another human being and to discover who that stranger is on the road to Emmaus. We human beings often seek God when we are dis-turbed, when we are displaced from our comfort zone of the known, the familiar, and the safe. It is because of our poverty, our powerlessness, because of becoming aware of our fractured selves, that we. seek the healing, understanding presence of God and one another. The gift of our disturbance is that our passions are unearthed, the status quo is challenged, and what we have always known is no longer enough. We yearn for, and are fright-ened by, God's invitation to enter the mystery of our humanness. Yet our faith tells us that new life is found here, in the struggle, in this privileged place where Jesus lives. This place, where we meet Jesus in one another, is a profound gift of discernment. Communal discernment also offers the gift of light. It challenges you to recognize how you can fool yourself When imbued with the Spirit, communal discernment can transcend individual wisdom. 241 . 63.3 2004 Dunn * Election and Communal Discernment in order to get what you want and camouflage it as being "of God." It challenges you to catch how you hide from yourself and eclipse a deeper truth. This is where you are invited to reckon with your hidden payoffs for keep-ing your.own goodnes~ under wraps. This is where you can ask yourselves questions like ".What does grace enable me to be?" and "What on earth is holding me back from claiming this?" This is where your loyalties to the way things have always been, to the relationships that have given you life, come face-to-face with your fidelity to the truth you keep getting more awareness of. This is where current realities insist upon new wineskins and new patterns of being and relating. This is where your growing edges encroach upon the status quo of relationships, causing you to look anew at what you have hidden from one ~nother and kept from the people you love. Discernment is an attitude of listening, listening to the intimate whispers of God through prayer and through your conversations. It is a quiet process of attun-ing yourself to God's voice, giving special attention to urgings toward new life. Listen for the yes that radiates from within. Listen to fugitive t.ruths, and do not turn away-from newborn insights, so that all of you together manage to hear and see more truth. Listen to everyone as if you are listening for the first time, without conjur-ing up the cries of your old wounds .or letting the white noise of a hundred thumbnail reputations blur your attentiveness. Listen to God's urgings toward a future just beyond your grasp, but. reachable if you let go and give yourself to it. The paradox of discernment is that once you have adapted and become adjusted, once you have privately prayed, sifted, and sorted, you must again "let go" and be influenced by the Spirit working within and among you. You must be willing to take in new information, feel new Review for Religious feelings, and again be influenced by one another. You must seek the gift of interior freedom, of spiritual indif-ference, as to the outcome. Ideally, you will find a way to hold all personal agendas and desires, all hopes and wishes, all values and passions, in an attitude of openness. Ideally, you will experience being deeply rooted yet hold-ing on to things lightly. In this kind of freedom, God's intentions and those of all of you are together. This is neither blind Obedience nor stern self-denial. Rather, it is a transcending of self with eyes wide open as together you follow, or keep trying to follow, God's lead on this journey of faith. God is ceaselessly inviting us into the mystery of relationships, the mystery, of our humanness, the mystery of our life in Christ. ' Late August Blooms are bur, ning themselves out in backyard gardens. During evening's lengthenihg gloom the whirring chhnt of Iocu's.ts ebbs "and rises. '. ." Musk of squash and pumpkin n~w replaces headier,scents ofMayand June. You tooare seasoned, pausing between ripeness and the threadbare husks of winter. But within you the blueflame of chicory along country roads burns like a votive candle before the God of harvests. Patricia Schnapp RSM 63.3 2004 BARBARA SUDOL Frances Siedliska's Mystical Life heritages Frahces Siedliska was born on 12 November 1842 in Roszkowa Wola, near.Warsaw, Poland, of aristocratic parents, Adolph Siedliski and Cecilia Morawska Siedliski, and died in Rome on 21 November 1902. Her parents were wealthy landowners in the village of Zdzary, where their manor was situated. She had one sibling, a brother, Adam. In her early life Frances displayed intelligence, a love for beauty and music, and an elegance and maturity beyond her years. She also had a quick temper and a tenacious stubbornness, often matching her father in a clash of wills; In 1875, at the age of thirty-one, she would found the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth,~ but in her childhood, religion was all but absent in the Siedliski home. Her parents, like other contemporary Polish aristocratic families, were indifferent to reli-gion. Materialism, rampant worldwide, and positivism discarded all that was supernatural, including religion. The nobility, identifying Barbara Sudol CSFN writes from 61-03 56th Avenue; Maspeth, New York 11373. Review for Reli~ous ,Catholicism with Polish patriotism, became the defending wall of the church, yet it did not know the church, did not understand it, and did not give wimess to it by their lives. (Strzalkowska, 16) Such an irreligious familial atmosphere had its effect on Frances's spiritual life. She walked in the darkness of religious ignorance until a Capuchin friar, Father Leander Lendzian, prepared her for her first Holy Communion, on 1 May 1855. He opened Frances's soul to religion and a growing spiritual life, notwithstanding much pressure from Adolphe Siedliski, who desired his daughter to live a more worldly life and enter into a mar-riage befitting her social station. But such a life was not to be for Frances. Her love of God grew throughout her life until her death in 1902 at the age of sixty. Her auto-biography, journals, letters, and other extensive writings to her sisters and to various members of the clergy give testimony to this love. Early in her religious life, Frances experienced the spiritual passivity of mysticism, a passivity that would enable her to give more and more of herself to God. She writes: In his mercy Jesus continued gifting me with ever deep-ening prayer., so that at times nothing else mattered, only., sometimes he takes away from me the ability to meditate, to have any feelings, and directs me to an immediate experience and acceptance of his holy truth. Then he suspends my faculties and . . . fills my soul according to his divine pleasure. (Strzalkowska, 58) Always she looked to God for her consolation and support, even in the midst of great difficulties, for with her emotional and mental suffering came physical suf-fering. Her health was flail, but, remaining in close union with God, she never permitted it to stop her from ardu-ous travel and time-consuming correspondence. As a foundress she went through all the rigor, heartache, legal-ism, and deprivation that are part of the early days of any 63.3 2004 Sudol * Frances Siedliska's Mystical Life foundation, all the while progressing on .the mystical way and entering more fully in(o deep prayer and union With God. In her diary she writes: "I knelt at Your fee~, and you drew my soul to yourself. It s~emed to me that I had left my body and was .moving toward you, my Love." She continues: "Later I fell into a deep stillness. My spiritual faculties were absorbed into a glorious intuition of God, of my Lord Jesus. At that time no word, no feeling, seemed appropriate or timely. I nee'ded to be drawn by and submerged in the love of my God" (Strzalkowska, 64). But there was even more.,Before,the end of her life, Frances was given the grace of espousal with God. In her diary she writes: ¯ I was at Mass at St. Claude's . My soul remained near Jesu~s in a spirit of elation. After Communion I experienced a strong desire which I expressed to.him , present within me. I asked Jesus to espouse my soul forever . Yet, as i pondered what it means to be a spouse of God, and as I looked at myself, I had not the courage ~o ask Jesus for this great grace. Instead, I humbled myself and abased myself while in my heart I sensed this message: "What I am doing for you now consider as an espousal, for I am espousing you to myself, uniting your soul to mine." (Strzalko.wska, 66) She wrote, kneeling, the constitutions and statutes that her congregation would ~idopt as their way of life, and she kriew the joy as well as the disappointment that comes with living in community. At her death she left two hundred and ninety-one sisters on both sides of the Atlantic, and a total of seventy-two youthful novices and postulants who would find in Nazareth their incentive to scale the heights she had envisioned; she was relinquishing without misgi ~vings twenty-nine ¯.houses .of Nazareth, centers of apostolic services in Europe and the United'States. (De Chantal, 128) In Frances Siedliska there was the delicate combina-tion of deep prayer life and vigorous-activity. Her coop- Review for Religious eration with God's grace was a daily undertaking, a con-scious decision to refuse Godnothing. For her generosity God gave her everything, including the heavy burden of the cross. "In .the mystical life, one passes from one layer to the next in an inner or downward journey to the core of the personality where dwells the great mystery called God--God who cannot be known .directly, cannot be seen, and who dwells in thick darkness" (Johnston, 127). If she experienced the dark night of the senses through her continual death to self in her relationships, journeys, and hardships in establishing the congregation, she also entered into the dark night of the soul, particularly in 1892, when she was fifty years old. Father Anthony Lechert, who had been her spiritual director and also a director for her Nazareth community, was removed from that position by his re.ligious superiors as a result of calumnious reports about him and his dealings with her and her sisters. In Frances Siedliska there was the delicate combination of deep prayer life and vigorous activity. 1892 marked the beginning of the mys.tic passion of Mother Siedliska; it would perdure another ten years and end with her death . Her physical suffering was accompanied by prolonged and oppressive moral suffering which, as the consequence of the event~ of 1892, she was compelled to bear and which she accepted in fullest conformity to the divine will. (Ricciardi, 244) Frances entered into her personfil dark night of the soul while continuing an indefatigable active life as foundress of her growing congregation. "Some circum-stances, particularly those surrounding the difficulties 63.3 2004 Sudol ¯ Frances Siedliska's Mystical Life of 1892 and the years following, including problems that affected the American foundation, placed Mother Siedliska in the crucible of calumny, a victim of treach-ery and lack of understanding" (Ricciardi, 379). Witnesses gave written testimony to the fact that Frances remained steadfast in her devotion to God and to the congregation, offering forgiveness to those who had injured her reputation and even personally doing good to them. To live a mystical life is no easy task, but the path of mysticism begins in a progression of steps. Only rarely are people given the grace of apophatic mysticism, as Frances Siedliska was. By her great love she gave her-self completely to God. Her greatest legacy to her reli-gious community was her belief in love: God's Love and her own love for each person. She understood the gospel imperative to love and knew well how difficult loving is in practice. God had already given himself to her as her Good Shepherd, her Rock, and her Lord. Note ' Actually Frances Siedliska founded the congregation when she sought and obtained on 1 October 1873 Pope Pius IX's approval and blessing to begin the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Fa~mily of Nazareth. In Rome in 1875 she opened the first permanent convent of the congregation. Works Cited De Chantal, Sister M., CSFN. Out of Nazareth. New York: Exposition Press, 1974. Johnston, William. The Inner Eye of Love: Mysticism and Religion. San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1978. Ricciardi, Antonio. Hi~ Will Alone: The Life of Mother Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd. Trans. Regis N. Barwig. Oshkosh, Wisconsin: Castle-Pierce Press, 1971. Strzalkowska, Sister M. Inez, CSFN. For Me to Live Is Christ. Trans. Sister Mary Paul Krasowski CSFN. Pittsburgh: Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, 1995. Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Is Even More Good Coming from Nazareth? On what would be one of my happiest days as a Jesuit, I went to a religious house in a village, at that time the only house of its kind in India. (That was about thirty-five years ago, when I was a student of the-ology. Today there are only two such houses in India.) The house, unlike other religious houses I had lived in or seen, was in no way different from the other houses in the village street. It belonged to the Little Brothers of Jesus. Three of them, two from France and one from Belgium, were living like the villagers in almost every respect except that they worked with the leprosy patients, prayed together regularly as Christians in an Indian way, and, unlike Indian males especially of those days, cooked their own meals. Welcomed into their little tiled house of four small rooms--including a kitchen, a chapel, find a storeroom for medicines used in their paramedical work--I felt much at home and that religious life itself was at home there in close contact with the people around. I saw the brothers being all things to all people, learning the cus- A. Paul Dominic SJ writes again from Missionaries of the Poor; Fatima Nagar; Warangal 506 004; India. 63.3 2004 Dominic ¯ Is Even More Good Coming~/~om Nazareth? toms and beliefs of ~eir Hindu neighbors, joining their celebrations, speaking their Tamil language though amusingly with a French lilt, preparing and enjoying the local variety of quite spicy food, lending an ear to the varied tales of the young and old, lending a measure of rice occasionally, or just giving away a handful of chilies when a neighbor ~ent her child asking for some, and so on--ahd I felt a new thrill regarding religious life, at once Christian and Indian! The people of Alampoondi, the village in which the brothers had settled, witnessed all that, but they had no idea of their identity except as foreigners and Christians. With their little knowledge of church matters, they could not of course have any idea of the newcomers' being members of a religious congregation, the Litde .Brothers of Jesus. Did even knowledgeable Christians know of their existence? Like myself, hardly any of my theology companions had heard about their surprising way of life, although the Little Brothers, admittedly few in number, were keeping.up a quiet and unassuming but distinct presence on all the continents. A New Charism of Living and Working The Little Brothers' charism, as I learned from the brothers in India, is to live as Jesus lived at Nazareth, unknown and unheralded but unfailingly helpful in lit-tle ways. Who would want such a charism? ~About the Little Brothers who have taken to it eagerly and seri-ously, an outsider like me can say that they have shown themselves faithful to it. The first Little Brothers who came and settled in India have not given up hope of their continuing presence although they have attracted less than a half dozen Indian followers despite the consid-erable numbers of religious vocations here. In October 1933 Ren~ Voillaume and a few of his friends, all of them newly ordained, left their native Review for Religious France and went to E1-Abiodh-Sidi-Cheik in the Algerian Sahai'a and started living the Nazarene charism as a group. VoiHaume served as their elected prior from the beginning till 1965. On 13 May 2003 he died .at the age of ninety-seven. His death, if I am not mistaken, did not get much attention in the Christian. press or even among members of religious orders and congregations, let alone in the secular world. Maybe it could not have been different, but I incline to think that it was what it should hav.e been, given his and his brothers' choice to live in today's world like Jesus at Nazareth, in hidden mystery amid plain or harsh earthly reality. He died just as he had lived, with no splash of publicity for having accomplished some widely recognized good, though of course God knows all he did in the Nazareth-like places where he and his brothers lived. I came to know of his death by chance, but at the very' place where I first felt the spell of his humble charism. Here I would like to present an account of it as a loving tribute to Voillaume, and I hope a true one. The Original Recipient of This Charism ¯ The inspiration for Voillaume and his companions was an aristocrat named Charles de Foucauld (1858- 1). Though born in a devout Catholic family .and educated in Jesuit schools,Foucauld turned his back on Christianity at sixteen and entered military service only to quit it because of his undisciplined and even disso-lute ways. Later, around 1880, he went on an expedition to unexplored parts of Morocco and returned to pub-lish his findings in a book that won him fame. Still he was restless, least suspecting that the human heart is restless until it rests in God. In late October 1886 he found himself converted, in the confessional though he had gone there without wanting to confess. Once he was converted he knew the raison d'etre of his existence: to 63.3 2004 Dominic ¯ Is Even More Good Coming from Nazareth? live for God and only for God. He came to discover the person of Jesus as God's incarnate Son. He entered and left the Trappists and then became a priest, only to feel a compelling urge to be like Jesus not only inwardly but even outwardly. Out of love he wanted to reproduce in himself the life of Jesus at Nazareth, hidden, humble, hardworking, and helpful to others. In a letter he describes himself thus: The ,gospel proved to me that the "the first com-mandment" was for me to love God with all my heart, and that I must put everything within that love; and, as everybody knows, one of the effects of love is imitation. ¯ . . I did not feel at all made for imitating him in his public life and his preaching; I consequently knew I must imitate the hidden life of the poor and humble workman of Nazareth.~ As he delved into the hidden treasure of Nazareth, he found that he could not keep it private: his newfound pearl of vision was not for himself alone. He hoped that it would become a pattern of life for others too. But, however much he wanted to have companions to live with him, he was not to have even one up to the day he died tragically. Even his tragedy was not perceived as greatness. He died as the two French soldiers visiting him did, victims caught in a tribal conflict, shot in the head by a frightened Tuareg youth. What could the worth of his life be? But his story, told only briefly here, got circulated in his native France. Surprising stories began to be told of men and women, young and old, married and unmarried, from different walks of life, who sought to live in the spirit of Jesus the Nazarene somewhat as Foucauld did. Such was his influ-ence within a decade after his death that at least one col-lege removed a biography of Foucauld from its library for fear that too many young people might be drawn to his unusual example. Review for Religious The Nazareth Brand of Religious Life Among those who could not deny his impact on their life, Voillaume and his four friends may be ranked first. They were the first to attempt as a group to live their lives according to Foucauld's vision, and their attempt has stood the test of the times. Their fraternity (as they liked to call their group) centered their life on Jesus' way of living at Nazareth. Voillaume has reflected on this and spoken of Nazareth as a complete form of reli-gious life. Following Foucauld, he discerned in Nazareth a type of religious life undreamt-of before and, I am afraid, largely unknown even now. Religious life modeled on Nazareth is distinct, he pointed out, from the hidden life of many a traditional novitiate. It is unlike the lives of Carthusians or enclosed Carmelites, and it is also dif-ferent from the lives that ded-icated lay people lead in the footsteps of Jesus, the work-man at Nazareth. These three versions of Nazareth do not go beyond certain aspects. Voillaume's version diverges from them in discovering something new, even though it is at one with all the earlier forms of religious life inas-much as it does not swerve from the spiritual reality of freely promising to God, with the public approval of the church, to live in chastity, poverty, and obedience. Instead of following the Jesus of the public life, the Little Brothers follow the Jesus of the hidden life. They renounce a distinct habit, large or isolated buildings of their own, and large enterprises or projects. They choose to live like the ordinary worker that Jesus was: poor and humble and unavoidably involved with and even depen-dent on others. They live in an aura of prayer, much Their fraternity centered their life on Jesus' way of livin, g at Nazareth. 63.3 2004 Dominic * Is Even More Good Coming from Nazareth? prayer, so as to grow in favor with God and their fellow human beings as Jesus, did in ,Nazareth.2 Some of this may seem to ignore things indispensable to religious life. But are they? Or are they just means for0a particular way of living the three vows? And can one: not conceive of a~true religious life that makes less use of traditional means and ye~ proves to be a sure road to the ex;angelical perfection of the joyous embrace of the three vows? In this spirit Voillaume says: Such a road has been opened up for us by Father de Foucauld. It lies in sharing the lot of the workers and the other poor, with all the consequences involved, and being a living presence of Christ among them) Voillaume explains this new spirit and style of religious life: Less attention is paid to sheltering oneself off from risks by means of separations, or to being helped by observances superimposed upon one's daily occupa-tions, than to ordering one's entire life into a single moy.ement of charity for Christ and or_tier people, and learning to use the very difficulties attendant Upon such a life as so many mean~ to self-dispossession and the very concrete realization of one's profession of the . three vows? A Name of Prideand Humility . The Nazareth-based form of religious life described above may be further appreciated by reflecting-on the name that Voillaume and his companiong; following Foucauld; gave to their group: Little Brothers of Jesus. No one can. mistake where .their love was. Their love was not .for ~an unusual, heroic, rele~cant ideal surpass-ing the old, but for Jesus; and so they gave their hearts, their.very selves, to the person of Jesus. By their name they.made a claim on Jesus;~ ofbelonging to himand his belonging to them. (In this they have measured up'to the holy ambition of the,original b'and of Jesuits,. and Review for Religious may have stolen a march on some of my brother Jesuits.) The brothers' loyal love is not a romantic thing. They have found him whom they love in persevering faith, in their common Eucharist, in the Gospels, and in their neighborhood,s In their very love for Jesus, they turn to people and attend to their urgent, unfilled needs such as their need for justice. They are. wise enough not to be misled: they know the lurking temptation of sincere Christian apostles to think, in Voillaume's words, "that one does not have the time to look towards Jesus and love him as he should be loved: for himself." He coun-sels his Little Brothers that they have their set task right there: It is to act as the "regard" of men today upon Jesus, to be in Jesus' presence the "standing delegates" of the forgetful crowd, carrying to him in their place their adoration, their needs, their complaints, and their faults.6 Are they here inspired by Jesus' approval of Mary of Bethany "wasting" costly ointment on him? By their name Little Brothers of Jesus, they mean to express how their love of Jesus marks their way of loving others, including one another. Voillaume can say to his brothers: If we are to be of any "use" at all in the world,' it will be for having been faithful enough to allow a bit of Christ's immense love for men to appear through our.hearts and our comportment . If we are really united with our Lord, if we keep our eyes trained upon.Jesus living and working at Nazareth, then, like Father de Foucauld, we shall be able to remain open to people's solicita-tions. 7 So, as brothers of Jesus, they become brothers of all according to the revelation that all people are to be con-sidered brothers and sisters and not titled personages (Mr 23:8-10). Abhorring all superiority, they behave as 63.3 2004 Dominic * Is Even More Good Coming from Nazaretb? brothers who imitate Jesus in his redeeming love. Inspired thus, they contact specially the poorest just as they are and because of what they are, persons bereft of all power. In doing this they are aware of God calling each one by.name in the intimacy of lovefl and so they too aim at reaching out to individuals as if each one were the only soul to be loved in the world. They do not cal-culate their mission success in terms of administering and applying approved techniques and technologies. If in their love they feel the urge to give Jesus to people and help people find their lofiged-for kingdom of God, it is in the unglamorous way of being the salt of the earth or the world's ordinary daylight.9 Voillaume challenges his brothers: So long as our love has not reached the point where it has made us truly capable of showing them that the kingdom of Jesus is for them, and that it has even begun to be present in their midst through us, we shall not have met the demands of Jesus' love upon us. The kingdom must be able to appear to them through us in all its realness: th~ patience, the peace, the force of Christ, and also Christ's demands for justice--all this enveloped, as it were, in love and void of all hatred (even when it is right to fight),l° Another challenge, even a greater one, facing the Little Brothers is love among themselves. Though this challenge may appear common to all religious, the Little Brothers are not quite the same. Modeling their very lives on the homely life of Nazareth can foster mutual friendship in a supernatural way. Voillaume says: It is our Lord's friendship that has gathered us together, and the human features of friendship, visible in ourselves, are something we must labor to produce. It is our duty gradually to become true friends, even though it may seem that by nature we are not self-evidently made for each other.~l Review for Religious This is something that I am afraid may often slip the attention of religious of every kind. The brothers choose to be litde. They choose to live within littleness, the mystery of littleness. It is a part of their learned ignorance (docta ignorantia). I have been amazed by their fund of knowledge and grasp of what is going on among religious and in church circles and in the world at large. Is it because they are little and thus open to learn? Being little, they also surely strive to keep grow-ing in their love of Jesus and of their fellow human beings. The proof is that they embrace the hard way of the poverty of little people. Knowing, however, that such a life and such a mission are impossible for humanity's lit-tleness, they look to God, for whom everything is pos-sible (Mt 19:23-26). Their way of mission is so different from the usual apostolates that it may not even seem to be mission work. In traditional Christian circles, eyebrows are surely raised at the Little Brothers. Failing to understand what they intend by their style of life, their poverty and their appar-ent unproductiveness, many Christians, including ecclesi-astics, may consider them useless for the church. But, following their own vocation, the Litde Brothers opt to be unprofitable servants in the eyes of people who do not-- but to my mind should--know better. They know that, if they are to instill the beatitudes in people's hearts, no activ-ity that takes them out from among the poor, the mourn-ful, the hungry, and so forth would be in keeping with the little way marked out by Jesus for them.~2 Their name, Little Brothers, expresses Jesus' humble and soaring spirit. A Mission Common and Yet Uncommon For a further understanding of the Little Brothers' charism, reflect that their mission is to be, in little ways, hands of Jesus in touching the lives of his least brothers and sisters. Though the Little Brothers share with other 63.3 2004 Dominic ¯ Is Even More Good Coming from Nazareth? religious congregations one and the same mission from Christ, the way they discharge it is unique,13 as indeed it should be in the case of every charism. A simplistic and falsifying view must be avoided here. Voillaume is very insistent on this. He points out that well-meaning peo-ple could give a wrong picture of the Little Brothers' mission with a "wooden and detestable definition" such as this: "The Petits Fr~res are not engaged in this activ-ity or that; they must not be involved in anything, but simply give an example."14 As Voillaume envisages it, the Little Brothers' life is to be far different: They will be poor in all things except God, and be of little apparent use, sharing the weariness of those who labor, their sole purpose being the proclamation of the Savior's gospel. They will submit their thoughts and deeds to the divine friendship in order that they may make known to those around them the infinite mystery of that friendship towards men, hidden from all eternity, but revealed to us in the heart of Christ.~s Their lives are, then, obviously bound up with two vibrant movements closely combined: being or becom-ing oneself enriched with God and also enriching others, particularly the masses of poor laboring people. Their twinned vocation may be expressed as contemplation of God and comforting their neighbors by their presence. These two elements, invisible and visible, which consti-tute the life of the Little Brothers, are commonly viewed as mutually exclusive. People contrast the contempla-tive and active vocations, or else see them as combined, but with prominence given to action for the good of the neighbor. The Little Brothers give equal importance to contemplation and their neighbors' good, but their con-templation is not like that of the cloistered,16 and the help they give their neighbors is far from the various well-defined goals of apostolic communities. Some brothers have lived as regular members in a Revie*v for Religious kibbutz in Israel. They shared and enjoyed the life and work there as much as the others did. Living poorly, they appeared happily settled, though unmarried. They impressed others as lov-ing, and they surprised them by praying regu-larly and unashamedly. The young Israelis were intrigued enough to ask what made them live like that. They were told that, if they were really eager to know, they had better contact some of the many religious in Tel Aviv. But they would not; they said, "No, we don't want to hear from others; we are not interested in their codes or customs. What we want is to understand your life from your own telling.'"7 One of the Little Brothers was a prisoner among prisoners, though known to the authorities to be inno-cent of any crime. He had sought and found admittance to a prison, and lived there sharing the life of the con-victs and offering them his unsought presence and friendship. Surely the prisoners needed to be instructed and converted, but the lone brother was not there to serve as a chaplain, nor did he mean to function as a social worker helping them to find money for their needs or to establish contact with their family or to do some-thing of the kind. What he wanted was to love them as a friend, standing by them and sharing with them all the physical and mental hardships of imprisonment though he himself did not deserve them2s In such circumstances the brothers are not concerned with expla!ning them-selves to people, but with so doing things with them or Their twinned vocation may be expressed as contemplation of God and comforting their neighbors by their presence. 63.3 2004 Dominic * Is Even More Good Coming from Nazaretb? for them that they cannot avoid being aware of God's nearness in some slight way at least. The Little Brothers' particular grace and genius in this matter may be expressed in one word, presence, total pres-ence to God and total presence to the poor people around, a presence that cannot but be humble. It may be called unpretentious prophetic presence, that is, the presence of a prophet drawn by God to himself and sent to people and sent by their plight back to God. It is reminiscent of Jesus' long years at Nazareth: ever turned toward God and toward the needy people near at hand. Whatever Jesus' double stance might have looked like, one thing is certain: he would have been burning with zeal for God's mission among these burdened people. His zeal showed itself in the temple at the dawn of his adulthood and would have continued during his adult years at Nazareth. There, how-ever, it could ordinarily find expression only in his daily commonplace contacts with people, and could only be fully exercised fully in the realm of the Spirit. In the Spirit he was attuned to Abba, his Father, and to his Father's mys-terious mission of compassion for the human race. At the same time he was intimate with the people in and around Nazareth, in a way that was both human and divine. That is to say, he looked upon and loved and desired the good of everyone he met, in accord with his Father's love and desire.19 This was, then, contemplative attention to God and to people needing redemption. It was a contempla-tion of God's compassion and of people's condition in the light of God's personal care for them. Such contempla-tion can occur only with the constant activity of God him-self in life's present moments. Such a life is one of intercession for people, and the people may perceive it as such. The Little Brothers learn to do as Jesus did. Voillaume explains: In our time this awareness has become more vivid than ever, and it has reached the point when many have Review for Religious come to feel that they must give concrete expression to this permanent commission to pray in the name of mankind by really sharing the circumstances of men's lives. This new way of imitating the life of Jesus of Nazareth, this summons to be united with that Man- God who was also one of the workmen of his native village, is in fact a development in the nature of prayer itself. Our own vocation has followed this course.2° One of his Little Brothers put it more simply and sharply, to the delight of Voillaume: "We are the voice of the poor, their liturgy.''2~ Each Group in Its Place For those who are still wondering about the import of this vocation, Voillaume has said: The Brotherhood's position in the church is very hum-ble, and their way of life must not be interpreted as a criticism or a failure to appreciate the other forms of the apostolate which the church approves. At the same time, the apostolate of the Petits Fr~res seems to meet a new need for the evangelization of the world which it is well we should realize)~ In saying this he shows the healthy tension of a man who appreciates the continuing value of traditional approaches in the present, and yet cannot deny the new demands that our changed times make. I think this is what Brother Michael, his successor as prior general in the 1990s, meant by what he wrote to me in a letter: "Ren6 Voillaume has been given an unusual charism: he trans-mitted the message of Nazareth life against his own feel-ings!" So it seems the inheritors of that charism have to live experiencing in themselves the attraction and tension of bipolar ideals. More could be said, but let Ren6 Voillaume have the last word: The ideal of life of the Petits Fr~res through its twofold requirement of contemplation and of pres- 63.3 2004 Dominic ¯ Is Even More Good Coming from Na~aretb? ence among men, and also through the nature of the means envisaged for carrying it out, constitutes indeed a new and original form of religious life.23 Notes I Ren6 Voillaume, Seeds of the Desert (London: Burns and Oates, n.d.), p. 24 n.2. ~ Seeds, p. 12. 3 Seeds, p. 53. 4 Seeds, pp. 53-54. s See Seeds, p. 70. 6 Seeds, p. 7 I. 7 Seeds, pp. 72-73. s See Brothers of Men (Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1966), p. 142. 9 See Seeds, pp. 74-77. to Seeds, p. 76. ii Brothers, p. 52. lz See Seeds, p. 80, and Brothers, p. 23. 13 See Ren6 Voillaume, Follow Me (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1978), p. 64. 14 Brothers, p. 195. is Brothers, p. 134. 16 See Seeds, pp. 60, 63, 65. 17 Ren~ Voillaume, Faith and Contemplation (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1974), p. 111. is See Brothers, pp. 145-146. 19 See Follow, p. 141. 2o Brothers, pp. 90-91. 21 Brothers, p. 91. 22 Brothers, p. 138. ~ Brothers, p. 122. Review for Religious RENI~E NIENABER Not for the Faint of Heart: Journaling into Honest Prayer Within a short time, three of my closest rela-tives died. A fourth death was imminent. With too much heaviness to hold any longer, I had to find a way to deal with my grief and anger. Journaling became my path into honest prayer. At one breakthrough I wrote to God in letters big enough to read through my tears: !'Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Slowly my response came, not with the earth opening to devour me, but with a deep, endur-ing peace. God had answered my fierce words with comforting silence. Anyone who prays with raw candor is in good company. Such honesty with God charac-terizes some of our famous ancestors in the faith, who impolitely told God when they had had enough. Jacob, Jeremiah, Jonah, and Job wres-tled with God. There is modeling for honest Ren6e Nienaber SND writes again from St. Mary of the Assumption Parish; 121 West Main Street; Alexandria, Kentucky 41001. 63.3 2004 Nienaber ¯ Not for the Faint of Heart prayer in the Lament psalms: the psalmist gives God a piece of his mind! The prophets likewise were never afraid to speak to God from their gut. Even Jesus in Gethsemane begged that the cup of suffering be taken away, and he cried out on the cross, feeling forsaken. In more recent centuries the complaint of Teresa of Avila, doctor of the church, was "If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few." Tevye, the strug-gling father in the play and movie Fiddler on the Roof, asks God in frustration, "Would it spoil some vast, eter-nal plan if I were a wealthy man?" We too can speak to God with such holy boldness. Spirituality deals with all aspects of life, not just the pious parts. Our jealous Lover wants all of us with no doors locked. Honest Journaling--and Us and God Many people are afraid to pray with honesty, think-ing that God will love us only if we are polite. Early training taught some of us to leave our problems at the door of the church. Rather, prayer needs to be a come-as- we-are experience. Spirituality is not just for the pious, but also for us who get wounded in the battles of every-day life and need somewhere to go with our pain. True prayer is about gathering up all of the stuff of our lives and offering it to God. The spiritual life challenges us to be not just holy but real: true to ourselves in all sorts of inner weather. Honesty, the essence of the eighth com-mandment, is essential for every relationship, including the divine/human one. To improve human relationships, sometimes people have to sit down and thrash things out. Similarly, at times we need to bring to God even the parts we would prefer to suppress. God does not want marionettes but real people with real emotions. The One who knocks on our door wants entrance into the whole truth of our lives. Some people, however, fear that they will be struck dead if they bring Review for Religious their frustration or anger to God. Rather, we might pic-ture God with strong, anthropomorphic shoulders--big enough to embrace us even when we feel far below par. We do not have to be on our good behavior with God in order to be loved. We speak about God as all-wise, about Jesus as "the way, the truth, and the life," and about the Spirit as our indwelling guide. This God wants to communicate that wisdom and truth to us from within our very beings. Jesus even seeks us out in our messiness, as he did the disciples on the way to Emmaus. He asks us, "What are you discussing as you go your way?" (Lk 24:17). Why Write This Type of Prayer? Why write in order to be honest with God? History has many examples of peo-ple who journaled in order to get in touch with their inner depths. Some in the last century were Pope John xxIII, Dag Hammarskj61d, and Anne Frank. Writing helped them clarify their sometimes confused and scattered thoughts, and it can help us. Journaling can provide both focus and per-spective. Putting pen to paper without editing can bring clarity that we would never achieve in our conscious mind alone. Some people will say they "can't write." But unedited journaling is not for anyone else to see. Spelling, punc-tuation, grammar, handwriting--none of these count. To many, writing honest prayer might still seem impos-sible, and people seldom try something if they expect to fail. But I hope readers will learn from the examples If we are afraid to be angry with God, at least writing is a silent outlet. 63.3 2004 Nienaber ¯ Not for the Faint of Heart below that the prayer of honest journaling can open wide a door to both themselves and God. If we are afraid to be angry with God, at least writ-ing is a silent outlet. Some polite people, when they dare to confront, prefer to write a note rather than to yell. Writing also helps people listen to the divine. This prayer communicates both ways. Especially when we are trou-bled, we need to be still and wait upon the Lord, as the psalmist says, asking for divine insight that we might not otherwise receive, If the wisdom from God is in writing, or between the lines, we have a better chance that it will touch our lives more than a fleeting inspiration does. Examples of Honest Journaling Following are ten samples excerpted from twenty years of honest journaling. Names have been omitted and some situations adapted to preserve anonymity. The summary titles, numbered 1 to 10, were of course added afterwards. My candid words addressed prayerfully to God are in roman type, and what seem to be God's can-did responses are in italic type. 1. God wants to reveal not only our sin but also the divine hesed (steadfast love or loving kindness). What do you want me to learn through this contin-ual frustration with A? Sbe presses a lot of buttons in you that are still deep, dark recesses of sinfulness: anger, resentment, negativity, revenge, self-pity, barred. Wow! That's pretty ugly! Much uglier than what she. did to me. I guess I thank you for letting me see this dark side. What good is it to see these faults? The more you're aware, the less power they'll bare over you. ~ls you become.more bumble and less reactive, the more connected you will be witb people and freer from this gravity. It's pretty ugly, yet you love me. You pick me up and kiss my wounds. You love me in my sinfulness. You allow Review for Religious me to journey to a deeper level of self-knowledge and awareness of being clothed in your grace, your love, your mercy, your truth (albeit painfully). 2. God wants to help us get through a problem, not bail us out. Is there something you want to say to me? Are you back to that feeling of being le~ out? Toujours--well, just more often than I wish, and B was the perfect catalyst for it. Ab, B, the lady you love to bate. She is so perfect, so superior, and so sure of how to do things better. She really tapped into a lot of your stuff I know. Help me sort through my stuff. Help you through? I will, but not by taking it away. This will keep you bumble-that quality you admire in otber people. This will always be your Achilles' bed. Will you love me just the same if1 help you through it rather than remove it? What a silly question. Will I still love you? Is there any other way to life? 3. God promises to help us forgive. God, I need your help to forgive her again. I hope I can last through this year. I will be with you. Remember my love, shown through the surprise ice cream and your notes from C. I appreciate any kindness you send my way because I'm feeling pretty crummy. Much is going well for you. I know. Thanks. But every day I have to forgive her. You are growing. And I am suffering. I know. I am with you. Remember that I'm not just remote, way out there, but very close in the workings of every day. I'm not sure. I'll try to cooperate with you. For now, help me forgive her once more. You are all I have. 7- 63.3 2004 Nienaber ¯ Not for the Faint of Heart That's not such a bad place to be. 4. God wants to calm our anger. #olo\&~÷~÷. I don~t want to find another note from D. Help me to look at this objectively and not come down too hard on her. But I am angry at having to deal with this again. Enough is enough. O.K. Your turn to speak. I'm calling you, my dear, to ever greater depths of love. I'm asking you to have your heart stretched to embrace the weak and vulnerable. I'm inviting you to have my heart towards her. Will you accept? ~Vill you be the bigger person? Will you keep the lines of communication open? Will you be a channel of my love towards her-please? She so needs human love. Will you please help me? How can I tell you no? Yet my anger is so close to the surface with her. I will belpyou. I will be withyou. Unlessyou meet her at her stage of growth, however stunted, you'll never be my pres-ence to her. You'll be the foe, and shb will regress again. This is PROGRESS??? God, save me! I will, I am, I have been. Think of her as a work in progress. You can help or hinder that progress. 5. God wants to answer our questions. Why won't the song "Carry Your Candle" leave my mind even though it's the middle of the night? You're feeling overwhelmed after your meeting with E. You realize once more that you're not part of the "in group." YOu know~that you've bitten off more than you can chew. That's all true, but what about the song? You might be wishing that you could hide some of your light under a bushel basket. You want me to bring my light not just to E but also to F? You never let up, do you? Sometimes. But you know about the hothouse effect, right? I'm trying to get a beautiful, well-formed, and well-pruned plant. Are you up .to the challenge? Only with your grace, my dear, only with your grace. Review for Religious 6. God calls us to the truth about ourselves. You're letting me see my sinfulness. A lot of anger arises in me, now more quickly and verbally. Maybe it has always been there and is just now getting a chance to be seen because of my buttons being pushed. It's not pretty, and I repent. Partly I'm sorry because my mask of niceness is coming off. Partly I'm sorry because I'm going to have to go and talk with G. The fact is, my dear, that the fault is not all in her. She's pressing your buttons. This is not all black and white. Thank you for letting me see my own sinfulness and for letting me see my need for a Savior. I too have a somewhat hardened and peevish heart. Thank you for this important lesson. Doing so many holy things, I think my nose is pretty clean. Lord, I need your amazing grace. 7. God always gives the ultimate promise. I'll put it bluntly: I'm worried about my meeting with H. We know how strong-headed she can be. You saw how she treated me in our last encounter. I don't want to be gobbled up. It's not Thanksgiving; it's Christmas. I'm surprised at how weak-kneed I still can get just think-ing about it. I don't want to challenge anyone too seri-ously. HELP! I'll never get stronger unless I face this kind of thing. May I talk now? I will give you the words you need and the courage you desire. You don't need to or want to come off like J with no feeling. If you appear weak, that's O.K. You're doing what I call you to. You need only to be faithful. Don't forget the insight and power you've recqived from me in prayer, especially in this written form. I am your God, beside you and within you. As you know well, 1 WILL BE WITH YOU ALWAYS.t 8. God sends us the light we need. I am getting sick from the black hole that is sucking out my life. So much negativity! It's beginning to affect my stomach. I didn't know if the time was ripe to say 63.3 2004 Nienaber ¯ Not for the Faint of Heart anything or not. So, once again, I swallowed my words. Dear God, speak to me. I will if you'll give me a chance and listen. Be still and know that I am God. Your God and her God. You're not going to change bet much. Maybe you can think of bet as a sick person who needs compassion. Maybe she is the lost lamb that needs to be picked up in your embrace. Maybe even she is the prodigal who needs to be welcomed with open arms. She is your responsibility to pray for. What are you doing about it? You're right. I do pray that she might find a few ounces of happiness. Help her to see your goodness in herself. And help me to treat her with a little more of the Spirit of Jesus - not just write about it. Help me to find any rays of light in the darkness. Let me .look more with your compassionate eyes, not my increasingly hard-ened eyes and face and mouth. The light is coming into the darkness. VVatcb for tbe first streaks! 9. God helps us to see more reality.than we're aware of. Why am I still so upset that it shows in my eyes? It reminds you of Mother's Day fifty years ago and the arguing, never reconciled, just stuffed. No one should ruin an important day like this for others. I hate that stupid trick called "I was only kid-ding." Doesn't she know that's a lie? She wasn't really lying. She was kidding herself, not quite aware of her motivation. I have really internalized this. Is it also about me? Yes, you hate not being the good guy. You dislike being one of the sources of controversy. You hate having "lost it" in a way you would never have done had you been fully in control. You dislike that you have to go and apologize again. You're right, as Usual. 10. God comforts.us in our disappointments. Dear God, you seem to be the only constant in my life. My family, friends, and fellow parishioners disap- Review for Religious point me. I don't want to get too Jesus-and-me-ish, but you're the only one I can really rely on. This is a self-pitying but true statement: I give out so much and receive propor-tionately so little in return. My dear child, lay your bead against me, and let go of another birthday that could never reach your expectations. I am not just bigb in the heavens but very real and very near. I am inside you, guiding you, encouraging you, shoring you up, opening new paths, loving you unconditionally, giving you loyal friends, reminding you of your v~ortb, sending people to delight you. I will always be faithful My family, friends, and fellow parishioners disappoint me. Observations, Benefits, and Suggestions One common thread throughout the above ten exam-ples is God's promise "I will be with you always"-even (or especially) in difficult situations. Jesus Christ is our Savior not just through his death and resurrection, but also in everyday situations where we need healing and hope. As with our forebears in ancient and modem times, God chooses to be present with saving grace through a whole spectrum of love: from comfort to confrontation. Some people wonder if this kind of dialogue with God comes just from an overactive imagination. If we are truly open to God, the answers we get are Truth try-ing to intersect with our confusion or our suffering. We have a God of communication. How else would the patri-archs and prophets have heard God's voice? How else would apostles and martyrs, foundresses and laypersons, have known God's will? Of course, we can be mistaken in our listening. Discernment is always needed. Many of us were trained to start the day with the Morning Offering. In it we offer to God not only our 63.3 2004 Nienaber ¯ Not for the Faint of Heart prayers, works, and joys, but also our sufferings. Do we offer them to God? Life sometimes deals us a bad hand of cards, and some people easily say that God does it for a reason. If this is true, maybe the reason is so that we will not live on the surface, but take the risk of going deeply into prayer and into the mind of God. Only the truth sets us free. Thus, praying through our sufferings can give more peace, insight, and freedom than we have ever known. Honest prayer can lead us more deeply into the paschal mystery. Once we face and embrace our dark-ness, we can be more open to the light, the resurrections within us. St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10 that he does not regret his struggles. He embraces both sides of the mystery of Jesus in his own body: "punished, but not put to death; sorrowful, though we are always rejoic-ing; poor, yet we enrich many." Praying honestly can help us, like Paul, to hold in reverence both the light and darkness of our life. Once people have had a few experiences of getting insight from God in difficult situations, they are encour-aged to continue as the need arises. In case pray-ers would like to journal in this way but do not know how to get started, the following suggestions are offered: God, what can I learn from this anger? What can this loneliness teach me? What do you want to say to me in my insomnia? How might I have handled my frustration differ-ently? How can I deal with this feeling of jealousy? Why do I have to put up with all of this #o~o&-'.':~÷? Why am I so afraid? I really resent J because. I am sensing a deep loneliness because. I am feeling out of relationship with. I am in touch with one of my deepest wounds. Review for Religious Liturgical-minded people often use the readings of the day for their inspiration in prayer. Sometimes, how-ever, the events of our lives need to supersede those read-ings. In such cases, the text of our lives becomes the stuff of our prayer. It is unfair not to deal with our anger and frustration. The ten examples given above involve real issues which, if not dealt with in a healthy way, will spurt outwards or inwards in unhealthy ways. Our caring God wants to help us with such issues as our frustration, for-giveness, anger, disappointments, loneliness. God wants to give light, truth, and insights that are both consoling and challenging, if only we accede. With Peter we can ask, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" (Jn 6:68). In the Monastery Gardens Like the order, they have shrunk From golden reaches of summer sweetcorn Swelling the ear for hungering novices, Have shrunk from pumpkin-puddled swatches Of green and gold serpentining to half An acre of tomatoes all to be stored Against monastic winters. Borders of pines And windbreaks now do not enclose a pleasant Land of hefty cabbages and prickled okra; What is left is gardened for subsistence By stooping backs, gnarled hands, a cane Or two supporting a search for what then Had been Father Leo's prized asparagus. A fox Like Satan circumambulates the margins Where once the chickens found their forage. Not an Eden, never an Eden, but at evening Still walks a Presence serenely pleased to be At home in limitless gardens of the stars, Or gardens shrunken to an order's humbled knees. Nancy G. Westerfield 63.3 2004 J. THOMAS HAMEL A Hidden Treasure of the Ignatian Exercises p~ayer is about getting involved with God by hook by crook and is well worth the effort. Whether by rolling up their sleeves or getting on their knees, by waiting quietly or singing loudly, people manage to find a way of getting involved with God. But what if prayer is not primarily any of these activities? What if prayer is primarily a matter of looking? St. Bernard has a striking response to this question. In his sixty-ninth sermon on the Song of Songs he says: I must bring this sermon to an end, but I will say one thing to the spiritual among you, a strange thing, but true. The soul that looks on God sees him as though she alone were lboked on by him. It is in this confi-dence that she says he is concerned for her, and she for him, and she sees noflaing but herself and him. How good you are, Lord, to the soul who seeks you. You come to meet her, you embrace her, you acknowledge yourself to be her bridegroom, you who are the Lord, God blessed forever above all things.1 ~ J. Thomas Hamel SJ continues to reside at College of the Holy Cross; ¯ , ~ , 1 College Street; Worcester. Massachusetts 01610. Review for Religio~ts Echoes of this passage from St. Bernard are found in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, devoted as he is to the activity of seeing2 For Ignatius the actual begin-ning of prayer has everything to do with looking rather than listening. Along with his own "modesty" or "cus-tody" of the eyes in dealing with others, he seems to exult unrestrainedly in being looked at by God. In his Exercises Ignatius says, "For the space of an Our Father, with mind and heart raised up, consider how God ourLord looks at me" (§75).2 The "vulgate" Latin text adds a nuance: "Picture my Lord Jesus as present and looking at what I am on the point of doing."3 Getting involved with God turns around to mean God getting involved with the one who comes to pray. Ignatian spirituality has much to do with seeking and finding, with looking and listening, with self-offering and receiving. But the precise first step is not so much looking as being looked at, not so much seeing as being seen, being locked in the gaze of God, For Ignatius, prayer begins with the gift of God's attentiveness to me, keeping me in sight, and so a kind of hidden dynamic is at work in the rest of my prayer, including the colloquy: "Imagining Christ our Lord before me on the cross, make a colloquy" (§53). Seeing our Lord on the cross gradually becomes a larger picture. Under Christ's gaze one's whole past comes into focus, and so does what one is doing for Christ here and now, and also his awareness of what one will do. The Redeemer and Savior can con-template one's past, present, and future. In the following Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises, one is invited to be contemplative of the present and future of our eternal Lord's earthly journey. Does contemplation begin in the eyes? During his recuperation in the Loyola family castle after the battle of Pamplona, Ignatius would spend hours imagining what he would do in the service of a certain lady. Had she 63.3 2004 Hamel * A Hidden Treasure of the Ignatian F_.vercises one day looked at him--whoever she was? On another occasion Ignatius "saw clearly a likeness of our Lady with the Holy Child Jesus, at the sight of which he received a very extraordinary consolation."4 Did this extraordinary consolation include the gaze of Mother and Child on him? In Manresa he was mesmerized by the dazzling sight of a serpent: "Somehow it seemed to him that it had the shape of a serpent, and it had many things which shone like eyes, though they weren't eyes. He used to take much delight and be consoled by seeing this thing."s In addition Ignatius would speak of his "interior eyes." He saw with his interior eyes "some things like white:rays which were coming from above. ¯ . He saw clearly with his understanding how Jesus Christ our Lord was present in that most holy sacra-ment. Often, and for a long time, as he was in prayer, he used to see with his interior eyes the humanity of Christ. ¯. Were he to say twenty or forty times, he wouldn't be so bold as to judge that this was a lie . Our Lady too he has seen in a similar form, without distinguishing the parts."6 From such sublime visions, it is typical of Ignatius to bring himself back to earth. "At this time God was dealing with him in the same way as a schoolteacher deals with a child, teaching him . His clear judgment [is] that God was dealing with him in this way.''7 What kind of teachei- other than God allows one to see with one's interior eyes? From schoolboy to errant knight "full of shame and confusion" was not a giant step for Ignatius. In the First Week of the Exercises, Ignatius can readily suppose a person of his culture would feel the disgrace of "being looked upon by his king and all in the court" with disdain, if not repugnance (§74). An even, deeper experience of the hatefulness of sin comes about as a gift of the Father and Son and of our Lady (§~63-64). To receive this gift Review for Religious is to be looked upon by each of them, one after the other. The cosmic gaze of the risen Jesus introduces the Second Week. Everyone and everything is present to the eternal Lord of all. "From the place where he dwells, he gazes on all the inhabitants of the world" (Ps 33:13-14). Before each disciple the eternal Lord pauses, looks, then calls. Whoever responds will be seated at his table, be dressed in clothes similar to his, and be seen with him in the night watches. Such imagery of being a knight beloved of his king personalizes the dream of serving an ideal leader and kingmto be fulfilled only in the company of the shepherd king, the risen Lord of all. Those who respond with full-hearted affection see themselves belong-ing to the world in altogether new ways: interreligious dia-logues, speaking new languages, adapting to new cul-tures, discovering sisters and brothers worldwide. They may also translate Iguatius's much-loved-knight imagery into their own experience, like sharing the food of their Lord--which is doing the will of the Father who sent him, being clothed with his virtues (§93). Prayer from then on occurs in one's own journey and in Christ's. A friendship grows, reverence deepens. Service no longer knows of "shoulds," but is the deed of love welling up from silence and verbal exchange, from spiritual insight, and from special moments of feeling that one is under God's loving gaze. To visit Nazareth, find one's way to Bethlehem, come to the River Jordan, ascend Mount Tabor, enter Jerusalem--wherever, with all that looking in wonder and being looked at, who is to find words or have need of words? Does one need words when con- Service no longer knows of "shoulds," but is the deed of love welling up from silence and verbal exchange. 63.3 2004 Hamel ¯ A Hidden Treasure of the Ignatian F~cercise$ templating the Infant lying in the manger and looking back at you? It would not be difficult to imagine that, when Jesus is leaving Nazareth and you with him, our Lady would be looking at you as well. When present with Jesus in the waters of the Jordan, would not you too be looked at by the Father? (§273). When speaking to his beloved dis-ciples about the beatitudes, how striking that Jesus exhorts them to use their talents, letting their "light shine before people so that they may see your good deeds and gl6rify your Father" (§278). Would you too be caught in that smile of his? On Mount Tabor Christ our Lord became transfigured, and his face shone like the sun and his clothing like snow (§284). Did Peter, James, and John know who was looking at them? When the woman who showed "great love" heard Jesus saying "Your faith has saved you, go in peace," was she not being looked at with love? (§282). St. Peter denied him, but later, after Jesus looked at him, went outside and wept bitterly (§292). Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged; they struck him blows in the face (§295). Were his eyes closed against the blows? And when on the cross he commended St. John to his mother and his mother to St. John, what kind of look was he giving them at that moment? (§297). In his first appearance on the day of the resurrection, the very silence of the .Gospels already suggests that Jesus' and Mary's wordless looking at each other was enough. "The way friends are accustomed to console one another" is often a matter of exchanging heartfelt looks (§224). Ignatius stresses that the risen Jesus appeared many times to the disciples and spoke with them (§311). How often were those "words" simply looks? Even at table eating, Ignatius contemplates. "While eating one should imagine that one is seeing Christ our Lord eating with his apostles, considering the way he Review for Religious drinks, the way he looks around, and the way he talks" (§214). Is there any end to the breadth and lerigth and height of when Christ our Lord looks at you contem-plating all his mysteries? All the seeking and finding, the asking and receiving, all the knowing and loving blend into being looked upon, gazed upon, endlessly, so it seems, in a d!scipleship of friend to friend. Is it merely a coincidence that in Igna~ius's Exercises the final mystery to be contemplated presents Jesus' dis-ciples still looking? "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus who has been taken from you will come in the same way as you saw him go to heaven" (§312, Acts 1:11). Were the angels subtly inviting the disciples to find their risen Lord look-ing at them in and through his sisters and brothers? Ignatius's long-standing desire to be placed with the Son surely reflects repeated visions of being looked at by the Lord. To be placed with the Son is to be under his gaze forever. This school of contemplation, if it may be so called, takes place on the run. One is being taught while on a journey. In the full thirty-day Exercises, the introduc-tory exercise of prayer is repeated four or five times daily. Before a word is exchanged, the Teacher is simply look-ing, and thereby teaching contemplation, teaching peo-ple to see what the Lord sees, to see ourselves as the Lord sees us, to see others as the Lord sees them. Then, when somewhere along the journey our Lord looks upon us, that look is a reflection of ourselves, like an imitation in reverse. What we see is Christ our Lord being where we find ourselves, aware of what is going on in us and making it known to us. The journey is not quite the same any more; we are in new territory with the Lord. Ignatius alludes to this kind of experience when he recalls the surreptitious visit he made to the Mount of Olives: 63.3 2004 Hamel ¯ A Hidden Treasure of the Igr~ti~ Exercises When they found out in the monastery that he had gone off like this without a guide, the friars took vig-orous s~teps to look for him. So, as he was coming down from the Mount of Olives, he came upon a Christian of the cincture, who was a servant in the monastery. He had a big staff, and with a show of great anger was gesturing as if really to give it to him, and coming up to him he grabbed him roughly by the arm. He let himself be taken readily, but the good man never let him go. And, as he went along this path in this fashion, grabbed by the Christian of the cincture, he had great consolation from our Lord, in that it seemed to him he was seeing Christ always over him. And, until he arrived at the monastery, this lasted all the time in great abundance,s Although this was not by any means the first time Ignatius saw Christ our Lord, it is worth noting how his language catches a different, if not new, experience. Ignatius does not say Christ appeared to him, but he sees Christ "always over him," as if hovering over him, as though walking with him down the path from Bethphage into Jerusalem. It is also worth noting how Ignatius names the consolation. His consolation occurs in what he sees: "seeing Christ always over him." Was Ignatius see-ing Christ in his passion along the Via Dolorosa, but reflecting his own experience of being bound and led into Jerusalem? This had been the city of his dreams, but, after the Franciscan superior told him he had to leave it, it became the place of his own passion. In Ignatius's Spiritual Diary we are let in on similar experiences. As if a new mutuality is being revealed, Jesus accompanies Ignatius before the Father. On Monday, 2 5 February, the feast of St. Matthias, Ignatius is celebrat-ing Mass alone: I entered into the Mass with great devotion, warmth, and tears, at times losing the power of speech. During the prayers to the Father, it seemed that Jesus was presenting them, or accompanied those that I was say- Review for Religious ing, before the Father; and I felt or saw in a way that cannot be explained in those terms? Two days later, on the first day of Lent, Ignatius was in the chapel praying. He writes: I entered the chapel and while praying felt, or to put it more exactly, I saw, not by natural power, the Blessed Trinity and also Jesus who was representing me, or placing me before the Trinity or acting as medi-ator close to the Blessed Trinity, that I might com-municate in that intellectual vision. On feeling and seeing in this way I was covered in tears and love but with Jesus as the object; and toward the Blessed Trinity, a respect of submission more like a reverential love than anything else. Later I felt in a similar way that Jesus was performing the same task when I thought of praying to the Father, for it seemed and I could feel within me that he was doing everything before the Father and the Blessed Trinity.1° Jesus, the Mediator par excellence, so identifies with Ignatius that, in presenting Ignatius to the Father, it seems that Jesus is presenting himself to the Father. On the other hand, when Ignatius humbles himself before the Blessed Trinity, not out of fear but with a reverential love, it seems that he has entered into the very senti-ments of Jesus himself. What happened to Moses springs to mind: he talked to God face to face (Ex 33:11). In the beginning, however, "Moses hid his face from God, for he was afraid to look at God" (Ex 3:6). The sight of the burning bush was only a beginning, but a journey begun leads to other beginnings. Seeing and being seen are wondrous beginnings in themselves, but others follow: not only sight but also sound, not only sound but also silence. Memories long buried may come into view; new and hardly namable feelings may arise. Contemplation is a new and mostly unspoken language that may come more and more into play on the journey. To see in this way the language spoken by our Savior's eyes--to learn 63.3 2004 Hamel * A Hidden Treasure of the lgnatian Exercises it and respond in it--is to be seen by the Father, to see him as he is, and to become like him. Perhaps this would be the ultimate grace, the hidden treasure, of the Spiritual Exercises. Notes i Bernard of Clairvaux, "On the Song of Songs," Vol. 4, trans. Irene Edmonds (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1980), p. 35. 2 St. Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings, trans. Joseph A. Munitiz and Philip Endean (London: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 300. 3 A new translation from the "vulgate" Latin text, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, trans. Pierre Wolff (Liguori, Missouri: Triumph, 1997), p. 25, §75. 4 Personal Writings, Reminiscences, p. 16 (=Autobiography, § 10). s Reminiscences, p. 21 (=Autobiography, §19). 6 Reminiscences, p. 26 (=Autobiography, §29). 7 Reminiscences, p. 25 (=Autobiography, §27). s Reminiscences, p. 35 (=Autobiography, §48). 9 Personal Writings, p. 86 (=Spiritual Diary, §24). 1o Personal Writings, p. 87 (=Spiritual Diary, §26). Review for Religious SEAN SAMMON Fidelity and Commitment: Letter to a Young Marist Brother Dear Zebulun, After our general chapter I decided to write to our young brothers. You number more than eight hundred, and I was eager to get in touch with you to offer a word of encouragement. Zebulun, you and our other young brothers give me and many more older brothers great hope that a new day is dawning for our Marist life and mission throughout the world. So many of you tell me how eager you are to embrace and live fully the five calls found in our general chapter message. "Center your lives in Jesus," the delegates wrote, "for upon this foundation our life is built. Be sowers of hope: by means of new and renewed initiatives in evangelization, education, and solidarity, draw closer to the poorest and most marginalized of young people. Join efforts Se~in Sammon FMS, now superior general of the Marist Brothers, wrote for us in 1992 and 1993. His address is Fratelli Maristi delle Scuole; C.P. 10250; 00144 Roma, Italy. 63.3 2004 Sammon ¯ Fidelity and Commitment with our lay parmers to clarify more fully their identity and ours and to collaborate more closely in mission, spirituality, formation. Build communities where forgiveness is a habit and reconciliation no stranger. Do all things in Mary's way." A challenging agenda, but one that many of you appear eager to implement! You have come to religious life during a turbulent period in its history. The world in which you grew up is also very different from the one in which many of us began our Marist life. We look to benefit from your experience with young people and your understanding of their joys and preoccupations. We are eager to hear from you what young people need from us who are cormnitted to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with them. Never cease to challenge us with your hopes and dreams, and do not hesitate to share with us your fears and concerns as well. I write as your brother, recalling my own years as a young brother and remembering the energy and the distracting preoccupations that often marked those years~ I remember a sense of adventure, but also sometimes feeling that a word of encouragement or some clarifying light would have been very welcome indeed. Today I seek to cast some light on fidelity and commitment. If this seems an unusual topic with which to begin, it is nevertheless one that has come from conversations with young brothers. It is a topic on the minds of a good many of them. With this letter I attempt to respond to their questions and concerns--but without forgetting my chief purpose: getting in contact with you and bringing some encouragement. Why This Concern with Fidelity. and Commitment? During my visit with a group of young brothers in Bolivia, I was asked: "Why do you think so many young Review for Religious brothers are leaving our congregation?" The question was direct and needed an answer, for it represented the mind of many in the room. I offered a few words in response, but I knew my reply was not adequate. So the question stayed with me. It remains with me still. Some may insist that responsibility for leaving the institute lies with the various individuals, but that explanation is too facile for me. Over the years some dear friends of mine have left. Good and honest men, on fire with a love of Jesus Christ and a desire to make a difference in the lives of poor kids, they have decided to steer their life in a different direction from our Marist brotherhood. Each time I found myself asking: "For what reasons is he leaving?" and "What makes me stay?" Others may think and say that those who request dispensation from their vows do so because they have grown lukewarm and found themselves unable to cope with the disappointments that are the part of any life commitment lived well. Here again the explanation seems too facile. After all, haven't most of us from time to time thought about leaving? Aren't we all sometimes lukewarm? If we are human, we all experience occasional problems with one or several of these important dimensions of our lives: relationships, sexuality, faith, cormnunity life, our ministry, and even the priorities that the members of our province may establish. Zebulun, I believe that you and I will find an answer to the question put to me in Bolivia if we can deepen our Fidelity helps us remain true to what we have pledged despite the contradictory values that we might encounter on life's journey. -2-85- 63.3 2004 Sammon ¯ Fidelity and Commitment understanding of the nature of fidelity. After all, isn't it the virtue that helps people like us overcome feelings of staleness that sometimes threaten our life commitments? Fidelity helps us remain true to what we have pledged despite the contradictory values that we might encounter on life's journey. God is faithful to us. Keeping that fact in mind, let us take a look at that time in life when the dream that God has in mind for each of us began to take shape. Can you remember the earliest time when people asked you what you were going to do with your life? Whatever our responses were, they were influenced by our experiences, our culture, our personality and natural gifts, the expectations that others had for us, and of course God. The word vocation sometimes describes our response to this very same question: we feel called. Before Vatican Council 17, however, vocation was commonly used only for people who entered a seminary or a religious congregation. Thankfully, the present-day understanding of vocation is much broader. Everyone is called by God to something and therefore has a vocation. A religious vocation is one type Of vocation, but all who respond to God,s dream for them are living out a vocation. God's Dream for Me and the Mystery of Election At the center of your vocation and mine lies the mystery of "election." The second chapter of our Marist Constitutions and Statutes says it well: God called you and me by name. God led us into the desert and spoke to our hearts. God sent us out on mission. Simply put, God has a dream for each of us and is eager to share it and lead us into it. But he uses very human means to get the message across. Our awareness of God's dream for ourselves can often be traced back to our answer to the question with which we began this section: What am I going to do with my life? Review for Religious Our answer usually began as a fluid vision of the kind of person I am, of who I was becoming in the world. Often enough I modeled myself after adults I admired. When I think back to my own teenage years, I remember that the brothers who taught me in secondary school made quite an impression on me. I wanted to be like them. They were effective in their ministry and obviously enjoyed working with young people. Most of all, they were happy--happy, not in the sense of hilarity, but happy because of their deep sense of purpose, their dedication. So strong was the impression that these brothers made on me that I went to the juniorate at age fifteen. God got his message across to me through a group of---as I later realized---all-too-human men nevertheless doing something that would be worth the gift of my life. Over timeI learned that my early-adolescent dream, too, contained illusions of its own. Maybe you had the same experience. Sometimes I thought of myself as larger than life. During the years since, I have often wondered whether-I considered this inflated view of myself necessary for doing all the things I believed others expected me to do. Eventually I learned another important lesson: The reasons that brought me to religious life are not the reasons that kept me from leaving. That's right. As your vocation or mine matures, we understand the deeper reasons behind our choice to be a brother. We understand ourselves and our way of life as Marist brothers better than when we were first attracted to it. God leads us to a deeper experience of his love for each of us. A vocation, consequently, is not a once-and-for-all call that comes sometime during adolescence. Rather, it is a daily and lifelong conversation with God. For you and me to be faithful to our vocation as Marist brothers, then, we will have to do a great, deal more than refresh our 63.3 2004 Sammon * Fidelity and Commitment memories of an invitation that came early in life. Instead, we will need to practice what Marcellin Champagnat called the presence of God. God's Dream and. the Rich Young Man Before moving on, let us look at another question. What happens if I fail to follow God's dream for me? After all, this dream of God's is something freely offered; I do not have to accept it. Permit me to respond with a story. Several years ago, during the course of a workshop at the English College in Rome, I met a young man there whom I will call Stephen. This Roman seminary prepares priests for all the dioceses of Great Britain, and Stephen was a third-year student. Before entering the college and formation for priesthood, he had been a successful businessman. During breakfast one morning I asked him what had brought him to the seminary. His response was disarming: "I don't think I have a vocation to ;priesthood, but apparendy God does!" He said that with the passage of time he was just beginning to feel at home with that notion. In its early days a religious vocation is not always welcomed with joy! So God's dream for you and for me is freely offered and can be accepted or put aside. In putting it aside, however, we run a risk. Though we may live a life that is happy and fulfilling, and envied by others, at some deep level .we may sense that an important part of our life is missing. All three synoptic Gospels tell of a rich young man who came to Jesus and asked what he had to do to possess eternal life. Jesus said, "Keep the commandments." The man said he had always kept them. Jesus, looking beyond this young man's lifelong conscientiousness, saw what his practice of religion could be: something much better than keeping his heart to himself and taking pride in observing the Law and avoiding mistakes. And so, looking on him with love, Review for Religious Jesus said: "There is still one thing you lack. Sell everything that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." The rich young man was faced now with having to choose one of two life directions. One would include God's dream for him, and the other would not. We know the end of the story well. This rich young man failed to accept the Lord's invitation, and he went away sad. Zebulun, I wonder if you sometimes feel like this rich young man, as I do. As life unfolds, we discover that every commitment lived well demands sacrifice, allowing others to have a claim over our time, talents, and energies. The Lord invites us to take up certain tasks, not because we want to, but because our presence and efforts are necessary. Some of us are perennially slow learners, and so it is only on arriving at the end of our thirties that we discover and admit that we have long been straying from what God has had in mind for us. At that point we face a choice much like the rich young man's. Midlife provides the opportunity, once again, to move our life more in the direction of God's dream for us. Our twentieth general chapter, with its theme of vitality, offered us a similar opportunity. Those who participated in that gathering and our lay consultants did not produce an elaborate pastoral plan, nor send us a message that included many details. No, their final communiqu6 was very simple. What it asked of us today as.Marist brothers is a revolution of the heart. Simply put, we must fall in love with God, once again. Vocations and Risk and Times of Change In making any permanent commitment, you and I must surrender ourselves to someone who is beyond our control. Every vocation, therefore, has an element of risk; 63.3 2004 Sammon ¯ Fidelity and Commitment it is a leap into the unknown. We are called upon to take a chance with our lives, to take a risk, to go beyond the information we have on hand. Some people prefer to wait until they have all the information necessary to make the best possible decision, but this course of action has its own danger. If you or I wait to be absolutely sure of ourselves before taking action, then we will be dead before we do anything meaningful. So let us keep our vocations alive and lively by taking risks again, and again, and again. Most of us admit to having "second thoughts" from time to time about the important commitments we have made in life. My own questions and doubts occurred during my late twenties and then again in my early forties. I mentioned earlier that I went to the juniorate at age fifteen. Ten to fifteen years later I was asking myself whether I chose too soon. I had the notion that waiting several more years before making a definitive choice about my life would have spared me the burden I felt at age twenty-eight. The truth of the matter, however, is that none of us escapes consequences. Had I delayed making a life commitment, I would have suffered a different set of consequences. God saw fit to invite me to make a move at fifteen; he invites others at eighteen, or twenty-two, or thirty. Some people point out that the doubts we all experience about our vocation often occur during times of transition. In people's lives, periods of change and turmoil alternate with stable periods. The latter run about six or seven years and are often marked by productivity and a sense of well-being. People have their sights set on the future, on building a life for themselves. In contrast, transitions are times when people look back and have second thoughts. These periods may last four or five years and may begin with an ending. Many brothers feel it deeply and at length when a parent dies, Review for Religious or when they leave one ministry for another, or move from one community to another. Or they may fall in love, fail at a task, have a spiritual awakening, become involved in a renewal program or advanced study, or turn a certain age. No matter what precipitates them, changes do occur and bring some kind of ending to what has gone before. Most of us believe that new beginnings take place quickly. Life's transitions, however, manage to surprise us by bringing an extended period of uncertainty during which we feel "up in the air" or "lost at sea." About all we are sure of is that we cannot go back to the world we once knew. Eventually transitions comes to a close when new beginnings get well underway. We cannot, however, speed them up. They happen in their own good time. Renewal programs, counseling and spiritual direction, and talking with community members, friends, and confidants can help us reap greater benefit from any time of transition. Frank discussion about our situa-tlon with a person or persons whom we trust is one of the best ways to profit from a period of transition, but these conversations will not make the transition happen faster. Well used, though, periods of transition will reward us. Times of transition are times of grace. These are the desert experiences during which God speaks to our hearts. They are marked by some common feelings. We find ourselves disillusioned, or disengaged from our community or other people. The roles that we fill in life often do not make much sense anymore. Though these periods may frighten and disturb us, leave us resdess and uncertain, they are times of purification, of deepening our understanding, of opportunity to rework our life Times of transition are times of grace. 63.3 2004 Sammon ¯ Fidelity and Commitment commitments and come to love them more deeply. Single people, married people, priests, and men and women religious all go through times of transition. We need not be alarmed when they come, but we should handle them intelligently, and seek advice in doing so. One Person's Story Here is an example of one person's life transition. Several years ago, while I was visiting a province, a young brother whom I will call Michael came to speak with me. He was heavy of heart and told of being in love with a young woman, a religious sister whom he had met while taking some classes. He was heavy of heart because he felt divided between loving this young woman and having an equal love for our Marist brotherhood and mission. He asked me for my reaction to his situation. I said, "Michael, it sounds like Christmas morning!" Looking surprised, he asked what I meant. I said that the relationship he described sounded wonderful, but that, as he probably realized, he faced some difficult decisions. He could not live for any length of time divided between this new relationship and his love of Marist life and mission. Eventually he would have to answer a question that all of us face in life: On whom or what do I set my heart? This spiritual question lies within every life transition. None of us can live for long with a divided heart. Eventually we must decide where we stand in life and what we hold dear. These major life commitments, then, become over time the touchstone for many of the other important decisions we must make in life. And what about this young brother today, several years later? Michael took his life situation in hand, as did the young sister. Both began to meet with spiritual directors, and he met with a counselor as well--and he began talking more honestly with the members of his community. Eventually Michael and his friend realized Review for Religious that the relationship they shared was an important source of support to their respective vocations. Today he finds his commitment to our congregation and mission stronger and deeper than in the past, and the young sister has a similar experience. Over time both realized that their community-life commitments and the values they hold dear are a steady compass helping them make the right choices in life. This young brother showed a great deal of courage. He could have avoided discussing his relationship, or deceived himself by minimizing its importance in his life. Instead, he accepted the grace that God gave him and found himself growing more aware of God's dream for him and accepting all that that dream required of him. Commitments and Freedom What is a commitment? To begin with, every. commitment involves a call. By one means or another, Jesus Christ gets our attention and invites us into a loving relationship with him. The mystery of election obviously plays an important role in the process. The relationship that we have with Jesus is the foundation upon which our religious vocations are built. Every commitment calls for a choice. And you and I both know that the choices we make in life help to define us. If your provincial asks you to decide between preparing to be a formator or working on a master's degree in mathematics, you quickly realize that the choice you make will affect the structure of your life at least for the immediate future, and probably also during the years to come. Finally, every commitment involves a promise. A promise is a particular kind of choice because it describes something that we intend to do in the future. For example, when you and I made our commitment in our Marist brotherhood to be poor, chaste, and obedient, we 63.3 2004 Sammon ¯ Fidelity and Commitment Freedom refers to our capacity to be self-determining. were not merely making a prediction about our future or reporting on our present state of mind. We were stating a firm intention and binding ourselves to a future course of action. So what is the advantage of making any type of commitment? To make a promise is the surest way for any of us to determine the direction of our life rather than to have it set for us. At first glance, freedom and commitment appear incompatible. Many of us have been led to believe that our happiness in life is related directly to the number of options that we have available. And conventional wisdom insists that to increase our freedom we need only increase our capacity for having our own way. This line of argument is aimed at convincing us that any life commitment is best put off, because it will only limit us, rein us in, make us less free. Life experience, though, reveals the flaw in this thinking. Zebulun, I think you and I both realize that a failure to commit ourselves does not ensure greater freedom. Freedom, after all, refers to our capacity to be self-determining. In promising to live out a particular way of life or to be a partner in a lifelong relationship, people choose freely to grow in one direction and not in another. Yes, it is important to be an adolescent for a while, to explore and experience different options for living, but it is equally important not to be an adolescent for a lifetime. All of us continue to explore throughout the course of life, but those among us who are perpetually adolescent use exploration to avoid ever making a gift of our lives, In the end we do not live life, we dabble in it. In making a commitment, then, we do not surrender freedom--most often we enhance it. Any of us, in Review for Religious committing ourselves fully to our life as brothers, will likely find that our potential for spiritual, apostolic, and emotional growth is enhanced. We become more focused and have greater intimacy with God and with others. By trying to keep all our options open, by refusing to make choices and commitments, we would eventually lose our freedom. Over time our life would be determined by forces beyond our control. What about Permanent Commitments? Most of us do not have much of a problem with the idea of commitments. Some of us, however, have a problem with the notion of permanence. I would suggest, though, that there is an intrinsic connection between "forever" and some life commitments. Every day all over the world people express their love for each other through marriage vows, saying "until death do us part." They do not just pledge themselves to persevere as long as all goes well, but rather they aspire to remain together no matter what obstacles stand in their way. Never mistake "forever" with stagnation or a lack of growth. The notion of "temporary commitment" makes me uncomfortable. It apparently comes from the tawdry "everything is disposable" attitude in contemporary culture, and, besides, the words temporary and commitment somehow do not seem to go together. If you or I want to give five years of our lives to a project, why call that gift of rime and talent a commitment. Wouldn't some word like agreement or arrangement better convey what we mean? What justifies a permanent commitment? Something quite simple: no better soil for human gro~vtb has yet been found. A permanent commitment, though, must always be judged by the fruit it bears. If any of us becomes bored, indifferent, and resentful in his permanent commitment, people wonder what it contributes to the 63.3 2004 Sammon * Fidelity and Commitment vitality of the group. They know that making our vows does not signal the journey's end. Rather it heralds a journey well begun. Perseverance is not necessarily a good measure of fidelity. Haven't some of us lived and worked with brothers who appeared so unhappy in our way of life and ministry that we had to ask 6urselves why he stays. Surely God did not plan for him to be so miserable in our way of life and our ministry to poor children and young people! Today, however, we face a phenomenon more visible than in the past and best described as the "breaking of commitments." You and I have known brothers, good men, who early in the course of their lives committed themselves generously to God and to others and who, over time, strove to live out faithfully the commitment they made. Then, as the years passed and their relationships with God, themselves, and others unfolded, these very same men came. to question the promises they had made in good faith so many years ago. Is Perseverance Always a Sign of Fidelity? In the enthusiasm that marked their early years of Marist life, they had made vows intending them to be permanent. With the passage of time, however, they found that, no matter how hard they tried, they could not live them out fully. During times of life transition--and for a number of us these changes occur when we are about thirty years old and then again during our early forties--many seek an answer to this question: Is it fidelity when someone clings to a vowed commitment and rigidly perseveres without facing honestly the .dull performance and lack of life that appear to be its fruit? ¯ Fidelity is at times exercised in change as well as in stability. For most of us~ our commitment to Jesus as Marist brothers reflects~ the deepest currents in our lives and significant aspects of our.personality. To some of our Review for Religious brothers, however, time reveals that more than anything else their commitment merely serves their need for security or provides a place to be of service to people. For a few other brothers, there is a growing realization that important elements of their commitment have died. For these last groups, the task at midlife is not simply to understand more fully the "mixed motives" that draw them to one vocation or another. Rather, it is to see that they have been living their life on a deficient grasp of some important truths or that their once cherished dream is in pieces. Moments of profound sadness, loss, and confusion accompany their growing awareness that sometimes fidelity to God, to oneself, and to others may be exercised in acknowledging that somehow a com-mitment has died or should be treated that way. We must, however, not use this line of reasoning to put aside a life commitment too easily. Whenever any of us are confronted with serious questions and doubts about our commitment as brothers, we must do no less than commit ourselves to a careful d

Issue 39.2 of the Review for Religious, March 1980. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published bi-monthly (every two months), is edited in collaboration ~;ith faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The'editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. It is owned 'by the Miffsouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri, © 1980. By REVIEW t,'OR REIA(;~OUS. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at ~;t. 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 REvt~-:w t:o~ REt,~(;lOUS: P.O. Box 6070: Duluth. Minnesota 55802. D:~niel 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 March, 1980 Volume 39 Number 2 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and hooks for review should be sent to Rt:vlt:w volt Rt:lA~;~o'us; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answer~ing 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. Spirituality and Theology Alan Jones Father Jones, an Episcopal priest, is Professor of Ascetical Theology and Director of the Center for Christian Spirituality; 175 9th Ave.; New York, NY 10011. His last article in these pages, "Obedience in' the Conteinporary World," appeared in the May, 1978, issue. Non abundantia scientiae sed sdntire et gustare rein internam. (Saint Ignatius Loyola) Dogmatic and mystical theology, or theology and "spirituality," are not to be Set apart in mutually exclusive categories, as if mysticism were for saintly women and theological study were for practical but, alas, unsaintly men. This fallacious division perhaps explains much that is actually lacking both in theology and spirituality. But the two belong together. Unless they are united there is no fervor, no life and no spiritual value in theology, no substance, no meaning and no sure orientation in the contemplative life.' One of the g~'eat privileges of the sabbatical system is that it not only affords the professor an opportunity to follow a particular line of research, but it also enables him to "feel and to taste the inner thing" of his subject. When it comes, however, to the subject known as mystical theology, there is som~ dispute as to whether there is anything either to feel or taste! All I can say is that after my sabbatical, I have felt and tasted Something that might well be a subject. I feel defensive, however, on two fronts. The first is the enormity and depth of the subject itself. The second is the suspicion, odium, and contempt in which the subject has been held by some theologians over the years. The first problem is more easily overcome than the second, for every scholar in whatever subject must, at various times, be overwhelmed by his inadequacy to ' Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation (1972), pp. 1"97-8, quoted in Andrew Louth, Theology and Spirituality (Fairacres Publication 55, 1978), p. 4. 161 162 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 19~80 / 2 plumb its depths. This gives me a certain comfort. The second problem, however, is of more practical concern and is~more difficult to overcome. The cleavage between theology and devotion is surely a fake one, although some fakes and frauds have a wonderful way of pretending to be real. The ugly breach (albeit based on a false dichotomy) between "the intellectual" and "the affective" over the centuries has done serious damage to both. Lo~,e is blind; the intellect is a cripple--so runs a classic image. In order for both to progress according to this. image, the intellect sits on the shoulders of the affections and guides them while the affections give feet to the intellect. In the same way, theology and spirituality belong together. Andrew Louth writes: So spirituality.[is] that which keeps theology to its proper vocation, that which prevents theology from evading its own real object. Spirituality does not exactly answer the question, Who is God? but it preserves the orientation, the perspective, within which this question remains a question that is being evaded or chided.Spirituality is necessary to theology to keep il in its proper vocation. The converse also seems .to be true, that theology is necessary to spirituality to keep, it to its proper vocation . The danger of a non- or un-theological spirituality is.that it will tend to become a mere cult of devotion.~ The immediate occasion of these thoughts which have been sitting in the back of my mind for some time was a casual remark in a letter from a dean of a seminary concerning the possibility of ~ colleague of mine doing some teachi.ng there,in the area of spirituality. In the middle of his friendly letter there was a well-aimed barb. While he welcomed my colleague's coming to the seminary, he was not sure that his faculty would r~egard Christian Spirituality as a discrete discipline. Now this is harmless enough. Fair game, one might say, in academic circles.' Still, underneath the joking there is a vein offseriousness. In other words, I take seriously the phony breach betweeri head and heart," between "theology" and "devotion." But 1 am even more concern~ed by the fact that this so-called bre~ch is thought to be real~ by at least some theologians. The idea has come abotit that the gap has always been there and always w, iil be. Of cohrse we have to bri~dge it occasionally, but this is usually done in the privacy of ou~" schizoid selves when we say one thing and do anotheL The gap, though,~ has to be obliterated, not just bridged, one way or another, and 1 would like to see it destroyed first in the intellectual realm itself.~ ~ ISOuth, op. cit., p. 4. o ' This is where both recent scholarship and the Christian mystical tradition might,.h~lp us. The books which set me. going on this subject were. R. C. Zaehner's Gifford Lectures for 1967-69, Concordant Discord (Oxford University Press, 1970), [this is a strange rag-bag of a book, polemical yet urbane, containing some brilliant insights]; William Johnston's The Inner Eye of Love (Collins,-1_978), which is the.first rece'ni attempt that I know of to argue for the recognition of mystical theology as "a discrete discipline"; Bernard Lonergan's Method of Theology (Dartbn, Spirituality and Theology One might start" by asking whether academic the61ogy itself is a,.discrete discipline. As Andrew Louth points out: ° Academic theology., needs some understanding of its own inner coherence to justify ~ . itself at all as an academic d~sophne, otherwise the several d~sclphnes ofwh ch t consists really themselves belong not together but to other wider disciplines." Without Jesus Christ as a principle of coherence th~ Old Testament just a collection Of semitic writings, the New Testamen a collec~tionof Jeffish and Hellenistic ~Je~vi~sh writings of the first century, and early'Christian doc.- trine a mere st'rand in the history"of ideas?ol~ Ithe later Roman Empire; s~irituality empha.sizes the "principle of coherenc, e" which holds together a seminary cufricultim. Theology serves spirituality .by rescuing it'from a chronic subjectivism. It is tragic when theology a~ad spirituality aredi'vided. Wird Christus Tausendmal zu Bethleh6~n geboren Und nicht in dir, du bleibst doch ewigli~h verloren. (Though Christ in Bethlehem a thousand t!mes was born But not in thee, in all eternity, thou art~forlorn.}6 ¯ ,Tr~ue, but,dangerous, "for without any, corre~cting influence the 'Christ born in me' will become the sort of Christ who can!be born in me. He will tend toAose the historical lineaments of the first-.centur~y~Jgw he was. He will lose his strangeness.He will cease to be the.one~who confronts us in his~sovereign individuality ~.A_c_a~emic the~ology, the dispassionate study of the witness of Jesus of.Nazareth, can provide~that corrective?'' ,This is why we learn Greek. "The strange language.is a symbol of t.he:~strangen~ss of thought that must be passed through before we can understand the GoSpels aright_.':a Longman, & Todd, l~70),~which' provides a method by which such a discipline Can be reestab-lished;:'~ and 'finally, Richard 'of' S(." Victor's" Benjamin' Mino'r~ Benjamin Major'and The Four Stages in the Mystical Ascent (in Clare Kirchbe?ger's Richard bf Stl Victor." Selected Writings on Contemplation, Faber and Eaber, 1957; also M~igne'.s~P,.L.CXCVI). The latter author I consider impbrtant as one who has managed to I~eal the breach between theology and devotion, even though the Victorines tended to side w~th Bernard against Abelard. All four books helped me r~discoVer the fact that there ts such~a subject as mystical theology! ' Lofith,~op. cit., p. 10. - '~Somemight, take exception to this since "the Old ~Testament revelation has an,integrity of its own, independ~ent of the New, as the flourishing Jewish religious c0mmuni~y of our time testifies. The Old Testament is the matrix of Christianity, and is essential for Christianity's identity and S~lf-definition whereas Chri~ianity'is ~n~t simiiarl~, essentiaj for Judaism" (fro~ Dr. J~.mes Carpenter's response to the first draft of this paper). I am in complete agreement with hi~ her~, bui m~' poini was not io disparage the Old Testafiaent revelation as far as Jews are Concerned, but simply to affirm that I cometo.the Old Testament in and through the light of the Christian revela-tion. Dr. Carpenter's trenchant and illuminating comments on the first.draft were helpful in my making this revision, and 1 gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to :him. ~ Louth, op, cit., p: 10: " ~ Ibid., p. I 1. ~ Hoskyns Cambridge Sermons, 1938, p.xxiii. ,. ' ° 164 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 Let us first take a brief look at the roots of the apparent conflict:. The disastrous cleavage between theology and religiousexperience goes right back, of course, to the beginnings of the struggle to articulate Christian belief. The formal "break," which has never really been healed, came, I suspect, at~he time ~)f the Renaissance and Reformation. For me, though,°it is sym-bolized in the earlierconflict between Abelard ~nd Saint Bernard. Ts-hy sym-bolized, because it would not be historically accurate to in~,est these two men with the rigidqualities ! am ascribing to them. Abelard represents theology. He was the proto-scholastic, whose unchastened intellect led'to his ruin. Saint Bernard represents affective piety, the burning heart devoted to God in prayer. Even though Saint Bernard won the first battle of the'campaign, it was Abelard, i believe, who won the war. The conflict resolved itself in two systerris in the thi~ieenth century: that of Saint Thomas Aquinas and that.of Saint Bonaventure. But who has heard of Saint Bonaventure's system apart from those few who are either medieval historians or students of mystical theology? Now, l know that what It have 'written here is somewhat of a caricature. Abelard, ifi places, reveals "a remarkable balance between in-tell'ect and feeling;''9 Saint Bernard, at times, seems to be devoid of feeling altogether., In reality, though, there was no real victor. Theology,became merely the tool of.the roving intellect. Bernard enjoyed ~nly a Pyrrhic ,victory. Abelard representedsomething vital to the healthy development of piety, that is, a probing and critical intelligence. Without theology, devotion was to go its own way. Without devotion, theology was to dry up and become, in Zaehner's words, "the plaything of desiccated mandarins.'''° Louis M. Martz sums up the situation in this way: During the Middle Ages .the scholastics threw a deep s~hadow over the affective life, a shadow which led some, such as Thomas a Kempis and his Brethren of the Common Life, to renounce scholastic subtletie§ as the brood of folly and the bitterlfruit of that curios~tas which St. Bernard denounced as the father of sin." I do not want tO paint too bla~k a picture. Nor do I want to reject Abelard. It was not _all bad, and there w~ele some .6otable men who were both brilliant scholars ahd committed contemplatives, Jean le Charlier de Gerson (1363-1429) for example, of whom most people have never heard! He wrote a synthesis, On the Mountain of Contemplation, the power of which was.such that it was cited b~, Richard Baxter in The Saints Everlasting Rest (1653): "Read'this you Libertines, and learn better the way of de+otion from a Papist." '~ Dorothy Sayers, writing about the problems of understanding Danters ~ James Carpenter. ~ ,~ ' ~o Zaehner, op. cit., p. 280. ~' Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Meditation, a study in English Religious Literature of the Seventeenth-Century (N. ew Haven: Yale University Press, 1954, revised 1962), p. 11.2. ~ Ibid., p. 169, quoted from The Saints Everlasting Rest (1650), part IV., Spirituality and Theology / 165 Divine Comedy today has three things to say whic,h are germane to the discus-sion in hand: , . first, theReformatio~, which tended to substitute an infallible Book f6r that of a liv-ing and infallible Chur~ch; fpllowed by the Counter-Reformation whic~h tended to make doctrine a more rigid, and inelastic thing--to objectify an~d pigeonhole it, and to take as one,may say, 'the poetry out of it.' Secondly, there was a growing obsession with scien-tific method, leading men to discount all values which whre not (in .the modern sense) "~scientific," so that no truth was held to be true if it could not be tested in the~labofatory. A third point., is the increasing segregauon of specialists in th6r own specialties, so that the scientist is not expected to study theology nor the ttieologtan to study scmnce, nor either of them to be an artist or a poet. ~ Dorothy Sayers' third point is, perhaps the most telhng from the point of view of this PaPer. Over-specialization has made ,us mistake the fake breach for a genuine one. We are like the heretics Farinata.' and Celvalcanti trapped in the same tomb in the Inferno, yet each oblivious iof the other's presence. It was not always so. For Anglicaris the seventeenth-century was a period when the basic unity between the cognitive and affective was affirmed. It can be seen in the Caroline divines and in the metaphysical, poets. The coming together of the intellectu~il and the affective is summed up in a characteristi-cally seventeenth-century word, sensibility: the union of thought and feeling. In the nineteenth centuWroyr,d s"w "o~rt h w a s c o n 'cerned with. developing the "feeling intellect." In Catholicism the split was formally repudiated during the Counter- ;Reformation and the establishment-of-seminaries after the Council of Trent with their curricula which divided theology up to include ascetical, ~mystical, and mor~l departments. I do not believe the repudiation went very deep, but there was, at least, some attempt to deny the gap.~Classical Protestantism, of course, had no u'~e for mysticism whatsoever, and it is interesting to find Richa~'d Baxter trying to justify papist practices of meditation to the puritans. Asceticism and mysticism of any kind suggested the terrible possiblity of earn-ing salvation. It smackedbf merit and not of grace. But how were the saints to grow in grace? Baxter tried to remedy the situaiion by producing the first puritan treatise 'on the art of methodical meditation to appear in England. Why did h~ want to see regialar meditation restored to puritan piety? Without meditation theology was mere theorizing. All the preaching, teaching, and reading is so much-dros~ if it be not internaliz~d,~if the inner reality is neither felt nor tasted. ~ | And why so much preaching is lost among us and profess rs can run from sermon to ser-mon, and are never weary of hearing or reading and yet have su~:h lariguishing, starred souls; 1 know of no truer or greater cause than their ~gnorance, and unconscionable neglect of Meditation." ~'Dorothy Sayers, Further Papers on Dante (Methuen, 1957), p. 88. " Martz, op. cit., p. 154. 166 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 Baxter was not entirely successful in persuading his puritan readers. Enthusiasm was the mark of the elect, rather than the practice of methodical mental prayeL This seems to be just as true today. All efforts at prayer and meditation wbre doomed to fail. One had simply to"w~it!on the mysterious opera~tions of the Holy Spirit. I m~ention this'because_the suspicions0concern-ing mys~ticism and mystical experience run very deep.-When ~hey are repressed they come out in some other form, as Baxter himself realized. The puritan was led "to' expect 0nly Enthusiastick Consolatiohs.'''~ The answer tO wild and pathological charismatic exi~eriences is a sound'~ syst.emati~ and mystical theology. That iswhy t6day, in the face of "religious experiences,'?we need to redevelop and rediscover criteria for judging them. I believe taking seriously ofl~e again th~ study of mystical theology will be a step ifi achieving this. , .~O_ften it has been believed that ~mysticism ~ran ~th~ot~gh Christianity li~e a streak of insanity in the family. Every generation or so a mad man appeared who had to be put away or ignored. This was the prevailing x~iew, for examlSle, of Brunner, who brilliafitly, if unconv'indn~gly, a~rgued the Protestant case againstmysticism. It was a Pelagian aberration, a neo-pl~itonic impurity sully-ing the integrity of Hel~raic ~eality. A wedge was placed between the so-called prophetic religions and the so-called mystical ones: MystiCal religion was passive, ihactive, .quietist, not interested in ~he, world ~nd its sufferings." Ironically, of course, prophetic experience in the Old'Te~tamen( as an im-mediate experience of the reality of God is my.stic~l. What was Moses if not a myStic? Nevertheless,~ the vtew has long prevatled that mystical and propheti~ r.ehglons were opposed to one another. Anghcans took th~s up just before and Well after the Second World War in the pursuit of wl~at ¢vas theft called "BiblicAl Theolo,.gy." Iremember my old profes.sbr, Alan'Richardso~, ~i~n- ~ sistin~ in his gen'tle way that Christianity was essentially ant~-mystical. ~Fh~ puzzl6d me greatly at the time since I had the tempe~rament which took mystic)sm as a given of human experience. Richard.sob, no doubt,~meafit mysticism in the Brunner sense (as essentially monistic add pantheistic), but Brunne~:'s hssessmen~ of mysticism ,~s so one-sided and limited as to be~ in the end, unconvincing. Mysticism's only real ally amon,_g P(otestant theologians, as far as I can make out, wag Tillich. Without theological" undergirdings, mysticism be6om~s, .in Richard Norris' marvelous phrase, little more than th'e building and furnishing of a private little "hacienda of the soul.'"' There has been no stern~ ~ritic, in the " Ib;id., p. 157. ' . '~ See his Bicentennial Lecture, "Hunting the Transcendent," unpublished, but available from the Center for Christian Spirituality. His iconoclasm with regard to spirituality is thorough. I think he gives, implicitly at least, what R.C. Zaehner asks of the theologian: i.e., "not a theology of the Death of God. but a theology of the death of self, the death of the human ~'person,' who is not only our old enemy, the ego., but also the ego~who has 'got religion' because:he thinks he has found the 'true' self." (Zaehner, op. cit., p. 208). ., . ,° Spirituality and Theology / "167 best sense, of mysticism/spirituality-- call it what you will -- than Dr. Norris. He has certainly helped and influenced me in moving towards a~more critical approach to the subject. His" own introductory lectures in Systematic Theology at theGeneral Theological Seminary of New York, (a course which I once shared with him) were undergirded by what I would call "mystical theology." His whole thesis revolved around the-uflcovering of the structure of a relationship between God and the world. Mystical theology is about nothiiigqf.it is not about that. ~ Nevertheless, there are enormous odds against developing a rigorous mystical theology. Traditions are hard to break. Anglicanism gets the worst of both worlds. From Western Catholicism it inherits the'ancient, if false, cleavage between tl~eology and devotion; from Protestantism, deep suspicions with regard to any systematic, disciplined devotional life. There is one final obstacle to look at before we examine the state of theology today and try to negotiate for the reacceptance of mystical.theology as.an object of serious study. It is the obstacle of a peculiar mind-set: hard, obdurate, pseudo-scientific, fundamentalist. By "fundamentalist" I refer not only to a crass literalism with regard to the Bible, but to a crass literalism towards all "facts." - It was not accidental to find, during my days as an.undergraduate; that the Christian fundamentalist students were often, studying~scientific subjects like zoology and biology: subjects of observation and classification. I believe.there is a kind of academic fundamentalism wtiich is just as infectious and insidious as a biblical fundamentalism. It tends to see" facts" as flat, o he-dimensional. This~fundamentalism finds it hard to acknowledge that there may be more than one level ot: truth, more than one way of looking at, reality~ Some early biblical critics, for example, were no less dogmatic in telling us what a par-ticular periscope signified than the fundamentalist. There is little or no sense, in this mind-set, of the value of symbols in pointing to the inexhaustibility of "facts." : Tobe fair, this mind-set goes with scientific technicians rather than with the ,brilliant scientist who, like Einstein,~can make intuitive leaps like the mystic. The best description I havre come across of this mind-set is that of Edmund Gosse °writing about the a~titude of his parents to the Bil~le. It should be remembered that his father, Henry Gosse, was a zoologist. It involved: a definite conception of the absolute, unmodified, and historical veracity, in its direct and obvious sense, of every statement contained within the cove~'~ of the Bible. Further, " - and for my fatli~r, nothing was symbolic, nothi.ng allegorical or allusive in any part of scripture. Both my parents, I think, were devoid of sympathetic imagination. Hence there wa.s no,mysticism about them. They went rather to the opposite extreme, to the cultivation oi" a rigid and iconoclastic literalness.'7 'Edmund Gosse, Father and Son (Penguin Books, 1907, revised 1970, pp. 49-50). 168 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 -Literalness of mind can attack the professor of any discipline, not least that of mystical theology. One has only to read Tanqueray and even Harton to realize how far the "~reification.of ideas" can go. Andditeralness is nowhere more dangerous than ~vhen dealing with "the anatomy of ~ouls." The question is, how do I harmonize (insofar as t want to) all my ex-periences, .all the bits and pieces of the self? I do not think it unreasonable of me to look to theology:.for guidance and help. My spiritual nourishment comes from all sorts of apparently strange places: the novels of Iris Murdoch, my downstairs neighbor banging away at the piano and singing at the top of his voice, our family meals, a stimulating lecture by a colleague, and a host of other things besides the more obvious,centers of Christian devotion. A rigid, literal mind will not help meointerpret and harmonize these differing experiences. Before'we mov~ on to examining what might be the structure and method of a mystical theology, let us look at.the study of theology as such. There has been a great deal written already about theological studies which suggests to me that mystical theology is being slipped in through the back door. Theology which is rooted in present experience or theology as biography suggest an ap-proach to theology-which sees it as a reflection on religious experience (which, to get ahead of myself, is William Johnston's definition of mystical theology). In other words, there is a tendency for theology to be experience-based. Theology is a living, reflective encounter with a living tradition, and not "an understanding which is~at several removes from, and well-insulated against, the reality of which the scriptures speak.'''8 1 think this is why there has been such a resurgence of interest in religious experiences of all kinds:=-some of them, it is true, dangerous and bizarre. The hunger, ,however, is'real enough. It is easy to see why the academic world so easily gets jaded, cynical, and tired. Frankly, we do'not have time to experience much, let alone reflect on it. Theology then becomes dealing with experiences always at second or third hand. A sabbatical such as mine provides an opportunity for what Charles Peguy called "pure reading." Pure readers are those "who read a work solely and simply for the sake of reading it or taking it in, to feed and nourish themselves on it as a precious foodstuff, in order to promote growthdn themselves, to promote their inner, organic~dignity, not at all to use it as something to work with, to promote one's social status in a secular society.'".9 Without this freedom to read and think for its own sake, the pleasure is sapped out of teaching. As R. C. Zaehner puts it, "The joy has turned into tedium, and it is the tedium that one is likely to transmit.''2° La chairest iriste, h~las!'" wrote Mallarme, et, j'ai lu tousles livres ("sad, sad, is the flesh, and 1 have read all those books"). Theology takes a certain amount of leisure, and leisure is ver.y expensive. It Trevor Ling, Buddha, Marx, and God (London: Macmillan, 1966), p. 197. Quoted in Zaehner, op. cir., p. 18. 2o Ibid. SpiritUality and Theology is, however, only meditative reflection that the mere curiositas which Saint Bernard railed against turns into astonishment and admiration. But admira-tion on its own will not do either.: Wonder needs an ihterpreter. Devotion needs theology, and that is why it simply~will not do to relegate mystical theology, to the rubbish heap, since_it_reappears in other._f.o.rms.(in-the-new jargon_~s ~f~co~t~xtu~al education and storytelling theology). Christian mysticism, insofar as it has been a mere interlope.r from Neo-Platonism,2' needs the severe censure of theology. When devotion is cut off from theology, curiositas does notomove towards admiration but to superstition. God becomes, for the theologian cut off, ,from devotion, a "pale, intellectual substitute for the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob"; for the mystic, God becomes either a crazed Oriental despot or To Hen, the great blob into which he longs to be absorbed. |n fact, the deeper one goes into the realm of mystical experience, the more vital is the critical eye of theological discrimination. Devotion to the point of ecstasy . can lead to a terrible moral indifference. Detachment can easily degenerate into disassociation and the wild inflation of the ego. The "1" that has beenJannihilated becomes "God"! In the Bhagav.ad Gita (18:7) we read: "A man who has reached a state where there is no sense of 'l',.whose soul is undefiled--werehe to slaughter [all] these worlds--slays nothing. He is not bound."22 This has tremendous social implications, as more and more persons long for just such an experience which annihilates the "I"~. and therefore annihilates moral responsibility. The rise in mindless acts of violence and un-motivated crimes points to a religious, as well as sociological disease. Depth p~ychology has taught us that we cannot help acting out our inner ¯ life, and it would be just as well if ~'e were to know something about.it. We might even learn to cultivate it,.not in the Norrisian sense of tending our own little "hacienda," but in the sense of cooperating with, and even co-creating of, our inner life. I cannot do this without the critical discipline of theology. But ~there is a further implication because, not only does the individual live out his inner life, but that same inner life eventually overflows and floods into social forms. The Church, of course, has been left out in the cold in that it has found itself largely bankrupt to offer alternatives to the hungry masses who feed on the spiritual, supernatural, ~ind often superstitious banquet provided by the ambient culture. Theology has done httle to ~nterpret these ~mpulses or ~ to help people develop a discriminating palate with regard to the various ¯ delicacies available. That some of them are deadly is beyond question. The mass suicides of the followers of the Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana point to the literal deadliness of some forms of "religion." So it is not simply a.matter 2, See Zaehner, op. cir., pp. 14Iff. ~ Ibid., p. 231. Zaehner goes on to give the modern instance of a totally unmotivated murder com-mitted by one whose mind is "still, pellucid, and free from occupation" (Andrew Gide, Les Caves du Vatican). 170 / Review for,Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 of academic niceties. A strong, critical seminary faculty could mean a matter of life and dea~.~th,_.It coul~ave a,.strong-i~iv-'~'~'ffd:-~-~-diating-r~l~, par, ¯ ti-c~larly when it looks as if we.might be victimized inside the Church, as well as~without, by new fanaticisms and enthusiams. =, The reader may have'been,frustrated by the fact that I have gotten this far without, givinga definition of what Imean: by mysticism (except as "religious experience"). Dean Inge gave twenty-six definitions in his Christian Mysticism of 1899. Iread.that book (which is not about Christian mysticism at all, but about neo-Platonism), .but since 1899 there,~have been significanli developments to,warrant our adding a hundred more,to~,the "~gloomy dean's" twenty-six. William Johnston. has recently struggled¯ with this problem of definition in. his The Inner Eye of Love. ~ ~ o~' If we go back to the Middle Ages we find that there is no distinction be-tween mystical theology and mystical experience, Jean Gerson (1363-1.429), whom we have already mentioned, writes: Theologia mystica est experimen-talis cognitio habita de Deo,per amoris unitivi complexum (Mystical theology is.~xperimental knowledge of God through the embrace of unitive love).2~ From this Johnston points out. that 'Christian "mysticism,is wisdom Or knowledge that :is found through love; it, is loving knowledge.'??' It is also ex-perimental, knowledge. It is not abstract. It is personal. And as we shall see later, w.hen we take a brief look at Richard of St. ~Victor; mysticism comes to fruition only when it reaches out in love towards others and towards the world, .in what we would call social action or outreach.: Now in my plea for the redevelopment of the mystical theology, I do not wish to imply that nothing has :'been done to reflect theologically,~about mystical experienceiin a systematicway. Roman Catholics have been trying to do"this since,the thirteenth-century, and I have waded through the treatises of Poulain and Pourrat, ,Tanqueray and Garrigou-Lagrange. The trouble witch these works is,that~they are pre-Freudian and pre-Jungian in outlook. It seems to me that it would be hopeless to try to develop a mystical theology today without relying heavily on the insights of these two great pioneers. °.Johnston claims that. the call to loving contemplation is given to everybody. It is supremely human activity. He also affirms that mystical ex-perience (if we go deep enough) is "a passage to'the¯ordinary.''2~ I certainly found this true in my short month as a hermit. It was, quite simply, a move-ment into the wonder of the ordinary. Johnston relies heavily on Bernard Lonergan's, Method in Theology in order to find a definition for mystical theology. As .Lonergan writes, "Method is .not a set of rules to be followed metiEulously by a dolt. It is, a, framework for collaborative creativity.''~ Lonergan is searching for a "transcendental method" which seeks to include not only what is thought, See Johnston, op. cir., pp. 19ff. ~'.lbid~, p. 20. ~ Ibid., p. 37, Lonergan, op. cir., p. xi. Spirituality and Theology / 171 heard, and reflected~upon, but also who it is who thinks, hears, and reflects. Theology seeks a .place where we emerge as persons, meet one another in a common concern for values, seek to abolish the organization of human living'on the basis of competing e~oisms and to repla(e it by an organization on the'~iasis of mhn's pdri;eptiven~ss and intelligence, his reasonableness, and his responsible exercise'of freedom.2' ." ":' L~onergaii"goes o~'i0 define th.$o_Jl.qogy as "refl,ection on religion,"~while Johnstbn ~defines mystical theology_as reflection on mystical~experience. "M~,s'ticism is the experience{haystical theology is reflection on thig~:ex-perierice." 2s We need the latter to combat the ~endency to~anti~-in~elle~tua.lism today, particularly in areas where religidus exl~erience~is coficerned.'"We need," sa~'s Johnston, "to interpret mystical experiefice and fihdits meaning: We~ nebd to distinguish the ahthentic from the inauthentie. Then there is the practical need to guide people.''2~ ~" The data, then, of mystical theology are the experience of mysticism, past and present. The sources are the Bible and the varied witnesses of the Christian tradition. It is conc~erned with° research, texts, history, and doctrines, but is is interesting to note that when Lonergan comes to the foun-dation of theology as such, he speaks of reflection or conversion. ~o Mystical experience has always been the v~ery core of theology. The theology of the Fathers "welled up from their mystical experience. But [and this is very significant] it also led to mystical experience." ~' Johnston goes on to pinpoint the problem today: ~ ,~ The~great temptation of theologY' has always been to di{'orce itself from mystical ex-perience. This was a very real problem in the Middle Ages; and it is a very real problem today. Particularly so, since,m the:last, few centuries theology~has bee_n grea!lY pre- 0 . qccupied with controversial issues; has becomeoextrem~ ely~academic., .and has largely di~vgrced itself from spirituality. Contemplative experience has been relegated to the pious writers on pious books. This is scarcely a healthy situation; for a theology which is divorced from the inner experience of the theologian is arid and carries no conviction. ~' If Bernard l~onergan is rjgti~ ip t~hat the Present and the futurewill be characterized by "the switch to interiority" then we will need to heal the breach between devotion and theology if we are to speak to our generation. Can w~ speak not ofily from "a wealth of sound scholarship bu~ also from a° wealth of personal experience"?~ Johnston gloomily concludes that theologians as a breed s~em particularly resistant to conversion: "The~ theologians i'emain unregenerate.''~' I am not so pessimistic, for this has not Ibid., p. I0. Johnston, op. cir., p. 43, n. 1; Lonergan, op. cir., p. 267. ~ Johnston, op. cil. " Ibid., p. 58; Lonergan, op. cir., p. 130. Johnston, op. cir., p. 56. Ibid., pp. 56-57. ~ Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., p. 58. 172 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 been~my experience. When Alan Richardson rejected mysticism he was plainly advocating it in another sense. When Richard Norris points tothe dangers of what can so easily be a non-subject, he lectures about the God whose being is only uncovered in relationships. He lectures about love. When a seminary dean slips in.a "dig" abou.t discrete disciplines, he unrepentantl~ sees that this non-subject is given i~riority in the seminary curriculum. '.'As conversion is~b~sic to Christian living, so an objectification of,~conver-sion provides theology with its foundations.''3~ So writ.es Lonergan. Priority is being given, at least implicitly, to Lonergan's definition of theology as reflection or,conversion in its intellectual, . moral, and religious dimensions. The latter dimension is the concern of mystical theology. The converted per-son is like someone in love "without limits or qualifications or conditions or reservatio,ns;i'36 Lon.ergan's counsel to theologians is in the form of four "transcendental precepts": Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible. Later he insists on adding a fifth: Be in love.~7 Lonergan's counsel comes to me almost as a command, as an antidote to madness. Coleridge (and I wish I could locate the reference) delineated two kinds of madness: the moral and the epistemological. Moral breakdown seems easy to discern, but what about the epistemological breakdown where nothing means anything and every human longing and aspiration is relativized out of existence? There is a saying attributed to Saint Anthony: "A time is coming when meri will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, 'You are mad, you are not like us.' ,,~8 What exactly do I mean by epistemological madness? It is a form of "in-sanity" which atta.cks true knowledge in two ways which are contradictory. " Lonergan, op. it., p. 130, see also,'p. 241; Johnston. op. cit., p. 58, n. I. -'~ Johnston, op. cit., p. 58;oLonergan, op. cir., p. 106. -" Johnston, op. cit., pp. 60, 61; Lonergan, op. cir., pp. 10ft. 1 do not have time, an such a short paper, to do justice to Lone~'gan. And I confess that it took Johnston's book to bring me to a sym-pathetic reading of Lonergan's. I had tried a few years ago and found it then indigestible! Lonergan goes on to say, "Now in a sense everyone knows and observes transcendental method. Everyone does so, precisely in the measure that he is attentive, intelligent, reasonable, responsible. But in another sense it is quite difficult to be at home in transcendental method, for that is not to be achieved by reading books or listening, to lectures or analyzing language. It is a matter of heightening one's consciousness by objectifying it, and that is something that each one ultimately, has to do in himself and for himself" (Lonergan, op. cit., p. 14). ~ The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, tr. Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. (Oxford: Mowbrays, Cistercian Studies #59, 1875), p. 5 §25. Spirituality and Theology The first way is to say that we can know absolutely nothing. Everything is relative. Nothing, in the end, signifies or matters. It is easy to see how'this form of madness leads to moral breakdown and corruption. The second way is to say that we can know' everything (at lea~t in principle). Knowledge is graspable and finite. This is manifested in the various ideali~sms, dogmatisms, and fundamentalisms which drive people mad. It is also easy to see how this leads to a moral bankruptcy of a different order: a bankruptcy of.legalism. Both ways of madness have a root cause: the lust for security (not unlike the two forms of gnosticism which were and are manifested in libertinism and rigorism). "Nagging doubts engender rigid certainties." One way invites us to get lost in a desert of nothingness of the°destructive kind. The other lures us into a jungle of moralism. Both are places where the human spirit soon dies. The dilemma is this: how to have something, to live for, an ideal, a goal, a vision, without our vision being deified, our ideal being the cloak for megalomania. There is a way to resolve.the dilemma. It is a hard way, however. It is the way of prayer. The Christian call to contemplation is an antidote to individual and collective madness, particularly to the epistemological madness, which is attacking our culture now. Lonergan's four precepts are, in effect, the structuring of an epistemology which covers our "knowing" from direct experience, to inquiry and under-standing, through reflection and judgment to decisive action. His sources and references are interesting--Horney, Maslow, Rogers, and Piaget. They all stress the social and historical character of human knowledge. Indeed, Lonergan is the first major theologian I have discovered who really takes the development of human consciousness seriously. Ironically, the only other place that I know of where there is an analogous.ascending scheme of epistemology is in mystical theology. There we begin with study, move into prayer, and end in contemplation. Most of what we call knowledge is really only the first form, study. It is very important and in no way to be despised. Contemplation is not simply the beholding of God in a non-vocal, non-discursive way. In the end, it is that. But it is also simply taking as large a view of things as possible: ltis a mode of knowing, a way of considering every kind of knowledge . It is a free and clear ~regard of the soul, directed to the object of knowledge, gathering in comprehensive-ly many single points, dwelling thoughtfully and poised in wonder upon its object.~9 Now tla~s is a contemplative method of approaching all knowledge. It is only a metho~l, not the method. Indeed, the analytical method is also very im-portant. But unless all our knowing points to a loving contemplative end we ar~ bound to fall into one or other of the traps of epistemological madness. ~ Kirchberger, op. cit., p. 39. '~ 74 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 We.will find Qurselves either;among the libertines or among the rigorists: the know-nothings or the know-it-alls. Contemplation does not require sacrificium intellectus sorightly feared by philosophers and theologians. It does, however, require sacrificing the primacy of theintellect. Contemplation requires its dethronement. It seeks to reverse [he process~of its reification and deification. The intelligentia (for the Victorines, for examp!e, who were Catholic humanists, fundamentally op-timistic about the human condition) is the instrument of the contemplative act, suspended, it is true, during ecstasy, but essential afterwards for integra-tion and interpretation. Intelligentia here is, of course,, not so much the naked intellect of discursive reasoning, but rather an intuitive vision, a sort of unitive principle at the heart of the intelligence which.seeks to harmonize experience. Richard of St. Victor, _for example, says that: the character of contemplation varies in three ways¯ Sometimes it effect~ an enlarging of the mind, sometimes a raising and sometimes an abstraction¯The enlarging of the mind is when the gaze of the soul expands widely and is intensely sharpened, but this in no way goes beyond the limit~of human effort. The raising of the mind is when the activity of the intelligence, d!vinely.i/lluminated, transcends the limits of human effort but does not go over into ecstasy, so that what is sees is above its powers but the soul does not withdraw from its accustomed way~ of knowing . Ecstasy is when the memory of things present withdraws from the mind and it moves by a transfiguration divinely wrought, into a state of soul attainable'by"hunian effort . The first is caused by human effort, the third only ¯ by divine grace, the middle one by a mingling of both, namely human industry and divine grace. Our concern here as theologians is with the first mode of contemplation, with the first step in the third mode in our ascending scheme of epistemology. Richard. goes on to tell his readers that this first step (the enlarging of the mind) . ¯ can be dev~eloped in,three.ways: by art, by exercise, by,a,ttention. We attain the art of' doing someihing when we learn how it is to be done either from good masters or by in-vestigation. The exercise is when we put into practice what we learnt of the art and make ourselves quick and e'~fective in carrying out this practice. Attention is whi:n we reflect . with effort on what we have carried out with great diligence . By these three degrees., the depth,,of mind is widened and made more apt for any kind of Aear~ning or skill." This is not a bad description of educational method as rooted in a move-ment of contemplation which leads into the great knowing of "unknowing," to the knowledge which is love. But, aswe have seen, even this mystical ecstasy is not the end, nor is itthe sole object of our spiritu~al life (the furni.shing of our hacienda!) There is one more act of sacrifice required. "T, he.,la~s~ self-surrender to.God is the surrender of the self-centered desire for Go~, and the final possession o~God on.earth :comes.in union, with Christ's fruit-bearing Ibid., pp. 183-184(Benjamin Major V, ch. II). Ibid., p. 186 (Benjamin Major V, ch. 111). Spirituality and Theolo~,y. /175 life of sacrifice and gervice to the brethren and all 'mankind.'''2 The end of Christian contemplation, then, is always compassion. Presumably it is also the end of theology. As Lonergan says, man achieves authenticity in self-transcendence. One canlive in a world, have a horizon, ~ just in the meastJre that one is not locked up in oneself. As the question of God is ~mpllClt ~n all our questlomng, so being ~n love with God ~lS the basic fulfdlment of our conscious intentionality.'" ~ ~ I fully acknowledge the tendency of~.this strange subject to be.~a parasite on the backs~of the other disciplines. It seems to encroach on territory not its own~ Itcan be annoyin~ and vague and at the same' time'arrogant and preten-tious. It needs help an, d understan~ding ~f itis no(to be a Cuckoo lhying its eggs in the meticulous and well-constructed nests of others. In a way, Christian ~pirituality does not have a separate existence of its own. It exists only in rela-tion to other disciplines, but I would like to see it develop symbiotic rather than parasitic relationships. I repeat, the final end of Christian mysticism is compassion. In Richard of St. Victor's De Quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis (notice here that love is passionate!) he writes that there are four stages in the mystical ascent. There is knowledge of self (meditation). Then there is the ascent to God (contempla-tion). Thirdly there is absorption into God(whichRichard calls jubilation and which, alas, often gets identified as thepoint of mysticism). Fourthly, there is the going forth from God (compassio~n),." In the first degree, God enters into the s~ul and she turns inward into herself. In the second, she ascends above herself and is lifted up to God. In the third the soul, lifted up to God, passes over altogether into-him. In ~he fourth the s0ul gbes forth on God's behalf and descends below herself. In the first she enters~into h'~rsblf, in the second she goes forth from herself. In the first she reaches her own life, in the third she reaches God. In the first she goes forth on her own behalf, in the fourth she goes forth because of her neighbor. In the~ first' ~lie enii~rs in by meditationl.in the secondshe ascends bylcoi~templa-tion, in the third she is led into jubilation, in thefourth: ~she goes out by co~npassion." Theologyi~pushed by!its own p~o~bihg anffliv~ely'fin, certainties, ends either with compassion or with despair and cynicism. , Just as unrestricted questioningis our capacity for sdf-transcendence, so being in love in ~ an unrestricted fashion is the proper fulfillment of that capacity. That fulfillment is not the product of our kno.wledge and choice. On the contrary, it dismantles and abolishes the horizon in which our knowing and choosing went on and it sets up a new horizon in which the love of God will transvalue our values and the eyes of that love will transform our knowing.'~ _, But the very experience of transcendence raises the very issues which theology must continually face. Ibid., p. 46. Kirch'berger, op. cit., p. 224. '~ Lonergan, op. cit~, pp. 104-105. '~ Lonergan, op. cir., p. 106. 176 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 Man's response to transcendent mystery is adoration . Accordingly, which mystery is not to be confused with problem, the ongoing contexts within whic~ mystery is adored and adoration is explained are anything'~ut free from problems.", Academic theology comes into its own' by probing those experiences which otherwise would rob Christianity of its giveness and strangeness.~ Rigorous theo!ogy saves Christi~.nity from becoming domesticated and f~mili~ar. Le! me end with a quotation from Diadochus Photic~:. . the theologian tastes something of the experie_nce of the contemplative, provided he is humble; and the contemplative will little by little know something of the power of speculation, if he keeps the d~isce~rning part of his soul free from error. But the two gifts are rarel§ found to the same degree in the same person, so that each may wonder at the other's abundance, and thus humility may increase in each." Ibid., pp. 344-345. " Louth, op. cir., p. 14. Now Available As A Reprint The "Active-contemplative" Problem in Religious Life by David M. Knigh~t Price: $.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 ¯ 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Celibate Friendship Brian O'Leary, S.J. Father O'Leary is a staff-member of Manresa House; Dollymount; Dublin, 3; Ireland. He characterizes the present article as complementary to his first one, ~'Reflections on Apostolic Celibacy" (May, 1979), "dealing with the horizontal dimension where the other dealt with the vertical." One of the difficulties with using the word celibacy in the context of religious life is that .the primary meaning of the word is negative: abstinence from marriage, or the unmarried life, the state of .non-marriage. But if con- ~secrated celibacy is agift from God, then it cannot be so~ethi~.n.g negative. At most it :can have a negative aspect or side effect, aconcomitant frustration or ~'painful limitation. But the gift itself must be positive. Religious celibacy is for living, for loving. It has everything to do with interpersonal relationships: with the God of Abraham, 1.saac and Jacob; with Jesus, :the enfleshed and full revelation of that God; with peopib, men and women, near and far, good and evil. It has to do with love received and love given; with life lived to the full through carin~ and being cared fore through reachir~g o~ut and being reached out to, through c6mmitment to people and having peop!e committed to us. Our relationships with God and with people ai'e closely intertwined. Our Iexperience of being loved by God and loving God is somehow dependent on o~" exp'erience of being loved by people and loving people. St. John wrote: "Anyone who says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen" (I Jn 4:20). We can also argue! a man Who does not experience the love of his brother whom he can see, cannot experience love of God whom he has never seen. We need to give and receive a love which is tangible in order to give and receive a love which is !ntangible. Remembei" the lines ot: William Blake: 177 178 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, .1980 / 2 i looked for my soul but my soul 1 could not see. 1 looked for my God but my God eluded me. I looked for a friend and then l found all three. ~ Religious are not usually exempt from this dependence on human love and friendship in their seai'ch for God. Celibacy itself, far from lessening our need of the experience of love, is offering us a greater freedom in loving, and conse-quently a greater facility in finding God. This latter ideal is well expressed in the Autobiography of St. Ignatius where we read: His devotion, that is, his ease in finding God, has always continued to increase and now more than in his whole life. Each time and hour that he wanted to find God~ he found him? This is the experience of a lover, but of one whose love had been purified since the immature days of his young manhood when his love for God and people had leaned more to the fanciful than the real. Describing his convalescence from his war wounds received :at Pampl.ona he says: Of the many vain things that presented themselves to him, one took such a hold on his heart that he was absorbed in thinking about it for two or three or four hours without realizing it: he imagined what he would do in the service of a certain lady, the means he would take so he could go to the country where she lived, the verses, the words he would say to her, the deeds of arms he would do in her service. He became so conceited with this ~ that he did not consider how impossible it would be because the lady was not of the lower nobility nor a countess or a duchess, but her station was higher than any of these.~ . ~ Because Ig'natius' experience of human love at that ti~me'was of this dreamy, romantic kind,'his way of loving God was similar: to undertake great and ar-dubus deeds and penances" such as his spiritual heroes had undertaken: St. Dominic did this, therefore, 1 have to do it. St. Francis did this, 'therefore, i have to do it.~ There was far more of Ignatius in that way of loviiag than there was of God. But gradually h~gi'ew both in human love and in divine love, parallel ex-periences keeping pace with° one another, inextricably intertwined, almost be~:oming one." Finding God in all things ahd all things in God. What then can b~ said about human love? A very great d~al if we judke by the' ~tmount that has been written about it from early epic poetry through lyric poetry, drama, thenQ~el and other literary genres. But .let us take just one series of reflecti6hs from a modern psychologist, Erich Fromm. The Autobiography of St. lgnatiu's' Loyola, Harper Torchbooks (1974), p. 93. Op. cit., p. 23. ~ Ibid. Cefibate Friendship What does one person give to another? He gives of himself of.the most precious he has, he gives of his life. This does not necessarily mean that he sacrifices his life for the other, but.that he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness, of all expressions and ~a~ifestations of that which is alive in him. In~ thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enh~ances the other's sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness. He does not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy~' Fromin's emphasis here on one's aliveness that is giveri,~shared and enhanced reminds us of the statement of St. lrenaeus: "The glory of God is man fully alive." If wetake glory in its biblical meaning as a visible and tangible manifestatioff of God's presence, as in a broad sense of sacrament of God's presence, then'we can see how in truly human love God can be found and ex-perienced. It is not a question of arguing from the reality of human love to the realitY, of divine love, but rather of experiencing divine love through the ex-perience of human love. To shut oneself off from human love either through fear or inhibition or anxiety or some stoical ideal of spirituality is to cut oneself off from the p6ssibility of touching and being touched by thedivine. Strange as it may seem', mature human love does not come easily and spon-tane0usl~ to us. If left unreflected on and undirected, our loving tends to be egocentric, selfish, possessive, jealous--in a word, sinful.' Mature love demands all the patience and pain and even dying associate~l with growth. For most people, whether Christian or not, the normal ambience for such~growth to maturity is the family. This can be a schpol~o_f generous, self-g~ving love through_.the muluple relationships which kmt tts meml6ers tok'~lier. G~wng, receiving, sharing, each alter~ates--h~ i--~'~a~p-'~f~"~i|y that is closely united in love, yet otie that is not closed in u.p6n itself in a complacent, smug manner.~ The family itself has to. be open to others. It was in our own families that we first learned experientially about love, and we carry that gift with us throughout our lives. Conversely, we also carry the inevitable limita-tions and.deficiencies of that experience throughout our~ lives. Hence the need for being in touch with our past, for forgiveness and I~he letting go of resent-ments, and bitterness, for self-acceptance and the,~healing of memories. But now as adults we are called to a different life-style, one demanding the renunciation of any possibility'of founding a family of our own and bringing new human life into the world. This means that we are renouncing the use of the most natural and normal means for growing in mature, human love. Such a decision is not to be taken lightly. We must be sure that we can grow without such help. Ours is a minority kind of vocation,,~a minority life-style. But the call is still growth, maturity and love. The road may be,steeper, in many ways more solitary, but'it will also be less encumbered. There are two paradoxical 4~, requirements: to develop a capacity and even a desire~.for solitude, and to develop a capacity for deep and lasting friendships. Solitude and friendship ¯ The Art of Loving, Unwin Paperbacks (1975), p. 27. 180 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 are the two keys to a'healthy, integrated, celibate life. In both we find ourselves, the other, and God. Friendship in the lives bf religious takes many forms,, is experienced in many contexts, and has many degrees of intensity. As we live in comm~unity we are first challenged to look for friendships there. Ideally, at least, some close relationships in this. arena should be possible. ~Then there are the people whom we serve in our direct apostolate and those others with whom we col-laborate; some friendships of depth' may well emerge from these sources. Finally, there are the friends ~wejust happen to form from chance meetings or strange coincidences. All of these together give us a wide range of relation-ships such as is healthy and envigorating for any person to hav.e. It~'is an enriching and broadening experience to have friends among many age-groups, different social classes, varied occupations, and so on. Through them we touch life and are touched by life. As we move across the spectrum from acquaintance to friendship to close friendship to deep, intimate love, the reality of our celibacy becomes moreand more pertinent. In a relationship of mere.acquaintance the fact of being a con-secrated celibate is almost irrelevant, but in.a relationship of deep loving it becomes central. Some religious feel safer hovering around the center of that spectrum--and undoubtedly they are. But for others the call to take the risk of deep loving is part of God's call to respond to His love.This they accept with joy, yet they remain aware that their celibacy is a fragile as well as a beautiful gift, and that it has to be guarded as-well as celebrated. Relation-ships of deep, intimate, .human loving can exist between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman. So let us reflect on the conditions in which a religious might feel free to sustain and foster such a relationship. 1. The religious must be mature. As we have seen, maturity is a process of growth, and so the requirement of being mature is 'in some sense relative. What it means basically is that the person be comfortable with his or her own sexuality, be able to know and accept himself or herself as a sexual being. Fur- ,ther, his or her desire must be to create an adult'relationship between equals, not one of emotional dependency. This latter could happen should someone Ibe searching for a deep relationship out of a need,'overt or latent, to relieve or escape from acute loneliness. ~., 2. The religious must be.well rooted in his celibate calling. This will include having a strong personal attachment to Jesus, to the Church, to the order or congregation, to the apostolate. It presupposes a sound and vibrant life of prayer. Deep relationships starting from an insecure commitment can lead one out of religious life, o~ toan alienated existence within. 3. There mustbe an awareness and understanding of the other person's sexuality, and of his or her capacities, weaknesses and needs. An awareness also of the inevitable tendency towards greater intimacy, physical as well as Celibate Friendship psych61ogical. Hence there has to be moderation in the bodily expression of tenderness, affection and love. Touch can be a. beautiful language of com-munic~ ition, more expressive than the spoken or written word, but it can also be a 'gateway to mere~ gratification. It is not enough for a religious only to avoid sexual sin, but he must be sensitiveto the truth of every gesture, and to questions such as: "What is this action doing to the other person? What is it saying to him? In what emotional state is it leaving him?" Self-knowledge and sensitivity to the other go hand in hand. 4. Besides being grounded in one's own vocation, the religious must also affirm and desire the growth of the other in his vocation. This means really wanting and working for the other's growth in celibacy (should he be a religious), or for the other's growth in married love (should he be married). Should the other person be single, the religious must be careful not to stunt the other's affective growth in relationships with other men and women, thus cut-ting off the chance of marriage. Finally, any giving in to a sterile fantasy: "If only things were different"; "if only we were free"; "if only we had met earlier in life," is dangerous, and constitutes a degree of unfaithfulness to our commitment to Christ. 5. The relationship must not be exclusive. The ideal is to be totally non-possessive, and in that sense truly free. The ability to make and sustain other friendships with either sex should be fostered. Celibate love is primarily universal in character. 6. The relationship must be open. This means'o(a) open to God. The two people involved should be able to pray with sincerity about their love both in-dividually and together. In such prayer ]hey will receive guidance and strength. But such guidance and strength is also mediated through people, and ~o such a relationship should also be (b) open io spiritual directors, superiors, mutual friends. There is n~eed of a.constant evaluatioffof such a relationship, and a third party (this can mean one or more persons) can be helpful and ob-jective. Any tendency to hide a relationship, to secretiveness and furtive behavior is a danger signal. 7. There must be a willingness to endure pain, to go through difficult times. This is required in all human loving, but it is especially necessary in celibate love 6f a deep kind because in such love we allow, to a greater 0r lesser extent, the frustrating aspect of.celibacy to surface and be experienced. To the degree that the dynamic towards exclusivit~y and sexual union develop, to that. degree will it become more painful to keep on choosing celibacy. The person unable to tolerate such pain either leaves religious life, or, as in no. 2 above, he endures an alienated existence within his community. 8. By their fruits you shah know them. A relationship such as this cannot be divorced from every other aspect of the celibate's life. If the loving is healthy, life,giving and creative, it will enhance the quality of the person's prayer, community living, apostolic commitment, other relationships, and in-deed his general well-being. By using these criteria it is to be expected that the 182 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 relationship will aid positively to the growth of the person involved, ~n.o.tTbe something merely neutral' or indifferent,~but rather be a~strong contribut~ing factor to human and spirit.ual development. Thins aim is admittedly very,,high,. but one who is living the'qonsecrated life should be able and willing to accept. these criteria, demanding as they are, and eval~uate any intimate relationship accordingly . Now Available As A Reprint Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development by Philip D. Cristantiello Price: $.60 per copy; plus postage. .Address': Review for' Religious Room 428 ~ 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the Church Suzanne Noffke, O.P. Sister Suzanne; past president of the Racine Dominican Sisters, having just completed a' new and unabridged translation, of the Dialogue of Catherine, dev?tes herself full time to ,research, writing, and speaking on Catherine and her thought.,. Sister Suzanne resides at 2070 Allen Blvd., #2; Mid~leton, WI 54562. atherine of Siena~ was a woman who knew to,an amazing depth who she was--because she responded with such amazing: fidelity to God's revelation to her of who he is. That revelation, was nev~er for .Ca,therine (nor is it for .any of us) one finished pa~ckage, oNo, she entered. Jnto, it ~lyvel by level throughout her life as she met each new insight and wrestled with its implications and demands. But essentially there were~always those two t~hreads: Catherine knew God as boundless Truth and Love, and she knew herself as limited and even sinful, yet°loved a~d gifted, o The dynamic of Catherine's growth could be very appropriately described in terms of~the classic "transcendental precepts": ~ , Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable., Be responsible. Her attentiveness to divine initiative in her life is obvious at every stage of her awareness; it was so sacred a matter for her, in fact, that she regarded any failure in that attentiveness as a breach in. fidelity. She was very conscious of, and delighted in,°the active play of her own understanding as an intelligent be-ing in ,re,,ceiving GOd's manifestation of himself. But the play and the deligl~t were never a short-circuited contemplationS: her reason searched out the im- 183 184 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/2 plications of what she saw; and her whole being owned and responded to thoge implications in her living, no matter what the cost to herself. It is so far the picture of a beautifully human, thoroughly moral and noble person, and a discussion of mission and ministry could legltimately be drawn from it. Yet if our model encompassed only these levels--even in faith--the total reality of Catherine, and the fullest ideal of Christian mission and ministry would be muted to a kind of drudgery of diaty well done. Such could conceivably be true and heroic holiness, but we are invited to so much morel Bernard Lonergan captured the sense of this "more" when he added to the four transcendental precepts a fifth: Be in love~' . Now we may love many people, but.to be in love is a much more rare and precious phenomenon. Catherine did not simply love God: she was madly (she herself uses that modifier again and again) in love. And it was one in love that she was attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible. It was love that fired her urgent sense of being sent, her sense of mission to ministry. If we would learn about mission and ministry from Catherine, we must remember that we are looking at and listening to a woman in love. And we must remind ourselves that God is in love with us too~, and that we too are in-vited beyond simply lok, ing him to the mad sanity of being-in-love: "not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us!''2 A Question of Discipleship We are dealing here.with the whole question of dis.cipleship. A disciple is One who learns from another's person as much as from his body 0f teaching: And a disciple in the gospel t~'adition is ultimately and most imme~diately a disciple of Jesus~ Any others who are models and guides' in the Christian ~vay are such only because, and insofar as, they are, first, true disciples themselves. "Take me as your model," writes Paul, "as I take Chris~?'3 In the end, "you have only one teacher, the Christ."' " ' ¯ Catherine's ~rescription for those who would be guides to others describes well her understanding of her own role toward those who were her 'disciples: Be trumpeters of the incarnate Word, God's Son, not only with your voice but with your deeds. Learn from the Master of t(uth, who practiced virtue before he preached it. In this way you will produce fruit and be the channel through which God will pour his grace into the hearts of those who hear you? Catherine, true disciple that she is, can well be both model and teacher to us, for her life speaks as forcefully as doher writings, which could have grown only out of such a life. Method in Theology. LondOn: Darlon, Longman and T0dd,_1972, p. 13. 1Jn 4:'10. ~ I C6 11:1". Letter 226, to Raymond of Capua, c. i376~ ' Mt 23:10. Catherine of Sienb: Mission and Ministry in the Church The Context of Mission and Ministry for Catherine ~ , All of Catherine's life and all that she says about specific questions can be fully understood only/in the context of hei" m.ost bhsic convictions. In isolation from these, so muchwould be--and has been--~ubject to misrepresentation. So, even at the risk of distorting by over-brevity, let me at least summarize'the faith that most centrally dictated the shape of her interpretation of mission and ministry. ' The God with whom C~therine is in love'is at once "gentle first Truth" and "Love itself." Jesus, God's on'ly-begotten Son, God's Word, is Truth in-carnate, the one Way in love for sinful humanity to find reconciliation with the ~Father. Along this Way--Catherine describes him in her Dialogue as the bridge it is in the Church as in a hostelry.that God provides the food and shelter, the companionship and rest without which we pilgrims would surely faint or fall back long before we would reach our destination. In fact, the head of the Church is "Christ-on-earth." Only he holds~the keys to the wine cellar in which is stored :the blood of Jesus, the sole source of life and salvation. And, for Catherine, there-is nc~ other way to union with God but through the open heart of Jesus. God alone--in himself and in Jesus and, analogously, in the Church--is deserving of unqualified love (senza modo). Everyone and everything else is to be loved only con modo--with love that is qualified and conditioned and limited by its relationship with God. Because of this very strong'sense 6f relativity, issues which may loom large in our considerations often 'get from Catherine what may seem short shrift to us. Some of the difference,"it is true~ is cultural; but that fact should not allow us to miss the more signi.ficant difference that cbhaes from this underlying sense of relativity -- a 'sense that is still as ~valid today as it was in fourteenth-century Tuscany. When we are in love, all things are relative~tothe one we love. With this context firmly in mind we can turn as disciples to Catherine and let her person and her words speak to our own convictions about our mission to ministry in the Church. The Foundation and Principle of Mission and Ministry Basic to ~the who|e question of mission and.ministry-for Catheriiae was the same principle she applied to preaching: that we must practice virtue first, then preach it. Jesus, she writes in the Dialogue, never taught what he had not first lived himself. We are useless to others unless we have within ourselves what we would share with them. She writes of herself in the Prologue to the Dialogue that "she knew that she could be of no service to her neighbors in teaching or example or prayer without first doing herself the service of attain-ing and p~ossessing virtue.''6 "We will never be able to nourish our neighbors," she w'rites to a group of women in Naples, "unless we first feed our own souls with true solid virtues. 186 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/, 2 And we cannot be nourished with virtue unless we cling to the breast of divine chari~ty from which we draw, the milk of divine tenderness."~7 The image is a double one: the bre, ast of divine charity is t0e.open heart of Jesus. In prayer we look into this open heart and see "the secret of the bloo~"~--that God loves us so.madly that his Song's death was not too high a price to pay for_ our love--and seeing ourselves so madly loved, we o in response fall madly in love with God. But prayer itself is imaged by ~Catherine as a mother: it~ is prayer that conceives and gives b!rth to virtue within us, and with.gut prayer the virtue which ministers in love to our neighbors is im-possible . ,. Where, indeed, will we c~tch the fragranc~ of obedlence?~ In ffrayer. Where will we strip ourselves of th~ selfish love that makes us impatient in the face of hurt and other dif-ficulties, and clothe ourselves in divine love, finding our glory in the cross of Christ crucified? In prayer/. Where do we express love and faith and hope and humility? In prayer. In fact, we would not bother to look for what we did not love; but when we do love we always want to,be united with the objec.t of our love--and he_re that object is God.° Where, finally, will we catch the fragrance of coniinence and purity, and a hunger for martyrdom that makes us willing to give our lives for God's honor and the good of sot~ls? Always in th~s gentle mother, prayer . Truly, p~rayer i~ a nio'iher. If'is she who conceives virtues as her children in love for God, and ~ives them birth in love for our neighbors/° There is no ministry, then, without virtue; no~ is there virtue withbut prayer. It is in prayer, that we are sent out, missioned, into action. And once the dynamic has been set in motion by our response ~o God,s initiative, prayer and ministry ~feed;each other: 'prayer drives us out to serve, and our service drives us back into prayer. Indeed, if0both are genuine in themselves, each becomes in.a sense the other: prayer~is a ministry and ministry a prayer. There'ar~ two ways to pray (Catherine writes): The firsi way is that of Continualprayer; that is, ,that constant lioly desire which of itself .prays before God in everything a person does. Indeed, such desire directs all our actions, whether spiritual or temporal, to his honor. That is why it is called continualprayer.'~ Continual prayer, then, is nothing other than holy desire' and the gentle movement of iove.,~ , What fruit do we derive from this sort of prayer? A peaceful quiet within us to which nothing is a stumbling~block: . Nothing wearies or troubles it. Nor does it let us. be ~.Dialogue, I. (All quotations from the Dialogue are taken from the new translation of that work to be publis.hed by Pat~list Press in January, 1980.) See~also Dialogue, 29. Letter 356 .,to thr~e women of Naples. Letter 353, to three women of Naples, 1379. Letter 26, to her niece, Sister Eugenia, a nun in the monastery of'Sf. Agnes at M0t~tepulciah0'. ~ Letter 353. ~, ~ ~ " " Ibid. '~ Letter 22, to Abbot Martino di Pass, ignano of Vallombrosa. Catherine of siena: MiSsion and Ministr.V in the Church / 187 'ideceived when our soul hankers airier our~own room, tO bask there in consolation and peace. It does not even regret having to do something else when we ~,ould prefer to be actually at prayer. No, it extracts from that something else the perfume of humility and the firb of, love for our neighbors. ~ "i'he sec6nd way'is that of vocalprayer, that is, speaking wiih oiie's tong~ae to say the~Of-rice or other oral prayers. This way is designed to bring us to the third way, mental prayer. This is a~:complished when, with I~rudence and humility., we use our minds in vocal prayer--that is, when we pray in such a way that, while we.are speaking with our i~ngue, our h~art is never far from God. Indeed, we should alw~ays try, to set our heart firmly in the love of divine charity." . urging our mmd always to think of, to offer, and t6 receive the i~ pulse of God's love more than-the sound of the.words." It is ume to give honor to God and wear ourselves out for our neighbors: wear ourselves out physically by bearing with everything, a~nd.wear ou_rselve~ out spiritually by offering continual, humble prayer in Ggd's presence with angui~shed longing, with bitter tears and sweat. ' 6 The complementarity of prayer and action, then, is'one of integration, not of mere alternation. Catherine would not be at all at home with the image we have sometimes used, that of a car which needs to return perio~dically to the gas pump for fuel in order to keep running. Her own image of the fountain and the jfig, though she used it in another context, is much more app~'opriate. The fountain is God and his love and truth. "If you take your Jug out of the fountain to dri~k," she writes, "it is soon empty. But if y0o h01d your j~gin the fountain whild you drink, it ~ill~n0t get empty;~ifide~d, it will'always be full." '' In this image, the more we drink from this jug, the more r~om there is f6r it to be filled, and the more i~ is filled, the more we have to drink (or to share). ° What," then, determines" what time shall'be given to bxl~licit praye~, and w~at 'to the ministry of action'?. Precisely ~hat initiative from God which is called mission., Not simply our own inclinatibn,.but the action of the Spirit made kno~'n through oppoit~nit3~, obedience, ~3r dema~nds of lb~;e. Be very.conscientious and persevering in frequenting the holy place of prayer'as,often " .an, d as long as the Holy Spirit offers you the 9pportuni!y. Do not,avoid'it or run a~aYo ~;o from . it ,even if it should cost you your life. Never abandon,~ t,oht .of tenderness or com-passion for your body.~ You must not break away from holy prayer for any reason whatever except obedience or It is'Prayer, .therefore, that~ holds the place of primacy. But¯~ervice is its " Lettei 154, to'Brother Francesco T~baldi of Florence, i3"~8~ t, Letter 353. ~ ~ ~; '~ Letter 154. ~ ~ :, ,6 Letter 296, to Don Giovanni delle Celle, c. 1376. "Dialogue, 64. " Letter 187, to Don Giovanni Sabbatini of Bologna and Don Taddeo de' Malavohi Of Siena, monks of Certosa anti, Be riguardo, c. 1375. '~ Dialogue, 65. 188. /Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 ,/2 , necessary fruit and touchstone. Effective love for others is the expression of true love for God. So God says in the Dialogue: I ask you to love me with the same love which I love you. But for me you cannot do this, for I loved you without being loved. Whatever love you have for me you owe me, so you love me, not gratuitou[ly, but out of duty, while I love you, not out of duty, but grati~itously. So you cani~ot gi~'e me the kind of love i ask of you. This is why I have put you among your neighbors: so thal you can do for-them wha! you cannot do for me--that is, love them without any concern for thanks and without looking for a~ny p[ofit for yourself. And whatever you do foi- them 1 Will consider done for me.2° We cannot, in fact, honestly claim to have even conceived .virtue if we never bring it to birth'for our neighbors. (Again God is speaking.) Virtue, once conceived, must come to birth. Therefore, as soon as the soul has conceived through loving affection,oshe gives bii'ih for her neighbors' sake. And just as she loves m~ in truth, so also she serves her neighbors in truth. Nor could she do otherwise, for love of me and love of neighbor are one and the same thing: since love of neighbor has its source in me, the more the soul loves me, the more she loves her neighbors.2' Catherine not onlY, preached this integration of prayer and virtue and ministry; she lived it more and more deeply as her intimacy with God deep-ened. Her three years 6f alm.ost total silence and solitude were more than merely ~ '°'filling of the fuel tank" for the life of service that was (o begin to blossom at their end. Catherine entered that solitude, one very much centered on the relationship between herself and God, and it was atime of growth fbr her in mystical union with him. But in that solitude was growingalso.the small seedling of another relationship. The ~ulmination of those three years came in a double-edged experience which puzzled Catherine herself. During the night of Carnival in 1368 she had reached a high pitch of inten-sity" in the p~ayer~that had--perhaps incongruously to us in vie~; of her mysticism--been her l~r~occupation for months: prayer foi" th~ gift of faith. Raymond of Capua iells us that she had consistently sensed in i'~sponse to her pleadings the promise voiced in the prophet Hosea: "I will e~pbuse you to myself in, faith.''~ Yet she had never been satisfied that her prayer had been granted. On this night, however, she knew that it had, ih the experience we know as her mystical espousals. Catherine's rapture knew no bounds: she would have been content to rest where she was forever. But just as un-mistakably as the intimacy of faith carrie the mission of faith--in terms of which, frustratingly, on the very heels of rapture, the very Christ who had finally drawn~her to his wedding-chamber began to drive l'ier out of solitude to service. But note that this was not'the end of the prayer of solitude in Catherine's life. Rather she began to learn the very integration of the two, an integration Dialogue, 64. ~' Dialogue, 7. n Ho 2:22. Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the Church / 189 of wtiich she would later speak so forcefully toothers. Prayer and ministry, love of God and love of neighbor are, Christ tells her, the two feet on which she must walk, the two wings on which she must fi~, 23 Neither. can be complete without the ~ther. And as the circles" of Catherine's involvement widened, her ministry in action intensified her need for prayer in solitude, while her very prayer drove her more and more to con-cern for others. She knew'with the thirst of the psalmist in the parched desert how essential it is to "hold one's jug in the f~untain even as one drinks." And if the call of olSedi+nce afid°lo~,e filled her days to a dizzying pace she would seize the opportunity' of ii~e night to bring it all with her" whole self in quiet before God. As surely as she knew that he was with her in her ministry-- for it was he who,constantly sent her--she knew that she needed time and space to be consciously in his presence in what she calls "the holy place of prayer." The Specifics of Mission and Ministry ~)ut of the dialectice of Catherine's prayer~ an~l action grew the strong specific convictions concerning mission and ministry that dictated her own pat.h :and.her .counsel to' others. She never, even in her Dialogue, attempted a ~systematic presentation of this or any other matt, er. Nor .will 1 attempt to. draw out of her works what could be considered a full "theology of ministry.:' But it is~possible and decidedly worth the effort to pull together in some logical order the bits of. her refle.ction on the question in both the Dialogue and her .letters, and to say something ,again of how she herself lived what she taught. For the implications of any given insight w.ere~for Catherine, very concretely and practically the call of obedience. What; then, has she to tell us?, First of all, and at the basis of any sense of mission, of being sent, is the reality that in his very gifts in us God commissions us to specific ministries. His gifting is,in itself,a call: ¯ - I have distributed [all my gifts] in such a way (he says in the Dialogue) that no one has all of thefia. ~hus I have given you rea~son-- hecessity, in fact to I~ractice mutual charity. For I could~well have supplied each of you with all your needs . But'l wanted to.make you dependent on one another ,so tha~t each of you would be my minister, dispensing the grace~ and gifts you have received~from me. So whether you will it or n~t, you cannot escape the exercise of charity!Z' In another part of the Dialogue the Father becomes even more explicit about'the providence of this interdependence he has built into the economy of creation by the variety of our gifts:°. . In this mortal life so long as y9u are pilgrims, I have bound you with the chain of.charity. Whether you want it or not, you are so bound. If you should break loose by not wanting to live in charity for your neighbors, by force will you still be bound by it. So, that you Raymond of Capua, Legenda Major, ch. 121. Dialogue, 7. 190 / Review for Religiousj Volume 39, 1980 o may practice charity-in action and.in will, I in my provid~ence did not~giveto any one,p_er-son or to each indivi_dually the knowledge for doing ever~y~hing necessary for human life., No, I gav~ something to one, something blse to another, so that each one's need would be a reason to have recourse to~ tti~ other. So thoukh yofi ?hay los('your 'wili for cl~i~:ii'y ° because of your wickedness, you will at least be forced by your o~wn ne'~d'to practice it in action. Thus you see the artisan turn to the worker and th~.workeroto theartisan: each has a need of the other.becaus~ neither.knows how to do what the o~th.e~-.~does. So also the j-0 cleric and rehg~ous' " havek need. of the layperson,.and~ the. layperson. ~r~ ,~ ofo. the religious; neither can get ~long without the other. And so with everything else. Could I not have given everyone everything? Of course. But in my~providence I wanted, to make each of you dependent on the others, so that you would be forced to exercise chanty In action andwl at once." ~ ¯ Catherine hers'~lf had 'a'kind of genius for matching ,her gifts (and .she knew hergifts as well a~ her limitations) with rieeds that wete~beii~g met by no one else. She was deeply sensitive, and she too.k on those cases among the poo( and the sick that called for more care than others were able or willing to give. Sh'~had aqaiercing and uncompromising vision which she shared with reluc-tant listeners as ~vell as with the willing~ what needed saying she ~would say! Whe6. it seemed that' som~ of her followers neededra cl0ister~and,,there was none tliat,matched their r~eed~,-she founded one.~When she~sensedothe gaping, lack ~of holines~ amid thb p~litics of the pope's 'advisers~ she,called °foro.'a "papal counciW of holy persons who would fill the vacuum. Notall of'her:~f-forts met with tangible success; some of her grandest d~eams ~.ame in crashing failure'tlowri on her head~:~ Yet she owned "the mission defined'~by~her:, gift6dness, and~never disowned responsibility for the resu.lts~--:-'~ though sh~ alsb had the ability, so very rare, to let go ofo~rojects that.,~;proved,counter-productive. She knew her own dependence on 6thers a~ Wellas shb knew .that others depended On her. She knew~what it means to be gifted and "missioned. But it is' notS'merely a natural interdependence that~constitutes~ mission: Mission is inseparable from the need of sinful humanity~for redemption, and therefore it demands entry into the redeeming life and passion of Jesus, not only for oneself, but for the,sake of others as well. Those in, m~ss~on const~t, ute more than the Red Cross or thecounty welfare.office,.and this larger perspec-tive (which must be no less than God's own) may put those,in mission in°the paradoxical position of encot~raging themselves and 6tliers in suffering as often as it puts.them in the effort of relieving it. Catherine c~lledit~'~th~ om-passionate'cruelty'and cruel conlpassion of the cross" and "feeding, on souls at. the table ofthe cr0~s." It is one of thoseoarenas where the truth of faithcan "blow" the mind of reason. The Father says in the Dialogue: . . it is by means'of my ser~,ants and their great sufferings thatl would be mei'cifu I to the world and ref6rm my bride [the Church]. ,r. Dialogue, 148. Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the ~Church '/~191 Truly these last can be called another Christ.crucified, my only-begotten Son, because they haye taken his task upon themselves. He came as a mediator to put an end to war and reconcile humanity to me in peace by suffering even to the shameful death of crucifixion. In the saine way must these b~ocrudfied and'become mediators ~n prayer, in word, in good holy living, setting themselves up as an exam pie to others. The precious stones of,. . virtue shine in their patience as they,be~ar others' sins. These are the hooks with which they catch souls?~ And Catherine writes to her friends and disciples: o You would be deceived if you wanted to feast at the ~tern~l Father's table while avoiding ~'~ feeding ~n souls at the table of the Son. It is, in fact, at this table'that we must eat this food, for it cannot be,had without suffering)' It is time to show whether or not we are lovers of Christ crucified, and whether we find our joy in.this food.28 One of the first indications o'~" this r~ederdptive sensitivify in Catherine sui'- faces at the tihae of her father's death in 1368. The sudden realization that even so good:a~person as her father may still not be fully purified of sinfulness cuts to the heart of her deeply human love for him, and she begs to be allowed to pay in her own suffering the "price" of this final purifi~ation:'~Later, as her real, felt, effective love reaches out to others,, so does thi~ d,esire to enter into their redemption. It becomes truly a hunger that she knows can be satisfied only on the cross. And her joy in being there is for that reason far t6o deep and much more meaningful than the masochism some have attributed to her. It is a fine line for discernment to'draw, ttiis kr~owledge of when suffei'ing (our 6wn or others') is part Of r~demptive providen(e," and when it i~ to be shunned,'c~onquerett, and alleviated.° Ironically, the issue probably~'~eem~ clearest to us at its extreme: "Proclaini the truth and let no fear silence it! 'Be liberal and generous, ready to ~give even your.life if necessary." Thus she wrote to Raymond of Capua,~9 and .the message probably does not strike us all that discordantly. There is no doubt that Chtherine longed to be allowed to enterjust 'that effectively into Christ's redeeming deatti. But is it one Of those face(s of t;eing madly in love with God that we perhaps take so for granted that we do not really sense its place in our own life and missibn'?. Are we not also called to live (and die) redemptively? But whatever the concrete circumstances oLthat redemptive.living and dy-ing may~be for each of us, Catherine reminds us again and again that Christian ministry demands integrity and courage. Cast from you any tenderness for yourself and any slavish fear. The dear Church has no need for that sort of person; she needs strong people who are merciless"when it comes to themselves and compassionate when it comes to her.'° Dialogue, 146. Letter 271, to Alessa Saracini, 1378. Letter 330, late 1378 or early 1379. Letter 373, to Raymond of Capua, February,25, 1380. Letter 296. 199 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 The others' are not action people but wind people who whirl about like leaves, without any consistency or stability. There is not room for shame or embarrassment in regard to our Christian-ity, nor ~for fear of openly owning Christ. We are reminded of Catherine's own natural sensitivity, her embarrassment through much of her life whenever her holiness was "found out," though she eventually was able to share so completely and seemingly unself-consciously. The imagery she uses in writing of this need to be proud to be known as a disciple of Christ is strikingly ' reminiscent of that incident just before she entered the order when the urge to throw~ it all off was so strong that she was actually tempted to put on.her sister-in- law's "aft~er-the-wedding";.dress and parade around Siena in it. Once she had mastered the temptation, she tells us, Mary presented her with the wedd, ing dress that was to be hers, a~ garment from the very heart of Jesus. Years later she writes to her disciple, Gabriele di Davino Piccolomini: You need the armor-which is true charity, and over this armor the scarlet cloak of the blood of Christ crucified . The blood of Christ crucified needs to be revealed, not. hid-den. You must g~ve witness to it before everyone by your good and holy actions, and when necessary by yo.u.r words. You must not be like those fools who are ashamed to re-mind the world of Christ crucified and to testify openly that they are his servants. They are not willing to put on this scarlet cloak, the blood of Christ crucified." Ii isl in fact, not a burden, but our glory to be the ministers of Christ: Those we serve are our helpers, and even our masters insofar as it is their need that comman'ds us. °And even While we are a channel of Ctirist's redemptive love~to them, it is_the~ who in turn me~iiate our way to redemption and salva-tioh. Tfius Catherine writes to Cardinal Pietro Corsini: Be.magnanimous and generous in your charity toward your neighbors, both spiritually and materially. Remember that the hands of the poor are there to help you, as minister of the, blood, in carrying and offering divine grace.The blood of Christ crucifi.ed will teach you to distribute your possessions to the poor with the same generosity he has shown and continues to show to you. He will°make you consider the poor .and'~ those who find themselves in need as your masters." And to Monna Lodovica di Granello: You who have temporal possessions; do your duty by giving to the poor whatever yo~u can give Make yourselyes steward§ of your~wealth to the poor, for the poor are the hands that will grant us entrance to eternal life because of the loving charity with which we have given them alms." The Ministry of Social Justice ~ , Though Catherine herself never held a position of formal authority or had Letter 256, to M. Niccolo, a Tuscan official, after 1376. Letter 128, Gabriele was a layman, not a preacher. Letter 177, 1376. ~" Letter 304, 1378. Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the Church / 193 more than the most paltry alms to give in her own name, the ministry we today specifically call social justice was very much her concern, and we who sense a special call to this ministry would do well to look to her not only for inspira-tion but also for the criteria on which she based her stands. We have already seen how, in Catherine's view, the divine economy in-cludes the distribution--not always equal or even equitable in our sight--of goods and talents. She insists that there is also a positive providence in poverty and ill fortune, for her sights are always fixed beyond the limits of here and now and the standards of mere reason. Yet she is just as insistent when it comes to the obligations of stewardship imposed by the possession of wealth and power (it is God himself who speaks): 1 have shown you my generosity, goodness, and providence toward people. But they let themselves be guided by their own darksome weakness. Your bodily members put you to shame, because they all together practice charity, while you do not. Thus, when the head is aching, the hand he|ps it. And if the finger, that tiniest of members, hurts, the head does not snub it because it is greater and more noble than all the other parts of the body. No, it comes to its aid with hearing and sight and speech and everything it has. And so with all the other members. But those who are proud do not behave that way. They see a poor person, one of their members, sick and in need, and do not help. They refuse to give not only of their possessions but even a single word. Indeed, they reproachfully and scornfully turn away. They have plenty of wealth, but they leave the poor to starve. They do not see that their wretched cruelty throws filth into my face, and that their filth reaches down even to the depths of hell. I provide for the poor, and for their poverty they will be given the greatest of riches. But the others, ~nless they change their ways, will be severely reproached by my Truth as is said in the holy Gospel: "l was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; I was naked and you did not clothe me, in prison and you did not visit me." And at that last moment it will do them no good to excuse themselves ¯ by saying, "! never saw you, for if I had I would have done it." The wretches know well enough--and my Truth ~aid that whatever is done to his poo~ is done to him?~ Injustice is a direct assault against God. It could hardly be stated more clearly: ".their wretched cruelty throws filth into my face"! Still, Catherine's ultimate judgments and action where poverty and wealth, good fortune and ill are concerned always come back to that most basic of prin-ciples: only God is unqualified Truth and Love. Nothing of human life is un-qualified or unconditioned except our love for him. Of everything and everyone but God we must discern the "ifs, ands, and buts" before making our decisions. This is where Catherine,s own vision often made her seem the naive fool in the face of political c0mplexities -- but that is the risk integrity runs. The force of the simple truth may seem sometimes to crumple under the weight of reality as reason sees it, but if we are true to the vision of truth (and willing to admit when we have not seen clearly or fully) we still stand as tall Dialogue, 148. 194 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 and. whole as did Catherine ultimately--though the psychological burden of it all had literally done her in physically. Reform was badly needed in Catherine's day. She not only admitted that but proclaimed it to the most sensitive of ears! But she insisted that all reform must begin from within. She loved the Church as few have loved it, yet she criticized and castigated it as few have dared. If God was to show mercy to the world, the world must be reformed. But the world would be reformed only if the Church were reformed. And the Church would be reformed only if its leaders were reformed. And Catherine would be of no use to any of it so long as she held on to her own sinfulness. ;. Like Catherine, we are called not simply to preach--much less to con-demn- but to take the sins of others on ourselves. Her experience, toward the end of her life, of so feeling the weight of the ship of the Church on top of her that she could neither get up nor be lifted up from the floor of St. Peter's was more than figurative. Whereas earlier she had pleaded for forgiveness for others and even offered to suffer for their sins, in her last years she genuinely owned responsibility for those sins and considered herself truly (why would we prefer to see it as pious but exaggerated humility?) the cause of every evil in the world. Where would our burning issues be today if we could honestly own our sinful responsibility for them? Not that Catherine did not preach to others about justice. Her letters are full of very concrete, practical exhortations. To Ristoro di Pietro Canigiani, a Florentine lawyer: You may, in good conscience, seek and demand what is yours in ways that are just, for no one is obliged to let go of what is justly one's own. Anyone who is willing could certainly do the more perfect thing, but it is not an obligation unless one wants to do it of one's own free choice. But there is one thing I want to add: when any poor folk come to you (assuming they are clearly in the right) who have no one to defend them because they cannot pay, if you would work for them out of affectionate love, you would give very great honor to God?~ And to Andreasso Cavalcabuoi while he was Senator in Siena: We often see certain people in government having justice done only where poor are con-cerned-- justice which frequently is really and truly injustice--but they do not have justice done where the great and powerful are concerned.~' Further examples could be multiplied, but always the principles are the same. And always we must begin by doing justice to ourselves--the justice of repentance and virtue--and by reaching out first in response to God's call in the needs of those who are brought to touch our lives most nearly.38 God will see to the widening of the circle, probably much more intensely than we thought we had bargained for! Letter 258, 1378-79. ~' Letter 338, 1379. ~ Dialogue, 6. Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the Church / 195 The Ministry of Women in the Church We have not yet even touched specifically on the ministry of women in the Church. Yet much of what Catherine has to say and demonstrate of womanly ministry within the Church has in principle been related. She who did and said all we have spoken of is a woman. She did not speak, it is true, of the ordination of women: her culture would not have let that even be an issue. Still she does speak of the ministry of all of us(and the objects and modes of her own ministry were remarkable for a woman of her century and social class. It would be fascinating, in fact, to analyze the parallelism that seems to exist between her reflections on priestly min, i.stry and what she has to say of her own ministry! But easy as it is to point to Catherine as a woman who dared to preach to popes and princes, let us never forget that that preaching as well as her every other service rose out of her encounter with God in prayer. If we do nearly as well as she in our integrity on that score, we need have no further concern about the form or effectiveness of our ministry. We will often be frustrated as she was. We will often be misunderstood and criticized as she was. We may die in the effort as she did. But like her we will come out whole, and the Church ¯ will be nourished on our sweat, blood, and tears. And those we have been privileged to touch in our service will remember, as they did of Catherine, that we could smile through it all! Currents in Spirituality The Past Decade George Aschenbrenner, S.J. Father Aschenbrenner is presently engaged in a national spiritual ministryfor priests, religious and lay people, and works part-time in campus ministry at the University of Scranton, especially with the faculty of the university. His address: Scranton University; Scranton, PA 18510. In a stream there are always different levels of flow. An eddy or a swirl, which~i:loes not run so deep as the current, can either spin off and die on the shore or it can get caught up and become part of the deeper current of the stream. It is fascinating and instructive'to watch this process. The last decade has brought an enormous growth in interest and writing about spirituality. This article, focusing on some present issues and concerns of spirituality in this country, will be describing a variety of swirls, eddies, cur-rents and tides within the stream of contemporary spirituality. Generally, the article does not explicitly distinguish deeper currents from surface motions, but leaves this distinction to the reflection and judgment of the reader. The aim here is simply to list and briefly describe, without any prioritizing, some concerns within contemporary spirituality.' In doing this, I will be consulting both my own experience and the fruits of some conversation with experienced people across the country, At times, I will inject an issue which may not seem of much interest today, but which I ' For anotlier format and a more extensive treatment of individual thematic trends in spirituality, consult the series of articles.of Matthew Fox, O.P. in Spirituality Today beginning in the March, ! 978 issue. Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade personally feel deserves attention. I am aware, of course, that the degree of in-terest or importance for various concerns will vary according to different geographical sections of the country. But any necessary local nuance is left to the reader. The survey nature of this article, besides severely limiting development of the various concerns expressed, also prevents any resolution of them. Sometimes, however, it is the present state of the matter itself which allows only a statement of the question and which requires that any resolution await further clarity in the Spirit. Part I of the article presents issues that affect \everybody in the Church. Part II treats some matters that touch specific groups: religious, bishops and diocesan priests, lay people. ~ Part i: Issues Affecting Everyone 1. Distinction between Monastic and Apostolically Active Spiritualities. Within the one fundamental Christian spirituality there have always been various spiritualities rooted in different orientations to the one God. Especial-ly since Vatican II, a most helpful clarification has stressed the distinction between monastic and apostolically active spiritualities. Generally speaking, the monastic experience of God depends upon some physical withdrawal from the world and upon as full an involvement as possible in the liturgy both of the Eucharist and of the Hours, which provides an essential regularity and a rhythm that will determine both the type of community support and the external activity appropriate to this spirituality. An apostolically active ex-perience of God, while deeplylocated :in the activity of the world, requires the difficult combination of an external mobility with dependable spiritual habits, so that one may serve wherever the need for God is greatest. Obviously, this ts pirituality will provide a different community support, together with both a different presence and a more extensive involvement in the world. To fail to understand which of the two basic orientations one is called to can cause personal frustration and apostolic ineffectiveness. Disregard of this clarification on the part of the diocesan priest, the religious or the lay person, whether in their training or in the living out of their vocation, may well pro-duce unrealistic expectations and. ineffective service. Taking seriously the dif-ference in the two approaches need not imply any superiority of the one over the other. Rather it may help the Church to be more present in the world ac-cording to its own fullness and to manifest God's loving designs across the whole spectrum of the human family. 2. Renewed Monasticism. After Vatican II there was much questioning and experimentation in reference to the elements of the monastic way of life: enclosure, Liturgy of the Hours, community, work, silence, travel, and external apostolic involvement. 198 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 For a while, the very validity of the monastic life seemed at issue. Now, with its essential validity profoundly reaffirmed, many experiments are being evaluated. This'process of evaluation is not concluded but, together with a deep sense that the monastic ideal has been enriched by much of this .ex-perimentation, there is a concern as to whether some of the experiments were not motivated by trying too much to imitate the active life and whether they have not therefore risked: weakening the power of the monastic ideal for our age. It will always be a difficult matter to know how, without distorting or superficializing the monastic ideal, its powerful experience of God may be brought into contact with the city oLman. 3. An Integrated, Functional Spirituality for Active Apostles: Excessive fatigue, even to the length of "burnout,." at times seems almost synonymous with active apostolic work today. Countless demands from so many angles have over-extended and excessively complicated the lives of com-petent and conscientious men and women. They know the need for formal prayer and a profound, spiritual orientation. And yet there just isn't time for eve.rything. As a result there is not nearly enough formal, personal prayer on the part of many active apostles. And this has serious repercussions, both on the apostles themselves and on all the work they do. And so the search goes on for some functional spirituality that will work .for busy apostolic men and women by giving a sense of integration and unity to their lives. It is instructive that in the past ten years interest has moved from the topic of discernment of spirits to that of apostolic spirituality. To my mind, the con-tent is pretty much the same. But the orientation is very different. Discern-ment of spirits involves chiefly an interpretative sorting out in faith of inner, affective experiences, so that, through dealing properly with the experiences, one can find and be with God in every situation and moment of life. But this process runs ~he risk of generating a short-sighted interiority and a spirituality without adequate orientation to apostolic service. Apostolically active spirituality, it would seem, should involve the same decisive dealing in faith with inner, affective experiences, but now with a much increased realization that this faith-process within the person gives a special quality of integrated, peaceful presence in the midst of the most challenging, active situations--and that this presence, eloquent in its thrust toward God in itself, also leads to ac- .~tions which further his kingdom in the world. Dealing in faith with the daily consolations and desolations of life can integrate and unify our whole affec-tivity and person. And this faith-process certainly does not excuse the active apostle from a program of regular, formal prayer. Rather it reveals the need to discover the unique style of serious, formal prayer appropriate for each in-dividual. Such prayer will always be an essential means to that quality of human presence which reveals a loving Father in Jesus as the Beloved of our hearts and which can find and serve Him in everything. In this sense, current interest in apostolic spirituality seems very healthy Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade / 199 and very likely to lead to an apostolic presence that is increasingly prayerful and where activity is therefore not seen as weakening the contemplative presence of prayer, but as a continuation of that contemplative presence beyond the limits of formal prayer. This integrated, apostolic presence will not decrease the demands made on us, but it can prevent the sense of being overly distracted and torn between the dichotomy of formal prayer and apostolic activity. This integrated spirituality can also lessen that sense of dualism against which we are so often warned today. 4. Renouncing the World to Serve It for God. ~, It is not easy for us to see the world from God's perspective and to serve its t needs in the light of his dream of justice. Finally, this can be done only by one who comes from an experience of God, an experience in God, back to the world. Though we are usually first led to know and love God, of course, in and through his creation, there must and does come, for those whose ex-perience of God matures, a moment of experiencing Him beyond this world's ~- wisdom and potentiality-- a moment of experiencing God as not simply equal to, but as far beyond, all the beauty and wisdom of this world. This moment of transcendence, of finding complete satisfaction and joy in a loving God himself, roots our identity primarily in God and gives his love a priority over any created reality. It is an experience that re-announces us before God, before ourselves and before the world as a people of God, a people in God. In this way our "renunciation," in the sense of a re-announcement of the world for God, puts the world in its true perspective, as seen in and from God.z Rather than lessening our interest in th~ world, this view dramatically in-creases our zeal to further God's Kingdom in the wo~:id and so bring it to its full potential. But serving the needs of our world properly, as part of our love of God, demands this kind of worldly renouncement. There are issues of some importance for ac, tive apostles today that relate to this renunciation of the world. Can this experience of renunication happen without some physical withdrawal from the worl~d? And since the renuncia-tion referred to here is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, what meaias will help active people to keep it alive and growing as a personal attitude? With much ~to leSs physical detachment from the world in most seminaries and novitiates (and much of this is good and in accord with the appropriately non-monastic raining of active apostles), how can we be assured that this necessary attitude f renunciation is taking permanent root in the apostle's consciousness? How do active apostles prevent their worldly renunciation either from turning into a withdrawal from the world which, while suitable for monks, is most un- See Karl Rahner, S.J., Theological Investigations, vol 3, The Theology of the Spiritual Life, tr. Karl-H and Boniface Kruger, "The Ignatian Mysticism of Joy in the World" (Baltimore: ~, H elicon, 1967), pp. 227-293. What Rahner describes as thefugasaeculi for a Jesuit is fundamental to any mature Christian life with and in God. 200 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 suitable for them, or, even worse, from turning into an unChristian lack of concern for the world? The American Church is not finished with these ques-tions. We need more discussion, and better answers. For without this attitude of worldly renunciation, we may have active apostles busy doing many good things, but nov per~ceiving the world's full potential for beauty and goodness and not furthering the reality of a Father's Kingdom that is revealed chiefly in a dead Son's Resurrection. 5. Relationship of Spirituality and Morality. For too many people morality has been corrupted by an overly narrow, moralistic and rationalistic stress. This moralism, with its rationalistically detailed stress on casuistry, tends to cut'healthy morality off from its roots in the spirituality of God's revelation. It has caused much unhealthy fear, guilt and introspection. The "holy person" was described as one who avoided a clearly delineated list of mortal and venial sins. And, too often, this avoidance of sins seemed more a matter of stubbornly pelagian will power than a matter of prayerfully humble dependence on God's. grace. But today, it seems one could be taking means" for serious growth in prayer, faith and a spiritual life, and yet this spiritual seriousness need not ex-press itself in quite practical matters like the morality of public, social affairs or of a chaste sexual life. At times, neither certain social injustices nor something like masturbation is seen as unholy, thereby affecting one's love relationship with God. The intertwined strands of spirituality and morality are here become so unraveled that holy, prayerful Christian people may not be ex-pected to come to similar moral conclusions on various practical issues. A fuller view of both morality and spirituality, ho~vever, rather finds them mutually inclusive and affirming of one another, mutually accountable, while at the same time leaving to each its own, appropriately specific, stress. To view some practical matter spiritually is to judge its appropriatenes~ against the faith-ideal of a trust in God's loving power wonderfully filling our own weakness whenever it is exposed in self-emptying surrender. In this way cer-tain attitudes, dispositions and actions are unholy and unspiritual because they violate this trust in God's love. Only one's spiritual growth in union with God will provide this trust in the practical details of daily living. Much is being done these days in moral theology to construct a modern .version of full, healthy Christian morality and a spirituality as integral to each other. A very interesting issue in this new approach in moral theology is the role in moral decision-making which prayerful discernment of spirits plays in providing that moral knowledge whereby a holy person can know God's love in a concrete situation. 6. Sin ~ Forgiveness-- Sacrament of Reconciliation. Related to the previous consideration of spirituality and morality is another issue, that of our personal experience as sinners in the human recep- Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade / 201 tion of God's vivifying forgiveness in and through the sacrament of recon-ciliation. Although there are unhealthy dualisms which de.ny integral human living and which should therefore be avoided, the dualism of a person saved in Jesus, but still with much affective evidence of sinfulness cannot be avoided. This dualism is the very setting for the Christian adventure of sons and daughters still gradually coming into their own. The seven capital sins, alive in our affective consciousness as dispositions, inclinations and impulses, provide us with our own version of the pauline divided heart? But we.have an in-destructible hope of ever more healing and wholeness in the crucified Son's discovery of his Father's blessing of resurrection. Continual conversion, so central to the Christian life, happens in the pain-fully purifying humiliation of a double acknowledgement: my personal sin-fulness, and the faithful love of the Trinity for me in the Son's Calvary experience, And this brings in turn a double awareness: we are never nearly so good as we try to make ourselves out to be; but we are far more loved in the Trinity's forgiveness than we could ever imagine. This process of personal assimilation of God's forgiveness is neither instantaneous nor superficial. The inner humiliation of an unqualified admission of personal sinfulness before our beloved Father in his crucified Son is something that we instinctively try to avoid. In this experience, a careful discernment of what is spiritually good for each person is needed.' Despite the reform of the rite of the sacrament of reconciliation I wonder whether people are being helped to deepen their experience of this growth to self-identity through forgiveness. The old superstructure surrounding the in-stitution of frequent confession has broken down--as it had to. Reconcilia-tion prayer-services have restored the communal dimension of sinfulness and forgiveness within the community of the Church, and a whole new format has been developed for the individual reception of the sacrament of reconcilia-tion. But there are ways in which a communal experience of the sacrament, without a carefully~ personal and individual experience, can superficialize or short-circuit the human process of receiving.God's forgiveness. As we grow to a more healthy and loving sense of ourselves, we can learn to find the in-dividual experience of the sacrament a helpful means of growth to the maturi-ty of humble trust in the fidelity of the Trinity's forgiving love always available in our weakness. 7. Faith and Justice. After the topic of prayer, this seems the theme most treated in today's spiritual writing. Many persons are much more sensitive today to the systemic network of social sin that is rooted in the individual sinfulness of human Rm 7:14-25. See my article, "Forgiveness," Sisters Today, Dec. 1973, pp. 185-92. 202 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 hearts--that are radically social in nature. But we have a long way to go in developing a sensitivity to social sin and a social morality. And the insight that justice, in a sense much fuller than simply its social-political meaning, is in-tegral to faith badly needs to grow in the Church. Opportunities for such growth are being very well served by current studies in scripture~ and in Christology.6 Further study and reflection, however, is neede~l to recognize more precisely the sense of justice that is so centrally related to Christian faith-- the full paschal justice of God, motivated and revealed in us through a refined and decisive faith. It is the zealous faith of a great love of God that urges on us a passionate concern and practical involvement for the justice of God's Kingdom. For we are not urged on simply by a social theory about the unity of the human family, or about communal ownership of our earth's resources, or about the inherent evil of war. The fundamental and difficult question of how Christianity relates to various political ideologies--and to ideology, as such--arises here. In South America the question of the possibility of a Chris-tian marxism is very alive, whereas in this country there is a serious question-ing of the assumptions of capitalism. These are complicated questions about specific situations and activities. But we must remember that zeal for the justice of God's Kingdom can never be limited simply to the matter of a specific kind of activity that one is involved in. Rather, and with more far ranging, quite practical effect, it must grow to a vision that pervades and in-fluences everything we do. A few other aspects of this issue deserve listing. The tendency to an ex-cessively introspect, privatized spirituality needs the challenge of that zeal for justice which validates a person's faith.7 We must learn how to relate our zeal for justice to our contemplation. For active apostles in the heat of unjust, op-pressive situations, it is never easy to believe in the grace that could convert understandable angry feelings into the appropriate expression of tenderness and compassion. Much more than a matter of a given temperament, we must see tenderness and compassion not as unbecoming to either a man or a woman in certain situations, but as virtues contemplatively rooted by grace in a per-son's affectivity and will. Finally, many of us need new experiences to help us feel much more passionately the tangled questions this issue raises~ before we can even know the question, much less the answers. ~ See John R. Donahue, S.J., "Biblical Perspectives on Justice" in The Faith That Does Justice, ed. John C~ Haughey, S.J. (New York: Paulist, 1977), pp. 68-112 and Jose" Porfirio Miranda, Marx and the Bible, tr. John Eagleson (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1974), 338 pp. ~ J~irgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 346 pp.; John Sobrino, S J, Christology At the Crossroads, tr. John Drury Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1978), 432 pp.; Leonardo Boll, Jesus Christ Liberator (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1978). 7 cf. Richard A. Blake, S.J., "'As the Father Has Sent Me'," America, Aug 25, 1979, pp. 66-69 and William J. Byron, S J, "Privatization--A Contemporary Challenge to lgnatian Spirituality," Chicago Studies, vol. 14, No. 3, Fall, 1975, pp. 241-251. Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade / 20:3 8. Role of Women in the World and the Church. Another major concern in spirituality today is the role of woman. The issue, understandably en6ugh, is often so fraught with crusading passion and angry feelings that, as male and therefore one who surely does not feel enough the seriousness of the issue, one almost fears to say anything at all. Against a backdrop of past and present prejudice, the lea'dership role of woman in the Church slowly increases. But there is a long way to go. Attitude, rather more than qanguage, seems nearer the heart of the matter--and yet linguistic care both expresses and shapes our attitude. And the attitude of many leaders and other people in the Church must profoundly change before women will exercise a suitably influential role and make their unique contribu-tion (something any exaggei'ated uniformity and equality, of course, will not allow). In general, there seem to be three stages to this concern. First is an awareness of the fact injustice, however it is explained. This is often followed by a period of intense reaction, which is quite understandable; whether ap-parently exaggerated or not. Finally, a stage of peaceful service in the Church is often reached, as one doeg what is possible to correct the injustice. It is a process similar to Kubler-Ross's stages8 arid has been gone through by others when facing the deadly situation of unjust discrimination.~ Women's ordination to the priesthood is, of course, still debated. For many, however, it does not seem to be the heart of the issue at the present time. Much will continue to be accomplished without changing the present policy on women's ordination to the ministerial priesth6od. This does not deny-that there are painful situations, which can be paschally productive for all, in which women actually minister a "sacramentally" salvific experience without the acknowledged ministerial priestly capacity to formally celebrate the experience in the Church. A good example of this is the woman director of a retreat who cannot administer the sacrament of reconciliation after sharing a retreatant's graced experience of God's forgiveness. Many would feel--and many would not m that this is still an open question, about which the Church seems not to have enough light in the Spirit to know whether a change is called for or not. In the meantime, we all need to grow in a sensitivity to correct past in-jostice in our own relationships, to beg for light in the Spirit regarding what is the right growth in this issue for the future, and to pray for the humility and the urgent patience of Jesus in his passion to live and serve generously in the present situation. 9. Spirituafity and Psychology. Because spitituality involve~ the total human person in relationship to ~ Elisabeth K~Jbler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 260 pp. 904 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 God's saving love, it can be related to every area of human behavior. It is I~ especially appropriate and valuable to relate spirituality to psychology, and, over the past decade or more, interest in this relationship has 'increased enor-mously. As an overly rationalistic view of spirituality subsides, we investigate much more the role of the non-rational dimensions of our person in spiritual growth. Spirituality can be naive, and destructive too, when it flies in the face of healthy psycholggy. But spirituality loses its salvific power for the human person, and becomes even demonic, when it capitulates completely to psychology. A delicate balance is called for in this relationship--something not easily arrived at, or easily preserved. In turning to s'ome specific aspects of this general issue, it is obvious that much greater~ stress is now being placed on communicationskills, on affectivi-ty, on the role of the body, and on consciousness-altering techniques--all of which can enrich our prayer and further sensitize us to the many ways God's word an~d love come to us. The practice of spiritual direction often legitimb.tely ,~. overlaps with a type of psychological counseling. But the ultimate aim of ~ facili

Issue 20.2 of the Review for Religious, 1961. ; JOHN B. WAIN, M.D. Psychological Problems in Religious Life In the religious press it is becoming more common to find articles on the psychological problems of the dedi-cated life, but itis unusual to read any contributions from doctors. As one who has been privileged to associate closely with religious and to care for them over many years, this writer feels that his observations may be of some use to the great army of admirable, holy, an_.d well balanced priests, brothers, and sisters when they have to help the small but important group of priests and religious who suffer from nervous disorders. The layman gains the im-pression that psychological difficulties are some of the greatest problems which religious have to face; indeed, unspoken misgivings about this matter may be partly re-sponsible for the shortage of vocations. This may operate in two ways. Parents are willing to let their children face martyrdom at the hands of the pagans, but they have their reservations about the unnecessary crosses to be taken up daily in the community or in the rectory, Children who have suffered injustice from a neurotic teacher will eschew the risk of joining that order or congregat.ion when they grow up. The price of retaining one such maladjusted person in the community without giving him the proper care and attention might be the loss of twenty vocations from among successive classes of pupils and the estrange-ment of an equal number of tentative converts. As a starting point for discussion on the matter, two broad generalisations will be offered. First, there is too much neurosis among religious. Second, much of it is avoidable or preventible. These are merely clinical im-pressions. It is impossible to assess accurately the incidence of nervous disease in any group or nationality; neverthe-less, confirmation of the above two ideas can be easily found in conversations with Catholic doctors and'religious nurses. All such persons agree about the existence of neu-÷ ÷ John B. Wain, M.D., is a ph},sician with man.}, years of experience m treating men and women religious. VOLUME 20~ 1961 8! 4. 4. 4. John B. Wain, M.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 82 rosis among religious men and women. One doctor who visits a man's religious institution of thirty members states that in the weekly sick parade there, there are always at least ten with inconsequential complaints. It is a fair observation to say that every community, however small, has at least one neurotic problem to deal with. This situation is most unsatisfactory. The energies of the supe-rior are dissipated in managing the misfit, and the unity of the community is endangered. The saddest task for the doctor is to institute .psychiatric treatment for one who has suffered a nervous breakdown in Christ's service. Sometimes these patients are nursed along for years for fear that their state may reflect badly on the order's way of life. This may be so, but it is a disastrous policy to delay seeking psychiatric help in the hope that the dis-order will remit spontaneously. Sister M. William Kelley1 in a unique article has given the incidence of hospitalized mental illness among re-ligious sisters in the United States. Her paper was notable for its courage in facing up to the problem and for the fact that the main religious mental hospitals refused to cooperate with her in the investigation. This unwilling-ness to submit the problem to discussion is not uncommon, even though such discussion would be productive of great good. The truth cannot harm us. Sister William found that, when compared with women in secular life, religious suffered from a higher incidence of psychotic (particularly schizophrenic) and psychoneurotic disorders, even though because of prior selection they have less mental deficiency, and chronic brain syndromes. She concluded that pre-psychotic personalities may be attracted to the religious life on the basis of what they think it will do for their un-satisfied desires and that the increase of mental disorder among active religious may be due to factors of stress such as overcrowded classes and understaffed hospitals. Two suggestions are made by the present writer for the prophylaxis of this state of affairs. More~importance should be given to p~ychological matters in the selection of seminarians, postulants, and novices; and there could be a systematic reduction in factors causing nervous stress in the lives of professed religious. A common impression is that many of these psychiatric patients enter religion without adequate psychological assessment, Often the family history of mental disease is ignored, or the personal history of previous nervous br2akdown is not taken seri-ously enough. These should be serious contraindications to acceptance, although it must be admitted that Blot ¯ Sister M. William Kelley, I.H,M., "The Incidence of Hospitalized, Mental Illness among Religious Sisters in. the United States," The American Journal of Psychiatry, 115 (i958-1959), 72-75. and Galimard2 give the impression that such unsuitable candidates may sgm_etimes-be,considered for religioys life. - . - It should n~t l~e too difficult to introduce some f~)rm of " psychological testing for all applicants to seminaries.and to religious life. The Califoi'nia ~'~gt of "Mental' ~V~ity;_ the DifferentialApti.tude Test, or the He.nmqn-Nelson test. could be used to gauge general intelligence, while.,~ per~" son~ality profile of the applican.ts.c, ou_ld be achieved by,:~he use of the Edwards PersOnal. Prgference Schedule,~ the Guilford-Zimmerman Temp.eram~enL Survey, _or t,he Mid-_ nesota.Per.sonality Scale. These tests can be .proctored by" persons.with no special tra_i~nin~g alth,0ugh the~,i~erpreta; tion of them should be en~.tr, u~ted to.some0ne with training in, psychology. When" these tests mncover a, Oos's'ib~, sig-nificant_ area Qf defect in the appl!cant, he can be refer.red, to a competent psycho~logis~.fo.r further examination be-fore he is accepted by the seminary or rellgaous lnsutute. Masters and mistre.sse, s of novices should have some specialized tr~fining in psychologiEal work so that they. can recognize early the sy.mptoms, of maladjustment and dismiss such subjects from the community b~'fore they disturb its peace and b'~lance. O~n~ common type. w~ may be mistakenly admitted-is ~the girl ~ho stays on at the convent boardin~school until.the age of nineteen or twenty, unable to make up her-mihd ab6ut°the. future.i This is a serious form of. immaturity,.wh~ose progn6sis, in religign, is poor. The admission~ of youths and girls the age of" sixteen also involves the°risk bf, ac~eptii~g vo-cations which, are_ based.on~,immature co~ncep, ts, while late entrants tend to.be too.,, independent to acce.pt.religi~ous,. obedience. -. ,~,o , - - Much could be done.to reduce the psych,olo.gical stresses which are not an integral par, t. of religious life, the .m. o~,t potent weapon being the fosterin~ of a warm pa#~nta,.1 love between superiors and subjects. Accepting poverty,'chas-~ tity, obedience, and the in'es~apable difficulties d~ common~ life involves sufficient.sacrifice without creating ar'fificial' burdens. In. Oiscu~.s!ng~ .~eligi0tis vows, even-in a st~irit of humility, the doctor ,strays outside his specialty; ~bu~ the mtenuon here ~slto point out thexr medxcal repercus: sion~ in mentally disturbed p~ople. Pov~r~y,, ig iiaainly spirit/aM "concept of defachm~nt° from ear~h'l~ ~hxuri~ but not- the denial of the basic necessftids of-life. Religious. should lead a life-of.lfrugal' omfort,~not one 6f.pehur, y, hunger, and.,privati~;n i~aless~h~ seek these as%specifiC, penances.St. Therese of Lisieuxost.ated that h~r mare cross in the convent was bearing the cold, an indictment of.'tl~e insufficient heating. She died Of t(~berculosis at the ~geof. twent~-foui', when the hot, salt blood welled u'p i~i'to i;i"e~ ~ Ren~ Blot. M.D. and Pierre G~limard, M.D., Medicid Guide to Vocations (Westminister: Newman, 1955). 4. Psychological Problems " VOLUME 20, 196~. John B. Wain, M.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 84 mouth~"she was happy to think how soon she would be in heaven. For her it was a saintly death; for her superior it was a comment" on the neglect of the community's health. St. Berhadette also suffered hardships in the convent and died of the same disease at thirty-five. Even now tuber-culosis is a risk for all young people in religion. Is it pos-sible that the vow of poverty has been misapplied? Chastity is the glory of the religious life and nothing can be done to make its acceptance any easier, but efforts should be made to eliminate false standards of purity which degenerate into prudery and unreasonable con-cepts of modesty. Gynecological complaints are often suffered'.for years before medical advice is sought, and maligfl~ant tumors are not reported until they are in-operable. The fact that some religious are not permitted to attend the reception of the sacrament of matrimony is a relic of Jansenism which may give offence to lay people and connotes false apprehensions about the nature of religious chastity. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and only the violent can bear it away. Those who do violence to their own natures by taking religious vows must expect some repercussions, but these lose some of their force if they are discussed with frankness, tact, and objectivity. The deprivation of the consolations of married love and of childbearing mugt affect sisters particularly; as a result of this inner conflict between natural instincts and the ideals of the religious life, some may unwittingly suffer a suc-cession of functional, as distinct from organic, illnesses. Atypical ~ase will find that she is becoming irritable and depressed; she finds her daily work an intolerable bur- ° den and her sisters' foibles which she previously ignored b~cbme opl~ressive to her. She loses her appetite, becomes thin, sleeps badly, and has palpitations and chest pains suggestive of heart disease. She may have to accept stronger temptations against purity. This is reminiscent of the yceriasriss o wf mhiacrhri emd alinfey, ams ahrarsi abgeeens peoxipn~etr_ie~ndc~ eo uatf tbeyr Labecoluetr ctqe.n8 At this stage in life the first long struggle is over, the couple have rea~he~l financial stability, and' the difficult years of having several babies in tie house have passed. Both partners see the first ~vidences of age, and, realizing that degenerative diseases will start"~within another decade, some will desperately seek the excitement of youth. They must face temptations to ihfidelity, pride, and avarice. In religion some experience a similar crisis. After ten years they reach a stage of achievement and the gecurity that comes from seniority, but they find that youth has im- 8Jacques Leclercq, Marriage a Great Sacrament (Fresno: ~,cademy Library Guild, 1953). perceptibly~ slipped ~away and' they ask themselves if their vocation is really the right way of life. If they can hold on bravely with the assistance of prayer and the syinph-thetic undergtanding of an enlightened superior, they will pass through the storm ~nto the calm and contentment of a well integrated religious life. The menopause brings the game stresses as it does for lay women, and sisters should be advised to expect~ hot flushes, headaches, irritability, and depressions. Many of 'these symptoms can be helped by treatment. Younger sisters can be reassur.ed about the problems of dysmenor-rhoea, and premenstrual, tension. It is probably not uncommon for religious and lay people to experiencd sexual feelings at the quiet_ times of recollecuon anffat commumon. Thxs was referred to'w~th characteristic delica.cy., by St. Te,resa. of Avila when asked for advice on the matter' by hdr brother Rodrigo who was making his first steps~'in the mystical lif$. She implied that she also. had experienced t6~sefe~lings but that th~y disappeared when they were ignqred. "In God's design the happiness of the married life must be a pale shadow of the ecstas~ of the mystical Union~oand similar physiologi~M reactions accompany each. If these factg are uriderstood, there will be less distress for gqddlbeople who liave th~se otherwise d.is.turbing e~pe~iences. Obedience presents so many problems that the only unfailing guides are the'vi'rt~es of prudence and ~ha~ity. It is a necessary vow l~c~use only an austere':discipllne can lead to the full development of the strong personality which will accept sacrifices and will persevere in the re-ligiou~ vocatidn. It is falsely applied, however, if it de: stroys a sense of personal responsibility and initiative and if the command seems'to be an insult to the human dignity Of the subj~.kt. The essence of obedience is the surrender of the will; it is impgssible to surrender the intellect. It is unfortunate that an ekample of Obedience commonly quoted is that of St. Francis of Assisi who planted cabbages upside down. The saint is to be admired but not necessarily emulated. A young novice saw his master of novices scattering his carefully swept rubbish about the yard. When taked with untidiness, his acciden-tally acquired knowledge enabled him to accept the rebuke with apparent humility. If he had protested, his future in religion might have been prejudiced. It should be pos-sible to test virtue without having recourse to methods involving injustice, untruth; or deviations from the rule of charity. The end result of imposing an unre'asonable obedience is the fostering of immaturity in subjects and the formation of a type of religious who is almost inca-pable of making simple decision's or arranging anything outside the narrow cgmpass of his daily life. This is what 4, PPsryocbhloel~ongsical VOLUME 20, 1961 85 ÷ ÷ ÷ John B. Wain, M.D. REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOU$ 86 irreverent clerics refei: to as "holy helplessness." The re-ligious life should ensourage the flowering of the com-plete personality in imitation of Christ and our Lady; it s ould produce'cultured.men and women, full of grace, strength, and inner peace. In this connection it is often stated that in religion men find their personalities while women lose theirs. Why should there be this difference? Many avoidable burdens arise from an undue rigidity of ttfe rule. A certain flexibility is desirable to adapt European customs to hfe ~n~ other geographical areas and-to make allowance for the changes of circumstances that" characterize the twentieth century. A sister I kno~ was unable to read the Confessions of St. Augustine be-cause the rule forbade taking books'from the public li-brary. This typ.e of r~striction exposes religious life t6 ridi-cule. Neither would the dignity of sisters suffer if they were to eat in public and to travel alone. There are certain physiological norms which the average "i~erson must bbey; accordingly, it should be the rule for mgst religious to have a minimum of seven hours sleep and not to work for more than twelve hours a d.ay ~(including in this the time necessary for the proper fulfilment of the prescribed religious and spiritual exer'cises of each da~). ~When recreation is tak.en, some relaxation of the artifi- 'ciality which has obtained in the past would do much good and would not harm the spirit of the 6rder or congrega-tion. Particular friendships ha,~e tr~ditionaliy been pro-scribed, bht this should not exclude those i~atural affinities which are felt by compatible personalities. These if fos-tered are a great consolation" to the parties and would not destroy the unity of the group, nor would they develop into a sinister relationship. Our Lord Himself encouraged a close friendship with St. John. , With the exception of enclosed 9rd~ers, ~ome reasonable access of parents to children "c'ould.~ well be encouraged, especially in times of illness oOr death. A regulation whereby a religious may not go to his~own parent's fun.eral, but may go to anyone else's, could well be rescinded. A1- "though the habit is only a small a~pect of cbnventual life, -somre lessons can;be drawn fro~a.]t. While possessing a certain antique charm, it is indicht~ive. ,of an orientation towards the past; and to those outside thd Ch~:~rch it sug-gests that the wearers do n_ot face up to and take part in modern life. The other n0t_able f~& is tha( the request of Pope Plus XII for modernisation of the habit fell to a grea{ extent upon deaf ears. Apart from some minor ad-justments which are obvious only to the initiate, the dress is unchanged. This is largely because of the innate con; servatism of women and the fakul.{y of fiabituat]o~n;o eact one thinks that members o,f every o.ther community a.nd the Salvation Army~look absurd. The times call for re-jection of the whole concept of what a religious habit should be and the deyelopment of a new dress. Just as clerics have rightly abandoned tonsure, so the cutting of the hair of religious~r~men could be restricted to a token or symbolical gesture, find the headdress discarded. Some nursing sisters with covered' ears are almost unable, to take blood pressure r.eadings Or t'6" i]]te~ to the fetal "l~eart. "Dur-ing the recent war priests in the armed services did not suffer loss of dignity fr6m adopting officer's dress; on the other hand, the pri,est workers"went too far in their adap-tation. In the stress of mc~dern living regular alternation of activity and rest is necessary; therefore annual holidays should be provided for. Only very wooden personalities can go bn for years withoiat variation in their routine of life. Much of the stress of the religious life results from at-tenipting to do too much, working too long, and being sent out on active duties with insufficient training. The Sister Formation Conferences"aim to correct this latter undesir-able trend. Al-though it may cause a temporary shortage of persorinE1, it mustpay dividends in the long run. The laborers have been too few since Christ first uttered th~se words, butrushing r~ligious through their training will not solve the eternal problem. The Church has tradi- (ionally been a bad employer, and the worst sufferers have been religious themselves. Their services are so valuable that they should have better welfare services than other employers progide. In this corine'ction it is both amusing and instructive to recall St. Teresa's chiding 6ur Lord for her misfortunes: "Is it any Wonder, Lord, that You have so few friends when people see h6w badly you treat ~tour chosen ones!" The beneficent influence of good art, even on unsophis-ticated rrlinds, is rarely ~u~ilized; it is common to see a poor standard of iriterior decoration, and pictorial art in convents and rectories, even though church architecture has advanced to a gratifying degree. A reasonable access to secular literfiture would not be harmful if it broadens the experience of religious and gives them some wider a~- preciation of the problems their pupils must face when they leave school. Those assigned to menial tasks should have some e'asily attainable goals arranged for them so that their spirits will not be crushed by monotony and by the lack of any evidence of achievement. ~uperiors have :the additional, worry of finance, ad-ministratiofi, and personnel management, for which they have Usually received no training. With only native common serise as a guide, they must learn with a trial and error method. One way to lift this secular burden would be to provide experienced lay advisers so" that the superior, could concentrate on his apostolate; this would, o~ course, involve som~ surrender of autonomy. A common error is to attribute fieurotic behavior to ÷ ÷ ÷ Psychological Problems VOLUME 20, 1961 '4. '4. ,4. John B. Wain, M.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 88 a poor spiritual life~ and by that same token to expect that a more intense spiritual life'wilL cure a neurosis. A teaching brother was seen to change from a happy, agree-able person to one who was morose, withdrawn, and sus-picious. He went 'to the sacraments only infrequently and was given to outbursts of anger with his pupils. He was advised oto pray more, but this was expecting a miracle from grace. His main need was for .psychiatric treatment, which disclosed that his father had died in circumstances which he had always suspected were suicidal. He found himself having strange compulsive feelings when he looked out 'of high windows, and then he became scrupulous about matters of purity which he would normally have ignored. In the dark night of his soul, he felt abandoned by God and his community. With proper psychotherapy he recovered. Is this problem worth making a fuss about? Some would say that the status quo should be preserved; that the trials of religious life are the crosses which God in-tends for these souls; that He chooses the weak and foolish things of this world to confound the wise; that, according to Thurston,4 many of the saints and stigmatics were neurotics; that the command of the superior is God's will for the subject; and that in his handling of the prob-lems of his community the superior is given the grace of st.ate.All these arguments imply that infallibility is a widely diffused gift instead of a very limited one. In ac-cepting everything as God's will, people rarely draw,the distinction between His direct will and His permissive will, and therefore they do not admit that there can be mistakes or blunders in religious decisions. Is it impertinent for the layman to speak when he has no firsthand knowledge of religious life? In the spiritual health of the Mystical Body the layman is vitally con-cerned; moreover he is looking ahead to the welfare of his own children if and when they perceive a calling to enter religion. An investigation into the religious psy chological environment on a diocesan basis would produce fruitful results, but it would have to be undertaken a~ a cathartic exercise. The best religious, whose opinions, would be of the greatest value, are the very ones who l would count it a virtue to remain silent and unco.mplain-~ ing. How to integrate democratic processes into an author-I itarian governing structure is a difficult problem. C0nsid-I eration of all these factors influencing mental stabilityI renews our admiration for the great numbers of altruistici men and women who gaily sacrifice so many of the goodl things of life to make the total gift of themselves to God.I ~Herbert Thurston, s.J., The Physical Phenomena o! Mysticism (Chicago: Regnery, 1952). HENRY WILLMERING, SiJ. Charles Felix Van Q ickenborne "Father Charles van Quickenborne," writes Father Peter de Smet, "was the first Jesuit priest who appeared in the valley of the Misissippi after the reestablishment of the Society of Jesus. He was a.man full of zeal.for the salva-tion of souls. The conversion of the Indians w~as, impar-ticular; 'the object of his predilection and of his prayers. Long will his name be held in benediction, and his mem-ory celebrated in the places which h;id the happiness of receiving the fruits of his numerous labors,, and of his truly apostolic virtues." This commendation is from the pen of one of the seven novices who accompanied Father van Quickenborne to Missouri in 1823 to establish the nucleus of the Society of Jesus in the Middle West. Two years before, Peterde Smet and six Companions left their' native Belgium secretly to becomemissionaries to the Indians in North America. For this purpose they entered the Society in October, 1821, at Whitemarsh, Maryland, where shortly before Father van Quickenborne had been appointed master of novices. Unforeseen circumstances brought the group to the Indian country before their period of.probation was completed. The Right Reverend Louis Dubourg, bishop of' New Orleans and Upper Louisiana, had many'Indian tribes residing in his vast diocese, and he was anxiously seeking for missionaries to convert them. The success of the Jesuits in this work before the suppression of the Society prompted him to appeal to the Father General of the Society for ;help. He made a like appeal to the Superior of the Maryland mission and offered as an inducement the gift of a large, productive farm not far from the growing city of St. Louis. With the scanty number of available priests at their disposal, it seemed impossible to promise the bishop any help in the near future. Then Divine Providence intervened. In 1823 the finan, cial difficulties of every house" in the Maryland mission ÷ ÷ The Reverend Henry Willmering, Associate Editor of the REVIEW is stationed at St. Mary'S College, St. Marys~ Kansas. ~ VOLUME 20, 1961 89 REVIEWFORRELIGIOUS became so acute that the superior and his consultors seriously considered clo~ing the Whitemarsh novitiate and dismissing the novices. When told of this decision, Father van Quickenborne reminded the superior of Bishop Du-bourg's offer and of the readiness of himself and his novices to go to the Indian territory and work for the conversion of the natives. Accordingly, a concordat was entered into between the Bishop of New Orleans and Father Charles Neale, Supe_rior of the Maryland Province, to establish a novitiate of the Society at Florissant, Missouri, on condi-tion that, after the no,~i~es finished their spiritual and theological training, they would devote themselves to the apostolate of the Indians. The exodus from Whitemarsh was in the spring of 1823. The party consisted of two priests, seven novices, three lay-brothers, and three families of negro slaves. Two wagons carried the baggage across, the mountains to Wheeling on the. Ohio River. The young mi_ssionaries made the journey on foot across the Alleghenies. In Wheel- Ang they procured two flat boats; on one of them they placed the negroes and baggage, while the other served them as their 'floating.monastery.' They-drifted down the river day and night, stopping only to procure provisions. Religious exercises were. continued during the voyage as circumstances allowed. At Louisville, Kentucky, they landed their baggage, and a local pilot directed their craft over the falls of the river. At the foot of the falls they re-embarked and continued their river trip as far as, Shawnee-town, Illinois, Thence the missionaries made the last 150 miles through swamp land on foot, while a river,s_teamer carried ~their baggage, upstream to St. Louis, where they arrived on the last day of May. The entire trip lasted ,fifty days. " o The-homestead, which they were to inhabit on the, out- ,skirts of the village of Florissant, was a wretched log cabin, with a single room, measuring sixteen by eighteen feet, arid surmounted by a gable roof, so low that one could' not stand erect in,the attic beneath it. At a short distance from the house were ~two sheds, one had served as a pig pen/the other as a tool shed. The newcomers ~ere a bit disap-pointed, to find such primitive quarters, and the hardships encountered during the first few months"proved to,, be too great.for one novice andoaqay-brother~ who left during the summer of 1823. The others adapted themselves to the situation in a truly religious and missionary spirit.,The six noyices and two lay-brothers slept on the floor of the attic, while the single, room below was divided by a cur-tain, ,one side .being reserved as. the domestic chapel, the other as the living room for the priests. The.first shed was by turns study hall, classroom and r~fectory; the second served as kitchen and domicile for the negroes. ,, Much greater~ would .have been~the discomfort of.the Jesuit ,~communit'y had not Divine Providence assisted them through the generosity of~,Blessed Philippine Du-chesne and:her community. °The Religious of the Sacred ,Heart had moved to'Flonssant tliree years earher?~where they condudted a small boarding schbol.Often they de; prived themselves of what little they had to send it to:their neighbors. Furnithre, bedding, cooking utensils~.and~pro-visions were generously offered to the' Fathers and novices during the~,first~evere wifiter. ' "~ To relieve the acfite housing problem, the Jesuits ~be-gan work.immediately by collectin~building'ma_terials. Stone wag procured from a nearby quai-ry, timber,was cut and shaped, and when Ml,was ready a.,second.story, and spacious annex were added to the house. Ttiese hard~,and continuous .activities h~ever interrupted the ~spirituab ex-ercisEs. of the novitiate; but the.cold weather.and frequent snow storms put. a stop~to,~the labor till spring. Tl~e new additions were completed in June, and~ after thednterior ~had been remodelled, life became more bearable. . . -'Th( leader and guiding spirit of~this enterprise was a man,thirty-five years of age. Charles Felix_van Quicken-borne was,born in the village of Peteghem,'twelve miles w~st'of Ghent, on January 21;, 1788. His first studieswere made in Deynze; "then he attended the academy in Ghent, and finally entered the diocesan seminary in thatl city. From the first h.i~ talents and application~merited high praise. He was ordainedto the priesthood in 1812, and was appointed to teach the classics in the preparatory semi-nary of Roeselare: When, shortly after, Napoleon,,closed allthe seminaries in:F.tafiders and drhfted the stu'dents of military age, Father .Charles Was appointed vicar of the large ~Zalloon parish',of St. Denijs near Coutrais. Being guided by the wise counsels of the sain~tly dean, Frans Corselis, whose virtues he often-ext011ed, to'his novices,in later.years, Father Charles, administered the parish .@ith great success, and,the peopl~e were sorry to, see him resign his charge in.order-to enter the newly opened. Jesuit novitiate at Rumbeke. He arrived there on April 14, 1815. A hostile Dutch govei'nment drove the novice~from "this quiet retreat shortly after, but they were" given shelter by'the highly esteemed Bishop of Ghent, Maurice de Broglie, who placed his episcopal.residence at DistOlber-gen, on the outskitts of Ghent, at their disposal; and there Father Charles finished his two years 6f probation.:~He pronounced his first .vows as a Jesuit in April, A817 . ' Having read the account of .the Reductions of Paraguay, the'young Jesuit~ was eager to go to North America and de-vote his life to the conversion of- the Indians/Even as a novice he begged Father General, Thaddaeus';Brz0zoW-ski, for this~mission. Instead he was assigned~to teach othe Henry W il imering, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 92 classics in th~ academy~of Roesalare, which appointment he received with resignation to the divine will. Then, un-expectedly, he was given permission to go to America. He. lost no time in making his preparations, and during the last week of October, 1817, he set sail for the United States and arrived, in. Baltimore towards the end of December. His first year in America was spent learning English at Georgetown College. Then came the appointment as master of novices. We can imagine with what trepidation he assumed this responsible office, he who but two years before had completed his own novitiate. He realized.fully his inexperience and knew that he was better fitted to do missionary work. But once again he resigned himself to God's will and trusted that help from above would not be wanting to him. In November, 1819, the novices were moved from Georgetown to Whitemarsh, Maryland. There, in addition to being novice master, Father Charles was the superior of the community, manager of a large plantation and of the negroes who worked it, missionary to the surrounding communities, carpenter, mason and builder. He erected a handsome stone church on the no-vitiate grounds and built a brick church at Annap01is, At the latter place, he said Mass every fortnight. He was known to visit regularly the sick and poor of the vicinity and devoted considerable time to the instruction of the negroes. For a while he attended to these multiple duties alone, but later he received a faithful helper in the person of Father~ Peter Timmermans, also a Belgian, and a most amiable and humble priest. He came to America with Father Charles Nerinckx in 1817, and entered the Society of, J~sus that same year. Father Peter took charge of the novices whenever Father Charles went on. one of his many missionary expeditions. In 1821, Father Nerinckx re-turned after a second trip to Eurbpe with another group of Belgian students, seven of whom entered the Society at Whitemarsh, and were the group who migrated to Floris-sant, where they pronounced their first vows on October 10, 1823. On finishihg the novitiate, they immediately began the study of.philosophy. One of their number, Peter Ver-haegen, had nearly completed all his seminary studies at Mechlin before coming to America. Accordingly he was appointed to assist Father van Quickenborne as instructor. Due to a lack of textbooks, the course in philosophy was rather superficial and was brought to a close with a public disputation in August, 1824. Two months earlier, on Mgy 31, Father Peter Timmer-marts died. This left Father Charles as the only priest at the Florissant mission. The multiple duties he had taken upon himself at Whitemarsh were again thrust upon him. Here, ~too, he was superior of the.community, chaplain and confessor for the,Religious of the Sacred0Heart, pastor of foti~ parishes, those of Florissant, St. Charles, Dardenne and Portage des Sioux, instructor of philosophy, manager of a large farm, and buildSr:"N0 wonder that~ h~ was prostrated by repeated spells of sickness. 'Yet he never spared himself, and when duty called, he went out, no matter how bad he felt. Many urgent calls for help were sent to Rome and Maryland; yet it was only after a year and five months, when the superior was near death,~ that help came in the .person of Father Theodore de Theux. In October, 1824, the scholastics began the study, of theology. The superior .had no choice but to appoint~ Peter Verhaegen instructor of dogma, and John Elet in-, structor of Sacred Scripture, while he reserved for himself, the courses in moral and pastoral theology. Needless to say, this arrangement was very :unsatisfactory to all con-cerned. After the arrival of Father de ~heux, matters im-proved a little since he took over the courses.in dogma and scripture. The first to be ordained, early-in 1826, were John Baptist Smedts and Peter Verhaegen. The following year the superior of Maryland visited the mission, where he held a comprehensive examination of all the candidates in theology, after which the remaining four were ordained just before the Christmas: holid_ays, in 1827, by Bishop Joseph Rosati, in the church at Florissant. The last period of a Jesuit's training, the third year of probation, wa_s made by all during the first half of 1828. On the eighth.of January they began the thirty day retreat under the direction of Father van Quickenborne who, in the peculiar circumstances, was~both tertian and tertian master. The retreat closed on February 7, and a few days later each tertian was assigned to give ,a retreat, a mis-sion, or take charge of a parish for one month. On their return .to Florissant, Father, Charles explained the Con-stitutions of.the Society, commented on the decrees of gen-eral congregations, and pointed out the approved methods of giving the Spiritual Exercises. One of the tertians praised very highly the quality and practical nature of these instructions. The tertianship ended on July.31, feast of St. Ignatius Loyola. Meanwhile, their purpose in coming to the West was by no means forgotten. True, the promise to send mission-armies to the Indian country within two years could not be kept, due partially at least to the untimely death of Father Timmermans, and more particularly to the fact that no additional priests came from Europe or Ma.ryland. A be-ginning, however, was made-when in 1824 Father Charles opened a school for Indian boys and Mother Duchesne started one for Indian girls. These two schools continued for a period of nearly seven years, and the progress made Fan O.uidumborne VOLUME 20, 1'961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Henry Wilimering, SJ. R~:VIEW FOR RELIGIOUS by the pupils~in Jearning :and piety merited favorable comments from visitors and also from :the Indiafi agents. But when' the pupils ,returned.to their tr.ibes; the.y wer~e deprived of all 'spiritual help and were' exposed to the superstitions and immorality' of (heir, people, and thus~ much of the ti'ainingo received at school was lost, To forestall this~'danger, Father Charles formulated a~ plan, patterned on the famous Reductions'of. Paraguay, of establishing Catholic Indian villages. Congress would be asked to appropriate a sum that would buy six thousand acres of land on the. outskirts of an Indian' settlement. Boys who graduated from 'the Jesuit school should' marry girls trained by the nuns. These couples would be given house and farm in the proposed village. The Indian agent should furnish the agricultural implements. One or two missionaries would live in the viIlage,' and care for the spiritual needs but al'so supervise the work done. The plan was approved by the president, but not by' Congress; so it was never realized b~ Father van Quickenborne. . .The failure of the Indian schools discouraged a number of the community, but not Father van Quickenborne, nor Father de Smet, Father Charles made two exploratory visits to the Indian country, the first in 1827; the second in the following year. On these journeys he addressed a num-ber of Osage and Iowa chiefs, baptized many infants, and made inquiries about starting missions among their peo-ple. When he ~found them favorable to his plans, he promised to send them. priests in the near future. He was eager to undertake the establishment of the~first mission himself, but another event intervehed whith thr'eatehed to delay the ope_ning of a.permanent Indihn mission for several years to come. -'o. Bishop Dubourg had opened a college in St. Louis 'in 1818, which had: a~ver~ precarious existence. No sooner had the Jesuits arrived in Missouri than an offer was made to'them to staff"the college; yet, until the six schoiastics were 6rdairied, this.was out of the question: In 1826 this college held its last session. At this point Bishop gosati; who had befriended the community gt Fl'orissant' from the start, again" urged that a new college be built and managed by the Jesuits, for which purpose' he offered ~a suitable plot of ~round just outside the city;' which had been donated to the bishop by Jeremiah Connors. As soon" as Father van Quiekenborne obtained permission from Rome,~ he started :building; and even before the structure was completed,' classes opened .on' November '2, 1829~ Father Verhae~e'n was appointed the first president, who with ~two other Fathers and afew externs (aughtten~ boarders .and thirty day scholars; but~within a few weeks' gime, the boarders increased "to thirty a~id the day scholars to 6ne hundred and twenty; During th6 first two years, the courses offered were those of a grammar school: In 1830,~.a course in Latin was added, and in 1832,.one in Greek. Father van Quickenborne _taught the Latin clas.s, Father de Theux, the Greek. When,the faculty was re-inforced by several priests and sc~holastics from :.Maryland, the school _quickly reached college lev~el, and in 1832, Father Verhaegen obtained,°by special act of the.Missouri legislature, a~ charter for the school un.der the title of 'St. Louis University,' with all the rights and prerogatives of a university. According to the terms of the concordat,of 1823, the Jesuits of Florissant were entrusted with the spiritual care of all Catholic families living in ce.ntral and northeastern Missouri. In 1828, Father Verreydt °was assign~ed, to. this work, which he carried.out witti~exemplary zeal. But.~n 1.830, Father van Quickenborne was~succeeded as superior of. the Missouri mission by Father de Theux; and' for the first time Father Charles seemed free to~ carry out his favorite project, to start a permanent mission among the Indians. Instead, he was told to take over Father Verreydt's missionary work. The reason for this is given by Father Garraghan, in The Jesuits o[ the Middle West: "The truth is that ~good Father van Quickenborne,' as his .Jesuit associat_es were fond of characterizing him, was a difficult_ person with whom towork. His zeal was boundless, with much about it of the heroic; his devotion to the cause of the In_dians, unflagging; , his personal piety, obvious to all;,but along with his in certain respects surpassing equipment as a missionary went limitations of temperament that unfitted him in,many ways to work successfully by the side of others. In° the social virtues he was often d%ficient. Silent, secretive, depressed and often gloomy in countenance, with a tendency to melancholy, despising personal com-forts an.d refusing them to others, difficult and exacting in business relations, not inviting confidence and, seldom winning it, he stood in many ways isolated from his fellow workers, a somewhat lonelyfigure in tl~e little Jesuit world in which he moved.''1 So great was his desire for living with. the Indians, and so persistent his'requests to his superiors, that finally in 1836:he was permitted to open a mission among the Kicka-poo. The previous summer he had made an :exploratory~ visit to the ~various tribes living nearest~the western bor-o ders of Missouriand0had come to the conclusion that the Kickapoo were the most eager., to embrace Christianity. In the fall,.he journeyed to Washington and contacted the 3ecretary of War, Lewis Cass, who authorized himto start 1 Gilbert J~ Garr~aghan, S.J., The Jesuit~ "of the Middle Unite~l $tates (New York: Anierica Press, 1938), Vol. I, p. 384. Van ~/~,o~ VOLUME 20, 1961 95 ÷ ÷ ÷ Henry Willmering, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 96 a~school among the Kickapoo and promised a subsidy of $500 a year to maintain it. After making a begging tour the 'East, which netted about $1500, Father Charles was ready to open a mission a few miles above Fort Leaven-worth. He was assisted in this project by Father Christian Hoecken, and three lay-brothers, Andrew Mazella, Ed-mund Barry, and George Miles. The missionaries met with a cordial reception from the chiefs and people. A French trader, who lived with the tribe, put his house at their disposal, until they should build their own. Hardly had they settled down in their new quarters, when both priests were stricken with ill-ness. Father Charles had to stay in bed for a month. Worse yet, the Indian agent, Richard Cummings, would not permit' the Jesuits to build in the Kickapoo village. Not until General Clark sent word from St. Louis that permission had been given by Secretary Lewis Cass build ~a school among the Kickapoo, could the Jesuits erect a school, chapel, and residence. The head chief of the tribe, Pashishi, professed great eagerness to have the missionaries instruct the children and work for the conversion of his people. His influence, however; was considerably less than that of a notorious 'prophet,' named Kennekuk, who claimed to have received authority from the Great Spirit tostart a religion of own. For a while he manifested some interest in the teach-ings of Christianity but soon roused his followers to un-friendly demonstrations. He had so firm a hold on the minds of his people that once he took a hostile attitude toward the Jesuit missionaries, all hope of converting the tribe vanished. Two years of unremitting toil made very little impression on the Kickapoo, and neighboring tribes were so eager to have the missionaries teach their children that the former mission was abandoned and new one opened among the Pottawatomi, which proved eminently successful. But Father van Quickenborne was destined to have no part in it. His failing health and rigid disposition caused his superior to recall him in July, 1837. After a brief stay at St. Louis University, he went to Florissant to make his annual retreat. Next he proceeded to St. Charles and thence to Portage des Sioux, a village situated a few miles, north of St. Charles and near the junction of the Missouri~ and Mississippi rivers. Here he exchanged places with Father Verreydt, who went to the Indian country, while Father Charles became pastoy of this small parish. He had been only a few days in Portage when a bilious fever seized him. The last sacraments were administered to him, and on August 17, 1837, he breathed his last. His body, ac-companied by many parishioners, was interred in the cemetery in St. Charles but was later removed to the novitiate cemetery in Florissant. Father van Quickenborne was in a true sense a pioneer missionary, who labored zealously during fourteen years for the spiritual interests of both whites and Indians. Those who knew him intimately comment on his clear and orderly mind, his fluency in several languages, his accurate knowledge of theology, his eloquent discourses. He never spared himself in his efforts to assist others, and despite the rigorous attitude he at times assumed towards others, he was loved and admired by all who knew him. Since he trained the first members of the Missouri mission all by himself, he can justly be called the founder of the Jesuit establishments in the Midwest. The mission which he started became a vice-province in 1840, a province in 1863, which was divided into two provinces in 1928, and both: were again subdivided in 1955. These four provinces today have a total membership of more than 2500. They administer seven universities, ten colleges, twelve high schools, and eight retreat houses, and there are more than three hundred members in foreign mission work. John Gilmary Shea, the great historian of the North American missions, says: "To Father van Quickenborne, as founder of the vice-province of Missouri and its Indian missions, too little honor has been paid. His name is al-most unknown, ~yet few have contributed more to the edification of the white and the civilization of the red man, to the sanctification of all.''~ ~John Gilmary Shea, History o] the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes o] the United States, 1529-1854 (New York: Edward -Dunigan and Brother, 1855), p. 466. + + + ~'an Qugckenbome VOLUME 20, 1961 97 JOHN E. BECKER,S. J. We Have Seen His Glory: The Prologue to St. John ÷ ÷ .÷ John E. Becker, S.J., St. Mary's Colleg.e, St. Marys, Kansas, ~s an assistant editor of the REVtEW. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 98 In the beginning God created, heaven and earth In the beginning was the Word God's immense knowledge includes within itself His own infinite nature and all of the reality which He has given us and with which He surrounds us. Yet it is but one eternal and unchanging truth in God's mind. And when-ever He speaks, He speaks that one truth, Himself. But it is impossible for God to speak this immense truth, in the simple way He understands it, to our poor time-bound minds. We cannot grasp things in simplicity. We need more than to hear a truth. We need to be taught it, to have our minds brought up to it, educated to it. This is true of each of us individually. Over and over, we must be told the truths about God. We must be taught them at each point in our growth. Finally they begin to dawn for us in our minds as our own secure convictions. But the education that we as individuals go through depends upon another education which is just as impor-tant, and without which we ourselves would never have learned ab6ut God. This bther education is the education of our race, the race of men. We have learned many things about nature, but we have learned them together, the giants of the past teaching the giants of today, and they in their turn handing on their knowledge to tomorrow's giants. Our knowledge is passed on in ever-increasing rich-ness from generation to generation. Simply the mere pass-ing it on occupies many thousands of men and women for whole lifetimes as teachers, and the learning of it fills all the years of our lives, in school and out. This need man has to be educated through centuries of time is a part of him that he cannot escape. The great- est genius can only teach men what their minds have been prepared to grasp. And God, who made us this way, ~must speak to us, too, and teach us in tl~e gradual way that He has made necessary to us. So His divine revelation is a progressing and developing education of the human race. It bridges over the immense gap .between our time-bound and intricate minds and God's timeless simplicity. By His own choice He speaks eternal and immense thoughts to us in fragments communicated throughout time and space. It is a lesson in God's fatherly care for us to know that He has done it with such infinite and careful patience. How has He done it? Among a chosen people at the beginning of the story of our salvation, He planted,a seed of a thought: "In the beginning.God created heaven and earth." The thought is the thought of the one God who made all things. And these people fought and died, sub fered, rejected the truth, and repented through centuries: of history to pres.erve that seed and foster its growth. And through centuries God builds on this tiny germ of truth, constantly stretching the faith of His people by new reve-lations, always prep~aring them to accept the full flowering. of .that seed in~ the great, final revelation of Himself that will take place in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, when the fullness of revelation had come down to the earth and walked it, a~s a Divine Person, God inspired St. John to begin the record of this marvelous event with a magnificent poetic vision showiiag us how God had~been patient all these years, patiently teaching, correcting; educating, stretching faith to accept this cli-mactic revelation of the immense truth about God. By beginning his gospel with the ancient words of the book of Genesis, St. John shows us that through all these cen-turies of revelation God has spoken but one sentence. And though his gospel is to be a record of new and ultimate revelations.made by Christ our Lord, still how careful St; John is to show us that each new truth that appears is really nothing new or changed about God. Rather, it is a new insight and a richer knowledge of that immense and inexhaustible reality which is the one God who begins His Sacred Scripture and who brings it to an end. In the beginning was the Wor, d And the Word was with God And He was God, this Word He was at the beginning with God How did God go about this marvelous education of the Jews? How did He prepare them, and what was it He pre- ~a~ed them to accept? We have alw~iys known that throtig~ those long years of threats and tender promises God nurs~ed in them the knowledge that He was One, the God ÷ ÷ ÷ Prologue to St. lohn VOLUME 20, 1961 99 + + ÷ gohn E. Becket, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]oo of all nations, the God that had no rival gods. But there: was more to His teaching about Himself than this. We had to know more than His oneness, or we could never ap-preciate the redemption by which He was to save us. We had to be able to accept the reality of Another, alsoGod, the same God, in order to recognize the infinite love that God would show in coming to be one of us. Even in the Old Testament God was preparing us to accept the su-preme mystery of the most Blessed Trinity. Over centuries of time God prepared mankind, with hints and mysterious intimations, to accept this other per-son. First, He taught His people the Law. But He taught it in such a way that it became for them, under the guid-ance of their inspired teachers, more than just a rule of life. They thought more and more of the Law as another being, ordering and governing the whole universe, some-how existing in its own right. God's inspired writers spoke too of Wisdom; and again His people, receiving with faith the guidance which God gave them through their teachers, began to think of this divine Wisdom as something distinct from God, sent by Him upon the earth: "The Lord possessed me. in the beginning of his ways. I was set up from eternity., the depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived. Wisdom is with thee, which knoweth thy works. All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with him. I came out of the mouth of the most High. From the beginning and before the world, was I created . " In two texts of Scrip-tures especially we can see how God led His inspired writ-ers toward the culminating simplicity of St. John's revela-tion of the Word: "While all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty Word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruc-tion. With a sharp sword carrying thy unfeigned com-mandment, and he stood and filled all things with death, and standing on the earth reached even to heaven"(Wis 18:14-16). And even closer to the full clarity of St. John was this from Isaiah: "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, ~tnd water it and make it to spring., so shall my Word be, which shall go forth from my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it" (55:10). Our Lord's life on earth took place during an age of intense religious uncertainty and desperate religious quest. But it is strangely enough true that almost every groping philosophy of the time centered around a principle called the Word. It was almosta magic formula. To the Stoic it meant the mind of God whose strong sunlight was divided into little sparks which were the minds of individual men. To Philo, a Jewish gentile philosopher, it was a person who pervaded all God's activity, and all the creatures of God's activity. To all the philosophers it was the one principle of order in the chaQs o~f. the world.~ Of, course, the Jews knew that God had made all creation by His mere word. God's ~word had always been an infinitely powerful thing in their minds. Now when St. John calls Christ our Lord the Word, he proves the validity of God's long and careful education of the human race toward faith,in the Word of God. It is a sad and fr_ightening realization for all of us that so maony of God's,chosen race failed to respond with the faith God had so carefully prepared" them for. In a probing vision of faith, St. John realized that the pagans with their philosophies Of the Word meant, if they could but see it, Christ;. that the Jews with their devotion to the Law, to Wisdom, to God's almighty word, had been educated to know the eternal Word. Because of this deep insight of supernatural faith, the abstract, eternal, and unchanging i'eality demanded by the minds of the pagan philosophers and the concrete, changing, and temporal reality forced upon their senses were reconciled into one truth. St. John's gospel stands alone for seeing the eternity, the infinity,, the timeless immensity of God walking in the finite flesh of our Lord. The single human actions of His life are put into a story in which we can also see that these are eternal ac.tions, of eternal worth, universal and eternal in mean- .ing. All history becomes in this vision not so much a thing of time but a phase of eternity. We see through the lens of an inspired faith that human life takes place in more than material dimensions. Christ's daily life is the eternal God teaching by action the eternal truths in the tiny dimen-sions of time. Our life becomes, in spite of its abrupt be-ginning and abrupt end, an eternally rewarded effort to learn and put into practice these eternal truths. Through the lens of this vision we see that the impor-tant beginning of this history of salvation was not in time, was not on a hillside of Nazareth, Bethlehem, or Calvary. The real beginning of the life story of Christ our Lord and of the life of man in God was not His.virginal conception, nor His birth in a cave, nor His baptism at the Jordan, but eternity with God: He was in the beginning with God. Everything was made by Him, And without Him was made nothing. Even when we recognize that the beginning of our sal-vation is back in the far reaches of divine eternity, in the Word who was with God, and even when we see that God has been preparing us for centuries to accept this fact, we 4. + + Prologue to St. John VOLUME 20, 1961 10] John E. Becket, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS have yet to appreciate how intimate a part this divine Word has played in the very creation of our world, and even in the divine education which wehave received. God fixed His eye on the eternal Word as He spoke the words of creation. All God's creatures were ordered according the Word's divine ordination: All the laws of their were made on the pattern of the Word. This is much the case that when we study the divine order creation, the laws of molecular structure, of the develop-ment of phyla, its supremely rich but ordered abundance, we are studying the natural phrases and sentences of God's eternal Word. Without Him was made nothing; nothing escapes His ordering power not even the man who sins. We would think that the sinner, having deliberately stepped outside this divine order, would have lost the privilege of participating in the guidance of God. though we may sin, we cannot step aside from God. The original sin of Adam and all that sequel of human which ratifies that original disorder sewn in our nature Adam, furnishes but the occasion for the Word of God be spoken ag~iin. Through Him all 'things were made. Now, on account of sin, He is spoken in a new way that binds Him even more intimately to his now sinful crea-tion, for: That.which was made in Him was li[e, And the life was the light of men, And the light, in the shadows, shown, And the shadows did not put it out. As once all things were created by the Word, now a new thing is created in Him: That which was made in Him life. Man has sinned, and so the Word becomes the source of a new life for him: and the life was the light of men. The Word is not renewed. The old is not revived. But the Word is respoken in a new creation that more fully ex-presses it. Men find in Him now, not only the pattern their existence and their perfection, but the source of new life, a life which always existed for God, which was once given to them and lost, but which now exists again a reality for them. And the light, in the shadows, shown, and the shadows did not put it out. This new life which a light for men wins the Victory over man's darkness. We can follow th~se-threads of life, light, and darkness throughout the gospel of St. John. They are dominant colors in his message. God has'outdone His first gift us, natural created life, made by His Word, with a super-natural creation, with .a supernatural life also produced, but in His Word.~Adam's sin,made our human life shadowy life of undirected uncertainty and groping. Think of the vague yearnings of the Jewish people, and they were under the educating guidance of God; even' more, think of the pathetic religious foolishness of the pa.gan world whose nature religions could never free themselves from the orgiastic worship of the sex power. But our world, lost in the shadows of sin, is not lost to God. Rather than destroy,.it and' produce ~a n.ew, un-shadowed, sinless world through His Word, God builds a new life for us within the lost world. We live now in the Word. We find only one meaning of lile in St. John; the life of God communicated to men. Christ our Lord com-municated God's life to us by becoming one of us and remaining God. That is the story of St. John's gospel, of all the gospels. Christ assumed humanity to be able to suffer for our redemption, to be able to produce a new life for men. The flow of Divine Life which He injects into us is also, because of His teaching about God, a stream of light within us, who would otherwise be' groping in darkness toward an unknown deity. He has shown us clearly who the God is whom we must seek. And so the shadows on our uncertain consciences are dispelled, and we find ourselves on a clear road towards God, filled with confidence. Our human nature has been taken into the divinity, and God has produced for us there within Himself the new life which saves us from darkness and sin. There is no poem in English with such compleie sim-plicity of expression. Yet in these five verses we have dis-covered the whole history of God's dealings with us. They present us with an immense, vision which extends from the first moment of creation, through the Incarnation, to the end of time when men living in Christ will be gathered to Christ in the fullness of life. The whole history of our race is involved, yet we see it all from the vantage point of God'.soeternity and catch sight of what it means to call God's knowledge infinitely simple. It is all one eternal speaking of the Word by God: It first bears fruit in the creation of our material world; then in a new act of union with this world a new life is produced in it; this new life of supernatural union with God is finally to conduct us all to our final union with God in heaven for et.ernity. In this vision of faith, all history is a moment of eternity, a moment containing creation, divine union with man, and man's final reunion with God in eternity. There appeared a man sent [rom God: his name was John. He came [or a witness, to witness concerning the Light, so that all might believe through Him. He was not, this man, the Light, but [or a witness con-cerning the Light. Christ's precursor is but a man, rooted in the obvious dimensions of human time. He "is not near the stature of Christ. He happens, he appears; Christ is. He is not ÷ ÷ ÷ Prologue to St. ]oh.n VOLUME 20, 1961, 103 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]04 the light but only its witness. This brief, blunt, and prosaic interposition of a man within' our vision of eternity is an admonition to us, and a sign to us of the way St. John views reality. This simple prose in the midst of the poetry of eternity reminds us that we are never to let the human reality and the divine reality become separated in our minds. The life of Christ has fused the two for all eternity, and St. John is writing the story of that life. The simple historical surroundings and activities of Christ's life are making history, yet they go beyond history. The time-bound precursor of Christ is, by the decree of God, an eternally necessary, eternally important actor in God's redemptive drama. He is a sign to us that we too are eternally important, because we live with the life of the eternal Word. He was the true Light, Who enlightens every man Coming into the world. First there was God and the Word; then it is clear to us that the Word is God. The two are one. After all things are made through the Word, then supernatural Life is made in the Word, and this life is Light for men. Now again we reflect and realize that all these truths are drawn together into one truth in God. Life and Light, that which is produced in the Word, is really the Word; and the Word is God Himself, the source and goal of all our human life, natural and supernatural, the source and full enlightenment of all our knowledge, natural and su-pernatural. How does God, the Word, who is Life and Light in Himself become life and light for us? By coming into the world. We are fused with divinity when Christ takes human flesh so that the inaccessible light of eternity speaks in human words to Jews on the hillsides of Pales-tine and to all of us in the gospels; and the inaccessible life of eternity gives life to human tissues nourished from the body of Mary. And this divine-human talking and living is not over with. That once-and-for-all coming of the true Light into the world was the beginning of an unlimited number of comings. He comes now to each of us who will accept Him. He gives light, the teachings of His Church; and life, the sacramental life force which comes from His body through the ordained priesthood that He left behind Him. Light and life are in the Word because He is God; but light and life are given to man because that same Word has become man, made Himself available to man, placed Himself before us so that we may choose to unite ourselves to Him. There is no answering the question Why. We can only point to the strength of God's love. But if we ask why, we are uncovering, perhaps, false thoughts in our- selves. Have we ever realized how fully the Word had already involved Himself in the history and materiality of the world before He took this final step that brings Him visibly into the world? Why should we ask why to this last step? We should ask why'~t0 everything, not just to the Incarnation. God's eternal love has joined Himself to every moment of the world's existence. The Incarnation was simply the climax: In the world He was, And the world was made by Him And the world did not recognize Him Into His own He came And His own did not receive Him In the world He was from the first moment giving that moment and every succeeding moment its reality. The steady and balanced revolution of spinning worlds, and the quiet and inexorable change of seasons from death to life 'and.back to death and another life are His work and His teaching. He is the concurrent force, giving foufida-tion to the thoughts of the earliest'men and effectiveness to all their desires, holy or perverse. But the forceful message of all this rich physical reality is not heard. Though anything, simply because it exists, speaks of, the presence of God the creator, the fa~t Of creation failed to penetrate the darkness of immorality and sin that kept men "from recognizing the world as the words of God's eternal Word. God's Word speaks in a new way, trying by a new means to attract man's wayward attention. He chooses a man, Abraham, and tells the man he will beget a people. The Jewish race is born, and becomes God's own: I will be your God and you will be my people. And as this people grows through crisis, sin, and exile, the Word of God con-tinues to speak to them, residing in their Holy .of Holies, dictating their Law, guiding their history, inspiring the poetry of their kings and prophets. But all of it leads over and over again to relapses into idolatry and paganism, into infidelity and' hardness of heart, and finally into the degenerate Pharisaism that will not accept Him no matter what means He takes to speak to them: Into His own He came and His own did not receive Him. But all those who received Him He gave them power to become children o[ God, To those who believe in His name He who neither oI blood, nor (o[ a desire) o] the l~esh, (nor ot a desire ot man), But of God was generated. Not all o~ His own rejected Him, and between those who did and those who did not, a new dividing line is ÷ ÷ ÷ Prologue to VOLUME 20, 1961 105 gohn E. Becket, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS drawn. Once "it had been drawn by God between the Jew and" the idolatrous gentile. Gradually it shifted, so that it divided the Jews themselves. Only a faithful remnant was loyal to God and would receive the benefits of the Mes-sianic kingdom; the rest were Jews in blood and name only, This division started to break up the Jewish world even before the actual coining of Christ in human form. But this breakdown of Jewish unity was turned to,our good by God. it was the way God purged His revelation of Jewish nationalism, and it became the foundation for a new way of thinking among .those.Jews who accepted Christ. God's careful, educating hand was still at work, showing them that no longer was it important to be a Jew. Now all that is important is to accept Christ. For all who receive Him are God's people; Jews and gentiles become one people when they become Christians. Everyone who bears the human nature tbat Christ assumed~may now re-ceive life from Him. And receiving our life from God means becoming God's children. There is a difference, though, in our being tbe children of God and the children of h.uman parents. We received the life of our parents all unconscious of the gift. Christians, .even though they receive Baptism as infants, must eventually assent to their divine childhood consciously and willingly by ac-cepting the W~rd, Christ our Lord. It is one more proof of God's infinite wisdom that He need not interfere here with the nature He has created in us when He gives us new life. Rather tban rebuild our nature so that they l.ive automatically with divine life, He stands by His own primeval decision to leave us free. We may live a hum;in life that is dead to God. Or we may accept God's~offer; we may choose to receive Christ and become the .cbildren of God. Still, though He, has not remolded nature, Hhat He ¯ has dgne is miracle enough. To be God's child means to live with the life of God, just as to,be a h~uman child means to live with the human life of our parents. When We choose to accept Christ, by that very fact we make oui'- selves one with Him. One with Him, grafted on to Him, we live with His life. His life is the life of a Son; and so we, united to Him and living His life, live the life of sons, the life which, the only-begotten Son has received from His Father. Christ is so perfectly God's Son as to be God: I am in the Father and the Father is in me. United to the Son of God in a real oneness of life, we too are made sons. Our divine childhood is not a childhood of the flesh, be-cause Christ's sonship is not a sonship of the flesh. He who gives us power to become the children of God is He,who, neither of blood, nor o~ a desire of the flesh, nor of a de-sire of man, but of God is generated. Our own fathers, in a single moment, by the act of married love which gen-erates us, are only at that moment acting upon us with a real activity which is properly fatherhood. The action is over in a moment. ~But Christ, the. Son of God, is being eternally generated of God'. Our mothers beai" us in their bodies for nine months during which their bodies are ceaselessly active nourishing and protecting our growth. Btit even in that time of intimate and complete depend-ence we are separated from them. Physically our mother surrounds,fis. But she is not us. And her physical mother- ~hood is soon over. But Christ, the Son Of God, is so inti-mately one with God that together they are but one God; and the action of giving and receiving divine life between the Father and the Son never ceases to be a dynamic and intense activity. Christ is always the Son of the Father, not because the Father once launched Him forth into sep-arated existence, but because He is always being gen-erated by the Father and never is separated from Him. All fatherhood on earth is named fatherhood after this eternal fathering forth o~ the Son by His divine Father. Earthly fatherhood, momentary and fleeting, is its weak reflection. And just as Christ the Son of God is the eternal recipient of divine life, we, because we are grafted onto His life, are eternal recipients of divine life. By a ceaseless activity that never leaves us to separate and independent existence we are God's sons--unless we break the bond that seals us to Christ. But in knowing all this we know only the beginning. There is greater depth to the divine sonship still. Christ is the Word of God, as well as His Son. To find out what this implies about His sonship, we submit ourselves to the careful teaching of God again, through His inspired representative, St. John, who named Christ the"Word. A word is the product of a mind. And the mind is spirit. We must free our idea of fatherhood, then, from the fleshly concepts that could obscure it when we apply it to God. God's eternal wisdom is in the, Father as in an eternal mind. But it is in the Son as a thought contained in a word. But, like human fatherhood, human words are momentary, vibrations of sound or mental flashes.of un-derstanding. Christ, however, is not a momentary flash of God's knowledge. He is the eternal container of the thought of God, the eternal expression of the mind of the Father. And so eternal generation is more like the eternal production of an eternal word which contains all the divine and infinite nature of God. Christ's sonship is a spiritual sonship like that which exists between a word that perfectly expresses a mind and that needs no flesh to be real. It is no wonder, then, that Christ's sonship of the Blessed Virgin Mary~ though it is a sonship by which He derives His flesh fro,n her Prologue to St. John VOkUME 20, 1961 107 ./ohn E. Be~/~, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]08 body, should be a virginal sonship, free of the desires the flesh. Christ's infinite spiritual generation in heaven expressed in his virginal generation on earth. We are once more witnesses to the imprint of eternity on the events of time which characterizes the plan of our salvation. This second vision of faith, which St. John has projected in verses six to thirteen, has carried us again into the depths of eternity. This time it shows us that before we received the s0nship of the Word as our own life, we had been prepared by the very presence of this Word in the Law and the poetry of the Old Testament. Even before these things there was the presence of the Word in creation itself, though men failed to see Him there. Finally, before all the activity of the Son in the creation of the world and its redemption, was His eternal conception in the mind the Father as an eternal Word who contains all the divinity of the Father. And all that has happened in time, from the creation to the present moment, are but different ways in which God speaks His eternal Word to us, ways which develop and move forward with the growth of our power to appreciate God in ever clearer and more explicit realiza-tions until the ultimate climax when God no longer con-fines Himself to forming the universe through His Word, but clothes His Word in the very material of the uni-verse: And so the Word became [tesh And He made His home among us And we have seen His Glory Glory belonging to the only Son (coming) from the Father, .Full o[ grace and truth. God, in this last speaking of His Word has destroyed the distances between us. There is more, now, than com-munication between us. There is intimacy. The infinitely self-contained and perfect divinity projected the world and mingled with it to preserve its being. He intruded into world history to choose a people. With the Jews God took up His residence. He pitched His tent among them, as they delight to say over and over in their songs of praise to Him. His unseen glory was present in the ark. This was part of the covenant He made with them after He guided them by day and night from Egypt to the promised land in a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. At the dedication of their great Temple, God's glory filled the Holy Holies. But now this eternal ,Word, who sought out Abra-ham and made His promises to him, who spoke in the Law and the Prophets, in poets, historians, and storytellers of the Old Testament, is no longer satisfied to speak through others. He speaks in His own Person. All the di-vinity of the Word which had manifested itself in these ways through centuries, now resides in this human flesh, not as a mere inhabitant, but as one person with it. The body of Christ is God's new home among men. That unspeakable glory of God which filled the Holy of Holies fills now the flesh of a man and makes it the flesh of. the Son of God. And the invisible glory of the only-begotten Son, when it comes from the Father into human flesh, is no longer invisible, but seen, Men have seen His glory. We might expect glory to be a word connected with the miracle of the transfiguration which took place before St.John's eyes on Mount Tabor. But whenever we find St. John using this word, we find the passion and death of our Lord: "The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" (12:~3). When Judas leaves the supper to betray our Lord, He says, "Now the Son of Man has been glori-fied, and God has been glorified, through him, and God will through himself glorify him; he will glorify him immediately" (13:31-32). And in His last discourse to His disciples our Lord says: "Father, glorify your son that your son may glori.~y you (17:2). I have glorified you here on earth, by completing the work which you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence as I had done me there before the world existed (17:5). I have given them the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one just as we are, I in union with them and you with me, so that they may be perfectly unified, and the world may recognize that you sent me and that you love them just as 'you loved me. Father, I wish to have those whom you have given me with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me, for you loved me before the cre-ation of the world" (17:22-2'1). The glory that is His Fa-ther's love for Him becomes the glory of the love of the Father and the Son for us when Christ suffers for us to make us God's sons. Passion and death are things that would have been impossible to God unless He had taken upon Himself a human nature. But when it is done, we see a new and startling vision of the glory of God, a new vision which is a paradox; the invisible'and awesome glory that filled the Holy of Holies is brightened to a climax at the time of God's suffering and at the moment of His death. If there is paradox here, there must also be meaning. Paradox is a challenge to our deeper thought. If passion and death are the climax of God's glory, its fullest ex-pression, what can God's glory be or mean? There is cre-ation. When we think of its immensity, the hugeness of the forces unleashed in the exploding universe, we catch our breath and lose track of our mathematical securities. But this is not a full picture of God's glory. It is only a first, rough sketch. When we think of the delicacy of craftmanship that enabled a tiny planet to nurture life, Prologue to St. John VOLUME 20, 1961 109 ÷ ÷ ÷ $ohn E. Becke~, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1]0 we may melt at the tenderness that reigns in a theatre of such violent forces, but we know again that it is not the full expression of God's glory. There is the Old Law when this all-powerful and tender God chooses to interfere in our pitiful history, chooses a nomad tribe and guides its destiny through hundreds of years of war and infidelity so that a few men at least will know that He is the God who is, in spite of their stubbornness and disinterest. This infinite humility of the omnipotent God, who cares that man's blindness be cured, speaks more clearly of God's glory but still falls, short of it. What is amazing is that none of this turns out to be any hint a.t all of what the full revelation of God's glory will be. How could we have guessed that the full burst of it would be a criminal execution on a Judean hill? Yet just this fiaeek submission to suffering and this most shameful of all deaths is the climax and full unveiling of the glory of God. God's glory is supremely expressed in His choice to suffer and die, to do those things which are the deepest badge of our sinful and fallen nature. The glory which Christ, the eternal Word, had before all ,time in the bosom of His Father is that extremity of love which leads Him to take up the nature of His sinful creature, suffer for him, and lay, down that life which, because it is the perfect ex-pression of the union of God with us, is the supreme gift which He can give to redeem us. And this glory of God, God's passion, is not for our contemplation alone, or for our deepest meditation. "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself." It is magnetic force, :a force for union. We are drawn to Him, and all of us become one in. Him as the Father in Him and He in the Father. To a certain extent we are here meditating on poetry. In the context of our lives, however, it is more. It is an appeal to us to recognize the unity that exists now between time and eternity, space and divine im-mensity, and especially b.etween Christian and Christian. Little children love one another. We read here truth after truth, and they are many truths. But each separate truth, as it is presented to us, is set back into a mysterious and all embracing unity in God: The Word appears, but He is with God;° He is God. Creation emei'ges, through the Word; but then begins its long and relentless motion back towards God. Why this great return? Because the Word, who is one with God, has come forth from God and joined creation to Himself, pervading it by creative activ-ity, coming unto His own in word' and then in person, producing within Himself a new life for the created world to live in Him, making men God's sons and drawing them all and the creation that is theirs back to the bosom of His Father with whom He is but one. We, of course, must put ourselves back into this marvelous current o,f the life of God which is flowing back to Him. It cannot be ours unless we receive Him, and we can refuse Him. But if we are drawn to Him in the glory'of His Cross as it is renewed every morning at Mass, we will accept Him into our bodies in t~e sacrament of the Eucharist. We become, ourselves the dwelling place of the glory of God;. for we are the dwelling place of the flesh of Christ. All of us, marching back through time to happiness in eternity, become one in this divine life which nourishes us all. The glory of God walks about on the streets. It is in us and about us, We are His holy people united to Him and to each other in the reception of His body, all making up with Him but one body. Our temporal actions, walking the asphalt streets of our own moment of history, are eternal actions; our limited circle of friends and acquaintances is stretched to include all men, and they are all the focal point in time of our eternal love for Christ, because He is in them all. We se~ ii ~veryday in all meri, the glory o[ the onl~-b,e~g'ot~en Son of God, full of grace and truth. Prologue to $L loh~ VOLUME 20, 1961 111 COLUMBAN BROWNING, C.P. Martyrdom and the Religious Life The Reverend Colum-ban Browning, a fre~ quent contributor to the l~viEw, is sta-tioned at Saint Gabriel Monastery, 1100 63rd St., Des Moines 11, Iowa. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 112 Our twentieth century world prides itself on being mod-ern. And to the residents of our twentieth century, mod-ern implies everything that reflects the progress of this century. Efficiency, freshness of ideas, technological ad-vance- such things as these come to mind when we think of the word modern. Even twentieth century religious pride themselves as being modern in the best sense of the word. Since Pius XII inaugurated the movement toward adaptation to the needs of the times, the religious of today cannot avoid being modern unless he wishes to be branded with the stigma of retrogression. The response to the plea of Plus XII al-ready realized gives sufficient proof of the importance of making full use of all that is good in the progress of our age for the glory of God. But we religious can become so absorbed in our mod-ernity that we may forget that the motivation for the re-ligious life must always be the same and that it comes from the time of Christ Himself. This is why Plus always stressed renovation along with adaptation. While the approach may vary with the changing times, the mo-tivation is unchangeable. And for this motivation we must return repeatedly to the very sources of Christianity. The sources of Christianity are found primarily in the life and teaching of our Lord, a teaching enshrined in the Church that He founded. But also in the application of Christ's teaching in the early Church is found a very real source at which to learn the spirit of Christ in action. In those early days when the spirit of Christ was in the fresh-ness of its youth, we can find ideas to help us in our day to be better followers of Christ. One such idea that can be especially fruitful to this end is found in the historical fact that the religious life evolved in the Church as a sub-stitute for martyrdom. 1. Martyrdom and Christian Per[ection Martyrdom became a practical necessity in the early days of the Church. The infant Church soon came face to face with the persecution for~t,o, ld by Christ. Espec!ally in the Roman world did this 15ersec'u~ion reach the' pitch of fury. Beginning with the Emperor Nero in the first century and continuing for two and a half centuries, it was con-sidered unlawful to be a Christian. One who professed the faith of Christ, if detected, was given the alternatives" of apostasy or death. The story of the heroic courage with which so many thousands stood firm in the face of death is too familiar to retell. The resemblance of the death of the martyrs to that of Christ was evident to the early Christians. Just as Christ died a violent death in testimony to the truth, so also did the martyr. It is but natural, then, that martyrdom was seen as a dying with Christ. Just as logically, the martyr was considered the perfect imitator of Christ or the per-fect exemplificatibn of' Christian perfection. It is not sur-prising, therefor-e, that'we find the pastor~ and writers of those times exhorting the Christians to martyrdom as the means to perfect union with Christ. One need only study the example and the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch to see how firmly rooted this thought was in the early Christian mind. During the reign of Trajan, this great Bishop was sentenced to death and sent to Rome to be thrown to the beasts. During his journey to Rome as a prisoner he wrote seven letter~ to the churches of the territories through which he passed. These letters reflect the burning desire of his soul to be perfectly united to Christ by martyrdom. His sentiments are most forcefully expressed in his letter to the Romans in which he writes as follows~ I am writing to all the Churches and state emphatically to all that I die willingly for God, provided you do not interfere. I beg you, do not show me unreasonable kindness. Suffer me to be the food of wild beasts, which are the means of making my way to God. God's wheat I am, and by the teeth of wild beasts I am to be ground that I may prove Christ's bread. Better still, coax the wild beasts to become my tomb and leave no part of my person behind;once I have fallen asleep I do not wish to be a burden to anyone. Then only shall I be a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ when the world will not even see my body . Forgive me, brethren; do not obstruct my coming to life-- do not wish me to die; do not make a gift to the world of one who wants to be God's. Beware of seducing me with matter; suffer me to receive pure light. Once arrived there, I shall be.a man. Permit me to be an imitator of my suffering God. Since martyrdom and perfect union with Christ meant one and the same thing, life itself was looked upon as a preparation for martyrdom. All asceticism was considered from this point of view. It was by dying to one's passions ÷ ÷ ÷ Martyrdom and Religious Li]e VOLUME 20, 1961 llS ,4, ÷ ÷ Columban Browning, C.I'. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 114 that one most resembled the martyrs and best prepared oneself for the supreme challenge. Origen expressed this in these words: "Those who have prepared themselves for martyrdom can even already be called martyrs, even though they may never undergo it." Time came when the pcrsecutions diminished and fi-nally ceased wi~h the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. With tffe ,essation of persecntion actual martyrdom was no longer a possibility, but the ideal of martyrdom remained alive in the minds of the faithful. Since martyrdom by blood was no longer possible, a new emphasis was placed on asceti-cism which was looked upon as a martyrdom without blood. Martyrdom was still considered the ideal of per-fection; and those who most reSembled the martyrs by death to self, or ascesis, were considered the most perfect. II. Martyrdom and Virginity Among the practices of asceticism, that of ~irginit'y was held in an especial high esteem. The practice of virginity had been a high ideal and ~vas actually practiced from the beginning in imitation of our Lord and His Blessed Mother. But when persecution ceased, virginity received a new status as one of the foremost means of dying a .rnartyr's death without the shedding of blood. The virgin was con-sidered as wedded to Christ by a mystical marriage through grace. By complete death to the urgings of the body, the virgin, like the martyr, achieved a complete surrender to Christ, died with Him and became a perfect imitator of Him. St. Jerome expressing this thought said: "Virginity is a holocaust to God. Complete chastity is a victim to Christ." Thus, the white martyrdom of virginity, by a process of evolution conditioned by history, succeeded to martyrdom by blood as the equivalent of Christian per-fection. Living a virginal life in the midst of a wo}ld that still contained much of the pagan spirit obviously had its difficulties. As something of a moral necessity, therefore, those consecrated to God by the vow of virginity began to, band.together for mutual support. ~They often lived in common, prayed together and by mutual encouragement helped each other to their common g0al of perfect union with Christ. In this practice we have a foreshadowing and a natural preparation for the religious life. III. Martyrdom, Virginity and the R.eligious Lile The ground had been prepared for the birth of monaS-ticism, or organized religious life. Toward the end of the third century whefi the persecutions were beginning to lose some of their force, the practice of the eremitical life began in Egypt. In the year 320 (only seven years after the Edict of Milan), St. Pachomius founded the first monastery of the common,life, Some forty years later S.t.,Basil estab-lished the same form of life in the Eastern Church. With the virginal spirit already so high in honor and with so. many in fact already living the~eremitical life, it is not surprising that th.ese :m0~n.aster.ies flourishe~l.;Those. who desired perfect union with Christ and for whom martyrdom was,no 19nger possible flocked to these monas-teries. T~here, united in pra~er, these generous men and women were able to find a kind of native atmosphere in which to realize their ambition of perfect union with Christ by the "living martyrdom,' of the religious life. With the origin of monasticism there began a new epoch of Christian history, one that is still unfolding today. This is the history of the religious life. From one or two monas-teries, the fire of zeal that started them spread until it gradually covered the entire world. The organized life of consecration to God has gone through many stages of evolution, all of them prompted by the changing events of history. All through the ages the religious life has been adapting itself to the needs of the times until we find the greater percentage of religious today extremely active, whereas the religious of those early days were largely con-templative. But the religious of today are nonetheless branches of the same tree and the essential motivation of the religious life remains the same. IV. Practical Application Plus XII frequently urged religious to return to the sources of their life. Along with adaptation to modern needs, he stressed with equal insistence the need for renovation. The Holy Father realized that it is only when the spirit of zeal and fervor is pregerved and deepened that we can safely and sanely adapt, bringing the best effort to bear on the needs of the times. In striving to achieve this purpose, the religious of today would do well to endeavour to capture the spirit in which the religious life was founded. When we see the religious life as an outgrowth of and a s,bstitute for martyrdom, what a difference it can make in one's approach to the religious life. One sees clearly that the goal of religious living is perfect conformity to Christ, a wholehearted dying to self and complete living with and for Christ. The sacrifices inherent in the religious vows, resistance of the spirit of the modern world, the pressures and frustrations of daily activity in the life of the modern religious--all will be seen in a new.light when one realizes that these are but aspects of that death with Christ which leads to union with Him. It is by these daily sacrifices that the religious of our day are called to the same con-formity with Christ that was the goal of the martyrs. ÷ ÷ Martyrdom, and Religious Liye VOLUME 20, 1961 Lack of Sufficient motivation is ordinarily one of the greatest hindrances to the progress of a religious. It may help religious to ponder the fact that the vocation of the religious is essentially the same as that of the martyrs. The manner of realization may differ according to circum-stances. But the goal is identical--the wholehearted giving of self to Christ, dying with Him in order to live with Him. ÷ ÷ ÷ Coluraban Browning, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS llfi PAX The Call of God There have always b'een, and.always will be, voclttions. One has only to run through the pages 6f both Old and New Testaments to see that Goff has always called souls to consecrate themselves to Him or to serve Him or to come.back to Him. The call of God's mercy, for it is always that, may be heard at any time and in the most unexpected places, as witness the parable of the prodigal son, who was called to mercy in a pigsty. God is of an infinite adaptabilityl From the beginning of Genesis, We find God calling Adam and Eve back after their fall. Truly God's ways do not change, for His "I came to seek and to save that which is lost" is true from the beginning. So, t0b, God calls Cain after hig murder of Abel tO give him a spark of hope even in his punishment. Noah is called with all his family and is set apart by God for His service and his own salvation. But the first spectacular vocation in the Old Tegtament is that of Abraham. Leave thy country,, thy~kinsfolk And thy father's house, And come away into a land That I shall show thee. Here is the usual conception of a vocation, the leaving of all for God; and already there is the promise of what might be called a millionfoldl "I will bless thee and make thy name renowned., and in thee shall all the races of the world find a blessing." Abraham's might be ~alled a late vocation, for he was seventy-five years old when it came! His wife and his ,~ephew were called to accompany him, and God con- ~tantly encouraged him: "Have no fear. I am here. thy reward will be great ind~edl" St: Ambrose remarks that ,t is the privilege of the saints to receive a new name from God. God changed Abram's~:name to Abraham; and his wife's to one meaning "The Princess." She too was blessed, ,vho had been sterile, and bore Isaac~"the son of laugh-oero" + Pax is the nora de plume of a cloistered Benedictine nun whose monastery is located in Belgium. ~VOLUME 20, 1961 11~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 118 Vocations bring suffering, as Abraham discovered by the terrible test of his f.aith, when God bade him offer up Isaac in sacrifice. But God stayed that obedient hand at the last minute saying, "Abraham, Abraham, for my sake tfiou wast willing to give up thine only son." It is as if God is in ad~niration of this. sturdy faith of Abraham's, just as Jesus later was when faced with the dauntless faith of a woman, "Womfin, great is thy faith! . Thine only son," cries God; and in promising Abraham the reward of a countless posterity, through which all nations should be blessed, God is promising him no less than His own Son, who would save us all. We see the parallel with this situation in the words of St. John: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." God's love for Abraham and Sarah did not prevent His care for their bondmaid, Agar. Sh6 too is called and consoled in the desert by the finding of water .for her dying child and the promise of a wonderful future for him. It is no wonder then, that Abraham died contented. He had spent a hun drdd years in the service of God, and God had blessed him in all his doings. "God," a slnall boy onc~e remarked, "has some very funn) friends.", Jacob is,perhaps one of these, for in spite of St A_ugustine's lenient "not a lie, but a mystery," he appear., as "a t3vister"; but God who be.holds the heart saw hi., capacity for tenacious fidelity.and love. All God's dealing., with him are mysterious. Perhaps-He saw in Jacob, whc had, to put it politely, borrowed his brother's name, birth right, and blessing, the figure, o~. us all, of all mankind who would shelter:behind the name of His first-born Son Jesus, and in that Name and disguise, steal His blessin~ and the right of inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven. Nora of us can, then, throw stones at Jacob! He was called by God, in his sleep, from a ladder reach ing from heaven to earth, the passageway of countl~'s. angels (a ladder which has greatly intrigued the saints ant the fathers of the Church) with a free promise, with n( conditions! "I am the Lord, the God of thy father Abra ham, the God of Isaac, and tl~is ground on which thor sleepest is my gift to thee and thy posterity. Thy race shal be as countless as the dust., thou shalt overflow th, frontiers, till all the families of the earth find a blessing i~ thee and this race of thine. I myself will watch over the~ ¯. all My promises shall be. fulfilled." What a wonderfifl vocation Moses, the great contempla rive, had! From babyhood God endowed him with sucl grace and charm that he es~]ap.ed~death when Pharoa! killed the baby boys.o~ Israel. He, was saved by the ruler' daughter, who hired his, own.mother to nurse him. Got watched over him till the day when in the desert He caller him from out the burning bush. God often calls contem platives in the desert, for as St. Ambrose says: "The food of heavenly grace is given, not to the idle, not in the city . nor to those accustomed to worldly things, but to those of the kingdom of God." It needs contemplative eyes to see a bush aflame with God and ac0ritemplative tieart' to hear God's calling from so lowly a setting. How beautiful a name becomes when God pronounces it! "M6ses, Moses!" called ~God. "Moses" means "a rescuer," a saviour. Every contemplative is a rescuer of souls. Moses at once entered into the deep mysteries of God. "Take off thy shoes, for thou standest on holy ground. I am the God thy father worshiped, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. Up! Thou art to lead My.people out of Egypt." Moses is reluctant to accept this errand. His hu-mility tries to escape, from such high honors. Contem-platives often are tempted to wonder if their vocation is not presumption. Other people seem so much holier and more fitted for God's great designs. Moses is, like most con-templatives, a strange mixture of. timidity and audacity. God truly has ~strange ways of choosing His tools, of picking His elect! "Who am I, and Who art Thou, O my God?" cry the saints. "I'm not at all the person Thou needest"; and in the same breath, as it he hadn't listened to God's introduction, "Who art Thou?" Blessed humility, and blessed audacity of Moses, since! they gave us the splendid name God, "I am the God who is." Besides this amazing condescension of God to Moses, God gives His chosen one the gift of miracles to help him in his mission. But Moses in his modesty persists in pro-testing his incapacity for his vocation. He pleads his love of silence, his lack of facile speech. Contemplatives are often painfully aware of how inarticulate they are, how ineloquent when talking of what surpasses speech. The ~aints are sometimes regarded as fools by reason of this tongue-tiedness of theirs. Moses' vocation is fairly typical of God's call to con-templatives. He often accords them, at the beginning, a ~oretaste of "what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor ,ath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." He puts heart into them; perhaps otherwise they would lever have the courage for the long march through the .vilderness that will inevitably lie before them. God brushes away Moses' doubts and fears and gives tim a spokesman in Aaron, whom Fie calls to the priest- ,ood, to the preaching of His message and to obedience. 'Aaron will receive my commandments from thee, and re- ,eat them . " And despite the desert, they could scarcely loubt God's abiding presence with them on the way since -Ie made it clear in their darkest nights by the column of ÷ ÷ ÷ The Call o] God VOLUME 20, 1961 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS fire and the very cloud showed Him. there by day, to say nothing of His extraordinary care for them, so that neither shoes nor clothing woreout, and bread was sent them from Heaven. "Nothing lacks to those who love God." Most contemplatives can vouch for this amazing care of their heavenly Father at all times. An odd vocation is that of the soothsayer Balaam, whom God served in his own coin, so to speak, and led by con-tradictionsl He is like the sort of dirig6 who makes clear to his director along what lines he expects to be directed, in the way of his, own choosingl Balaam almost obliges God to let him have his own way, and God uses it to humble him mightily, by letting his donkey know His will for Balaam, and furthermore announce it, backed up by an angel! For this honor the poor ass paid dearly. One might note in passing that God seems by the witness of both Testaments to have a weakness for asses, human and otherwisel That is, if we dare use a human expression and talk of the "weakness" of God, as St. Augustine dare., do, of Him who is the Strength of the Strongl "Why hast thou thrice beaten thine ass?" asks Godk, angel. "I came to intercept thee, because this errand ot thine is headstrong and defies my will. If the ass had not turned aside. I should have taken thy life and spared hers." "I will go home again," decides Balaam. "No," say., God through His angel. "Go, but be sure thou utterest nc word, save what I bid thee." Magnificently, too, Balaam does that, to Balac's indignation; and despite his efforts a! bribery, Balaam blesses, instead of cursing, Israeli "Son, of Israel, countless as the dust, race of Jacob past al numbering, may death find me faithful as these, and be m) end like theirs." The grace of God suddenly floods him, as it has a way ot doing when we are obedient. "My errand is to bless," h( cries. Headstrong Balaam then humbly confesses tha "from being blindfold, he saw, heard the speech of Goc most high, had a vision of Him, and learned to see right.' This passage recalls that in the New Testament of th( blind man of Bethsaida, who was also" slow at learning t( see, who also had a vision of God, and at His touch learnec to see rightl Children are called, too, by God. Samuel was choser before he was conceived in his mother's womb. He was th~ fruit of the long suffering and many tears of his steril mother, blessed by Hell, the priest, to whom she declare( her vow of offering him to God "all his life long." Sh. brought him to the temple as soon as he was weaned and "evermore the boy, Samuel, rose higher in God' favour," One night, while he was "sleeping in the divin~ presence where God's ark was," he thought he heard Hel calling him and ran to him with charming obedience sa.) ing, "Here I am!" Heli sent him back to bed three times, then realized that God had called the little boy. He told him that if God called again, he must say, "Speak on, Lord, thy servant is listening." How lovely the account of Godls coming ag~iin in Holy Writ. "The Lord came to his side and stood there waiting." So often He does, and waits so long, so patiently before we Samuels recognize His voicel It was a fearful message for a little boy to have to deliver to Heli; but Heli, hearing it, made the admirable answer, "It is the Lord. let Him do His will." Saul and David both had kingly vocations; the first failed, as alas, vocations sometimes do. The second bore the hundredfold of fruitfulness. Both were rooted in humility, for neither seemed at all likely to become king. Saul scarcely expected to be called by God to royal honors and duties when he set out to hunt for his father's lost donkeys, any more than the little boy David expected to be king when he was shepherding his father's sheep. David kept his humility and so God exalted him; Saul lost his, and by disobedience fell from God's favour. Both fell, but David speedily confessed his sin. As St. Ambrose says: "He sinned as kings often do, but he did penance, he groaned, he wept, as kings are not wont to do. He con-fessed his fault, he sought for pardon., he wept over his misery, he fasted, he prayed, and publishing his grief abroad, he left a witness of his confession to all poster-ity,. To fall into sin comes from the weakness of nature. To confess the sin comes from virtue." '"l~he Lord loves obedience better than sacrifice," Saul was told. Disobedi-ence is revolting against God, and almost inevitably pre-pares the loss of a vocation. We have seen a few of the calls of God in the Old Testament; what shall we say of the vocations in the New Testament? St. John the Baptist links, as it were, the two Testaments; and the Church applies to his voca-tion the magnificent passage from .Jeremiah, whom God told: "I claimed thee for my own, before ever I fashioned thee in thy mother's womb. I set thee apart for myself." Each New Testament vocation is splendid in its simplic-ity. Jesus captivates hearts by a look, a word, a smile, or simply by His presence. St. Augustine has a delightful description of the beginning of St. Andrew's vocation. "They wished to see where He dwelt., to be instructed in His precepts. He showed them where He dwelt. They came and were with Him. What a blessed day they spentl What a blessed night. Who is there who can tell what they heard from the Lord? Let us, too, build in our heart and make a house, whither He may come and teach us, and talk with us." The Bible account itself relates best the story of all the The Call o] God VOLUME 20, 1'961 ~2! 4- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS splendid New Testament vocations; of our Blessed Lady, of St. Joseph, of.~St. Pe.ter, St. John and the rest of the disciples. How many others there are of which we would gladly learn more, like that of the little boy who gave his bread and fishes to feed 'the multitude, or of Jairus' twelve-year-old daughter, who heard Jesus' Talitha cumi, "Little maid, arise." Who could doubt that she followed, seeking Him as eagerly as the bride in the Canticle of Can-ticles? There are vocations of ad~nirable people like St. Luke, the doctor, of St. Paul, the fiery zealot; of businessmen like St. Matthew; of thieves like Dismas, who stole heaven; of sinners like St. Mary Magdalene or St. Photina, who at Jacob's well, drew forth such streams of living water from the Sacred Heart! And that of Zacheusl When he could see nothing, he climbed a sycamore and saw the Lord passing by. Now the sycamore is sometimes called "a foolish fig tree." Little Zacheus, then, climbed the sycamore and saw the Lord. Thus they who in humility choose the things that the world deems foolish have a keen insight into the wisdom of God Himself. The crowd prevents us from seeing the Lord because the tumult of worldly cares oppresses the human mind and keeps its gaze from the light of Truth. We climb a sycamore when we attend to the "foolishness" (as the world deems it) of God's commandments, refraining from recovering What, is taken from us, yielding our goods to robbers, never inflict-ing injury for injury and bearing all with patience. The Lord bids us "climb a sycamore" when He says, "If one strikes thee on the cheek, turn to him also the other." Through such wise folly, we may see the Lord, and in contemplation catch a glimpse of the wisdom of God. So says St. Gregory the Great. "No one," says St. Ambrose, "can easily see Jesus, if he stay on the ground! One must climb above one's former faults, and trample on one's vanity. So it was that Zacheus came to receive .|esns as a guest in his house. And rightly did he climb a tree." St: Bede says that Zacheus, to see the Lord, had to abandon earthly cares and climb the tree of the cross, embracing thus the."folly" of Christ. St. Maximus has an entertaining sort of spiritual ledger account of the hardheaded businessman Zacheus' conver-sion. "Za.cheus," he says, "opened the gate of heaven to the rich by showing them how to buy heaven through the very means that once kept them out of heaven--namely, their possessions! He bestowed a treasure on them which would enable them to be rich for all eternity; he truly made a good bargain by showing them how to dispense their riches to the poor and so be eternally rich." Zacheus heard and answered our Lord's call with jo'y, unlike the other rich man who went away sorrowful "because he had great possessions." What shall we say of all the other humble and anony-mous vocations of the New Testament, of a deaf and dumb man, of how many blind, and lame~ and dead? Like all these, if we are very little in our own eyes, we act as a magnd~ for the love-of God'and for the grace of His turning to look on us and to say, "Come and seel" Better: still, like Zacheus,: we m.ayhear Him say, "Today I must dine in thy house-." Besi~ of all, we may hear Jesus' promise, "If a man has any love for me, he will be true to my wor~.l; and then he?will win my Father's love, and we will both come to hin~, and make our continual abode with himl" ÷ + The Call o] God 123 SISTER MARY JANET, S.C.L. ¯ Proposal for Small Missions: Taped Conferences ÷ Sister Mary Janet, S.C.L. is stationed at Saint Mary College in Xavier, Kansas, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS This is simply an idea. It concerns a possible spiritual service that the priest and the religious community in with a modern gadget might offer sisters living small, "spiritually impoverished" mission houses. The spiritual service is the conference; the modern gadget, the tape recorder; the "spiritually impoverished missions," those which receive little or no spiritual from a priest during the course of the year. The idea might be summed up as Taped Conferences on the Spiritual Life. There is no one way in which such an idea might realized. Sketched here are three possibilities. In one plan a religious community with a number smaller mission houses that do not enjoy the privilege regular conferences from a priest might secure the services. of a priest expressly to prepare a set of taped conferences for these houses. A distinct advantage of such a procedure would be that a priest could be selected who is well ac2 quainted with the particular community, its constitutionsl and customs, and its works. Furthermore, the community, could engage a man of proved abilities. Consider, for how a good retreat master could in this way follow up and amplify his original instruction, providing a spiritual focus and direction for souls over a con-siderable time span. How many conferences would he tape? This might vary according to the time the priest could give to such a proj-ect and to the number of conferences from one source community-might want. In general, six to eight confer-ences would seem ample, or perhaps enough for the re-, treat SUndays of the year. Probably--at first anyway-~' conferences in a series (where one is dependent on prem-ises set up in a preceding one) would seem less practical than autonomous conferences. Separate conferences would also simplify the distribution process. The subject of such conferences might well be deter-mined by a discussion between the priest and the religious superiors or even perhaps bysuggestions from ithe sisters themselves. The length ortiming 6f the tapes, too, might be suggested by superi6rs to fit into some. specific order of the day, as, for instance; a conference on the monthly day of recollection. Generally a half hour might be pro-posed as a relatively prudent length. For one thing, most Iape~ run one half hour; a longer donference would neces-i~ ate changing tapes--and there are distractions enough without mechanical onesl Too, we can only listen with maximum profit for so long. A half-hour is a safe average estimate. In this connection, it might be observed that the ;peaker can no longer rely ori gesture or facial expression ~r the command of his presence. He will need to compen- ;ate for these by careful use of illustration, examples, and ~enerally concrete, specific language. Once a set of conferences is taped, it could be dupli-zated to meet whatever demand there would be within the community. Note that five reproductions of a six-con-ference set of tapes wouldmake a conference on the,spirit-aal life available to thirty mission houses.After a tape had ;erved its purpose in one house, it could be sent on im-aaediately to another house, much in the manner we are !amiliar with in handling orented movies. Some initial planning in the form of a schedule for each tape would make distribution a minimum .chore. In communities which have a loan library, the tapes might well be added .o the materials these libraries make available to the sis- .er$. If the initial project proved valuable, the religious :ommunity could then enlist the aid of other priests and ~adually build up a considerable library of conferences or its sisters. A continuous program of new tapes--per-haps two or three sets a year--would seem ideal. A more ambitious project would originate with the )riests themselves. Here a diocese, an order, or a province )f an order of religious men might prepare and make ~vailable to sisters taped conferences on the spiritual life. Fhis, as I see it, would.be somewhat comparable to the ,ery real service religious orders of men are now perform-ng in publishing such magazines as the Sponsa Regis and he Review for Religious. This notion has fascinfiting possibilities. Think of the )riests in the cloister, older priests and those physically 11, priests,committed to work in seminaries and chancery ffices--for all of these, the tape is a possible pulpit. Tapes ould annihilate distance and a sister in New Mexico Ta~d Conterences VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Mary Janet, S.C,L. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS could listen to Dom Hubert yon Zeller. They could bring the greatest spiritual thinkers of our generation into the most humble convent and they could preserve those voices for the next generation, Perhaps more ambitious yet: some large central agency concerned with the welfare' of religious--such as the Con~ ference of Major_ Keligious Superiors of Women's Insti-tutes or the Sister. Formation Conference might under-take such a project on a large scale, establishing a library of tapes for circulation among member communities. A small membership fee for each house or a larger one for a commu_nity would, I believe, cover the expenses of the project. ~ ° ~" Of course, the three outlined plans are not mutually ex-clusive. Indeed, they might well supplement each other and so offer .the sister "an embarrassment of riches~' in helping her gr6w in the spiritual life. Objections there would be certainly~ and it would be unrealistic to bypass therefor to pretend they could all be obviated. Such a project, for instance, would make a new demand on.already overworked priests. A certain, amount of expense and organization and book work would be in-volved:. What of the: .process of obtaining 'ecclesiastical approval? Some 'people simply"do not like being "talked at" by a machine, Furthermore, just. what advantage would the tape have over the,book? There are ,no real 'anSwers to the problems of time and taste. But there are some answers to other questi.ons., Ec clesiastical permission could no doubt be worked 6ut in side already existing channels. And, although th~ book is probably superiOr to the tape, objectively, still theteache, who uses the record or the tape can tell you that ther~ are times when the spoken word is more powerful and moremeaningful than the written word. More positively, jus~ wh;it purpose would such a projecl serve? A number of uses come to mind: for novitiates;' fo, sisters under temporary vows, :for ,sister,formation groups for the bedridden and .those, such as surgery supervisors who are unable to be :at community exercises, for prepa ration in renewing vows. But the most general use is on~ that can perhaps be illustrated by what is not, I think, ar undomm6n., experience among religious women in thi country today. It is principally why I think of this as ~ proposal for small missions. .'., ' A sister is missioned in, a parochial school in a fair-sizec town for nine or ten months out of every year. Here, ex cept for the Sunday sermon' in the parish church and th~ occasional and very generalized exhortation of her con lessor, the sister receives no formal spiritual instruction Her community may try valiantly to supplement this die during, vacation periods by institutes, tertianship pro grams, and so on. And fortunately for the sister, the Church demands the annual retreat. For very many sisters this is the only spiritual oasis in the year. Making good, solid spiritual conferences available to such a sister would be, I submit, 'a major act of super-natural charity. Too, it would "lengthen the arm" of the priest--or better, extend his voice~ which is, after all, the voice of Christ. + ÷ + Taped Conleren~es VOLUME 20, ,.1761 127 R. F. SMITH, S.J. Survey of Roman Documents ÷ ÷ ÷ R. F. Smith, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 128 The documents which appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS) during October and November, 1960 will be surveyed in the following article. Unless otherwise speci-fied, all page references throughout the article will be to the 1960 AAS (v. 52). Allocutions and Messages On August 24, 1960 (AAS, 817-19), the Holy Father addressed the athletes gathered in Rome for the Olympic Games. He told the group that the purpose of athletics is not the winning of prizes but the proper development of the human body. However, he added, athletics not only affect the body by producing health, vigor, agility, grace-fulness, and beauty; but they also produce constancy, courage, and habits of self-denial in the soul. Hence he urged the athletes to fulfil in themselves the old saying, "A sound mind in a sound body." He concluded his al-locution by calling upon the group to observe the city of Rome closely and to see the role that Rome has played in the spread of the salvation and the charity that stem from the Gospel. Five days later, August 29, 1960 (AAS, 819-29), the Pope spoke to the officials and administrators of the Olympic Games. With this group he stressed his intense interest in world peace on the basis of the brotherhood that exists among all men. He also recalled to his listeners the rues sage of St. Paul that they should strive for a prize that higher and more durable than any earthly prize (1 Col 9:25). On August 28, 1960 (AAS, 829--30), the Vicar of Chris~ sent a radio message to the people of Peru on the occasior of their National Eucharistic-Congress. He pointed ou to them that the unity and brotherhood of men find thei~ origin in the fatherhood of God and are nourished at th~ Eucharistic table where Christ is received who died the salvation of all men and who is the principle of supernatural life for the entire human race. On September 16, 1960 (AAS, 821-24), the Holy Father delivered an allocution to the Fifth Thomistic World Congress. In the remarks that he made to th~ Congress, Pope John emphasized that the moral teaching of St, Thomas is always directed to the attainment of a super-natUral final end. He also said that the explanation and solution of moral problems according to the principles of St. Thomas will lead to remarkable results in. the way of peace for the Church and for the entire world. Hence, h'e continued, if his listeners succeed in presuading both man-agement and labor to know their respective rights and responsibilities, they will at the same time be leading them to follow Christ who is mankind's protector in this Hfe and its reward exceeding great in eternity. This, he said, will require a diligent study of the works of ~St. Thomas; and he called for a constant increase in the numbers of those who derive their light and learning from the works of the Angelic Doctor, This increase, he noted, should not only exist among priests and scholars, but also among all those interested in the humanities and especially among the young members of Catholic Action. To this end the Pope also urged the wider distribution of St. Thomas' writings in vernacular translations. On September 24, 1960 (AAS, 824-27), Pope John XXlII talked to a group of heart specialists in the hope, as he put it, of giving them a knowledge of the dignity of their profession in the light of Christian revelation. The Bible, he said, stresses the preeminent place the heart has in the human person. It is the heart from which come forth holy thoughts, wisdom, and virtue; it is the heart which leads man to rectitude, simplicity, and humility; it is with our whole heart that we are commanded to love God; and when the Son of God came to live among men, it was His Heart that he proposed to men as an example: "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Mr 11:29). Hence, he told his listeners, while a superficial view might think that a heart specialist is dealing only with a problem in human anatomy, in the eyes of faith and in reality he is concerned with a whole world of moral and religious values. Moreover, faith will show the doctor the beauty of his efforts as a scientist in quest for truth; at the same time the same faith will teach him how humble he must be in the face of the limitless immensity of God, Finally, faith will show the scientist the image of God in his fellow men and thereby transform all his relations with them. This effect of faith, the Holy Father added, is especially apparent in a profession like the medical one which is entirely devoted to suffering human beings. Hence in their work the doctors should recall frequently that what + + ÷ Survey ot Roman Documents VOLUME 20, 1961 ÷ ÷ R. F. Smith, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 130 they do for their patients they do for that Christ who will one day say to them: "I was sick, and you vi.sit,ed me" .(Mt 25!36). On October 1, 1960 (AAS, 827-28), the Pope received the King and Queen of Thailand and delivered to them an allocution of welcome and good wishes. A similar allo-cution was given by the Pontiff when he received the Prince and Princess of Liechtenstein on October 8, 1960 (AAS 828-29). On October 20, 1960 (AAS, 893-95), the Vicar of' Christ visited the new building of the Beda in Rome and spoke to the English seminarians in residence there. Since the Beda's new building is near the Basilica of St. Paul he urged his listeners to recall frequently the woi'ds of St. Paul: "By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace in me has n0t been fruitless" (1 Cor 15:10). He went on to say that vocations are a tangible sign of the presence of God in the world; when God calls, a young man gives up family traditions, ambition, and earthly advantages and seeks only the glory of God, the sanctification of His name, the coming of His Kingdom, and the fulfilment of His will. He concluded his address by telling his listeners that each nation has its own treasure of traditions and of native virtue that can and must be transfigured into a precious instrument of the apostolate. Hence he urged them to take the well known English traits of humanity, gentlemanliness, and reflectiveness and transform them in the priestly activity they are called to engage in. On the same day the Pope also visited the new building that had just been completed to serve as a generalate and international house of studies for the Trappists. In the allocution that he gave for the occasion, the Holy Father t61d his listeners that the contemplative life constitutes one Of the fundamental structures of the Church; it has, he said, always been present in the two-thousand year history of the Church, constantly fruitful in virtue and con-stantly exercising a mysterious and powerful attraction for the loftiest and noblest souls. In praise of their vo-cation, Pope John cited to the Trappists the words of Plus XI (AAS, 26 [1934], 106) at the canonization of the Carmelite St. Teresa Margaret Redi: "It is these very pure and very lofty souls who by their suffering, their love, and their prayer silently exercise in the Church the most universal and most fruitful apostolate." He concluded his allocution by asking for the prayers of his listeners and of all the contemplatives of the world for the success of the coming ecumenical council. On October 25, 1960 (AAS, 898-903), the Holy Father spoke to the judges; officials, and lawyers of the Sacred Roman Rota. He told them that the dangers that weaken the institution of the family are accentuated at the present time, and he called the attention of all men of good will to the serious problem of the sanctity of marriage. In the first part of the allocution the Pope emphasized the need today for the instructi6n of the faithful r~egarding the dignity and the obligations of conjugal life. Marriage, he told them, is not only a natural reality; it is also a sacrament, a sign of grace and of that sacred reality, the espousal of Ch

Issue 19.1 of the Review for Religious, 1960. ; Review For Religious Volume 19 1960 Editorial O[[ice ST. h~ARY'S COLLEGE St. Marys, Kansas Publisher TIlE QUEEN'S WORK St. Louis, Missouri EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITORS Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. Henry Willmering, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITORS John E. Becker, S.J. Robert F. Weiss, S.J. DEPARTMENTAL EDITORS Questions and Answen Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Woodstock College Woodstock, Maryland Book Reviews Earl A. Weis, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana Published in January, March, May, July, September, November on Ihe fifleenlh of Ihe monlh. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is Indexed in Ihe CATHOLIC PERIODICAL INDEX. Act of "Dedication of the Human Race to Christ the King Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary IOn July 18, 1959 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 51 11959~, 595-96), the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary issued a new text of the act of dedication of the human race to the Heart of Christ the King. The text has been revised according to the directives of John XXIII who has also accorded a number of indulgences to the revised prayer. The following is a translation of the new text of the prayer together with the indulgences granted for its recital.I SWEET JESUS, Redeemer of the human race, look do~vn upon us humbly kneeling before Your altar.~ We are Yours and Yours we wish to be; but in order to be still more firmly united to You, today each one of us freely dedicates himself to Your most Sacred Heart. There are many indeed who have never known You; many others have rejected Your commandments and have repudiated You. Be merciful to all of them, 0 kind Jesus, and draw them all to Your holy Heart. Be king, 0 Lord, not only of the faithful who have never abandoned You, but also of the prodigal children who have left You; bring them back quickly to their Father's house lest they die of misery and hunger. Be king of those who have been deceived by erroneous ideas or have been separated by discord; bring them back to the harbor of truth and to the unity of faith so that soon there may be a single fold and a single shepherd. Bestow upon Your Church, 0 Lord, security, liberty, and safety; give to all nations the tranquillity of order; and grant that from one pole of the earth to the other there may ring out the cry: Praise to the divine Heart which brought forth our salvation; to It be glory and honor forever. Amen. July 18, 1959 His Holiness, John XXIII, after abrogating the prayer as given in the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum [Manual of Indulgences], 1952, n. 271, graciously granted the following indulgences: 1) A partial indulgence of five years to the faithful who devoutly recite the above act of dedication with contrite heart. 2) A plenary in- 1When the prayer is recited outside a church or oratory, "in Your presence" should be said instead of "before Your altar." ACT OF DEDICATION dulgence once a month, if they have recited the prayer devoutly every day for a whole month, provided they go to confession, receive Communion, and make a visit to a church or a public oratory. 3) The faithful may gain a partial indulgence of seven years if on the Feast of Christ the King they are present in any church or oratory, even a semi-public one (in the case of those legitimately attending it), when the act of dedication tn the Sacred Heart of Jesus according to the formula given above and the Litanies of the Sacred Heart are recited before the Blessed Sacrament solemnly exposed; moreover, they may gain a plenary indulgence if, besides fulfilling the above conditions, they have gone to confession and Communion. All contrary provisions not withstanding. N. Card. CANALI, Major Penitentiary L. ~I, S. I. Rossi, Secretary Living /aters Frederick Power, $. J. pius XII in his encyclical Haurietis aquas on devotion to the Sacred Heart urges us to"-study diligently the teachings of Scripture, the fathers, and the theologians--the solid founda-tions on which devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus rests." For the Holy Father is "firmly convinced that we can rightly and fully appreciate the incomparable excellence and inexhaustible store of heavenly gifts of this devotion only when we study its nature in the light of divinely revealed truth." The encyclical itself begins with a text from Isaiah: "You shall draw waters with joy out of the Saviour's fountains" (Is 12:3). A few lines further on the Holy Father returns to the idea of the "Saviour's fountains" when he refers to the scene in the Temple at Jerusalem on the Feast of Tabernacles as recorded in John's Gospel, Chapter 7:37-39. The words of our Lord on this occasion are numbered among the principal te~ts which establish the biblical foundation of the devotion. A closer study of this text will be most rewarding and will reveal the appropriateness of the text as the general theme of the encyclical. When the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, our Lord had declined to go to Jerusalem with His relatives but afterwards went up by Himself "not publicly but as it were privately." The Feast of Tabernacles was held towards the end of Sepo tember after the grain harvest and the vintage and the gathering of the autumn fruit crop. Originally an agricultural festival in-stituted to give thanks to God for the fruitfulness of the soil, it later included the commemoration of the forty years spent by the Hebrews in the desert. In memory of the latter event all Jews of free status except the sick, women, and children lived for the week in huts made from the leafy branches of trees. These huts reminded them of the tents or tabernacles pitched in the wilder-ness of Sinai, a period kept ever fresh in their minds as one in which God gave them the great gifts of the manna and of the water from the rock. The desert ever afterwards remained in Jewish tradition as the place of God's protective presence. Two elaborate ceremonies added to the gaiety of the feast: the procession to the fountain of Siloe and the torch-light illumi-nation of the Women's Court. It is the first of these ceremonies that is of interest for the present article. FREDERICK POWER Review for Religious Each morning the multitude organized into a procession. The people lined the route leading to thepool of Siloe and crowded into the Temple and the surrounding courtyards and porches. Then a procession of priests and Levites descended the valley as far as the pool of Si|oe. Those assisting at the ceremony held a citron fruit in the left hand and in the right a palm branch twined with shoots of myrtle and green willow. The Levites chanted the group of festive psalms called the great Hallel; and the multitude, keep-ing time with the refrain, vigorously waved the fruit and palm branch in token of joyfulness and triumph. The officiating priest carried a golden ewer, and at the pool of Siloe he filled it with water to carry back to the altar of holo-causts. This liturgical act was both a commemorative symbol and a dramatized hope. It recalled the miraculous water that gushed forth from the rock of Horeb beneath the rod of Moses, and it was a figure of the outpouring of graces proper to Messianic times. As the celebrant drew the water of Siloe, the choir repeated the verse of Isaiah: "You shall draw water with joy out of the Saviour's fountains" [12:3), a verse which refers to the blessings promised for the days of the Messiah. This symbol of a spring bursting forth and of water flowing from a fountain was well known to those present, for it is one of the most frequent in the Bible; and in a land afflicted by drought and water scarcity, it was a readily understood symbol of divine blessings. Accordingly, the miraculous event in the desert, when Moses struck the rock with his rod and water gushed forth, was remembered with gratitude in the people's liturgical ceremonies. Moses himself had prayed before the Ark of the Covenant: "O Lord God, hear the cry of this people and open to them thy treasures, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied they may cease to murmur" (Num 20:6). In this text and elsewhere in Scripture "living water" is water flowing from a spring as opposed to the stagnant water of cisterns. It was this symbol of living waters that the prophets used to signify divine blessings. Jeremiah even calls God the fountain of living waters: "For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer 2:13). In the last part of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet describes the vision of the holy waters issuing from all sides of the Temple. The desert through which they flow becomes extremely fertile; the trees on their banks have healing power and bear fresh fruit January, 1960 LIVING WATERS monthly. Such is the virtue and dynamism of Yahweh's holy presence in the Temple that it radiates0grace and blessings over the land. Zechariah, too., in speakingof the time of the Messiah, remarks: "In that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem" (Zech 13:1). The prophets, then, looked on water poured out upon parched land as an image of the new spirit that was to be characteristic of the time of salvation. In .the words of Isaiah: "I will pour out waters upon the thirsty ground, and streams upon the dry land; I will pour out my spirit upon thy seed, and blessing upon thy stock" (Is 44:3). In these texts we see some examples of how the blessings of God and the future blessings of the Messianic era are portrayed under the symbol of living waters, and the passages provide some introduction to the scene in Jerusalem on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. After the drawing of the water the procession wended its way up the slope from the pool of Siloe, the officiating priest carry-ing the golden pitcher of water, the Levites chanting psalms, and the crowd singing the refrain. As the procession approached the temple, the people became more enthusiastic, shouting out their response of Hallelu-Yah--Praise Yahweh--with ever greater vehe-mence. It wasin this way that they manifested their deep-felt conviction that Yahweh was their own God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt and had led them safely through the desert. The procession went up to the altar of holocausts just at the moment when the parts of the victim immolated that day were being placed upon it. The priest was greeted by the sacred trumpets and was met at the altar by another priest carrying the wine for the libations. While the people continued their enthusiastic shout-ing, the two pitchers were emptied into conduits that led to the foot of the altar. By this libation it was intended to thank God for the two occasions when He made water flow from a rock to satisfy the thirst of His people in the wilderness. By the same rite the attention of the people was directed to the Messianic promise of living waters and also to the expectation of the fulfillment of the promise which was symbolically signified. For the people were expecting a Messiah who would bring salvation and who was to be another Moses. When the liturgical rite was finished and the singing ended, a silence descended over the throng. Our Lord, who had been 7 FREDERICK POWER Rewew for Rehgmus present among the crowd, now took advantage of this opportunity to reveal His true mission. Mounting a step he cried out to the Jewish people: "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink; he who believes in me, as the Scripture says, 'From his heart there shall flow rivers of living water.' " By these words He revealed Himself as the one in whom all the abundant graces of the Messianic period are to be found, the object of the Messianic expectation, the Messiah himself. He is the rock from which the water of life flows; indeed, He is the fountain itself. He is the spring from which anyone who thirsts may quench his thirst. The effect of faith in Him would be the reception and communication of living water. This text requires the explanation of two important points. First, the text as a whole has been interpreted in two ways: that the fountain of living water flows from the one who believes in Christ, or that the fountain flows from Christ, the one in whom we believe. The Holy Father understands the text in the second way in his encyclical; this use, without doubt, holds the richest and profoundest sense, one more in agreement with the Old Testament prophecies given above. It is also more in agreement with the theology of St. John. Secondly, an explanation must be given for the use of the word heart in the text. The Latin edition of the encyclical follows the Vulgate version of the text, the literal translation of which would be: "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The Latin phrase used is de ventre eius, which literally means "out of his belly." This translation would also be a literal trans-lation of the Greek and Aramaic versions of the text. The trans-lation, however, would not be a correct interpretation of the idea intended. Those who are experts in the Aramaic language agree that for the Hebrews the viscera or the belly was regarded as the seat of the emotions in the same way as we regard the heart. Accordingly a proper translation of the phrase used by our Lord would be "from his heart." Such a translation, though not a literal one, is the proper way to express the idea in terms we understand today. It is what our Lord meant, though He expressed it in the idiom of His own day. It is with this understanding that authorities place this text among the fundamental texts of Scrip-ture regarding devotion to the Sacred Heart. On this occasion of our Lord's revelation of His Sacred Heart, He appeals to Scripture as being fulfilled in His person. He does not refer to one particular text but rather to that whole class of January, 1960 LIVING WATER~ texts from the Old Testament which we considered earlier. The people who heard these ~o.~s could take only one meaning: The man before them was definitely claiming the fulfillment of these prophecies in Himself; He was claiming it and at the same time promising untold blessings to those who would recognize this claim. Certainly St. John is impressed by the words, for he pauses to comment upon them. He tells us that they were prophetic and that they were fulfilled in the final glory of our Lord whicb, for ~John, is our Lord's passion, death, and subsequent transfiguration: "He said this, however, of the Spirit whom they who believed in~ Him were to receive; for the Spirit had not yet been given, seeing that Jesus had not yet been glorified" (Jn 7:39). The Spirit here means the Holy Spirit and includes the abundance of Mes-sianic goods and the gifts of redemption which the Holy Spirit brings to those who believe in Christ. But before the living water would flow, Christ had to be glorified; this was a condition that had yet to be fulfilled. That our Lord's glory was concerned with His passion is seen in His priestly prayer after the Last Supper: "Father, the hour has come! Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee, even as thou has given him power over all flesh, in order that to all ,that thou hast given him he may give everlasting life" (Jn 17:2). By sacrificing Himself the Redeemer would cause the Spirit to flow and to open up the "fountain of living water." And this would happen when at the death of the Messiah His Heart would be pierced ~with a lance. The life-giving power of the living waters would find its source in the Blood of Christ as it gushed forth from the wounded Heart of Christ. It is, however, necessary to make here some distinctions between the piercing of Christ's side and the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit. The piercing is not of the same nature as the visible mission of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Nevertheless there is an ancient tradition, attested to among others by St. Augustine, that the Church was born from the pierced side of Christ. As Eve was taken from the side of the sleeping Adam, so also the Spouse of Christ, the Church, sprang from the pierced side of the dead Christ, the new Adam in His sleep of death being the source of the new Eve, the Church. And this Church is the Mystical Body of Christ whose soul is the Holy Spirit. FREDERICK POWER Review for Religious That the living waters promised to those who believe in Christ spring from the pierced side of the dead Saviour is also attested to by the common interpretation that for John the water and blood are signs of the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. In his encyclical Plus XII puts it this way: "From this wounded Heart the grace of the sacraments, from which the children of the Church draw supernatural life, flowed most pro-fusely . " And the Holy Spirit is included in the sacrament of Baptism, for the new birth to be effected by Baptism is brought about by "water and the Spirit" as our Lord told Nic~demus. So it is that the prediction of John in Chapter 7 concerning the flowing rivers to come after Christ's glorification was fulfilled when on the cross a soldier "opened his side with a lance, and immediately there came out blood and water" (Jn 19:34). The streams of blood and water are certain signs that now have been fulfilled the Scriptural prophecies of Messianic grace. Now the living water has begun to flow; now the Spirit is given, but only in blood; grace is given but only from the pierced Heart on the cross. Unless the spiritual rock that is Christ had been struck, the waters would nol~ have ~ome forth. And John in his Gospel insists that this incident of the soldier declining to break our Lord's legs and instead opening His side was a momentous event. He emphasizes his own role as an eye-witness of the event: "And he who saw it has borne witness, and his witness is true: and he knows that he tells the truth, that you also may believe" (Jn 19:35). And he puts further emphasis on the event by telling us that by it two prophecies were fulfilled: "Not a bone of him shall you break," and "They shall look upon. him whom they have pierced." The first of these prophecies speaks of the paschal lamb. Now in the concluding events of the passion of Christ it is fully revealed that Christ is the true Lamb of God; accordingly none of His bones were broken. This symbol of the Lamb recalls the mag-nificent theology of the Apocalypse concerning the "Lamb who was slain" (Apoc 5:12). In the Lamb we see the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah who suffers 'and is glorified in His sufferings: "The Lamb . . . is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings" (Apoc 17:14). The redeemed are the "bride, the spouse of the Lamb" (Apoc 21:9). In the blood of this Lamb the faithful are able to be cleansed--to be filled with the living waters of the Spirit. And from the fact that the rivers flow forth from the 10 January, 1960 LIVING WATERS wounded Heart of the Lamb, we are led to those passages in the Apocalypse which depict the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel: "For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them, and will guide them to the fountains of the waters of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Apoc 7:17); ". he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming forth from the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Apoc 22:1). Thus the act of redemption is enshrined, as it were, in a celestial garden and the redeemed are forever made joyous at the Saviour's fountains. The second prophecy, which is concerned with the piercing of our Lord's side, is from Zechariah: "And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayers: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son" (Zech 12:10). In this passage God speaks about Himself. As man, He will be the first-born, one for whom they mourn and weep and at whom they gaze although they have pierced Him. God Himself in His human nature brings about the redemption and is the one who gives the living water of the Spirit. He pours forth the Spirit at the moment when the lance opens His Heart. At that moment the Spirit begins to flow and the Messianic work will be prolonged to the end of time when Jesus will come again in glory. In the words of the Apocalypse: "Behold, he comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also who pierced him" (Apoc 1:7). Our Lord, then, standing above the throng gathered for the Feast of the Tabernacles, revealed Himself as the long awaited Messiah, the rock of salvation, the fountainhead of all the bless-ings of the Messianic times. For the most part, He was not ac-cepted. A few believed in Him, so John tells us, but only a few. For He is the "stone which the builders rejected." But He is also the rock which will be struck anew for the salvation of the newly chosen people. He will give of His sub-stance to give birth to the new people that He will acquire for Himself. From His pierced side will spring the fountain of eternal life, the rivers of living waters, the Spirit of love, the Church, the new Jerusalem, Baptism and the other sacraments, all the graces of the "last days." The Litany of the Sacred Heart sums it all up in the invocation: "Heart of Jesus, fountain of life and holiness." 11 A Catechism on Obedience of Judgment Paul W. O'Brien, S. J. QWhat are the necessary presuppositions for every act of obedience? A. That the superior has authority and that what he commands is not certainly sinful. Q. Could the superior sin while commanding something not sinful? A. Yes, through sinful motives, for example, envy, injustice, or serious imprudence. Q. What is the formal motive of obedience? A. Authority. Q. Is obedience an act of the will or intellect? A. Obedience of the will is an act of the will; obedience of judgment is formally an act of the intellect, but like faith, is commanded by the will. Q. What is obedience of judgment? A. The conforming of my judgment to the judgment of the superior-because he has authority. Q. To what judgment do I conform? A. Not necessarily to his theoretical (speculative)judgment, that is, something to believe, but to his practical judgment, that is, something to do. The Abbot John did not have to believe that the dry stick would grow into a tree; he had only to believe that God wanted him to water it (for His own mysterious reasons). Q. How would you express this practical judgment? A. Given the order of the superior, I must judge that this is what God wants done (that is, God sanctions with His authority the perhaps mistaken decision of my superior) and that it is best according to the ultimate mysterious plan of God (not necessarily best for the immediate purpose intended by the superior). Q. When I cannot agree with the speculative judgment of the superior and must carry out his practical judgment, how should I obey? A. Not just materially, by merely executing the order (and in such a way as to sabotage the project, emphasizing and dis- 12 O[~EDIENCE OF JUDGMENT playing the weakness of the order, proving the superior wrong); but loyally entering into his, views (without blinding myself to his error), covering up its weaknesses before the public, trying my best to make it succeed. Q. Should I judge the order of the superior to be the will of God because of the reasons of the superior? A. No, but only because he has authority. Q. Then obedience of judgment does not imply that I agree with the reasons of the superior? A. No, it does not imply this. Q. Is it possible to have perfect obedience of judgment and the firm assurance that the superior's order is the will of God for me, while still hesitating over the reasons of the superior? A. Yes. Obedience is specified by authority, not by reasons. Q. Will my obedience of judgment be more perfect in propor-tion as I bring myself into agreement with the reasons of the superior? A. No, though the desire to agree will indicate a more perfect disposition. Q. Then why try to make my reasons agree with the reasons of the superior? A. It helps remove the psychological obstacles to obedience of judgment and chiefly of execution. It is easier to act if humanly speaking I agree with the policy. It is the proper disposition in the face of God's representative. Q. Do I suspend my act of perfect obedience of judgment while I am trying to bring myself to agree with the reasons of the superior? A. No, no more than you suspend your act of faith while you study your catechism or theology. Q. When I have brought myself to agree with all the reasons of the superior, do I have more assurance of doing God's will? A. No. The security that comes from authority (in the line of faith) will always be sufficient and greater than that which comes from the weight of human reasons. (Actually both the superior and I may be agreeing in wrong reasons.) Q. What is "blind obedience"? A. Supposing the two presuppositions of all obedience, I blind myself to the qualities and reasons of my superior, that is, I exclude the consideration of these reasons and motivate my obedi-ence by authority alone. Q. What is the difference between obedience of judgment and 13 PAUL W. O'BRIEN blind obedience? A. There is no difference in the act of obedience. But while obedience of judgment merely states the fact, blind obedience connotes the approach: the exclusion of the consideration of the reasons. Q. Is blind obedience a help to obedience of judgment? A. Yes. It makes obedience of judgment easier and safer for though I could have perfect obedience of judgment while consider-ing, and even while rejecting the reasons, still it is much easier to by-pass these reasons and look simply to authority. Q. Is blind obedience always better? A. No. Even though easier and safer, it is often good and sometimes necessary to consider the reasons of the superior (even while excluding them from the motivation of obedience), for they may: (a) help me to profit by the experience of my elders, (b) enlighten me on the spirit of my community, (c) be necessary to relieve psychological blocks to action, (d) be necessary for the understanding of the mind of the superior in view of carrying out his order more intelligently. Q. What should be my attitude toward the reasons of the superior? A. I should be well-disposed towards them. They are given to help me. I should use them as far as they help. If they trouble me, I should prescind from them and practice blind obedience, But even while using them, I should keep them in second place and unite myself to God through authority. 14 The Theology of Religious Women Yves M.-J. Congar, 0. P. This article was a conference given July 10, 1958, to a convention of French priests charged with the care of religious women. It will ~ppear as a chapter in a book to be entitled Le r61e de la religieuse dans l'Eglise (Paris: Cerf, 1960), a volume in the series Probl~mes de la religieuse d'aujourdhui. The article was first printed in Suppldment de la Vie Spirituelle (1959), 316:42. The present translation is by John E. Becker, S.J. Basic Notions: The Church and the World THE WORLD was set on,its way reality by the creative act. Its story is humanity s quest atos, ,ba e fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen 1:28). For all practical pur-poses, the world, the temporal, history, the drive to civilize are equivalent ideas; the reality they have in common is the effort of man to perfect himself by subjecting, for his advantage, the re-sources inherent in himself and in material creation. And this effort has a direction, a direction which is completely dependent on the facts of Adam's existence: he was at one and the same time both image of God and sinner. As Tennyson said very well, it is only at the end of this great adventure that one can say that man is complete. The Church is something other than this inherent movement of the world or of history even if, as is the case, she envelops it and Ultimately guarantees it. For she does not emerge out of the resources deposited within the first creation. She is placed in the realm of reality by a new initiative of God, properly supernatural, that is to say, an initiative in which God commits and gives Himself (this is the meaning of grace). She is an order of sanctity and sanctification positively instituted from above, a creation of the divine positive law issuing from the priestly, prophetic, and redemptive kingship of Christ. Still she has her existence and, as it were, her proper stability within human societies. Divine insti-tution that she is, she herself creates and shapes according to her needs and her spirit institutional forms proper to herself. On the other hand, the Church is not made to be an end in herself. She is made for God and for the world -- even for the world, to save it by the grace which God has given her to dispense: 15 YvEs M -J CONGAR Rewew for Rehgmus "In it [the faith of the Church] is contained union with Christ.''1 The Church is a new creation of God, and a supernatural one; but she has a mission in and for the world. This mission consists in two things: first, to convert men by making them disciples, that is to say by bringing them into herself, giving them in this way the regeneration of a second birth; and then to sanctify them by communicating to them the grace of the Lord, by forgiving their sins, and by teaching them to conform their lives to the holy and sanctifying will of God;2 second, to operate within temporal life itself in order that in accordance with God's plan it may be directed and oriented towards God to the fullest possible extent. The Church here reveals especially the healing power of grace which, by giv-ing back to nature her primitive orientation, conforms her to the will and to the image of God while at the same time restoring her t'o herself. The Church seeks, by all sorts of initiatives and under-takings, to remold the world according to the plan of God, which is neither the pursuit of self nor the pursuit of power nor egoistic hardness of heart, but on the contrary, service, brotherhood, justice, peace, communion, sharing, helping the poorest, combating all the degrading miseries of body and soul. This is why, from one end to the other of her history and growth, the Church has created ministries inspired by charity. Some of them, more involved with the work of the world and its battles, such as the fight for social justice, are more the role of the laymen within her whom she forms and inspires for this work. Others, more strictly pertinent to her spiritual nature and to her primary office of sanctification, can remain more properly eccle-siastical ministries; such is the case in particular with the corporal works of mercy or the spiritual works such as teaching. "As long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me" (Mt 25:40). Basic Notions: The Church in Herself One can consider the Church as the great sacrament of salva-tion and distinguish in her two aspects. She is both the reality of grace or sanctity and she is the means of grace or sanctification: reality and sacrament. Images for comparison are not lacking. However, as with every .image, they are very inadequate, and risk losing through excessive schematization what they gain in clarity. 1St. Ir~naeus, Adversus Haereses, III, 24, 1. ~Mt 28:19-20; Mk 16:15 ft.; Jn 3:3 ft.; 20:21 ff.; Col 1:13; etc. 16 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN For example, the Church as a holy reality may be considered to be. a tower or a temple; as a means of. sanctification, to have the instrumental power of a pick, a mining car, a windlass, a scaffold, and all of those things which are necessary ~to bring the rough stone from the mines to the finished building where each has its place and its proper finish (see the hymn for the dedication of a church). Does not St. Augustine distinguish the "society of the sacraments" and the "society of the saints," the former being ordered to the latter? Does he not also write: "The architect builds a permanent edifice with temporary machinery"?'~ To see in the Church the holiness already rooted in souls is not only to consider the depths of her life, it is to see in her that which will always be. "Charity never passes away" (1 Cor 13:8). To live through charity the life of holiness is really to live as a citizen of the eternal and heavenly City of God. In heaven, one might say, there will be nothing else but that. That city knows no hierarchy other than that of holiness or of love. The Virgin Mary is at its pinnacle. In the Church of this world she had neither a function nor a hierarchical dignity. It could readily be said of her that she was a member, the first member, of the laity if there were not the danger of belying by this way of speaking her per-fection as a consecrated member of the faithful. Mgr. Journet says well, following St. Thomas, that the Virgin Mary has per-fectly achieved the highest holiness, not the highest hierarchical dignity.~ She is-the type, or better, the perfect personification of the Church, but of the Church as final end, not as means. Mary is the "eschatological eikon of the Church.''~ That which in the Church is "sacrament" in the wide sense of the word -- instrument or means of grace -- is as such related to her as a wayfarer. This is true in the first place of her sacraments properly speaking, but also of her dogmatic formulas, of her organizations, and of her ecclesiastical hierarchy which has the care of all these matters. If it were necessary to point out a type or a personification of the Church here, it would not be the Virgin Mary but rather the Apostle Peter. But this would be to consider 3Sermo 362, 7 (Patrologia Latina, 39, 1615). 4St. Thomas, In I Sent., d. 16, q. 1, a. 2, ad 4; Summa Theologiae, 3, 27, 5, ad 3; Albert the Great, In IV Sent., d. 19, a. 7; Charles Journet, L'Eglise du Verbe incarnd, 2 (Paris, 1951), 422; 441; 456, note 2. ~This striking expression is from L. Bouyer, Le culte de la M~re de Dieu (Chevetogne, 1950), 33; Le trSne de la sagesse (Paris, 1957), 188. See also O. Semmelroth, Die Kirche als Ursakrament (Frankfort, 1951), 176-85. A beautifu] and rich meditation on the theme of Mary as perfect spiritual type of the Church is to be found in H. Rahner, Marie et ~'Eglise (Paris, 1955). 17 YvEs M.-J. CONGAR Review [or Religious only one part of the reality, to reduce the power of the Church as means of grace or of sanctification to "institutions" alone. But as a matter of fact the whole life of the Church in time is a means of grace tending to produce that interior fruit of holiness which will always remain. Still, if the distinction which we have proposed is valid -- it is a classical one -- it is very necessary to guard against pushing it to the point of separation or disjunction. The Church in the concrete, the existential Church on earth is at the same time both means of sanctification and sanctity. In terms of the image used above, we should say that she is at the same time the building and the construction works by which she is built; or, using another image, she is the ear of wheat, full of the grain of which the host will be made, and at the same time the root and stem necessary to bear and nourish the wheat until the harvest time. This is why in the Church holiness and means of sanctification interpenetrate. The sacraments are holy; but also the reality of the interior holiness of the members is a powerful means of leading other members and the whole body either to conversion or to greater holiness. There is a spiritual mothering of holiness, or, if holiness seems too broad, of the life of faith, of prayer, and of charity; and perhaps this mothering is too little studied, theoretically undervalued in the Church, even though it is extremely real, a factor of everyday life. We shall return to this point later. It would also be inexact to make a complete separation be-tween holiness and visibility. Holiness manifests itself. It is even a "note" of the Church, that is to say a mark which "notifies" and permits the true Church to be recognized. As instigator and end of all the visible works of the Church, terminus and interior direction of all the instrumentality of grace, intimate soul of all the historical life of the Church, holiness gathers all of these func-tions together to constitute that sign of the Kingdom of God which the Church must be for the world. During His earthly life, Jesus made men sensible of the approach of the Kingdom of God and unveiled something of its proper mystery by "signs" just as He opened up the ways of the Good News in parables. After the Ascension of the Lord, it is the Church which by the grace of Pentecost is the sign for the world. But the different manifesta-tions of her historical life are signs of the Kingdom of God, signs of the charity of Christ, only because they incorporate and radiate holiness. Otherwise they might be signs of power, of legal right, even of greatness; they would not be signs of the Kingdom of God 18 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN and of the charity of Christ. They would not draw the world to the faith. Basic Notions: Religious Life The Church is a body which is organic, organized, and.there-fore composed of different elements. She embraces the infinity of individual differences which are the foundation of the gifts, altogether interior ~and spiritual or exterior and public, of each one: what a variety among men, what a variety in the world of the saints! All this is the rainbow of grace. But there are also larger differences in the Church, delimited categories, groups charac-terized by a particular social structure, even constituted as such by law. These are those major differences of condition which affect Christian life in that profound and permanent as well as public and manifest way by reason of which one may speak of them as states. Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages used the expression orders for any group, and the encyc.lical Mystici corporis of June 29, 1943, reintroduced this idea into its broad theology of the Church as the Body of Christ. Once more it speaks, for example, of the "order of the laity.''~ The fathers spoke of the order of preachers or of prelates, the order of clerics, of monks, of virgins, of the continent, of widows, of deaconesses, of married people. If we consider only the most general divisions of states in the Church, we find ourselves faced with a double distinction, that between clerics and the laity, and another between seculars and regulars or religious (see below, note 50). If we recall what was said above about the Church, we will be able to relate the first distinction more to that ~aspect according to which the Church is means of sanctification, since this difference is between the simple members of the people of God and those members who are destined to exercise some sacred function and are endowed with powers appropriate to the prac.tical application of the means of grace. The second distinction pertains more to the aspect of the Church according to which she is a mystery of holiness; for the "state of perfection," even though it is a means of sanctification, is nor-mally an approach towards a more perfect life in Christ. In both cases, the state ~or particular ecclesiastical position of the cleric and of the regular is a deprivation of the greater liberty legiti-mately given those in the world in view of their conditio.n of life and .activity in the world; the purpose of this deprivation is the better service of God, whether this be more on the plane of per- SActa Apostolicae Sedis, 35 [1943), 200-01. 19 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious sonal spiritual life (religious life) or more on the plane of admin-istering the Church's means of sanctification (clerical, priestly state). It would be superfluous to spend time here defining religious life. Let us recall merely the simple and vigorous manner in which St. Thomas Aquinas characterized it in relation to the Christian life of the simple faithful.7 Each member of the faithful is com-mitted by his baptism, to renounce sin as well as Satan and his temptations. By religious profession, a Christian man or woman commits himself to renounce the world as the context of his life in order to belong more entirely, more definitively to God and to His work; for the world is an ambiguous milieu to live in; it is full of occasions of evil; it is engrossing, distracting, and filled with demands which hinder one from belonging to God completely and of temptations which turn one away from Him. This is why it is essential to the religious life, not only to detach oneself from the earthly and to consecrate oneself to God by vows, but through the rule to separate oneself from the conditions of life in the world. A point of view less individual and more ecclesiological might present the same realities in the following way.s The difference between religious and the simple faithful need not be viewed as a difference between the consecrated and the non-consecrated. This opposition exists, of course; but it should be located between the Church and the world, between the people of God and those who are not, between Christians and non-Christians (see 1 Pet 2:10). In the people of God as such, in the Body of Christ, all is sacred. The faithful are consecrated; their whole life as Christians, in so far as it is Christian, is sacred, not profane. All that religious can ambition is to be more consistently, more integrally Christian, and to embrace more perfect means toward this end." Laymen, or the ordinary faithful, live in the world. It is their precise charac-teristic to serve God in the way that is determined by their natural mission into the world.~° But the world is something other than 7Contra impugnantes religionem, c. 1. 8We employ here a suggestion of R. Carpentier, S.J. in his Life in the City o[ God: An Introduction to the Religious Life (New York, 1959). Compare the same author's "Les instituts s~culiers," Nouvelle Revue Thdologique, 77 (1955), 408-12, in particular, 409, 411. ~Since Dom G. Morin's L'iddal monastique et la vie chrdtienne des premiers jours (Maredsous, 1912), it is better known that religious life is merely the Christian life more fully expressed. 1°There is more and more agreement on this positive and theological definition of the lay state: Y. M.-J. Congar, "Qu'est-ce qu'un laic?" Suppld-ment de la Vie Spirituelle, 1950, 363-92; this article is the first chapter in the same author's Lay People in the Church Westminster, 1957). See also K. 2O January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN the Church. If the Church has its inner consistency and its proper demands, the world has too, Even prescinding from the ambiguity inherent in the enterprises of men and in the tendency toward sin which adheres to the tissue of the world, it is still necessary to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. For this reason even those laymen who seek only to love and serve God, whose personal lives are surrendered to God, and whose hearts are wholly intent upon Him find it difficult to exert themselves and to carve out their way in that world, a world which is not surrendered to God. "And he is divided" (1 Cor 7:33-34). The life of the Christian in the world is, unhappily, a divided one. The religious is the Christian who, in the desire to belong totally and irrevocably to God,~ leaves the world and enters a life built up and organized for the service of God, something which the world is not. The religious life in so far as it is a social frame-work for living is actually a creation of the Church for the pur-poses of the Church -- the service of God, Throughout the len.gth of her history.the Church has striven to achieve through religious life that which she tried to do as soon as she entered the world" by the grace of Pentecost; it was something that had been tried' be-fore her, for example in the monasticism of the Essenes on the shores of the Dead Sea. Her aim has been to constitute a way of life which responds perfectly, even as a social or juridical structure, to the communal and fraternal demands of the Gospel and which allows one to be at the exclusive service of God. In fact, through-out the whole history of the religious life one finds references back to the tentative attempt at communal living in the primitive Church at Jerusalem.~- Moreover, it is by expressl.y referring to Rahner, "L'apostolat des la~cs" in Nouvelle Revue Thdologique, 78 (1956), 3-32; a digest of this article may be found in Theology Digest, 5 (1957-58), 73-79. ~St. Thomas: "So that he may not turn back" (Summa Theologiae, 2-2, 186, 6, ad 1; see also Contra Gentiles, 3, 131). l~See Acts 2:44 and 4:32. Some references on this point are: F~r St. Pach-omius see L.Th. Lefort, Les vies coptes de saint Pach6me et de ses premiers successeurs [Louvain, 1943), 3, 30, and 65, 25; for St. Basil, see his Regulae brevius tractatae, int. 148, 187 (Patrologia Graeca, 31, 1180 and 1208) as well as his Regulae [usius tractatae, int. 7 (Patrologia Graeca, 31, 933); for St. Augustine see his En~arrationes in Psalmos, 132, 2 (Patrologia Latina, 37, 1729 ff.), his Sermo 355 and 356 De vita et moribus clericorurn suorum ( Patrologia Latina, 39, 1568 ff.), his De opere monachorum (C.S.E.L., 41, 529 ft.), his Regula (see below, note 21), and A. Zumkeller's Das M6nchtum des hl. Augus-tinus (Wiirzburg, 1950), 129 ft.; for St. Ambrose Autpert, see his In Cant. (Bibl. Max. Patrum, 13, 442); for St. Odo of Cluny, see his Occupatio 6 (Patrologia Latina, 133, 572) and J. Leclercq's "L'id~al monastique de saint Odon d'apr~s ses oeuvres," in A Cluny. Congrbs scientifique, 1949, 227 ff.; for St. Peter Damian, see his Opusculum 24, Contra clericos regulares proprietarios (Patrologia Latina, 145, 482-90). From the time of the reform 21 YvEs M.-J. CONGAR Review [or Religious this historical archetype that all reforms, all renewals of the religious life have been carried out. The "type" of Jerusalem, the City of Peace, the city "where all together make one body" (Ps 122:3), the place of God's habitation, has always been, for the various institutes of religious life, a kind of ideal, or "myth" in $orel's sense of the word. The religious life is a kind of earthly anticipation of the City of God. The chief forms of the religious life derive, even in those things which differentiate them, from the following principle com-mon to all: The religious life is a total consecration which is carridd out on the social level and publicly approved by the Church and which aims at the pursuit of the perfection of charity on the basis of a renouncement of that which hinders this totality, and this renouncement is made in such a way as to close to oneself the possibility of turning back. Within the bounds of this essential principle common to all, religious institutes differ from one another according to that pre-. eminent work of charity to which each one specifically devotes itself. A first overall distinction arises, for this reason, between institutes vowed to the service of the love of God alone, in Him-self, and immediately -- the contemplative life, monasticism, the eremetical life -- and institutes vowed to the service of the love of God in the exterior exercise of love and of service to the neigh-bor -- institutes specifically vowed to the works of mercy, corporal (hospitals), or spiritual (teaching), or the two together (the greater part of the missionary congregations).13 Contemplatives or monks also contribute to the salvation of the world, but only from above and in the context of the mystery of the Communion of Saints, from which comes in its secret forms that spiritual maternity which we have already mentioned and to which we shall return. From the point of view of effective activity they seem to leave the world to its damnation.Nevertheless, this is a historical fact: it is the monks who have made Christianity; of the llth and 12th centuries the references 'to Acts increase; see the studies of Ch. Dereine and others. See also J. Leclercq, La vie parfaite (Turnhout, 1948), 82-108. M.-D. Chenu, La thdologie au xii'~ si~cle (Paris, 1957), 227 ff. 13As is well known there exists a third category, that of the apostolic life, which is sometimes given the strange and little justified name of the "mixed life." In this life the superexcellent work of charity is identical with that of that agape which implies service, self-giving, apostolate, mission. It implies living in the light of faith and love to the extent of communicating them to others by means of the apostolate. But this apostolic life is almost exclusively reserved to men; and in its fullness it demands the priesthood of the Gospels. 22 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN monasticism has been --it is still, it will continue to be in the future -- preeminently the educator who teaches men not only what it is to be a Christian, but also what it is.to be human. In this way it has been the creator of much that is beautiful. It is impossible to accept grace without its showing its healing power, impossible to seek first the Kingdom of God without all these other things being added on besides (Mt 6:33; Lk 12:31). Religious devoted to the works of mercy enter into the torrent of the world to perform the work of rescue. They participate more strictly than the monks in that which in the Church is not only repose in God but also anxiety for and with men; they participate in the Church not only as a harbor of grace and the inn of the good Samaritan, but as an effective rescue service with the difficult commitment to heal the wounded on a road infested with robbers. In the duality of the Church and of the world, the monks represent essentially the distinction or opposition of the two. The Church is not of the world; and in her monks she says to it: "Do not touch me!" But the duality of the Church and of the world is not only distinction and opposition, it is also a kind of coupling; it implies a dialectical and dramatic point of contact. Not only do the Church and the world coexist in the time between Eden and the Kingdom, they exist in a certain way one with the other and one for the other. The world is, for the Church, not only~ the quarry from which she gets her stones, but also a necessary partner in a dialogue, or better, a sort of separated partner, who opposes and tests her, but with whom she must remain joined in order to try to save it. The Church is different from the world, she is grace and salvation. But in the interim between Easter and the second coming, which is her time of wayfaring and of labor, she is joined to the world as the good Samaritan was to his wounded stranger while he lifted him up and carried him, or as a lifeguard is joined to the drowning person whom he attempts to bring to the shore.~ Basic Notions: The Role of Woman in the Church One can scarcely speak of the laws of God's work, for he would thus risk giving the meaning that rules are imposed upon God extrinsically and as necessities. But one may speak of con-stants which the work itself reveals to us. And one of these constants seems to be procedure by pairs or complementary polarities. The study of tradition throughout Scripture, the fathers, and ancient ~On this point read G. Bernanos, La libertd, pourquoi faire? (Paris, 1953), 267-69; and see H. Urs yon Balthasar, Le chr~tien Bernanos (Paris, 1956), 217. 23 YVES M~-J. CONGAR Review for Religious texts and records, has convinced us more and more that this idea has played a very great role in Christian thought and institutions.~5 Among these unified dualities or complementary polarities, the first is without doubt the division of humanity into man and woman. It reappears in the Church, with the reservation that will be noted later. It is the reason that today's relatively numerous studies of "the second sex" have their counterparts, frequently stimulating ones, in Christian publications which attempt to de-termine the particular role and assets of women and hence of religious women in the Church.~ This role and these assets are connected with these larger values: a) Woman stands for receiving, welcoming, consenting; she is the "spiritual vessel." To speak of passivity would be not quite exact; receptivity is vital and active. Recall the "fiat" of the Virgin Mary, the prototype of acceptance and of the faithfulness of the Church before the God who comes, calls, asks. b) It is also said of the Virgin that "she kept all things in her heart." Man has the initiative in producing life. Woman creates for it a milieu that is intimate and warm, a home. In the home she embodies that humble faithfulness which conserves, waits, wel-comes. Man is devoted to the risks of conflict on the outside; he is the victim of its aggression; he suffers change. But thanks to his wife he has a home where he can recover intact his better self, his inner self: the freshness and poetry of love, the faithfulness to memory and to conscience, the delicacy of attention and of care.'7 Man is specialized by work and by action. Woman is nearer 15The following examples have been chosen at random and hurriedly; nevertheless the meaning and the relationships of this theme of "pairs" were a matter of profound experience in the consciousness and texts of the ancients; they will be understood better if one keeps in mind the duality in unity which is at the basis of all the examples: Man and woman, soul and body, the two sides of the body (two eyes, two hands, etc.), sky and earth, sun and moon (the "two luminaries"), the two powers, pope and emperor, the two witnesses Peter and Paul, Moses and Elias, law and grace, the Church of the Jews and the Church of the Gentiles, head and body, Scripture and tradition, baptism and confirmation [Christ and the Holy ~pirit), com-munion under two species, the two columns of the temple of Jerusalem, the two cherubim of the Ark, etc. ~6For studies by Catholics see Gertrud von Lefort, Die ewige Frau ~Munich, 1935); Maura BSckeler, Das grosse Zeichen. Die Frau als Symbol g6ttlicher Wirklichkeit (Salzburg, 1941); D'Eve tt Marie, ou le destin de la Femme in L'Anneau d'or, 1954; F.J.J. Buytendijk, La femme, ses modes d'etre, de paratt)'e et d'exister (Paris, 1957). A Protestant study is Ch. von Kirschbaum's Die wirkliche Frau (Zurich, 1949). A Greek Orthodox study is: Paul Evdo-kimov, La femme et le salut du monde. Etude d'anthropologie chrdtient~e sur les charismes de la [emme (Paris, 1958). ~TThis role of woman is well illustrated in novels such as the following: Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter: Elizabeth Goudge, Green Dolphin Street; A. J. Cronin, Th~ Citadel. See also Alice Oll~-Laprune, Liens immortels. 24 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN to the sources of life and of elementary realities, more humbly given over to daily occupations. She has also an instinctive sensi-bility which allows her to grasp things in a more concrete, simpler, more comprehensive fashion, to see things as wholes. She gives herself more simply, and perhaps more irrevocably, in committing herself more thoroughly and totally to these things. In this total commitment of woman there is a value attested to by experience which is expressed remarkably well in the con-secration of religious women. This consecration, for the faithful and even for the priesthood, stands as a kind of oasis, a reserve storehouse of the simple life, of total, unsophisticated faith; it stands for homesteads of inviolate faithfulness softened by a gentle delicacy. There are here, along with a beehive's thrifty efficiency, treasure houses of devotedness and all the strength of an abnegation that is without ambition or defense. We will not delay on this longer because we are not sure that this precisely feminine element is so very important in the religious life. The religious life would represent in the Church rather that condition in which woman becomes most active,, closest to assum-ing initiatives and activities comparable to those of men. So she proclaims in a special way a superiority over the differences of sex and over the other conditions which divide man in his "life in Christ.''~8 If femininity exists at this level, it is that of the whole Church who is, according to patristic tradition and its develop-ment of the indications of Scripture, the New Eve beside the New Adam, Christ. That which, in the Church, represents Christ as Master, Spouse, and Father, is not the male religious institute; it is the episcopacy and the priesthood. It is easy to relate these facts to that which was said above about the two aspects of the Church: that of goal or of holiness, alongside which religious life has its special place, and that of means, alongside which the dis-tinction between priests and simple faithful has its place. The Role of Religious Woman in the Church The religious life is, in the Church, the highest approximation of the City of God. It is, in the sphere of collective realities, that portion which is nearest to being the fruit of lasting holiness (reality), that which most closely pertains to the Church as "Com-reunion of Saints" and eschatological reality. This is what we shall consider first in itself and then in its inherent value as a sign. ~sSee Gal 3:28; Col 3:11. 25 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious Religious life is first of all for God. It exists in the Church first of all as an area reserved for God. It represents the first fruits and their special worth as tokens of homage and as free gifts. Sometimes, in a corner of the countryside withdrawn from the traffic of men one finds a religious house which, humanly speaking, vegetates. But when one has become a regular visitor to such a community, one discovers that it is accomplishing an onerous duty of praise or of intercession, far from the notice or even the knowl-edge of men. "To what purpose is this waste?" ~Mt 26:8; Mk 14:4) It is the song of the bride meant only for her spouse; it is that part of the Church seen and known to God alone, to the Father "who sees in secret" (Mt 6:4; 6:18). Above and beyond all its external usefulness and all i~s ordination to extrinsic things, religious life remains a realization of the mystery of the Church or of the mystical body. It is im-possible to'emphasize this too much: before one can cooperate in the building up of the outside of the Church which is for others, it is necessary that it be built up within. A religious community is a cell of the Church; better, it is a Church in miniature.'9 It gives flesh to the mystery of the Church. The Rule of St. Augustine begins with these words, whose fulness of meaning and even whose technical validity arise out of the great Augustinian synthesis on the sacrifice of the "City redeemed as one":2° "A primary purpose for which you are gathered together in one community is that you live in the monastery with unanimity, having but one mind and one heart in the service of God.''~' Members join together in re-ligious life first of all to live the life of charity, to give reality to fraternal union according to the spirit of the Gospel. We cannot meditate too much on this truth, without which our communities will be nothing but a lie and a scandal.'-'~ The great lawgivers of ~On this theme see the valuable study of Dom Emmanuel yon Severus, "Das MSnchtum als Kirche," in Enkainia, ed. by H. Emonds (Dusseldorf, 1956), 230-48; also A. deVogu~, "Le monast~re, Eglise du Christ," in Studia Anselmiana, 42 (Rome, 1957), 25-46. ~'See De Civitate Dei, X, cc. 5 and 6. ~Patrologia Latina, 32, 1738. ~To stimulate reflection on this matter, I permit myself to cite here the two following texts which are hateful and terrible, but important: "Monks are people who bunch together without knowing each other, live together without loving each other, and die without regretting each other." ~Voltaire, L'homme aux quarante ~cus, VIII, Oeuvres completes, xxxiv, Paris, 1829, 60). "The love of God serves them as an excuse to love no one; they do not even love one another. Has anyone ever observed rea] friendship among the devout? But the more they detach themselves from men, the more they demand of men; and one could say that they do not raise themselves to God except to exercise his authority on the earth." (J.-J. Rousseau, Nouve~le Hdloise 6th Part, Letter 8). 26 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN the cenobitic life, St. Pachomius and St. Basil, expressly defended the primacy of this life over the anchoritic life on the basis of the fraternal charity and mutual edification (one of the great values in the Gospels) for which it gives the opportunity.~'~ One of the essential articles of the religious life is the achievement of a true fraternal relationship, the condition, complement, and fruit of a true relationship with God. If the Christian is an eschatological man because he is a fellow citizen with the saints, a member of the house of God (Eph 2:19), the monk is all the more truly a Christian. "But our citizenship is in heaven.''24 This is :said and it is true of all the people of God, for they are a people in exile journeying towards their fatherland. We have already received the pledge of the Spirit, the first fruits of our inheritance,2'' but only the pledge and the first fruits. We still live here below subject to the slavery of the flesh and the oppression of the devil, whom our Savior ~calls "the .Prince of this world"; all creation, subject to vanity, groans in the labor of its childbirth hoping for the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rm 8:19-23). The citizens of the heavenly city are, in this life, in the situa-tion of a people occupied by an enemy power. There are those who adjust themselves to it, there are even those who compromise and "collaborate." There are many who do not accept the enemy power, and in the midst of external conditions of servitude, they assert as far as they can their loyalty to their homeland. But some go farther and resist. They escape to the outskirts. There at least they advance With great labor the hour of liberation, they live already a life of liberty and they prepare for everyone the coming of the liberator. If the Church is like the outskirts of the world,'-'~ religious life is so in a more decided way. Religious have left their homes, their parents, their fields, the comforts of normal life, to be unburdened, free to serve the King of the Heavens. They are, by a more meaningful title, the first fruits of the new creation.~7 ~:~See H. Leclercq, "C~nobitisme," in Dictionnaire d'archdologie chrdtienne, II, 2, 3047-3248; 3093 is concerned with Saint Pachomius and 3149-50 with Saint Basil. See also Vie de Pach6me, cc. 3 and 4 in R. Draguet's Les P~res du ddsert (Paris, 1949), 90 ff., and Saint Basil, Regulae fusius tractatae, cc. 7 and 25-31 (Patrologia Graeca, 31,928 and 984 ft'.) and his Letter 295 (Patro-logia Graeca, 32, 1037). See also 0. Rousseau, Monachisme et vie religieuse d'apr~s l'ancienne tradition de l'Eglise (Chevetogne, 1957), 80 ff. 24Phil 3:20; Heb 11:13-16. ~SSee 2 Cor 1:12; Rom 8:1-30; Eph 1:14o ~See Yves M. J. Congar, Lay People in the Church (Westminster, 1957), 101. ~TSee Apoc 14:4, "the first fruits for God and for the Lamb." This idea of 27 YVES M.-J. COUGAR Review for Religious Each religious profession is like a guerilla victory by which the power of the occupying forces is checked; and without doubt Christ contemplates it with the sentiments which he expressed when the seventy-two disciples returned from their mission full of joy that the demons had given way before them: "I was watching Satan fall as lightning from heaven" (Lk 10:18). This idea of the religious life as an eschatological life~8 is fre-quently expressed in monastic tradition by the theme of the angelic life.2~ It is a perfectly valid theme. Whether one actually looks at the religious life under the aspect of virginity or under that of the spiritual marriage, which is fundamentally the same thing, or under the aspect of the perpetual praise of God (see in particular E: Peterson), or under that of the anticipation as far as possible of heavenly life, life in the presence of God, and even if one looks at this life in the details of asceticism such as vigils or fasting -- under all these aspects of religious life the theme of the angelic life is authentic, and we wish in no way to exclude it. We are convinced,, nevertheless, that certain expressions can be very dangerous and ought to be criticized in the name of biblical and Christian truth2° Historically these expressions have been somewhat distorted by influences coming from two areas: first, the assumption, without~ a critical attitude sufficiently inspired by the biblical point of view, of certain Platonic and Pythagorean ideas, in particular the idea that man consists of a soul, that the body is a tomb (a~/~a-~l/~a) from which one should free himself as much as possible with the result that perfection is made to consist in the contemplation (Oe¢op;~) of eternal, transcendent truths; second, the development of a wholly speculative theory concerning Adam and the state of paradise. We know how St. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, transposed, the final liberation from the oppo-the first fruits is especially emphasized by Dom Emmanuel von Severus, "Zu den bibiischen Grundlagen des MSnchtums," in Geist und Leben, 26 (1953), 113-22'; see also the same periodical, 27 (1954), 414 ff. -°SThis idea is developed in D. Thalhammer, S.J., Jenseitige Menschen. Eine Deutung des Ordensstandes, 2nd ed. (Freiburg, 1952); in J. Leclercq, La vie parfaite (Turnhout, 1948); in L. Bouyer, The Meaning of the Monastic Life (New York, 1955); and in O. Rousseau, op. cir. (footnote 23). ~Wexts on this are innumerable. The principal ones can be found in the works listed in the preceding note, to which the following may be added: E. Peterson, Le livre des anges (Paris, 1954); A. Lamy, "Bios angelikos," in Dieu vivant, n. 7 (1946), 59-77; J. C. Didier, " 'Angdlisme' ou perspectives eschatologiques?" in M~langes de science retigieuse, 11 (1954), 31-48; U. Ranke-Heinemann, "Zum Ideal der vita angelica im fr~ihen MSnchtum," in Geist und Leben, 29 (1956), 347-57; Emmanuel yon Severus, "Bios aggetikos," in Die Engel in der Welt yon heute, 1957, 56-70. 3°I hope to treat this problem later and on a larger scale with the needed precisions and justifications. 28 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN sition of the sexes (above, note 18) into the creative intention and held that sex had been a ~stranger to the nature of man as God had, or would have conceived of him, if He had not known ia advance that man would sin.'~ The result of this double influence, with which other factors certainly have concurred, has been not so much perhaps to give an orientation toward the recovery of a lost state of perfection, which is an eschatological expectation present in the New Testament; it has been rather to superimpose on (and perhaps to substitute for) the duality between this world and the other which is to come as the fruit of Christ's Passover, a duality between this earthly, bodily world and a celestial, in-corporeal world which is to be imitated as closely as. possible. But is the Christian ideal to be found in the condescension of God who for love entered human history as a suffering servant? Or is it instead an angelic perfection, situated in an ideal world of the spirit toward which the soul must elevate itself by certain degrees of ascension and sublimation thereby withdrawing itself progres-sively from the sensible world? We may well fear lest spirituality seek its place between heaven and earth and turn away from the history of the world and the commitment to be a savior to men's miseries, meanwhile adjusting itself to a theocracy in which the idea of subordination of body to soul ambiguously expresses itself as a basically political program of subjection of the "temporal" to the "spiritual." We find something of this, it seems, in the history of Citeaux at the height of its prosperity. At that very time the "They will be like the angels" (Lk 20:36; Mt 22:30) is transposed from eschatology to the condition of monks on the earth, something which had been completely avoided, for example, by St. Augustine2: But, on the other hand, for St. Bernard, the mysticism of that angelic life which can bear such doubtful fruits as we have just mentioned is balanced by an ardent mysticism of Christ in his humanity and of the imitation of Christ. What is important is to see, as St. Therese of Lisieux very brilliantly saw it and acted on it,'~'~ that the perfection of love con- 3*See De opificio hominis, cc. 16-17 (Patrologia Graeca, 46, 181 and 188-92). On the very subtle thought of Gregory see the Introduction of P. J. Laplace to La crdation de l'homme [Paris, 1943). St. Thomas criticizes this position in Summa Theologiae, 1, 98, 2. 3~See "Eglise et Cit~ de Dieu chez quelques auteurs cisterciens h l'~poque des Croisades," in Mdlanges Etienne Gilson [Paris, 1959) and "Henri de Marcy, abb~ de Clairvaux, cardinal-dv~que d'Albano et l~gat pontifical," in Analecta Monastica, 5 (Rome, 1958). 33See the studies of A. Combes [for example, his Saint Therese and Her Mission INew York, 1955]) and Ft. Heer, "Die Heilige des Atomzeitalters," in Sprechen wir yon der Wirklichkeit (Nuremberg, 1955), 177 ft. From the 29 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious sists essentially not in the ascending movements of an increasing spiritualization, but in a descent by the paths and the steps of humble service to the point of emptying oneselfi34 One must come to the cross where the salvation of the world is worked out and where, by losing ourselves, we work out our own salvation also. This is scriptural and it is Christian, more .scriptural and more Christian than the theme of the angelic life, traditional and valid though it may be under the conditions which have just been detailed. This angelic theme is a monastic theme. Many modern con-gregations, as they are called, have little or no contact with the great sources of monastic spirituality. They are not, for all that, safe from missteps analogous to those which the theme of the angelic life risks causing. The spirituality proposed in these con-gregations, in so far as it is legitimate to reduce it to a common denominator, is largely inspired by Jesuit authors (Rodriguez) and by the spirituality of the French school, the great French moralists and preachers of the "Great Century." But these sources, valuable certainly and even powerful as inspirers of the true Christian life, seem to bear the mark of the two following influences: first, a certain stoic influence, of which Guillaume du Vair would be a particularly representative example35 (we do not mention him for any other reason and certainly not as one of the sources). This stoic influence, diffuse as it may be, is not negligible. Many mod-ern spiritual programs depend rather largely on Christian stoicism. Second: even the great spiritual men of the French school betray the orientation of the moralist, an insistence on those themes which aim to make man conscious of his baseness and his malice, an insistence on the theme of original sin and its consequences, on the wickedness of the world and of all its aims2~ It seems that this is far from the theme of the angelic life; but the two rejoin in certain eventual consequences. There are fruitful considerations in literary viewpoint see von Balthasar, Le chr~tien Bernanos, pp. 156, 160-61, 264 ff., 457-77, 484. '~4Phil 2:7. ~See F. Strowski, Histoire du sentiment religieux en France au xvii" si~cle, I (Paris, 1910), 18-125; and P. Mesnard, "Du Vair et le N6o-stoicisme," in Revue d'histoire de la philosophie, April, 1928, 142-66. Du Vair begins from original sin and the feelings of penance to arrive at a "life in God" by passing through the practice of the cardinal virtues. ~"Some remarks concerning the influence of this spirituality on the con-gregations of teaching religious may be found in J. G. Lawler, The Christian Imagination: Studies in Religious Thought (Westminster, 1955), 38 ft. It is also necessary here to refer to the Imitation of Christ with its moralistic and individualistic perspective of the opposition between the movements of grace and the movements of nature. 3O January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN all these areas, but scriptural monotheism implies another set of values, more thoroughly oriented toward life, toward history, toward the cosmic theme of salvation. The religious life, and more especially the religious life of women, realizes with a particular intensity and purity the voca-tion of the Church to be the Virgin Spouse of the Lord and thus to become spiritually a mother. The application to the Church of these three inseparable themes: virgin, spouse, mother, whose biblical sources are not only abundant, but situated at the heart of the economy of salvation, is frequent in Christian tradition27 To wish to compare them with themes more or less verbally analogous which have been gathered from the history of religions would be to close one's mind to this. Pagan religions are nature religions which transfer to so-called transcendent persons the relationships and needs of men. They sexualise the divinity. The God of biblical revelation is in no way sexualised; He is the living God who unites men to Himself by faith. The whole relationship of alliance and of union which He establishes with man consists in the spiritual relation of faith, and faith includes a total gift, and therefore is not fully realized except by love: "I will espouse thee to me for-ever: and I will espouse thee to me in justice and judgment and in mercy and in commiserations. And I will espouse thee to me in faith" (Hos 2:19-20). That which creates between God and our-selves, between the Church and God, a marital relation is nothing other than this completely spiritual communication in faith. But this communication supposes in us the sole response of a total giving, of receptivity to the coming of God: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word." So faith is the point of contact for an exchange of fidelity. "I will be your God and you will be my people." And therefore it is a point at which a relation of alliance is achieved, a marital union which is at the same time altogether virginal. It is altogether virginal be-cause the union is spiritual. It consists in nothing else than fidelity itself and is preserved by maintaining this fidelity, that is to say, by its very chastity. It is altogether virginal also because in this relationship of faith nothing which comes from the outside or from ~TThe bibliography is abundant; we will cite only the following: S. Tromp, "Ecclesia Sponsa, Virgo, Mater," in Gregorianum, 18 (1937), 3-29; O. Casel, "Die Kirche als Braut Christi nach Schrift, V~itern, und Liturgie," in The-ologie der Zeit, 1936, 91-111; CI. Chavasse, The Bride o] Christ: An Enquiry into the Nuptial Element in Early Christianity (London, 1940); J. C. Plumpe, Mater Ecclesia: An Inquiry into the Concept of the Church as Mother in Early Christianity (Washington, 1943); AI. Mfiller, Ecclesia-Maria: Die Einheit Marias und der Kirche (Fribourg, 1951); H. Rahner as cited above, n. 5. 31 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious that which is lower enters in, nothing which breaks or mars its integrity. There is nothing of earthly eros here. Motherhood or fruitfulness comes to this virginal and marital union as its fulfillment. The fathers say and repeat that the Church (or the soul) becomes a virgin spouse by faith, and that she also becomes a mother by faith: virgin spouse by believing, mother by communicating the faith, by engendering men in faith. Again, the relationship is altogether spiritual. It consists in faith and this is why it is superior to every kind of carnal kinship2s Precisely because of this, the vocation of the Church to be both virginal spouse and virginal mother is achieved in all the members in proportion to their fervor. For, according to a theme equally familiar to the fathers and to spiritual authors, every soul is the Church. Nevertheless in so far as God is not fully "all in all" (1 Cor 15:28), the difference between man and woman exists not only as a reality of the world, but projects itself and intervenes in a certain manner in the body of Christ which is the Church. So there exist certain differences in the manner in which men and women exercise the spiritual motherhood of the Church. The priesthood, since it is a position of external authority, is reserved to the man. But this relates to the Church under her aspect as means of grace, and therefore does not touch the religious life. as such. In its external activity a religious institute can just as well exercise apostolic functions which also relate to the Church as means of grace and represent an explicit cooperation with the action of the hierarchy where the motherhood of the Church is achieved. But the religious life as such, the religious life purely and simply, belongs rather to the Church as eschatological realiza-tion of holiness. This devotes it to being the locus of a very pure and altogether spiritual realization of the twofold relationship of virginal marriage and of motherhood. All this is particularly true in the life of women religious be-cause woman is more a being of receptivity and of self-giving: because when she gives herself, and above all whe~ she gives her-self in the integrity of her heart and of her body, she gives herself in a more intense way, a more complete and irrevocable way than man; because having fewer exterior activities and acting less out of duty and more from her heart, she makes good with her fervor that which would have been lost to her in action. For all these ~Read in this sense Mt 12:48-50 (=Mk 3:33-35; Lk 8:21); Lk 11:28. In .the same way St. Paul calls those his brothers of whom he says that he has engendered them and is their father. See above, n. 18. 32 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN reasons religious women, consecrated virgins, play a choice role in the mystery of the Church as virgin spouse of the Lord. They play also their wonderful part in the Church's spiritual motherhood. It is extremely remarkable that this doctrine was recalled to us in a very striking way precisely in a religious woman, Therese of the Child Jesus, who having entered Carmel at the age of sixteen, having died at twenty-four, and having remained unknown by the world during her life, has become not only officially but really the patroness of all Catholic missions2'~ She became all this and remains all this solely in the order of the Communion of Saints. According to St. Augustine, it is pre-cisely the Church as a union of love and a communion of saints which exercises spiritual motherhood.4° And so without exterior activity we can in our prayer and in our laborious efforts at con-version (our penances) include intentions for other men and for all the world's miserable; and we can bear them in the womb of love which is the Church's heart of prayer and charity. It is a part of tradition also that in the Church the strong support the weak (there is no question at all here of any other strength than that which comes from God in faith). This spiritual motherhood is a very profound characteristic of the Church: we believe in the Com-munion of Saints. But experience comes frequently to the aid of our weakness of faith. Who has not appealed to this strength? Who would not be able to bear witness to its reality? The Role of the Religious Woman in the Church as a Sign St. Paul says, "We have been made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men" (1 Cor 4:9). The Church gives a visible body to spiritual gifts. So, for example, the gift of unity in Christ which has been given her becomes the "note" of unity; and that of sanctification by the Holy Spirit, the "note" of holiness. Of all these notes that of holiness is the most insistent; it is'the most efficacious also as a witness to men that the Kingdom of God draws near and calls them. It is also the most directly meaningful note because from the fact of holiness to the presence of God the inference is direct and within the grasp of all. And in this mani- 3~See above, n. 33. Pius XII said that contemplative institutes are "fully and completely apostolic," Sponsa Christi, November 21, 1950 (Acta Apos-tolicae Sedis, 43 [1951], 14). See also the letter to Cardinal Piazza of June 29, 1955, (Acta Apostoltcae Sedis, 47 [~9551, 543). 4°See for example De sancta virginitate, cc. 3 and 5 (Patrologia Latina, 40, 398-99); Sermo Denis, 25, 7 (edition by G. Morin, 162-63); Sermo 215, 4 (Patrologia Latina, 38, 1074). 33 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious festation of holiness which the Church constitutes throughout the course of history, the various expressions of religious life occupy a choice place.4~ Religious communities are living parables for men of the Kingdom of God. If we begin our consideration of this by treating what is more external in religious life, its institutions appear to us first of all as the freest and most genuine expressions of the spirit of the Church on the plane of her social manifestations. We know that the Church is an original institution put into the world by God; she proceeds from spiritual energies which come from above (Mr 16:17-18). But as this divine institution is made up of men and has a historical, terrestrial existence, she projects herself and expresses herself in creations equally historical in which, nevertheless, she injects the inspiration and the mark of her own proper genius. It would not be difficult and it would be extremely interesting to show how this special genius has from the beginning inspired institutions which are essentially communal, and at the same time respectful of the person and of his liberty, and marked with the character of service. There is truly a special Christian genius at the level of social creations.~- The religious life is perhaps the most pure and most represen-tative creation of the spirit of the Church in this area of social realities. It is not in vain that she has always loved to compare herself with the model of the first community of Jerusalem. It is marvelous to see how on the collective and judicial plane religious rules and canon law have known how to translate into institutions and laws thecommands and the inspirations of the Gospel. As a result, the institutions of religious life, just as in a certain degree the canonical life of the Church herself, become a kind of preach-ing of and witnessing to the Gospel. It is no mere coincidence that it is always the same men who fail to recognize the existence of divine positive law in the world, who deny to the Church the quality of being an institution of divine law, and who misjudge, attack, and seek to thwart or sup-press religious life. One thinks of Josephinism, of Jacobinism, of our own French laicism in its virulent form. So the religious life is not only a sign of the heavenly kingdom; it is also, along with the 4XSee Cardinal Dechamps, Entretiens, in Oeuvres, I, 467 ft.; Dora Gr~a, De l'Eglise et de sa divine constitution, II (Paris, 1907), 152. Vernon Johnson was converted by the fact of Therese of Lisieux. 42Chateaubriand and even Montalembert are dated. But there are more recent and more technical studies: E. Chenon, Le rSle social de l'Eglise and the six volumes of the Carlyle brothers, A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West. 34 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN sacraments and the hierarchy, a sign of the Church as a separated order, a social and public reality placed ,in the world in virtue of the right God has to affirm and to establish his reign.43 In a world which wishes to be completely autonomous, religious life, situated at the heart of the Church's garden, presents the example of a life totally "theonomous." But it is common, it is normal, that signs should be, according to the dispositions of those to whom they are shown, a call to conversion or a sign of contradiction, a sign of opposition. They can also be, even for well-disposed men, signs which scandalize if they become sign~ that lie, or signs that are simply inadequate for their mission and their aims. There is also, in the religious life, and we think particularly of the religious life of women, a human element -- sometimes too human, sometimes not human enough! Pettiness, legalism, authoritarianism, pharisaism, the spirit of ownership, hardness of heart, lack of fraternal com-munion and failure to share human misery, taste for power, a judaic spirit in the way of considering observances, especially the least important ones, precisely those from which the Gospel has liberated us. Among the causes which brought on the death of Christianity, the betrayal of their true spirit in the last centuries of the Middle Ages by a number of monastic and religious insti-tutions has justly been noted.4~ When it is authentic, the religious life is a sign that the spiritual exists. Heaven exists, and that takes the value out of the the goods and the joys of earth. Not that they are not truly goods, truly joys, but they are so relative! For "this world as we see it is passing away" (1 Cor 7:31). The religious life proposes, without the noise of words, the message of death which the Church addresses to the world, not a sorrowful message -- who is more joyful than the religious man, if not the religious woman? -- but a serious and an important one. Again, the religious life verifies in a singular manner the essence of all Christian life, which is an Easter life, a mystery of life and of death, comprehended within the message of 4'~In this connection I recall the beautiful text of A. Lamy, "Bios angelikos," in Dieu vivant, n. 7, 76: "The function of monachism in the Church seems to be to affirm the citizenship of the Christian in the city of the angels arid to affirm his rights there by the exercise of them." Religious life is one ele-ment of the eschatological right which the Church affirms and translates into the world. On this basis it could be said that religious life is of divine right, not in its various historical forms, but in its essential principle. It flows from the transcendence of the Church with respect to the world and from the right possessed by every Christian to leave the world and to thus affirm his eschatological and spiritual royalty. ~See Fr. Heer, "L'h~ritage Europe," in Dieu vivant, n. 27 (1954), 43. 35 Yvzs M.-J. CO~AR Review for Religious Ash Wednesday, "Remember that you are dust and that you will return to dust" and that of Easter Day, "Remember that you are spirit and that you will return to the Spirit." The religious life, by its mere existence, is a witness to the world that God exists; it calls the world to the obedience of faith. On either side of the chancel which closes in the choir at the abbey of Maria Laach one may read these words of St. Paul:" "I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk in a worthy manner" (Eph 4:1). The religious life, therefore, has its part in the great kerygmatic function of the Church, that is, in its .lifelong exercise of the mis-sion of announcing the Good News of the Kingdom. It is like a lasting sermon against the spirit of the world. Against its freedom-worshipping and anarchical taste for liberty, religious life affirms that one can bind himself to God, that one can, in the Holy Spirit, make a spiritual thing out of that which is corporeal, and make something stable out of that which changes. Against the world's obsessive defeatism before the evil which it inflicts on itself, the religious life affirms that one can conquer the flesh and push back the empire of the devil. Finally if it is true that the very word ecclesia means con-vocation, a gathering of men in response to a call, the cal! of the Kingdom of God, the religious life situates itself at the very source of the mystery of the Church. For the religious life is, both in its substance as well as in the first act which draws one to enter into it, a total listening to God. It is a reality in the image of Mary, Mary herself being, we know, the type, and even better than the type: the perfect personification of the Church as holiness. It is possible to think that in the wide sense everything is a vocation, because everything is a response to the will of God. But there are vocations in the strict sense, and it is correct to speak of "religious vocation." In the Church, as we have seen, the strong support the weakest; docility in the following of that which is strictly a voca-tion is like a compelling example, a sign and a support for the difficult fidelity to vocations in their larger acceptation. The abso-luteness of the response of religious women to their call supports the response of all others. It is necessary that religious women know that they contribute in this way to the continuation of the whole Church, somewhat as each star in the firmament is necessary for the balance of the whole. Spiritually we all have family respon-sibilities. A last remark of some importance ecclesiologically on the subject of the religious life as a response to a special call. In the 36 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN beginnings of Christianity, baptism ratified a personal choice, an eventually dangerous one, of the faith. It was the term of a con-version. It was truly a second birth, not only in the dogmatic sense which is always true, but in the moral sense and on the psycho-logical plane. Psychologists distinguish, since Francis W. New-man, 4~ the "once born" and the "twice born": those who are simply what they were at their entrance into the world plus the results of their being" formed by it; and those who have known a revela-tion, had a decisive ~xperience, heard a call, and are truly, per-sonally, born a second time. A man baptised at the termination of a personal conversion is, psychologically and morally, a "twice born." But, in the general practice, almost universal and one might even say automatic practice of baptism of the newly born, the Church is no longer made up of the twice born except by way of exception. But it is necessary that their moral race always be represented in her midst. She is "twice born" individually by the more or less large number of faithful who are truly born of a second birth. She is "twice born" institutionally especially because of the religious life. Moreover, historically the fact has often been brought out46 that the monastic life developed at the moment when, with the end of persecution and danger and the beginning of the favor of the powerful, large masses of people entered the Church, en-dangering the strength of her leaven. The vocation to asceticism has after a fashion taken the place of the vocation to martyrdom; monks have in a way taken over the status of the martyrs as signs of an absolute response given to an absolute call. The Church's religious life always has this mission of signifying that the Christian life is a second birth whose principle is a call. We will not treat here -- we have already done it briefly elsewhere47 -- an interesting problem, but more theoretical than practical, which was posed by the researches of M. Weber and E. Troeltsch. According to these Protestant authors, religious orders answer within the Church to the needs and the religious tempera-ment which outside the Church produces sects. These would be, sociologically speaking, of the "sect" type, not of the "church" type in so far as they are groupings, first, of volunteers, men who 4~The Soul. Its Sorrows and Its Aspirations. 3rd ed., 1852, 89 ft. 4GFor example, see M. Viller, "Martyre et perfection," in Revue d'ascd-tique et mystique, 6 (1925), 4-25; L. Bouyer, op. cit. n. 28, 89 ft. and his Vie de saint Antoine (Fontenelle, 1950); J. Winandy, Ambroise Autpert, moine et thdologien (Paris, 1953), 56; Ed. E. Malone, The Monk and the Martyr: The Monk as the Successor of the Martyr (Washington, 1950). 47Vraie et [ausse r~/orme dans l'Eglise (Paris, 1950), 288-92 (includes bibli-ography). 37 YVES M.-J. CONGAR Review for Religious come together in a group on the basis of a personal decision and who thus do not presuppose the existence of the group but con-stitute it; second, men who have achieved a break with the world and prefer the Gospel's opposition to terrestrial life to its universal-ism which necessarily involves compromise. Troeltsch sees in religious orders an ecclesiastical naturalization of tendencies which outside the Church result in sects. There is much truth in the analysis of Troeltsch, but only on its own psycho-sociological plane. Both above and below this level it errs. Without prejudice to other of his well made points, we be-lieve we have shown from the inside, that is to say from the view-point of the Church herself, that it is the mystery of the Church which is found to be the essential element in the life of religious orders and of each of their members. By way of conclusion, we would like to answer a question which it is impossible not to put in the context of what we have been considering. Is the religious life or is it not of the essence of the Church, and if it is, by what title? Papal teaching furnishes an answer and it will suffice merely to present it and explain it. Faced with "Americanism," Leo XIII already affirmed that religious orders are of great importance to the mission of the Church.48 But it was necessary to connect their existence with the end of the Church. The Church would not fully fulfill her mission if the institutions of religious life were lacking. If the end of the "missions," in the strict canonical sense of the word, is to "plant the Church" in such a way that she has in a given country or among a given people all her essential institutions, all the means of existence and of action, one understands why Pius XI demanded that on the missions as many religious orders and congregations as possible should be instituted, and that they should be made up of indigenous elements created in new and better forms, where the need for such arose29 His Holiness Pius XII made the matter still clearer in the constitution Provida mater of February 2, 1947, the charter of secular instutes. The two states of cleric and layman, he said, exist by divine right and are necessary to the Church in so far as she is a society constituted and structured hierarchically; they pertain to the essential structure (to the building) of the Kingdom of God 4sSee his letter Testern benevolentiae to Cardinal Gibbons, January 22, 1899, in Actes de Ldon XIII (Paris: Bonne Presse), V, 322-25; also the letter of December 23, 1900 to Cardinal Richard, ibid., VI, 188-89. ~gSee the encylical Rerurn Ecclesiae of February, 1926, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 18 (1926), 74. 38 January, 1960 THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN on earth.5° The Church recognizes a third state, the religious state, which is common to the two preceding states, since it includes members of the faithful who, canonically, belong to the clerical or to the lay state; this religious state is bound by a strict and peculiar relationship to the end of the Church, sanctification.5~ One can say, then, that the religious state is not essential to the Church considered in her formal elements or in her static constitutives. A bishop and faithful suffice for a Church. From this comes the well-known definition of St. Cyprian, "A people one with its priest and a flock adhering to its shepherd, these are the Church.''~ Nevertheless, as soon as the Church lives she exercises the activities for which she was put into the world. These are the activities of the sanctification of men, that is to say, of their sub-mission to the Kingdom of God and, by that fact, of their entry into her communion. Here it is that the religious life steps in as the social form of existence most strictly conformed to the needs and the conditions of the Kingdom of God. And the religious life was first seen historically under the form of the institution of con° secrated virgins. Evidently, looked at in one or other of its par-ticular forms, religious life is a creation of the Church and stands out in her history. But, looked upon in principle, that is to say as the call to live only for God and for His kingdom, it holds a place at the very heart of the Church. In her quality as bride of Christ, it is included in the obligations and the laws of holiness which this Church pursues as her proper end. ~°Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 39 (1947), 116. In his al]ocution Annus sacer, the Holy Father, citing canon 107, said that "on earth the structure of the Kingdom of God consists of a double element" (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 43 [1951], 27). ~See Provida Mater Ecclesiae and also Annus sacer, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 43 (1951), 28: "[The religious state] exists and is important, because it is closely connected to the proper end of the Church which is to lead men to the attainment of sanctity." ~2Epistula 66, 8 (Hartel's edition, p. 732; Patrologia Latina, 4, 406 where it is listed, however, as Epistle 69). 39 Survey of Roman Documents R. F. Smith, S. J. THIS ARTICLE will provide a summary of the documents which appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS) during August and Sep-tember, 1959. Throughout the article all page references will be to the 1959 AAS (v. 51). Encyclical on the Priesthood On August 1, 1959 (AAS, pp. 545479), Pope John XXIII issued the second encyclical of his pontificate. The encyclical was entitled Sacerdotii Nostri primordia (The First Days of Our Priesthood); oc-casioned by the Pontiff's desire to honor the hundredth anniversary of the death of St. John Vianney, Cur~ of Ars, the document is devoted to a consideration of the priesthood as exemplified in the life of the saint. The introductory paragraphs recall the temporal links between the official glorification of St. John and the Pontiff's own priesthood: the future saint was beatified shortly after the Pope's own ordination to the priesthood; the first bishop the Pope served, Bishop Radini- Tadeschi, was consecrated on the day of the beatification; and the Pope received the fullness of the priesthood in the year (1925) when the Cur~ of Ars was declared a saint. The Holy Father then lists the great papal documents on the priesthood that have appeared during the present century: Pius X's Haerent animo (Acta Pii X, 4, 237-64); Plus XI's Ad catholici sacerdotii fastigium (AAS, 28 ~19361, 5-53); Pius XII's Menti Nostrae (AAS, 42 [1950], 657-702); and the same Pontiff's three allocutions on the priesthood inspired by the canonization of Plus X (AAS, 46 119541, 313-17; 666-77). To these documents the Pope has now added his own in the hope that it may aid priests to preserve and increase that divine friendship which is at once the joy and strength of the priestly life. In expressing the purpose of the encyclical the Vicar of Christ remarked that he intended to retrace the chief traits of the holiness of the Cur~ of Ars, since these emphasize those aspects of the priestly life which, while always essential, are today so vital that the Pontiff has deemed it his apostolic duty to call attention to them. Priestly Asceticism and Mortification In the first of the three parts of the main body of the encyclical the Pope considered the priestly asceticism and mortification of the Cur~. To speak of the saint, he began, is to evoke the figure of an 4O ROMAN DOCUMENTS exceptionally mortified priest who for the love of God deprived himself of nourishment and sleep, practiced severe, penances, and exercised a heroic self-renouncement. His example, the Holy Father said, should recall to all the important place of the virtue of penance in the perfec-tion proper to the priesthood. While it is true that priests as such are not bound by divine law to the evangelical counsels, still this does not mean that the priest is less bound than religious to strive for evangelical perfection of life. Rather the accomplishment of the priestly functions "requires a greater interior sanctity than even the religious state does" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2-2, 184, 8, c). And if the evangelical counsels are not imposed on the priest by virtue of his clerical state, nevertheless they are offered to him, as to all Christians, as the safest road to the longed for goal of Christian perfection. The Cur~ of Ars, continued the Pope, is a model of evangelical poverty; he lived totally detached from the things of this world. Freed in this way from the bonds of material things, he could thereby be entirely open to all those who suffered and who flocked to him for solace. His disinterestedness made him especially attentive to the poor whom he treated with tenderness and respect, convinced that to con-temn the poor is to contemn God Himself. Priests, then, if they possess material things, should not cleave to them with cupidity; rather should they recall the directives of canon law (c. 1473) according to which what is left over from ecclesiastical benefices should be used in favor of the poor and of pious causes. The Pontiff, however, made it clear in the closing part of this section that he does not approve the abject poverty to which many priests in small towns and in the country are reduced, and he urged the faithful to cooperate with the bishops to see that the sacred ministers be not lacking in what is necessary for their daily sustenance. Turning to the second of the evangelical counsels, the Vicar of Christ then pointed out that all through his life the Cur~ was mortified in his body and that this was achieved by his constant and careful observance of chastity. His example, the Pope pointed out, is most necessary today; for in many places priests must live in an atmosphere of excessive license and pleasure. And at times they must live in such an atmosphere unsupported by the sympathetic understanding of the faithful they serve. In spite of these difficulties John XXIII called upon priests to show forth in their entire lives the splendor of the virtue of chastity, that noblest ornament of their sacred order, as Pius X called it. The chastity of the priest, he added, will not enclose him in a sterile egoism; for as the Cur~ of Ars himself once said: "The soul that is adorned with the virtue of chastity can not but love others; for such a person has found the source and origin of all love---God." The next component of the Cur~'s asceticism to be considered by the Holy Father was his obedience. The Pontiff emphasized that the 41 l~ F. SMtT~ Rewew for Rehgmus "I promise" of the Cur$'s ordination ceremony was the occasion of a permanent self-renouncement that lasted throughout forty years. From early youth the ardent desire of the Cur~ had been for solitude, and his pastoral responsibilities were a heavy burden preventing him from the fulfillment of this desire; many times he tried to be freed from his pastoral work but always remained obedient to the will of his bishop, convinced as he was of the Gospel phrase: "Whoever hears you, hears me" (Lk 10:16). The Vicar of Christ then expressed the hope that the priests of today would see in the Curg the grandeur of obedience and would recall the words of Pius XII: "Individual holiness as well as the efficacy of all apostolic work finds its solid foundation in constant obedience to the hierarchy." Accordingly priests should endeavor to develop in themselves the sense of the filial relationship by which they are united to Mother Church. Prayer and Devotion to the Eucharist In the second principal division of the document, John XXIII reflected on St. John as a model of prayer and of devotion to the Eu-charist. Prayer, he said, was as important in the saint's life as was penance and mortification. His love for prayer was shown in his long nightly vigils of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament; the tabernacle of his parish church became for him the center from which he drew the strength necessary for his own personal life and for the effectiveness of his apostolic endeavors. This example of the Cur6, the Vicar of Christ pointed out, is sorely needed by the priests of today; for they are keenly sensible of the effectiveness of action and hence easily tempted to a dangerous activism. The Cur~ of Ars should convince priests everywhere that they must be men of prayer and that they can be such, no matter how heavy the press of apostolic labors may at times become. The prayer of the Cur~, he continued, was especially a Eucharistic prayer; for nothing in the life of a priest can replace silent and prolonged prayer before the altar. Nor should it be forgotten that Eucharistic prayer in the fullest sense of the word is to be found in the sacrifice of the Mass. The celebration of the Mass is an essential part of the priestly life, for in what does the apostolate of the priest consist if not in the gathering together of the people of God around the altar? It is through the Mass that in one generation after another the mystical body of Christ that is the Church is built up. Moreover the entire sanctifica-tion of the priest must be modeled on the sacrifice he offers; the priest must make his own life a fitting sacrifice, a participation in the expiatory life of the Redeemer. It was for this reason that the Cur~ used to ob-serve that if priests lose the first fervor of their ordination it is because they do not celebrate piously and attentively. 42 January, 1960 ROMAN DOCUMENTS Pastoral Zeal In the third part of the encyclical the Vicar of Christ delineates the pastoral zeal of St. John Vianney. The Curg's life of asceticism, he observed, together with his life of prayer was the source from which flowed the effectiveness of his ministry; in him is verified once more the statement of Christ: "Without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). As a result, the Curg was a model shepherd of souls who knew his flock, protected it from danger, and led it with authority and wisdom. His example, the Pope continued, included three points of utmost import-ance. The first of these was his keen appreciation of his pastoral re-sponsibilities. From the beginning he conceived of his pastoral work in heroic fashion and expressed his attitude in one of his early prayers: "Grant, O God, that~ the people entrusted to me may be converted. For this I am prepared to suffer all the days of my life whatever You may wish." Following the example of apostles of all ages he saw in the cross the one great effective means of saving souls; so it was that he could advise a fellow priest who was disappointed in the results of his apostolic endeavors that prayer, supplications, sighs, and groans were insufficient unless there was added to them fastings, vigils, and bodily chastisement. Besides his general sense of his pastoral responsibilities the Curg manifested his pastoral zeal by his interest and care for preaching and catechizing. Up to the time of his death St. John never ceased to preach, to instruct, to denounce evil, and to lead souls towards God. This should remind today's priests, the Pope said, that everywhere and at all times they must be faithful to their duty of preaching; for, as Pius X insisted, no task of the priest is more important than this. And in their reflections upon their duty to teach, priests should remember that they preach more by their lives than by their words. The third element in the pastoral zeal of the Cur~ of Ars was, according to the encyclical, his work as confessor. It was this form of his ministry that became the real martyrdom of his life. His fifteen hours a day in the confessional would have been difficult in any case; but these were spent by a man already exhausted by fasting, penances, and infirmities. It can be said, the Pope continued, that the Cur~ lived for sinners; their conversion and sanctification was the aim of all his thoughts and of all his activities. Like the Cur~ priests must devote themselves to the work of the confessional, for it is there that the mercy of God meets and overcomes the malice of men. And they must set their people a good example in this matter by their own regular and fervent use of the sacrament of penance. In the conclusion to the encyclical the Pontiff expressed the desire that the centenary of the Curg may arouse in all priests a desire to accomplish their ministry and especially their own perfection as gen-erously as possible. No problem facing the Church today, he added, 43 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious can be solved without priests. As Plus X said: "To promote the King-dom of Christ throughout the world, nothing is more necessary than a holy clergy." Similarly St. John himself pointed out to his bishop: "If you wish to convert your diocese, you must make saints of all your priests." The Pontiff went on to urge the bishops of the world to make the care of their priests their first solicitude; he exhorted the faithful to pray for priests and to contribute to their sanctification; and he pleaded with Christian youth to reflect that "the harvest is great, but the harvesters are few" (Mt 9:37) and that entire peoples are today enduring a spiritual starvation far greater than any hunger of the body. Allocutions, Addresses, Messages On July 29, 1959 (AAS, pp. 586-89), the Holy Father addressed a congress of the blind and those interested in assisting the blind of the world. Pointing out to his audience that in Jesus' ministry of healing the first place was reserved for the blind, the Pontiff went on to deliver a message of hope to the blind of the world. They must remember, he began, that they have a suffering to offer up to God. In spite of all efforts to ease the lot of the blind, they will always be subject to dis-couragement, loneliness, and the weight of sorrow that blindness carries with it. Yet they must recall that according to the Apostle (Col 1:24) men must fill up what is lacking to Christ's passion and that in the redemptive plan the Lord has need of the daily offering of suffering on the part of the blind. The Vicar of Christ also pointed out that the blind have a definite mission to perform in this world, the mission of silent example that only one thing matters in this world: the love with which the will of God is accomplished. And he added that nothing on tbis earth is loss, as long as conformity with God's will is present. In the concluding part of his address the Pope recalled to his listeners that their goal is that of eternal life and that their journey thither is supported by the words of Christ: "Whoever follows me walks not in darkness, but has the light of life" (Jn 8:12). Blindness, he ended, can prepare those afflicted with it for the shining luminosity which will come in the next life from the glorified Christ. On August 20, 1959 (AAS, 639-41), the Pontiff radioed a message to the Second World Sodality Congress held at Newark, New Jersey. He told the sodalists that they were in the first ranks of the Church's army and stressed in their lives the role of their consecration to the Blessed Virgin, a consecration which of its nature includes the proposal to keep it throughout life. From this consecration, he continued, arises the desire to wish for nothing except what is pleasing to God and the resolution to strive by prayer, action, and example to serve the Church and to work for the eternal salvation of souls. On July 21, 1959 (AAS, pp. 584-85), the Holy Father delivered an allocution to the Prime Minister of Japan on the occasion of that 44 January, 1960 ROMAN DOCUMENTS dignitary's official visit to the Holy See. On August 16, 1959 (AAS, pp. 638o39), he delivered a radio message to the people of.Honduras on the occasion of the official consecration of their nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, telling them to strive to live in the grace of God, to preserve the sanctity of the family, and to maintain union and concord among themselves. On June 30, 1959 (AAS, p. 589), the Holy Father sent a written message to the Tenth World Boy Scout Jamboree held in the Philippine Islands. In the message he pointed out that the boy scout movement can produce admirable fruits in accordance with the ideals of Christian charity and universal brotherhood. Miscellaneous Documents By the apostolic letter, "Caritatis unitas," of May 4, 1959 (AAS, pp. 630-33), the Vicar of Christ approved the confederation of the various congregations of the Order of Canons Regular of St. Augustine. At the same time he also approved the general principles which are to govern the confederation and directed the members of the confedera-tion to draw up specific statutes for the confederation which should then be submitted to the Holy See for approval. A later apostolic letter, Salutiferos cruciatus Christi, dated July 1, 1959 (AAS, pp. 634-36), was directed to the Passionists. In the letter the Pontiff approved the revised form of the Passionists' constitutions and rules. He noted that the revision was undertaken in an effort to adapt the institute to the needs of the times and observed that in the revision the primary and fundamental characteristics of the institute had been reasserted, strengthened, and made more effective. On July 8, 1959 (AAS, pp. 592-93), the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued a decree approving the Office and Mass of St. Lawrence of Brindisi, confessor and doctor. The text of the Office, of the Oration of the Mass, and of the notices to be inserted into the martyrology is given in AAS, pp. 593-94. Another decree of the same Congregation was dated February 13, 1959 (AAS, pp. 590-92); this decree approved the introduction of the causes of the Servant of God Salvatore Lilli (1853-1895), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, and his companions, all of Whom were put to death in hatred of the faith. In the period under survey three documents of the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary appeared. Under the date of July 18, 1959 (AAS, pp. 595-96), the Penitentiary published the revised text of the act of dedi-cation to Christ the King as well as its attached indulgences. This document is given in full on pages 3 and 4 of the present issue of RE-VIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. On August 13, 1959 (AAS, pp. 655-56), the Penitentiary published the text of a prayer composed by the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities to be recited by semi-narians for their parents. Seminarians who devoutly and contritely recite the prayer for their parents may gain an indulgence of fifty 45 VIEWS, NEWS, PREVIEWS Review for Religious days; and once a month they may gain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions provided they have recited the prayer for a whole month. On the same date (AAS, p. 656), the Penitentiary announced that the faithful who in a church, a public oratory, or (in the case of those legitimately using it) a semi-public oratory privately perform the pious exercise commonly called the holy hour in memory of the passion, death, and ardent love of our Lord Jesus Christ may gain a plenary indulgence, if they have gone to confession, received Com-munion, and prayed for the intentions of the Holy Father. This new concession of an indulgence for this practice is not intended to abrogate the partial indulgence of ten years mentioned in the Enchiridion in-dulgentiarum (Manual of Indulgences), 1952 edition, n. 168. On May 18, 1959 (AAS, p. 647), the Sacred Consistorial Congrega-tion appointed Archbishop Concha of Bogot~ military vicar of Columbia. Views, News, Previews IN A PREVIOUS issue (Review for Religious, 18 [1959], 237), the beginning of a new quarterly, Jesus Caritas, was noted. Response to the new magazine, which is devoted to the spirituality of P~re de Foucauld, has been sufficient to warrant the continuation of its publi-cation. The latest issue has been that of September, 1959. The yearly subscription price has been set at $1.00; in Canada and the United States subscription orders should be sent to: Jesus Caritas 700 Irving Street, N.E. Washington 17, D. C. The first congress of the Confederation of Benedictine Congrega-tions to be held since the promulgation of the confederation's laws by Pius XII in 1952 took place during the latter part of September, 1959. At the congress Dom Benno Gut, Abbot of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, was elected Abbot Primate of the Confederation. The new primate was born on April 1, 1897, was professed in 1918, and ordained in 1921. After studies and a teaching career at Sant'Anselmo in Rome, he was elected abbot of Einsiedeln in 1947. The Cassinese Benedictine Congregation, largest of the fifteen included in the Benedictine Confederation, in a general chapter at Subiaco during October, 1959, elected Dom Celestino Gusi, Abbot of Manila, as the eleventh Abbot General of the congregation. The Graduate Department of Religious Education, Immaculate Heart College, 2021 North Western Avenue, Los Angeles 27, Cali- 46 January, 1960 VIEWS, NEWS, PREVIEWS fornia, announces a two-week course in canon law for religious superiors, which will grant two units of graduate credit. The course, conducted by the Reverend Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Maryland, will be open to major and local su-periors of all communities of sisters. It is scheduled for the afternoons of June 28 to July 9, 1960. The tuition is $32. The fourth course in the new program in ascetical theology, which is offered in the Graduate Department of Religious Education, Im-maculate Heart College, will be given by the Reverend Eugene Burke, C.S.P., professor of dogmatic theology at Catholic University of America, from July 11-15, 1960. The course is entitled "The Life of Grace and Growth of Virtue" and grants one unit of graduate credit. Sisters who did not apply for admission to the M.A. program when it began in October, 1959, may apply for admission now. Residence ac-commodations are available for the five-day course at Holy Spirit Retreat House in Los Angeles. All reservations must be made before June 1, 1960, and be accompanied by a ten-dollar deposit. Room and board is $20; tuition is $17.50. Inquiries should be directed to Sister Mary Thecla, I.H.M., Dean of the Graduate School, Immaculate Heart College. A new publication that should prove both interesting and important is the Seminary Newsletter, the first issue of which appeared in October, 1959: The Newsletter is issued by the Seminary Department of the National Catholic Educational Association and "is meant to be a clearinghouse of information about seminaries and seminary training, especially from the academic point of vigw; a clearinghouse of ideas, projects, and results of research." Included in the first issue of the Newsletter is an informative statistical report on Catholic seminaries in the United States. According to the report, during the academic year 1958-1959 there were 381 major and minor seminaries in the United States; of these 99 were diocesan institutions, the other 282 belonging to religious orders and congregations. The report notes "that 131 of the 381 seminaries in the United States have been founded since 1945; 108 since 1950. This means that 34% of the total number have been founded since World War II, 28% of them since 1950. It represents a 53 % increase in the number of seminaries since 1945 and a 40% increase since 1950." The report gives 38,503 as the total num-ber of young men studying for the priesthood in the United States. This number includes besides minor and major seminarians 2082 novices as well as 920 scholastics who have interrupted their seminary studies to teach. In REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 18 (1959), 304-05, Father Gallen discussed the quest~ion whether more American congregations are be- 47 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Rewew for Rehgmus coming pontifical and presented some statistics on the matter covering the years 1943 to 1957. A study of L'attivit~ della Santa Sede nel 1958 (The Activity of the Holy See in 1958), published in 1959 by the Vatican Polyglot Press gives data from the year 1958 on the same matter. According to the report of the Sacred Congregation of Religious that is given in the volume, during 1958, fifteen institutes received the decree of praise; two of these were in the United States: the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity (M.S.B.T.) of Philadelphia founded in 1916 and the Missionary Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity (M.S.SS.T.) of Washington founded in 1921. The Congregation also reported that during 1958 there were seventeen institutes which re-ceived the definitive approval of their constitutions; of these none was in the United States. The Congregation's report also contained informa-tion about secular institutes: two secular institutes were granted diocesan establishment, one received the decree of praise, and one, the decree of final approbation; none of these four was in the United States. During the same year the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith granted the decree of praise to one institute in Ireland and gave definitive approval to the Daughters of Mary of Uganda, Africa. It is interesting to note that this last institute is the first pontifical African institute for women. ( uestions and Answers IThe following answers are given by Father Joseph F. Gallen, S. J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland.] Our constitutions command the mistress to be with the novices always and, if she should be absent from the house, to learn on her return everything that happened during her absence. I do not think that any mistress has followed either injunction literally, but these two prescriptions have caused a highly exaggerated surveillance. Shouldn't the observance of both be tempered by intelligent prudence? Yes. The first injunction, that the mistress should be with the novices always, is in many constitutions, the second only in very few. The first injunction is also and unfortunately observed in many insti-tutes. This is an evidently false spiritual pedagogy. It simply does not work in any field of the development of character and it is unworthy of the religious state, which is a spontaneous, voluntary, and personal dedication of oneself to Christ. The fundamental purpose of the novice-ship is to give the novice a profound consciousness of God, not of the master or mistress. The novice is to be led to a convinced personal dedication of herself to God; her life is to be a personal committment, 48 January, 1960 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS not forced external observance; she is to be trained to think for herself, to personal decisions, and to a sense of responsibility and reliability. The noviceship should be a school that will equip the novice for the life she will actually have to live. She should be instructed and guided but allowed sufficient freedom of action; otherwise you will know what she appears to be but not what she is. She should be checked and corrected, and even more frequently than is commonly done; but this does not demand unceasing vigilance. The more a superior tries to see, the less he will learn. No superior has to try to see everything in order to learrL what he should know. I hazard the conjecture that reticence about interior matters increases in direct proportion to external observation. That the novice mistress or her assistant should be with the novices frequently is intelligent and prudent; that she should be with them always is simply destructive of the purpose intended. Only God. can see everything, and God as one's judge is not the motive of the religious life. The following quotation from a religious woman contains several thought-provoking observations. The principles for the formation of character in congregations are for the most part taken from a psychology of a distant past. This, in the case of women, only aimed at creating habits of will power, furnishing the mind with knowledge learnt by heart, and very little was done to appeal to the interest. They disregarded the education of the senses, any development of initiative and sense of responsibility and the deep needs of feelings. The new psychology seeks to develop the virtues and activities that they may adapt themselves and form personalities . Deeper problems lie in the change of the feminine way of living. In the depth of her being the woman is rather passive. In past centuries the life of a woman matched this interior disposition, but today matters have changed. Modern life forces woman to greater independent activity. She has had to take over responsible work both in private and public life. Her mode of living gets nearer to the masculine type, though at the expense of her individuality. (Sister Agnes, S.I-I.C., Religious Life Today, 162-63.) 2 Our constitutions do not mention at all the canonical requisites for a higher superior. You have already explained these partially. Will you please explain them fully? Canon 504 demands the three personal qualities listed below for the valid election or "appointment of any higher superior of men or women. Age is the only variable element among the three canonical requirements. All of these three impediments established in canon 504 are dispensable but only by the Holy See. The higher superiors in the sense of this canon are the abbot primate; abbot superior of a mon-astic congregation; the abbot .of an independent monastery, even if the monastery appertains to a monastic congregation; the mothers general and regional of federations and superioresses of monast

Issue 15.5 of the Review for Religious, 1956. ; Our New Business , ddress When we were preparing to publish the REVIEW, we arranged to have the College Press, in Topeka, do the printing and distribut-ing. For fifteen years the editors and the College Press have worked together in the closest h.armony. We have literally shared both heart'- 'aches and °joys. The heartaches were',mostly brought about by the difficulties of the war years: for example, as we published each num-ber we wondered how we would get enough paper for printing the next. The jo~,s consiste,d, am6ng other things, in getting the REVIEW out regularly and on time, despite the difficulties, and in the realiza-tion that this new apostolate for religious seemed to be appreciated. Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to REVIEW FOR REL~IGIOUS 3115 South Grand Boulevard St. Louis 18, Missouri This is our new business address During all these fifteen years, Mr. 3. W. O,rr, owner of the Col-lege Press, and his assistants, have given the REVIEW the best they had: and that was very good, indeed. But the time has come when we must make new publishing arrangements. The reason for this is purely an "act of God," as far as both the editors and the College Press are concerned. There has been no break in the harmony that has always characterized our collaboration. Fortunately for us, the publishing department of the Queen's Work has agreed to take over the publication of the REVIEW. Be-ginning with the next volume, the REVIEW will be printed and dis-tributed by the Queen's Work. Obviously, the new publishers can-not wait till the last deadline to begin making addresses and keeping records. For this reason, please note the announcement in the c~nter of this page and follow it exactly. The editors are deeply grateful to the College Press for past col-. laboration and to the Queen'~ Work for taking over the burden. 225 I=xclaus!:rat:ion and Seculariza!:ion Joseph F.°Gallen, S.J. I. EXCLAUSTRATION , 1. Definition. Aft indult of exclaustration is the permission to remain temporarily outside one's religious institute apart from obedi-ence, dependence, and vigilance of religious superiors either for a determined period of time or for the duration of the reason for which the indult was granted. The religious requests the indult and is not obliged to use it afterit has been granted. The petition is made throu~gh religious, superiors. Canon law does not demand the con-sent of superiors, but it is the practice of the Holy See to grant no indult to religious without having considered the opinion of superiors nor generally without their consent. It is difficult to obtain an in-dult of exclaustration from the Holy See when superiors are opposed. The Holy See d~cides whether the opposition of superiors is unreas-onable or unjust.1 The petition therefore should be accompanied by the opinion of the superior general, substantiated by pertinent reasons and facts, as to whether the indult should be granted. Local ordin-aries follow the same practice in granting indults of exclaustration to members of diocesan congregations. Exclaustration differs from a me/e absence outside any house of one's institute (c. 606, § 2), es-sentially because in a simple absence the religious remains subject to the obedience and vigilance of superiors. Authors commonly assert that the Holy See does not grant an in-dult of exclaustration to priests unless the petition'is accompanied by the attestation of a local ordinary that he will permit the priest to reside in his diocese during the exclaustration and at least to say Mass. ~ 2. Competent authority forexclaustration and secularization (c. 638). The competent authority is,the same for both exclaus-tration and secularization. In pontifical institutes~ whether orders or congregations', only the Holy See can grant such an indult. Either the Holy See or the local ordinary is competent for members of dio-cesan congregations, but in practice the indult is obtained from the latter. The competent local ordinary is the ordinary of the place where the religious is staying. The ordinary of the mother house is 1. Goyeneche, Quaestiones Canonicae, II, 124-25 2. Schaefer, De Religiosis, n. 1536, 5. 226 EXCLAUSTRATION AND SECULA.RIZATION competent only for religious staying within his diocese, not for those staying in. other dioceses.3 The competent ordinary therefore is the ordinary of the domicile or quasi-domicile of the religious, even if the latter is Outside either diocese at the time the indult is granted. A religious has a domicile in the diocese of the house to which he is assigned, a quasi-domicile in a diocese where he has licitly resided for the greater part of a year or has been or.dered to reside for the greater part of a year. The ordinary of the licit actual and real resi-' dence of a religious is also competent as long as such residence con-tinues and'the religious is within his diocese, i. e., of a diocese in which the religious has licitly resided for a week or at-, least for several days, since a place where one is staying is not confined in canon law to a domicile or quasi-domicile,4 An ordinary is probably competent with regard to any diocesan religious who is .actually licitly in his diocese at the moment the indult is granted, even if only momentarily and without any regard to the length of the stay, since this also is at least probably a canonical meaning of the place where one is staying.6 The apostolic delegate, possesses the following faculty for nuns: "To allow nuns in case of sickness or for other just and grave rea- ~sons to live outside the religious house for a time to be fixed at his prudent discretion, on condition, however, that they shal~ always have the association and assistance of their relatives by blood or mar-riage or of some other, respectable~woman, that they shall live at home and elsewhere a religious life free 'from the society of men, becomes virgins consecrated to God, and without prejudice to the prescription of canon 639.''~ 3. Sufficient reasons for exclaustration (c. 639). Since common life and subjection to superiors are highly essential elements of the religious state, serious and exceptional reasons are required for the granting of this indult. Those commonly given are a business un-dertaking, care of personal health, and care or support of one's par-ents when these things cannot be accomplished b~ a simple absence from the institute according to ~; 606, § 2~ Other reasons of equal or greater import will suffice. 4. Effects of an indult of exclaustration (c. 639). The effects 3. Code Comm., July 24, 1939; Bouscaren, Canon Law Di~est. II, 173. 4. CL'cc. 94, §§ 2-3; 162, § 1; 620: 1023, § 3; 1039, § 1: 1097, § 1, ~.2": 1563: 1787, § 1; 2385. 5. Cf. c. 94, §§ 2-3: Regatillo, lnterpretatio et lurisprudentia Codicis luris Canonici, 244-45: Michiels, Principia Generalia de Personis in Ecclesia, 210- 11 : 119: Normae Generales luris Canonici, II, 729-36. 6. Bouscaren, op. cir., I, 184; Vermeersch, Periodica, 12 (1924), 145-46. 227 JosEp~-I F. GRLLEN Reoieto for Religious are always the same, whether the indult is granted by the Holy See or a local ordinary. The latter cannot determine the effects of an indult granted by himself, since these are determined by c. 639. The exclaustrated religious remains a religious and a member of hi~ in-stitute. Therefore, he is free of no obligations and loses no rights except those expressly stated in law. The obligation of the vows continues during exclaustration. The obligation of chastity remains undhanged. Instead of being subject to the superiors of his institute, the exclaustrated religious is now subject, also in virtue of the vow of obedience, to the ordinary of the dibcese in which he is staying. The cession of the admihistration, disposition of the use and usufruct, and will that he had made in religion all remain in effect. Exclaus-tration does not change the norms for acquiring property, and the religious acquires property for the institute and for himself in the same way that he would if he were not exclaustrated. He is given implicit permission by the indult itself to acquire, administer, and use temporal goods insofar as these are necessary for his becoming sustenance and the purpose of the indult, e. g., the support of parents. He is obliged to avoid all superfluous expenses. The institute has no obligation from justice to support an exclaustrated religious but shbuld do so from charity insofar as he is hnable to support himself.7 The exclaustrated religious is held to all other obligations, i. e., the laws of the code on religious, the obligations of the Rule, con-stitutions, customs,, ordinances, and regulations of his institute in-sofar as these are compatible with his present state. He is therefore not held to incompatible obligations, which in general are those that depend on common life, e. g., silence, attendance at common exer-cises, inspection of correspondence. Compatible obligations, to which he is held, are, e. g., mental prayer, private recitation of the office, hearing of Mass, ~requenting the sacrament of penance, recitation of the rosary, examen of conscience, other prayers that can be said pri-vately, fast, and abstinence. He must put off the religious habit but may continue to wear any undergarments that appertain to the habit and the small habit, called the scapular, worn under the clothing by the tertiaries of some religious orders. Exclaustrated priests and clerics wear the dress of the diocesan clergy. For special reasons the local ordinary may permit an exclaustrated religious of a diocesan 7. Cf. Guti~rrez, Commentarlum Pro Religiosis, 36 (1955), 375; Schaefer, op. cit., n. 1535; Goyeneche, De Relioiosis, 196, note 19; Coronata, lnstitutiones luris Canonici, I, 840, note 4; Chdodi-Ciprotti, lus Canot~icura de Personis, n. 286; Berutti, De Religiosis, 327. 228 Seprernber, 1956 EXCLAUSTRATION ,AND SECULARIZATION congegation to wear the habit,s The Holy See, of course, may grant the same permission to a religious of a pontifical or diocesan insti-tute. The Holy See grants this permission when no scandal will ens,ue and provided the superior of the institute approves the request, espe-cially when the reason for the exclaustration is not caused by the re-ligious himself.9 During exclaustration the religious possesses neither active nor passive voice. He retains the merely spiritual privileges of his institute, e. g., indulgences. He follows the calendar and rite of his {nstitute in the recitation of the office and the same rite in saying Mass. He retains the privileged confessional faculties of his institute as also those of blessing objects. Heo is not deprived, of suffrages if he should die during exclaus~ration, since no law of the code divests him of this right acquired by profession.19 5, Return to the institute. Whe~i the definite time for which the indult was granted has expired or the reason for which it was given has ceased, the religious is ~o return without delay to his institute, unless an extension of the indult has been obtained from the'com-petent authority. The religious has the rights, to ret'urn before the expiration of the indult, and the institute is Obliged to receive him back. For just reasons his ,religious superiors may also recall him to the institute before the expiration of the indult. 6. Imposed exclaustration. A new form of exclaustration, not contained in the code, has been introduced in the recent practice of the Holy See. It is usually granted on the petition of superiors, whether the subject consents, .is opposed, or indifferent. The essen-tial characteristic of, this exclaustration is that it is imposed, is of obligation, is a precept of dwelling outside the institute. The rea-son is f.requently the good of the community, i. e., the conduct of the religious is a source of serious harm to the institute. Often the good of the subject also is intended, i. e., for his own good' the re-ligious sbould be e~claustrated. Typically specific cases are those of religious who are notably deficient in observance or obedience, who undermine and mi~chinate against government, and very difficult characters who do not merit dismissal but seriously disturb the p~ace of the community. These cases are stated to be of more frequent occurrence in institutes of women. Such reasons are often accom-panied by physical or mental maladies. The state of the religious in 8. Code Comm., Nov. 12, 1922; Bouscaren, op. cir., I, 326-27. 9. Larraona. Acta et Documenta Congressus lnternationalis 8uperiorissarum Gen-eraliurn, 265. 10. Creusen, Religious Men and Wom, en in the Codb, n. 334. 229 JOSEPH F. (3ALLEN Reolew for Religious imposed exclaustration is the same,as in 'the ordinary or voluntary exclaustration, but he may be placed under the vigilance of the local ordinary or his own religious superiors. The religious is obliged to work for his own support, but in this case the institute has a greater obligation i~n charity to support him insofar as he cannot do so him-self. Imposed exclaustration is not prescribed for any definite period of time, but it is not perpetual. It lasts as ldng as the.reasons and purpose persist in the judgment of the S. Congregation of Religious, and the rehg~ous may return and be receN:ed back into the institute only with the permission of the S. Congregation. A clerical religious in sacr,ed orders wh~ is to be exclaustrated in this manner may be received by a bishop but without any intention of future incardination. In this case the religious is in the same state as that of ordinary exclaustration. He is under the authority of the bishop, also in virtue of the vow of obedience, and he exercises the ministry under the authority of the bishop. Such a clerical religious may not have a bishop who is willing to receive him, but another ecclesiastical authority, e. g., a.religious superior of another institute, is willing to be answerable to the Holy See for at least his priest!y life. The religious is then permitted to say Mass in the religious or pious house under the responsibility of this superior. He remains under the authority~and vigilance of his own religious superiors. If ¯ neither a bishop nor other ecclesiastical authority is had, the Holy See does not ilnpose exclaustration on such a c]'erical religious except in a case of absolute necessity. If it is imposed, the exercise of any order or sacred ministry is fbrbidden; and the religious is under his own superiors with regard to his Christian, clerical, and religious life~n II. S~CULARIZATION 7. Definition and competent autboritO (cc. ,638, 640). Secu-larization is a departure from religion by which a subject is separ-ated completely and perpetually from all membership in his .institute and is freed completely and perpetually of all obligations and loses all rights that h~ve their source in religious profession. By seculari-zation the religious ceases to be a religious. Since secularization dis-penses from all the vows of religious profes~sion, even if solemn, i( is commonly called a dispensation from the vows of religion. The competent authority for an indult of secularization is the same as for exclaustration, as explained in n. 2. ~ 11. Guti~rrez, op. cit., 32 (1953), 336-39~; Larraona, op. cir., "266. 230 September, 1956. EXCLAUSTRATION AND SECULARIZATION 8. Sufficient reasons. Very serious' reasons~are required for secu-larization, and the ecclesiastical authority competent to grant the indult is the judge of their sufficiency. There must be a reason over and above the mere desire to'leave religion. The ir~dult is granted because of the motive of the request, not merely because it is requested. The most common reaso~ is that the religious finds the religious life morally impossible or too difficult, even if this state arises from culp-able causes that he will not correct, The difficulty may have its source °in the vow of chastity, obedience, or poverty, the common life, work, or general life of the institute. A reason insufficient in itself may become sufficient when the mental state of the religious that be will not correct is taken into account, e. g., if his desire to leave makes him useless or a source of harm i:o the institute. Other reasons of equal or greater import will suffice, ~. g., lack of suitability for the work of the institute, ill health, mental depression, necessary support of parent.s, and the case of those who are counselled to leave because otherwise the institute will initiate their dismissal. 9. Petition. The religious himself asks for the indult of seculari-zation, since it is a voluntary leaving of religion. He is to write out or at least sign his request, stating his name in religion and in the world, name of his institute, his present address, age, number of years in religion, of what vows he is professed and for how ,long, what orders he has received, that i~e requests an indult of seculariza-tion, all the reasons, and the date. The institute should retain a copy of this petition. The petition should be forwarded to the competent authority ordinarily through the superior general or at least through a higher superior. All the statements above (n. I) on the necessity of the consent of superiors for exclaustration apply here also. The higher superior should enclose a letter with the petition giving all in-formation pertinent to the case ;~nd his own opinion as to whether the religious should leave, substantiatin~ the latter with all reasons and facts that he may know. 10. Acceptance and refusal of indult. (a) Acceptance. When the indult of secularization is received, it should be communicated to the religious; and he should manifest his acceptance of it. "Any instruc-tions on the manner of acceptance contained in the indult are.to be followed. Otherwise, it is ,sufficient that the religious manifest his acceptance by any external s, ign that expresses acceptance. It is better for the acceptance to" be manifested in writing and before two wit-nesses. The following or a similar statement should be written or typed: "I attest that I today accepted, an .indult of secularization 231 JOSEPH 1~. GALEEN from the Order (Congregation)~ of N." The statement should con-tain mention of the place and date. It is to be signed by the recipient before the two witnesses, who are themselves to sign the acceptance as witnesses. The document is to be preserved in the files of the in-stitute. It would be well also for the higher superi'or, personally or through another, to give the secularized ex-religious a written and signed statement on the stationery of the institute to the effect that he had received and accepted an indult of secularization and .accordingly left religion free of all obligations of the religious life. The place-and date are to be mentioned also on this statement. (b) Acceptance and immediate repentance. An indult of seculari-zation produces all its effects immediately upon its acceptance, even if the former religious repents instantly and before leaving the house.12 (c) Refusal. Secularization, even though voluntarily petitioned, has no effect.until accepted; and the religious may refuse to accept the indult.13 If the institute, whether pontifical or diocesan, has serious reasons against the refusal these are to be proposed to the S. Congregation of Religious, which could oblige the religious to accept the [ndult or declare [hat the indult has its effect without ac-ceptance, thus making it equivalent to a form of dismissal.14 The formalities described above for an acceptance should also be followed for a refusal of the-indult. (d) Later useJof a refused indult. If the religious definitively fused the indult and later wishes to leave, a new indult must be pe-titioned. 'If, all things considered, 'the refusal was only doubtful, hesitant, not definitive, the indult is suspended and may be used later. If it is not accepted nor definitively refused within six months, the matter is to be referred tO the ecclesiastical authority that issued the indult.~ (e) Present practice of the Holt¢ See. Indults of secularization granted by the Holy See, for those who are not priests now contain the sentence: "This decree ceases to have any validity if hot'accepted by" the petitioner within ten days after being informed of the execu-torial decree." If within ten days: (1) the indult is expressly ac- 12. Cf.'Guti~trez, o/9. cir., 32 (1953), 194: Creusen, o/9. cit.,'n. 332, 3; Fan-fani, De lure Religiosocaro, n. 490. 13. S. C. of Religious, Aug. I, 1922; Bouscaren, ol9. dr., I, 326. 14. Ci:. Maroto, Commentari,,m Pro Religiosis, 4 (1923), 106. 15. Cf. Goyeneehe, Quaestiones Canonlcae, II, 126-27; Guti~rrez, o/9. cir., 32 (1953), 194-95: Jombart, Tcaitd de Dcoit Canonique, I, n. 907; Muzzarelli, Tractatus Canonicus de Congregationibas luris Dioecesani, 172: Jone, Cora-raeotarium in Codicem laris Canon.&[, I, 563; de Bonhome, Ret~ue des com-munautds Religieuses, 26 (1954), 47, 232 EXCLAUSTRATION AND SECULARIZATION cepted, it becomes effective immediately; (2) the indult is neither accepted nor definitively refused, it ceases'to have any validity at the end of this period;~ (3) the indult is definitively refused, all validity of the indult ceases on this definitive refusal. A new indult is to be petitioned if the religious repents of his refusal and wishes again to leave, even during the ten-d.ay period. The practice of the'.Holy See is not to grant the indult directly to'the religious but to commit to an intermediary person, e~ g.; the local ordinary, the granting of the indult to the religious. The actual granting of the indult by this intermediary is called the executorial decree. The ten days begin to run from the time the ~eligious is offi-cially notified of the executorial decree, not from the date of notifi-cation of the rescript of the Holy See. The day of notification, is not computed. If the notification is given on August 1, the ten days expire at midnight of August 11-12. This time does not run for any period in which the religious was ignorant of or unable to ex-ercise his right of acceptance and refusal.l~ 11. Effects of an inctult of secularization (c. 640). The effects are always the same, whether the indult is granted by the Holy See or ~a local ordinary~ The latter cannot determine the effects of an indult granted by himself, since these are determined by c. 640. One who has been secularized ceases simply and absolutely to be a r& ligious. He is in the same state as if he had never been a religious and° consequently has none.of the rights or obligations of a religious. Can. 640 specifie~ these effects by stating that he ceases to be a mem-ber of his institute; that he must put off the religious habit, as ex- ,plained in n. 4; that he is freed from all the vows of his religious p~ofession, even if solemn; that he is no longer bound by the con-stitutions nor by any particular law of his former institute nor by the obligation of .reciting the Divine Office in virtue of religious pro-fession; and that he loses a.ll rights and privileges of a religious. A secularized religious cleric in sacred orders is bound by tl~e obligation of clerical celibacy and chastity (c. 132, § I), of reciting tl'ie Divine Office (c. 135), and of wearing becoming ecclesiastical garb (c. 136, § 1). In the celebration of Mass, the recitation of the Divine Office, and the administration and reception of the sacraments, the secular-ized religious follows the rite and calendar of the diocesan clergy and laity, not any special rite or proper calendar of his former in-stitute. A secularized religious ma.y not. be admitted into any re-ligious institute without a dispensation from the Holy See, since he 16. Cf. Guti~rrez, ibid., 186-97; Larraona, op. cir., 266. 233 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious. is now bound by the invalidating impediment of c. 542, I°, of a previous religious profession. If he is again admitted,, he is not obliged to make another postulancy17 but must make another novice-ship, temporary profession, for the full time prescribed by, the, con-stitutions, and perpetual profession. His seniority is determined by the new profession. A dispensation may be requested for'a lessening of a noviceship of more than a year and also of the time of tem-porary profession. The questions specific to clerics in minor and sacred orders (c. 641) and the privations that affect the latter (c. 642) can be found in the ordinary canonical manuals. (a) Return o['tgroperty. The institute has no obligation to re-store to the secularized religious any property that he had given to the institute, e. "g., in the renunciation before solemn profession. However, it is the very common d6ctrine of authors that equity counsels the restoration of a part of such property, at least if it has not been expended,is The renunciation, ceases to have any validity with regard to property that will come to the former religious in the future. A professed of simple vows regains the administration, use, and usufruct of his personal property (cc. 569, § 1; 580, § 3). A few constitutions contain the provision that clothing and personal effects brought to the institute at entrance are to be restored in their current condition to a religious who leaves'or is dismissed after first profession. Such a provision is to be obeyed. The constitutions may contain the contrary provision that hll such objects, except those of sufficiently notable value, are implicitly renounced in favor of the institute at first profession. In the absence of any provision' of the constitutions or custom, the latter doctrine may at least probably be followed. The ihstitute cannot be expected to permit the religious to carry all such objects from house to house or be obliged to retain and store them. The entire capital sum of the dowry, ~but not the interest already derived from it, is to be restored to a.secularized re-ligious woman (c. 551, § 1)i It is forbidden to deduct anything from the dowry for ordinary or extraordinary expenses that the institute had to pay in favor of the religious, e. g., for her support as a postulant or novice, studies, or illne'ss. A secularized r~ligious may not seek compensation for services rendered to the institute at any 17. Cf. c. 640, § 2: Larraona, Commentacium Pro Relioiosis, 16 (1935), 223; done, ot9 clt., 565. 18. Cf. dombart, o19. cir., n. 908; Beste, lntroductio in Codicem, 436; Claeys Bouuaert-Simenon, Manuale duris Canonici, I,, n. 689; Bastien, Directoire Canonique, 440, note 3; Vermeerscfi-Creusen, Epitome luris Canot~ici, I, n. 801. '234 EXCLAUSTRATION AND, ~;ECUL!~RIZATION time from his entrance .(c. 643, § 1). 12. Charitable subsidy for religious wotner~ (c. 643, § 2). The charitable subsidy consists of suitable clothing, personal effects, and a sum of money sufficient to enable a religious woman to return home safely and becomingly and to provid~ her with the means of a re-spectable livelihood for a period of time to be determined by mutual consent or, in the case of disagreement, by the local ordinary. The subsidy need not be prolonged beyond the time required for finding employment suitable to the condition of the former religious. If she is quite old and infirm and without resources, she must agree to enter" into a'suitable institution intended for persons of that condi-tion. The help given by her former institute need never have the~ character of a pension for life.19 Constitutions of religious women most rarely determine whether it is the institute, province, or house that is to furnish the subsidy. The matter.is therefore determined by the 'usage of the particular institute. The subsidy is to be given when the religious was received with-out a dowry or with a dowry insufficient for the purpose2° and cannot p~ovide for herself sufficiently from her own property. In " these circurfistances therefore the institute is obliged to give either the full amount of the subsidy or, in the event that the religious has some property of her own and/or a dov~ry insufficient for the purpose, the added amount necessary to equal the full amount of the subsidy. The ~ubsjdy has to be given to any ~eligious woman who leaves at the end of temporary profession or is then excluded from renew-ing temporary or making j~erpetual profession (c. 643, § 2), who is secularized during temporary or perpetual profession. (c. 643; § 2), or is dismissed during either temporary or perpetual profession (cc. 643, § 2; 647, § 2, 5°; 652, § 3). The code does not mention the subsidy in c. 653, which treats of s.ending a religious back im-mediat. ely and provisionally to secular life, nor in c. 646, which lists the crimes that effect theipso facto dismissal of religious. How-ever, the general canon on the subsidy is 643, § 2, which is evidently closely joined with the firs~ paragraph of the same canon. The latter lists dismisged religious without any restriction. The subsidy should certainly be given in the first case. It seems that it should also be given in the second case. It is not likely that the reli~gious is deprived of the su, bsidy because of the greater culpability of these crimes. The 19. Creusen, op. cir. n. 338; .]'ombart, op. cir., n. 908. 20. S. C. of Religious, Mar. 2, 1924: Bouscaren,.op. cir., I, 300. 235 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious ordinary dismissal of a religious wbman of perpetual vows demands culpable reasons, yet the code certainly commands that the subsidy-be given to all religious women dismissed in the ordinary manner. The canonical obligation of giving the subsidy is confined to religious women. However, an institute of men will practically al-ways have to give a subject in the same circumstances suitable cloth-ing, personal effects, and a sum of money sufficient to enable him to retu, rn home safely and becomingly; and equity and charity may oblige the institute to assist him financially until he secures em-ployment. 21 13. Special exctaustration (exclaustratio qualit~cata) o1: priests. This is, equivalently .a temporary laicization and secularization. Lai-cization deprives the cleric of the licit use of the power of orders, of clerical offices, rights, and privileges, and frees him of all clerical obligations except that of clerical celibacy and chastity attached to sacred orders (c. 213). The effects of secularization have been de-scribed above. In special exclaustration clerical and religious rights and obligations are not removed but'suspended for the time of the indult. This form of exclaustration is new and was introduced in the practice of the Holy See in October, 1953. It is confined to priests and may be granted only by the Holy See. The indult is generally given only on the petition of the subject or at least with his con-sent. It is likewise temporary and is usually granted only for a brief time, e. g., one or two years. Special exclaustration is a tem-porary and provisional remedy and ordinarily presupposes, tempor-ary reasons that will probably cease by its use. Typical cases are those of a serious crisis of faith, of disgust or fear "of the religious and priestly life, serious da,nger of public scandal or of apostasy from the priesthood or from fai.th, some physical infirmities, serious psy-chic disorders caused by the persuasion of a fundamental lack of aptitude for the priestly and religious life, depressive and scrupulous states, obstinate abstention from the celebration of Mass and from the sacraments caused partially, by infirmity and scruples, invincible repugnance to the exercise of the priestly ministry, and a secretly sinful life with consequent psychic depression and the persuasion that the life of chastity is impossible. The Holy See is ac,utely con-scious of the various dangers of this form of exciaustration and pro-ceeds prudently and cautiously in granting the indult and acts only 21. Cf. Woywood-Smith, A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, I, 323; Coronata, op. cir., 845; Cappello, Summa luris Canonlci, II, n. 630; ¯Regatillo-Zalba, De Statibus Particularibus, n. 254. 236 September, 1956 EXCLAUSTRATION AND SECULARIZATION ¯ after having obtained complete information of the course of life of the petitioner. The priest continues to be a member of his institute, and this constitutes the essential similarity to ordinary exclaustration. The obligation of all the religious 'vows is suspended, but that of clerical celibacy and chastity attached to sacred o~rders remains. All other clerical and religious rights and Obligations are s,uspended, all clerical ministry is forbidden, and the priest is in the state of a lay person with regard to the reception of the sacraments. The indult places him under the special discipline and assistance of the local ordinary and of the institute that he may be charitably guided to upright and be-coming conduct and be aided in overcoming the crisis. He is obliged to put off the external form of the religious habit, as in ordinary exclaustration and secularization, and be ii also forbidden to wear ecclesiastical garb. He retains the merely spi'ritual privileges of his institute but does not have any of the other rights nor active and passive voice. During the time 'of the indult he acquires property for himself and may and should provide his own support. Before leaving religion he is to give the superior a declaration that he will provide his own support during the exclaustr~tion without any ob-ligation on the part of the institute. Cases can occur in which this declaration will not be prescribed, and the institute in charity should support the subject insofar as he cannot do so himself. Superiors may receive the subject back into the institute before the expiration of the indult~ but the clerical privations remain intact. until the Holy See has given its decision. On the expiration of the indult, the priest is obliged to return to his institute and recourse is to be made to the S. Congregation for a decision of the case. Su-periors, however, may use the faculty of c. 606, § 2, and permit him to live outside the institute for a brief time until the S. Congre-gation decides the matter. The indult can also cease on" its revoca-tion by the S. Congregation, either on the petition of the subject or for a serious reason on the initiative of the S. Congregation. The indult likewise ceases on the granting of perpetual laicization, by the penal infliction of such laicization, e. g., in the case of public scandal, or by a petition for secularizatior~ when the priest has found a bishop who is willing to receive him according to the norm of c. 641. All of the above on special exclaustration is a synopsis of Gutiirrez, Commentari~m Pro Religiosis, 36 (1955), 374-79. The matter i~ briefly described also in Sartori, durisprudev.tiae Ecclesiasticae Ele-menta, 3 ed., 60-61. ~ 237 Mo!:her Dolores Sister M. Teresita, S.H.F. The story of the foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Famil'y THE sudden rush of the ambitious gold seekers of 1848 gave Cali-~ | fornia, and San Francisco in particular, a cosmopolitan Char-acter. But abreast with the adventurers came new recruits in the missionary field seeking the finer gold of precious human souls. Ireland supplied a great many zealous young priests who-were ready to sacrifice home and country. They came to minister to the spiritual wants of her children who followed the lure of gold to the far-away shores of the Pacific. Foremost among the early students of All Hallows' Seminar~, in Dublin was John J. Prendergast. Born in Clogh~e, County Tip-perary, Ireland, in 1834; Father Prendergast was ordained for the Archdiocese of San Francisco on June 26, 1859. His great talents and fervent piety marked him out as an extraordinary student. He was offered a place on the faculty of All Hallows. As he was or- .dained for San Francisco, the authorities communicated with Arch- 'bishop Alemany. To make sure of the Archbishop's permission, two priests were offered in place of Father Prendergast. The de-" cision was left to the newly ordained. He refused the honor and set out for the distant country, chiefly known to the gold hunter, the specul~tor, and adventurer. He arrived in San Francisco when it was in the throes of civil, reli~lious~ educational, and social disor-ganization. In the exercise of the sacred ministry, Father Prendergast met the poor, the unfortunate, as well as the newly rich. He frequently walked the streets of the rapidly growing metropolis sprung out of the sand dunes, the city built,on the hills. His priestly heart ached for the many children he found who were totally ignora.nt of the truths of the faith of their forefathers. The sudden growth since the gold rush. of '49 had far outstripped municipal facilities. Mission Dolores was the parish to which Father Prendergast was assigned. It covered two-thirds of the present area of San Fran-cisco. In taking the census, this ardent son of Erin found many of the children of the poor living in frightful conditions. Many, whose mothers were obliged to go out to work for their living, were left alone all day. They were locked in their backyards with a half losf of bread and a bottle of milk to suktain them. Daily, Father 'lSrayed 238 MOTHER ~OLORES for a solution to the problem and begged God to send a suitable person to inaugurate a systematic campaign among the poor and neglected families of his parish. It was in the sun.rsplasbed gardens of historic Mission Dolores that Father Prendergast first met the high s~0irited, vivacious Eliza-beth Armer. Elizabeth had accompanied Mrs. Richard Tobin to arra, nge to have Masses said for departed relatives. She was standing there beside her" dark-eyed foster mother, the morning sun shining on her golden crown of auburn hair. She carned her fifteen years with girlish dignity. The warm, radiant personality manifested in one so young impressed Father Prendergast. Father felt that Elizabeth, though still a young girl, was just the one to begin his work. When he was later transferred to the Cathedral parish, he secured her services as a religion teacher for the children. She also assisted in cariflg for the altars. Eagerly he watched the unfolding of this beautiful flbwer in God's chosen gar-den. Rapidly plans for a much-needed institute developed in his own mind. Elizabeth Armer came to us out ~f Sidney, Australia. Little is known of her ancestry or early childhood. She was born on April 30, 1851. Soon after she arrived on our shores with her family, her mother died. Her father, Robert Amkr, remarried. It was the oft-repeated story of the step-dhild. Richard Tobin, a friend of Robert Ar~mer, coming home from the office one~da~, said, "Mary; I have a surprise for you. I've brought you a new daughter." Mr. Tobin told his wife that she was the child ofhis.old friend Robert Armer and added, with, deep faith, "Mary dear, God will provide." And God did. Elizabeth was enrolled in the classes at Presentation Convent. Here she spent her happy" school days under the supervision and in-struction of the good Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That Elizabeth developed such a well-adjusted personality, spite her early misfortune, was due to the sympathetic understand-ing of her new parents. The comforts of their luxuriant home on exclusive Nob Hill did not distract Elizabeth from her love of God and souls. She often met little folks on ,thestreet. She would ,stop them to talk with them. This tall, beautiful girl would ask, "Do you love God? Do you say your prayers? . But we don't know any prayers, Miss," they would answer. "'Come to our house and I will'help 239 " SISTER M. TERESITA Review [or Religious you to learn to love God and to talk to" Him." Soon, Elizabeth had gathered quite a group of children around her to "learn about God." Her foster father remarked that their home was beginning to take on the appearance of a kindergarten. However, Mr. Tobin good naturedly tolerated the invasion. Mrs. Tobin often accompanied Elizabeth on her visits to the homes of the poor. In the institute of which she was destined to be foundress, these early characteristic traits, zeal for sQuls, love for the poor, were to be its distinguishing marks. Alleviation o.f both material, and spiritual poverty, .especially in families, was to be its special work. Soliciting funds from the wealthy to aid the less fortunate was to be the means, of extending help. 'They would seek out the children who needed religious instruction. They would lend a helping hand where needed, to preserve the family. This apostolic social work and social-minded apostolate are the_constant endeavors of her spiritual daughters, today. In spite of her active participation in the lay apostolate, Eliza-beth yearned for a complete dedication of her life to God, Her per-sonal love of the Saviob drew her with such force that Elizabeth thought that God was calling her to be a Carmelite. The future foundress desired to do God's will rather than her own, which led her to consult the archbishop about her vocation. "Elizabeth," replied the saint!y'Archbishop Alemany, "Father Prendergast and I have another work for~ you to ~1o, There are the little ones to be cared for while their mothers are off to work. And who is to instruct the children of our big city in the ways of faith, hope, and love? They must be prepared "for the Sacraments; they must be brought to the knowledge, love, and service of God. There are the poor to be visited in their homes. There are hearts to heal and souls to save in our busy city streets. This, is the work Ggd wants you to do, Elizabeth." To give up the s.ecurity of a life in a long-established and well-ordered religious congregation! To launch out on the rough sea of uncertainty of establishing a new institute! Was this what God was asking?. With firm faith and steady heart, she gave herself with perfect trust into the care of God's representative. This same simple faith, ardent love; and child-like trust mzrked all her dealings with God and men throughout her beautiful but comparatively short life. Trials were. not wanting; for it is only in the crucible of suffer-ing that the pure gold of such a soul is tried. It was necessary that the edifice of the Holy Family institute (the eternal inheritance be- 240 September, 19~6 MOTHER DOLORES queathed by Mother Dolores to her spiritual children) had to rest on the solid foundation of deep humility. God was not long in sending the first trial. Elizabeth was now twenty years of age. The time had come for definite action. At the bidding of her archbishop and Farher Pren-dergast, she left her foster parents' home. With one companion, Miss Collins, she moved into a little rented flat on Pine Street on November 6, 1872. This is Foundation~Day. DaiI~ they went about the duties of caring for the poor, the sick, and the needy: From the outset, the idea of a religious com-munity was in the mind of the founders. They were to devote them-selves generously to the service of God in the children and the poor. Father Prendergast had very definite i~leas of the life and work off. the young institute. To visit the homes of the poor, to bring" relief to the sick, to seek out the neglected children in their families--these are goals in social work that cannot be too much insisted upon. There is danger in our modern projects, providing recreation grounds and community clubs and hikihg expeditions, to neglect the family. 'Father Pren-dergast's idea of assistance covered the whole field of need. "Help-ing others to help themselves," was to be the m6tto of his welfare work. These two energetic young women labored enthusiastically for some months. The good the future institute was to accomplish, in the designs of God, was to be far-reaching. The souls to Obe snatched from Satan were to be 'many. Of course, the devil did not like this. He had his own plan to kill this good work in its infancy. On the other hand, every good work must be tried in the crucible of tribulation: A soul as staunch and courageous as that of Elizabeth Armer must be refined yet more. One morni~ng Miss Collins failed to report for duty. When Miss Armer visited her room, there were visible, On the hands and feet of Miss Collins, the likeness of the wounds of the Savior. Ever straightforward and upright herself, Miss Armer did not doubt her companion's sincerity. The incident created quite a stir. Shortly after, however, on investigation, it was discovered that the wounds were self-inflicted. Miss Collins was dismissed. , The incid'ent is brief in the telling, but who can kno~v the de.ep wound in the soul of the trusting Elizabeth. The scorn that sur-rounded her young institute. The infidelity of one she loved and trusted. 241 SISTER M. TERESITA ~ Review for Religious Another joined Miss Armer for a time. But the work was too hard; the.scorn was too difficult to bear. Friends of Father Prender-gast advised him to give up the idea. One after another had failed. He only replied, "There is one who will never fail, Elizabeth Armer." These were indeed dark days for the young foundress. She never referred to it--this trial was one she bore alone. She leaned on God alor~e for support. She maintained the same zeal for works of charity, the same devotedness to the poor and to the children of the Sunday schools. She did not seek a moment to relax. Her visits to the sick poor continued as before. When she needed a companion, she al-ways knew where to find one in the ever-faithful Mrs. Richard Tobin. Nearly two years had passed since Miss Armer had begun her work in the little rented house on Pine Street. They had been years of struggle and discouragement. True, they had been fruitful of good, but barren as far as a religious community was concerned. Alone, "disappointed in one, abandoned by another," the future Mother Dolores prayed, labored, and trusted in God. Mrs. Tobin remained faithful and Father Prendergast maintained his confidence. Then renewed hope came. On lk-lizabeth's birthday, in 1874, there came a, caller. It had been Ellen O'Connor's third attempt to see Miss Armer. "You are my birthday present!" Elizabeth exclaimed, when Ellen told her that Father Andrew Cullen had sent her. "This morning I asked the" Blessed Mother to send me a present. Have you come to stay? . I hope so," was Ellen's reply. ,And she did. As Sister Teresa, Ellen became the lifelong companion of Mother Dolores and succeeded her as Mother General of the institute. The new enterprise had been marked with the cross, the sign of God'~ special favor. The youthful foundress had proved herself faithful. The work was readyto move fbrward.:. Very soon, other generous young girls came knocking at the door of the little rented convent asking, "May I help too?" The poverty of the flat did not seem to frighten them. The long .hours among the children did not seem to tire them. The night watches with the sick and dying did not make them change their minds. They had cgme to give their all to Christ. He was all in all to them! This was the generous, self-sacrificing spirit that animated those early sisters who were first known as "The Miss Armers." Father Prende~gast called them Sisters of the Holy Family. And that name has been made their own. In rapid succession, four young ladies came to. join Miss Armer 242 September~ 1956" MOTHI~R DOLORES and Miss O'Connor. Winter,was now past for the young institute, and God was blessing it with increase. Archbishop Alemany decided that ,steps should be taken to establish a regular religious congrega-tion. Miss O'Connor was sent to the Dominican Convent in Benecia to make her novitiate. In 1878, she pronounced her .vows as Sisger Teresa of Jesus, in the presence of the Archbishop and the sisters. Now the foundress became .subject and, with her four compan-ions, began her novitiate under the direction of Sister Teresa. They completed their required novitiate in March, 1,880. On the Feast of St. Joseph, faithful guardian of the Holy Family and special pro-tector of the institute, Sister Dolores and the four sisters pronounced their holy vows. The Sisters of the Holy Family were molded into a new congregation in the Church. California's' own; its first, and still its only, native religious institute. Alr~eady, as early as1878, Archbishop Alemany"entrusted a new field of labor, which had long been dear to his heart, to the infant community. They were asked to care for young children throughout the day, whose ~mothers were qbliged to work to support their, little ones. Ever mindful of the sacredness of the integrity of family life, the Archbishop saw in these Day Homes the fulfillment of his early plans. At first the sisters shared their own convent with these needy ones of Christ's flock and cared for them "'with the fender charity of a Christian mother~" In due time, four commodious Day Homes were erected in San Francisco through the industry .of the zealous sisters and the charity of kind benefactors. Abreast with catechetical work, the Day.Hgmes have since spread to San ,Jose, Oakland, and Nevada. From their new mother house on Hayes Street, these~ new, ly pro-fessed religi0us, now augmented by more members, carried on the apostolic work already well begun, They set out on their exalted and laborious mission of pushing back the frontiers of rel.igious ig-noranCe.~ The growing city of San Francisco was their first concern. Soon, pastors of parishes outside of San Francisco were asking for the sisters. They gathered th~ children together after school as well as on Saturday and Sunday rhornings. Sometimes classes were held in an unused store. At Tanforan~ race ,track, they held sessions in the pavillion where the children came to them on foot, on. horse-back, or in wagons. Stories could be multiplied without end, of the men and women, priests and religious, who trace their first desire to hear of Godtto the 243 SISTER M. TERESITA Review for Religious kindly invitation of these seekers of souls. This attraction which her sisters have fo~ children seems to be one of the priceless !e~acies Mother Dolores has bequeathed.to her f~mily. We might cal[ it the special sacramental character of their missionary vocation. These were the specific works of the new institute. However, Mother Dolores.was not slow to respond to emergencies. San Fran-cisco's P[esidio became the port for the sick and wounded soldiers during the Spanish American War. Suddenly the dread typhoid ,plagde broke out in the camps. Her sisters willingly volunteered for active duty as nurses. Mother Dolores herself prepared and provided many of the medic~i1 supplies during the three months in which the disease raged. A grateful city expressed its thanks to the valiant work of the many sisters who foughttthe plague by granting free transportation to all sisters on her street cars and buses, even to this day. The memory of the public service rendered by the sisters in this emergency prompted city officials to call upon them in the greater catastrophe of the 'terrible fire and earthquake of 1906. When the trembling city was licked with flames, the sisters could be found assisting the sick and dying. Their mother house became a hospital for the insane. The now homeless desuits found a tem-porary shelter 'on the main floor of the convent. In return, th~ey have given the mother'.house daily'~Mass ever since. The sisters' im-mediate and efficient, response to the city officials' appeal for help in San dose du.ring the influenza epidemic again manifested their alert-ness to the need for prompt and generous action in public calamities. Tireless in her efforts to save souls, Mother Dolores never spardd herself. The work. of organization and administration of her grgw-ing community was taxing her physical ~trength more than her sisters ~realized. A severe heart attack made it evident that Mother's condition was critical; she was'but.53 years old. Father Prendergast was called to her bedside. On seeing him, Mother simply said, "I am going." "No doubt you would like to see your work more~ per-fectly finished and carry out some 6f your plans before going to Heaven, to our Lord." She answered, "God knows best." So on August 2, 1905, her ardent souF in all its radiant splendor, like a restless flame, leaped from the charred remains of its burned-out temple, to the presence of her Creator, her Divine Lover. Mother Dolores was a product of her age and locale. She im-bibed the spirit of the adventurous gold seekers. By supernaturalizing 244 September, 1956 MOTHER DOLORES that spirit, she became an adventurous soul seeker. : Ever mindful of the necessity of adaptation to changing times, the progressive spirit of the foundress was passed on to her daughters. When modern means of travel proved helpful, they were used. The Sisters of the Holy Family were driving their own cars to distant missions when women drivers were still uncommon. Across the alkali beds of Utah, the deserts of Ne,~ada, or into its high moun-tain peaks they go. They use every means to bring the word of God to the ghost towns so reminiscent of the "Gold Rush." Now they contain only the precious ore of immortal souls. The populous cities witness their zeal in going from school to school during the day, teaching on released time. In the far~flung parishes of the Monterey-Fresno Diocese, they travel within the radius of forty-five miles of their convent home. They gather small groups in one-room schools of tile districts. Soon, a little chapel marks the spot and the Mass comes to another outpost conquered for Christ. Or, in the more populous areas, they assemble large groups, for which ~hey need the belp of a "walkie-talkie" to make themselves heard. Always seeking souls, the sisters will be found with the Mexican~ in Texas, extending the frontiers of faith among the~ Indians in Nevada, the Chinese in Fresno, the colored in our large c~ties, the Hawaiians in Hawaii. The young Americans from every state in the Union, who are pouring into our beautiful California in fabu-lous numbers, are feeling the impact of their religious training. Today, the daughters of Elizabeth Armer are laboring in three archdioceses and six dioceses. They are ~nstr~cting 79,000 public school Children in 225 parishes. Last year there were 1400 belated baptisms and 12,843 first Holy Communions. What a rich harvest of souls! Indeed, the fires of her zeal had inflamed many generous young women. The highways and byways,, the towering moun-t;~ ins and the lowly valleys, know the steady progress of this veri-table conflagration-~conquering one outpost after the other for Christ. The welfare work done among these families cannot be estimated. The Day Homes gave day care to 2,000 regardless of race, colo~, or creed during the past year. The same spirit of faith that SUlSported the pioneer sisters is re-flected in the constitutions of the institute "The special end is to instruct and educate children in the doctrine and practice of the Catholic faith . . ." 245 P. DE LETTER Review "for Religious Wl~en death claimed Mother Dolores on August 2, 1905, there was as yet no foundation outside of San Francisco. Mqnsign6r John J. Prendergast went to his reward on January 19, 1914. Pontifical approval was not requested until many years later, so it was not until-July 8, 1931, that the Holy See issued its decree of praise and approval of the" congregation and its constitutions, thus raising it to the status of a pontifical congregation. Monsignor Pren- ~dergast and Mother Dolores witnessed the crowning of their efforts from heaven when on May 28~ 1945, Pope Plus XII, gave tile definitive approbation, bidding the Congregation to ""continue to the~ end of,time." OnMet:hod in !:he Spiri :ual Life P. De Letter,,S. J. THE most common inconsistency is to desire some end and not to take the means to attain it" (Father de Pdnlevoye, S.J.). This applies particularly, though in no way exclusively, to the spiritual life. It happens, and perhaps it is not rare, that we wish for some certain ideal, desire a particular step forward in spirituality, and neglect to take the means. What is the root of this inconsistency? No doubt some sort of inertia-, of fear of effort. We fight shy of exertion. One takes it easy, and so nothing happens. ~We may not like to confess this sort of laziness. No one, no religious, especially, likes'to acknowledge he is lazy. Perhaps that is why not infrequently an endeavor is made to cover up this ihdecision and lack of action with theoretical difficulties. Perhaps the main difficulty in this re-spect is an objection against method in the spiritual life. For; if one were to follow a method, one would be doing something hbout one's intended objective. THE OBJI~CTION The objection is this: In, the spiritual or supernatural life, 'free-dom must be left to the Holy Spirit, to the initiative and inspiration of grace. It is not we who have to take'the initiative; it is the Spirit that takes the lead. Methods endanger 'the freedom of the Spirit who moves as He pleases; they may stifle the growth of the spiritual life, kill its spontaneity. Perhaps today a little more than formcrly this objection is raised, if not in theory then at any rate in practice; 246 September, 1956 ON METHOD IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFI~ it is acted upon. A number of people who yet try tO lead a spiritual life are inclined to care little for effort, for methodical application to prayer, or to the practice of definite virtues. They like to trust in the inspiration of the m, oment, to" follow the movements of grace rather than to forestall them. Lest this objection may actually turn into a cover for laziness, it is worth considering the issue. We shall do so and first consider method in general and then a concrete ex-ample of it, the Ignatian method. THE ISSUE: METHOD AND COOPERATION WITH (~RACE According to Father'de Guibert's Tl~eolog~ of the Spiritual ~Lit¥, n. 176, the use of method in the spiritual life, in prayer, or in the acquisition or practice of a virtue consists in baying some pre-fixed mode of action, suitable, fo? attaining an end and of application in a series of cases. In mental prayer, for example, it means that one prepares and foresees the subject matter and order of meditation, then starts with a progressive introduction to the subject, follows ,point by point using on'e's memory, understanding, and will--re-flecting, prayer, res, olving and ends with a colloquy. Andther ex-0 ample of use of method is the particular examen applied to the prac~ tice Of a virtue. One foresees what should be,done, how and when, resolves beforehand to pay attention and make the effort, and. tv~ice a day checks the way one went about it, examining success or. ill-success and its cause, resolving again 'to do better in tl4e next. half day. " Now, the problem involved in this use of method is that of our cooperation with grace. How must we conceive this cooperation? Tl~e spiritual life, being supernaturally inspired, actually is a matter of cooperation of our free will with grace, the latter leading, the first following~the lead of grace. It is beyond all doubt that in every; supernatura! activity it is grace that takes the initiative i(just a~ it is the reason of its spiritual fruitfulness and success, but this does not concern our present problem). And so the question is whether the use of method goes against the initiative of grace. Do We by'mak-. ing use of such methods as mentioned abbve take an initiative in the spiritual life that should be left to grace, to the inslAibation of the Holy Spirit? , ANSWER ~ We answer: The rigl~t use of method does not hinder the initia-tive of grace but is only ou'r way of cooperatirig ~with grace. When will the use of method be right? On two conditions: when it is 247 P, DE LETTER Review #:or Religious itself prompted by grace and when in its actual practice one does' not stick too rigidly to fixed details but follows eventual inspira-tions of grace that invite to greater liberty of spirit. 'The use of method can .be, and generally is, an answer to indi-cations that come from .grace. When duty calls to set exercises of prayer~ as when the bell sounds for meditation, or when providential ~ircumstances or genuine inspirations of grace (which are in perfect agreement with duties of obedience) invite to a particular practice of virtue, we may take it that to apply oneself methodically to prayer or to virtuous practice i~ merely to answer the initiative of grace. That is our way of cooperating with grace. There could be nothing but self-delusion in waiting for the promp.tin~s of grace to begin meditation when the hour of prayer is there. Method, used in these, circumstaF~ces,is but a guarantee that we are not wanting to grace but do our' share~ Yet in doing our share, enough freedom of mind must be kept for allowing grace to direct us whenever the Spirit so'chooses. A well-known example of this freedom is given in the directive of the Spiritual Exercises to the effect that in meditation we should stop at the poi,nt in which we find spiritual fruit, without any anxiety of going further, stop as long as we find what satisfies our spiritual need. This freedom and docility to the Spirit forestalls 6vet-rigid fidelity to mechanical rules. When grace clearly, takes the le~d, we follow. When the promptings of grace do not draw us, we on our part do what in us lies to answer the Lord's call expressed in our duty. When we understand the use of method in this manner, then Father de Guibert's practical conclusions in the matter are in no way surprising. He says: To reject all method is unsafe and may amount to the error of quietism; the inspirations of ~grace duly known for. authentic (by the discernment of spirits) may be followed, not how-ever against obedience or clearly known duty; the use-of method, generally speaking, is beneficial, because it is" nothing else" than profit-ing by the experience and wisdom of other people and using the r~eans for the end; methods may and do vary greatly, and freedom must be left in using them, the main point being that one has some method which proves workable; exaggerations however are not ex-cluded, one of which may be undue self-reliance shown in. excessive trust in the efficacy of or~e's method. Such being the case, it may be'well for us religious now and. then to see in which direction the general trend of our spiritual life in- 248 Septemb~er, 1956 ON METHOD IN ,THE SPIRITUAL LIFE clines: are we inclined either to overstress method or to neglect it? The danger of neglect may be the more frequent, because of the ef-fort and monotony involved in methodical action, both of which, may look uninteresting and unappealing. Yet, the other extreme of a too-mechanical fidel~ty is not excluded, nor is it without a danger of turning prayer or virtue into a more or' less fruitless for-mality. IGNATIAN METHOD One of the well-known and much,spread methods in the spiritual life is that of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Perhaps it has been no less maligned than praised. What exactly does Ignatian method consist in? We may characterize it briefly in a feW words: Have an objective in view and take the means to achieve it. Or, more briefly, know what you are after and go for it. What do these two principles mean in practice? How do they respect the initiative that must be left to grace? It is worthwhile to ponder a moment over this simple method~ and see how it enhances rather than hinders the initiative of grace. FIRST PRINCIPLE Its first principle, have a purpose in view, is of the utmost im-portance in spirituality, as in every other field of human activity. In fact, many people oftentimes do not know~ what they are after what they do, say, desire. They do what they do because they have to, or because they feel like doing it, or because they must do something to spend their time and for no reason known to then~ they happened to hit on this particular occupation. Such a manner of living may be little respectful of a man's rational nature; it cer-tainly is not Ignatian at all. St. Ignatius means us to know and to desire .what we intend in prayer or mortification-~or for that mat-ter, in study or manual labor or recreation or social relations. And he wants us to be very definite about our objective. For meditation, he not only begins the exercise with a preparatory prayer in which we ask that our entire activity.during our prayer be directed to God's glory and service; in a, second (or third) preclude he makes us ask for "what we desire," his famous id quod volo, that is, for the par-ticular grace and spiritual fruit which is suggested by and. in con-formity with the subject matter of the meditation. Definiteness of ai~n in prayer is a first Ignatian principle. Does it gb against" the initiative that belongs to grace? On the face of it, it may look as though we ourselves settle beforehand what spiritual fruit or grace we are after; is that not to take the lead and 249 P. DE LETTER Reoieto for Religious to put limits and rules to the activity 6f the Holy Spirit? Is that not a sort of Semi-Pelagianism? The question has more than once been mode :into an accusation, partly perhaps when some hasty or unsym-pathetic reader overlooked what precedes the id quod uolo, namely, to.ask for what I desire. We may point to a threefold answer to this difficulty. First of all, we are directed to ask for the grace we desire; and we may safely take it that this desire and prayer itself is already prompted by grace--is not every salutary act which helps us spiritually to draw nearer to God, and prayer is such an act, a fruit of ~the inspiration of grace? This prayer, moreover, is as it were open to correction; it is' up to God's grace to answer our desire --it is not our effort alone that will carry or enforce it--and to an-swer it in the manner He pleases and knows best. Secondly, the very specification or determination of the grace we ask for is, in principle and generally also in fact, not the result of personal whim or fancy (barring perhaps the exceptional cases of impulsive and weather-cock- like characters who lack or neglect due preparation and fore-' sight) ; it is either provided by external providential indications, as is the case in retreat time or when we use a meditation manual, whether prescribed or advised by a director or even chosen on our own motivated decision, or suggested" by internal inspiration. Of grace. In all these cases, this prayer for a particular grace is but an answer to the initiative of grace. Lastly, this initial desire which to a varying extent inspires the very manner in which we apply our-selves to our prayer does not preclude any new promptings of grace that may and often do arise in the course of the exercise. The above-mentioned Ignatian rule about freedom in stopping at what satisfies the soul clearly entails this. Moreover~ the ~d quod ~olo is often of such a comprehensive nature that it leaves ample and free play to. the manifold and varying inspirations of grace. An example is the prayer made at the beginning of most meditations on the life of our Lord: that we may know Him better, love Him more ardently, and follow Him more closely. This is an ide~il which each particular soul will realize in his or her own p~irticular way--and there are as many various ways nearly as there are particular individuals ~and particular vocations. Futhermor.e, tfiis definiteness in asking for a particular grace is mainly a matter of psychological preparation and should not be misunderstood in the sense of dictating to grace. As in any other human uladertaking, so also in prayer; definiteness of aim makes for definiteness in efforts; and this guarantees definite results, just as vagueness of aim leads to vague and weak efforts~ 250 - September, 1956 ON METHOD IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE and vague and poor results., Accordingly, it is safe tO say that Ig-natian definiteness of aim in our prayer does not clash with the initiative due to grace, provided 0nly we handle our method with a pure intention and with the necessary freedom of spirit. This free-dom is perhaps less fo be attended to in the beginnings of a life of ¯ prayer or of religious training; beginners generally do well to follow directives closely. But after years of practice, experience should teach one what this freedom means, and how it opposes in no way thorough generosity. So much for the first: principle in the Ignatian method~. SECOND PRINCIPLE The second principle; take the means to the purpose you are after, implies mainly two things. It first means to say that we should make the necessary effort. We should not expect results without taking the means that must produce them. Perhaps it is very l'Juman (or must we say childish?) to rely on ,good luck whilst, neglecting what one should do, to hope: and expect that' things will turn out for the b~st somehow. Children in fact more or less expect"miracles to happen. But is tha.t reasonable and safe? Is it not overlooking one of the very first principles of reason: that every effect demands a sufficient and proportionate cause? Which means, in this case, that spiritual results suppose ~not only grace but also our cooperation. It is rather risky to count on a ~ause that may Well never act; in this particula'r case, to rely on abundant grace which would mal~e up for our lack of. diligence; all the more so, since this very unprepared-hess for cooperation with grace is likely, to preclude that grace--God does not dispense His graces in sheer waste. A.second thing implied in this principle, is that we should make a tolanned effort: go about our business, whether of prayer or of any other virtuous practice~ in an orderly manner and not haphaz'ardly: not in an unenlightened way, groping as it were in the dark; not according to an unmotivated manner of proceeding or according to whim and fancy of the moment. This supp,oses first that we know the means for our purpose as they are laid down in directives and rules or borne out by the experience of others or even' learned and confirmed by personal experience. We must know the rules of the game if we are to play properly. It means therefore that it is not enough, however important it may be in itself, to overcqme inertia and set oneself to one's, task, making the needed exertion. We must apply ourselves in a clear-sighted manner, knowing what we are doing and why. It further means that we follow the known direc- 251 P. DE LETTER rives with perseverance. It has been said that "with many, courage gives way when they are half way of the effort; some are afraid of trying, others are afraid of succeeding"; in fact "things are worth what they cost" (Fat, her de Ponlevoye). Yet this perseverance should not be marred by shortsighted stubbornness.We must never forget in practice the necessary freedom of spirit in following methodidal rules; rather we must be ever ready to obey the inspiration of grace, to learn from circumstances and from experience, with humility and, docility, with sincerity and honesty with ourselves. It ma~ not al-ways be easy in practice to find the proper balance bet,ween perseverant fidelity to rules and freedom of spirit or docility to the Spirit. Only the interior Guidi~ can teach it in practice, and He certainly will if we do not lack sincerity and generosity. When this necessary freedom of spirit is safeguarded, there is no fear that metbodital application to prayer or practice of virtue, according to rules and planned action, will make one too mechanical or kill the spontaneity of life needed also in the spiritual life. Method makes for orderly activity; it excl'udes a happy-go-lucky manner which actually is more a lack of readiness to cooperate with grace than the contrary. Method does not kill spontaneity; it directs it, if only one uses it properly, that is, with t?reedom of spirit and sincerity. Nor does it then in any way hinder the initiative of grace which must be respected also in the course of our prayer or practice of virtue. It is part of the method ever to be docile to what grace may show or demand. And so, if tile use of metho~d in the spiritual life is rightly un-derstood and put into practice, that is, as the very expression of our desire to answer the call of grace, then certainly it will never stand in the way of grace. It will guarantee our cooperation with God's grace and leave no excuse for inertia or lazine.ss. Grace do.es not dis-pense with our effort, it renders our effort possible and fruitful. " 252 NEW BUSINESS ADDRESS Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 3115 South Grand Boulevard St. L~uis 18, Missouri Sisters' Re!:rea!:s--V Thomas Dubay, S.M. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RETREAT MASTER ]F it is possible to assay the general mind of the sisters as expressed in their thousands of answers and observations given in this re-treat study, the present writer would be inclined to point out the subject matter of this article, the retreat master himself, as consti-tuting what they consider the single, most-imporant element covered in the survey. The sisters often cast this general impression into a concrete mold. Observed one sister: There is one order whose technique I prefer over the others and one whose method I like least. Yet the best retreat master I ever had was from the latter! The man makes the 'retreat master, not the method! Time and time again the sisters retur~ in their comments to the retreat master, his message, his methodology, and especially his qual-ities or lack of them. And yet we frankly grant that we approach this most difficult of the subjects treated in the survey with consider-able diffidence. It is difficult because it deals with persons, not mere things, But there is nothing like the truth, anO so we will plunge in. QUALITIES In order to ascertain what qualities the sisters especially looked for in their retreat masters, the following question was placed before 'them : Among the following characteristics of ~a retreat master would you put the number 1 before the one you appreciate most, a 2 before the next in order, etc. to the last: __experience ._._~sense of humor genuine sanctity __theological learning ~kind manner ~practicality Further comment: (spice provided) Unlike their modus aqendi in the other survey questions, the sisters did not here mention man.y new qualities in the blank spaces. Simplicity, humility, and interest in work were noted twice, while the following qualities were mentioned once each: clarity, sweetness and patience, sincerity, .understanding of women, average speaking ability, and intelligence. In order to differentiate as finely as possible the varying degrees of importance, which were attached to the qualities contained, in 253 THOMAS DUBAY . Reuiew for Religious the questionnaire, three points were given to th'e quality eachsister first selected, tWO points to the second, and one point to the third. In parentheses are indicated the number of times each characteristic w'as given first choice. Genuine sanctity . 1481 (414) Practicality . 786 (100) Experience 693 (71) Theological.learning .496 (63) Kindness . 360 (23) Sense of humor . 'i. 225'(10) As can be easily seen, there is really no contest for first 'place. The very fact that gefuine sanctity received more first place votes than all other characteristics put together clearly demo~astrates the fact that sisters want their retreat masters to be men of God before ;Ill else. Practicality is rated as a little more important thar~ experiehce, while knowledge of theology is given the nod over kindness and a sense of humor. The reader may be interested in comparing tile above rating of qualities with the various comments the sisters have made (or will make) in other articles of this series. The correlation 'is significantly high, We are thus rendered all the more certain that our survey has accurately captured their collective mind. We will give typical excerpts of the sisters' further comments according to tee alphabetical order in which the qualities .were listed on the survey form. Experience-- [I select experience] because if he has survived in this type of work, he should be" good.' Father, this is a hard one. They should all be first. A retreat master need not have years of experience in order to conduct a successful retreat: Sometimes those with most experience can be very dry and not at all practical. By ekperience I would understand his dealing with people, not the number of retreats he has conducted. I take by experience You mean with souls and religious life. I also appreciate it when he. makes [sic] a spade a spade and leaves nff loop holes for if's or ,but's. Genuine sanctity-- It has been my conclusion that the best thing any retreat master has to give is his own personal example. The convictions with which he approaches his own spir-itual life necessarily,shdw through his efforts to instruct-.others and in this lies his greatest appeal at least for me. 254. September, 1956 SISTERS' RETREATS--V The personal holiness of the retreat master is by far the most impoltant characteristic. "We thunder what we are" and I think this is particularly true of retreat masters. A priest who says Mass slovenly, and has a worldly manner, etc., can hardly expect his hearers to be "refOrmed" or uplifted in spirit regardless of how perfect his con-ferences may be. A genuine saint might be a very poor retreat master, if he is unable to express himself effectively~ and lacks the theological learning necessary to instruct and guide others to sanctity. Experience and practicality should help a retreat master in making the best use of the short time ;it his disposal to cover the necessary points. Sanctity is most important, however, because without it, the insincerity" would be obvious and detract from the effectiveness of'tl~e speaker. Of all the retreats I have made, three are outstanding and have affected my spiritual life most, as far as I can judge. In each case it was the personal sanctity .of the retreat master that gave these retreats their form and impetus. . A doer of the wo~d as well as preacher carries more weight than any other quality [ know. Sometimes the good effects are lessened by a discovery" that Father preaches but does not live what he advises. The tirlge of pharisaism is usually detrimental. A genuine saintly retreat master by his very presence is a light to the beholder: his example gives inspiration, and a desire to be like him and draws or attracts the at-tention of the listener. His teaching is naturally as be lives: therefore very ac- Ic elpiktaeb tloe fbeye al ltlh oart mthoes tr eotfr ethaetsm m.aster is really doing what he is asking us to do. Sanctity radiates a something that neither intelligence or humor can replace. I've made retreats given by saintly men after which I was ready to sign up with a Foreign Legion or for China if I were asked to .do sd. If a man is genuinely holy, the rest doesn't matter. If God has thrown in a sense of humor, the man's mighty lucky'. Father, many sisters lead deeply spiritual lives and we are not so interested in your learning as such, as we are in knowing that you firmly live and believe your doc-trine. We want you learned but in the end it is your own spiritual life that tells. Many retreat masters fail to stress holiness as intimate union with God. We thirst for the fountains of living water. We want solid doctrine. We want you to fire us' with enthusiasm. We are not bored or critical when you speak. We are intent upon gaining a spiritual lift. Don't apologize for repeating the same material. We are not looking for novelty. If we knew you prayed out all your meditations be-fore Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, we would have great faith in your spoken words. I have watched 4.8 retreat masters come and go, and observed the sisters,, making retreats, heard their reactions, attended conferences when possible and there is one answer: personal sanctity. Kind manner-- One who is kind and understanding in confession--and who asks. if there is any-' thing else on your mind. Sometimes tha't last question is just what one needs! I think if a retreat master has real genuine sanctity and a kind manner, whatever else is lacking God will supply the rest. Please don't close the slide or glee absolution before sister has told her story and received some satisfaction. I am not referring to a scrupulous soul. 255 THOMAS DUBAY "Reoieto for Religio~ PracticalitF-- I like a retreat master who can "talk" to us and be practical in the applications he makes. A clear cut set of ideas is what I always hope to find in a retreat. A retreat master who sets down principles to live our daily lives by and who makes us toe the mark and set out with new determination to seek perfection with God's help d~es a greatest ot: services. Some seem to avoid the practical problems of religious life. They don't get down to the core of the matter, even in discussing the vows. Make them practical! Not the extraordinary, once in a lifetime act of obedience, but the everyday type, the everyday needs of each vow. Occasions of sin, etc. Most Of us cduld actually write a volume on the theory of sanctity. It has been well explained, but maybe we could have more practical hints to help us practice what we .know. Sense of humor-- A good sense of humor in a retreat master makes for a good retreat. The dry kind never appeal to me. A retreat to me, is a joy, not a dry thing'. A sense of humor is O.K., especially on a very hot day to keep you awake, but Sacred Scripture should not be used to make fun. By sense of humor I understand having a proper evaluation of things, ability to see,and enjoy a joke~not necessarily "full of jokes." Theological learning-- The choice of I and 2 is a difficult one for the "Spirit breatheth where He wills." However, in the analysis of problems, judicious decisions to be made. delicate situ-ations to handle and the like the educated theologian has much to offer. A certain confidence is generated. God can ~use a stick to work wonders. I think all of these necessarily link together because theological learning could not be passed over to some of us without sanctity, experience, practicality, and a sense of humor. We can really presume en~ough theological learning in any religious set aside to give retreats to nuns. A real absence of theological learning would be worse than an absence of sanctity--but a lot of learning carries small weight with nuns with-out genuine holiness behind it. In the last analysis it is only holiness as concretized in another person which can inspire. But sanctity lending weight to incomplete or misapplied doctrine can do harm. General comments-- This is difficult to answer because he needs them a11, at least in some degree~ Nuns like humility in a retreat master, but not a "scared" attitude or one of"'you-know- it-all-already--what can I tell you" attitude~ We do not know very much. He should sound convinced. A sister can tell whether a retreat master is giving.a retreat merely because of duty or whether he honestly loves the sisters and wants to help them advance along 256 September, 1956 SISTERS~ RETREATS--V the road to perfection, understanding their problems no matter how small they may be. Fatherly is the characteristic I like best of all. One to whom you can speak with ease, knowing and realizing that he has your interest (souls) at heart. Very difficult to decide--would like to have all in one. , One final word on the qualities of the retreat master. As has been indicated in a p~evious article, sisters, teaching in college lay a heavier emphasis as a gioup on their need for theglogy. The' writer noted the same stress here on the importance of theological learning in the retreat master. Among the var, ious qualities of the retreat master, a knowledge of theology is the only one that received an emphasis that was noticeably different according to the work in which' the sisters en, gag~d, DEFECTS Often enough pointing out deficiencies is little short of,.unpleas-ant, and it so happens that our present task is decidedly such. How-ever, St. Thomas speaks of fraternal correction as a spiritual alms, an act of charity. For that reason and because the sisters so intended their observations in a lovely spi'rit of combined kindness and frank-ness, we move with less hesitation to the business at hand. The question dealing with defects was worded as follows: What characteristic do you dislike most in a retreat master? Please place hum- . bet 1 before the one you dislike most, etc. Further comment : t No suggested defects were offered to the sisters. The writer feels that more objectivity was thus secured for the reason that a defect would have to make a considerable impression on a sister if she was to be able to recall it unaided. It would have had to be real. This "no suggestion" technique gave rise on the other hand to a ~wide'variety of noted failings. These we have tried to reduce to common categories as far as possible, but accuracy forbade too drastic a reduction. Hence, the sizeable list below. After each obs.erved defect, is given the number of tirffes it was mentioned. The figure in parentheses indicates the number of times the failing was listed as "disliked most." Statements under each heading are characteristic ways in which the sisters styled the defect. Reading conferences an~t meditation expos~.s . 176 (83) 257 THOMAS DUBAY Review for Religious Reading the retreat--slave to notes--reading entire conference--r~ading notes in-stead of talking. Lack of interest . 93 (28) Sense of boredom (I'm here because of obedience)-~cold, factual 16resentation-- "job attitude"-~a no interest attitude-~-doing something assigned and no mor~-- listless, sleepy, dull. , Conceit . 81 (35) Desire to make an impression~know-it-all attitude--attracts to himself--better-than- thou attitude-~c0cksureness--aloofness---ccnstant reference to himself-~go-tism. Verbosity . 71 (15) Long and rambling--talks and talks and says nothing--nev.er getting to the point-- endless repetition --- d0esn't keep to the schedule--long windedness. Sarcasm, ridicule .¯ . 68 (31) Making fun of problems of sisters of other communities--rididule of superiors-- sarcastic manner--sarcastic approach. ,Joking manner . . 59 (19) Too many jokes--keeps retreatants in an'uproar-~clowning~trying to be funny --a joker. Impracticality . 57 (12) Examples that don't fit o~ur work-~-prlnciples without examples---out-dated. Severity . : . 56 (13) Hell fire and brimstone gloomy--fills with fear rather than love--harsh---blunt expres,sions--six days of scolding. Confessional defects . 50 (9) Impatient.-not available--fast--harsh-~curt--not helpful~talks too loud--no in-terest in the Confessional--indifference to problems. Delivery defects . 47 (11) Talks too fast--inaudible--shouting, ranting-r--muttering, indistinct too slow in .speech--hilting, hesitating---cannot heat him. Superficiality ' .42 (5) La~k of material to communicate--superficial flippancy--shallow--greats retreat lightly--too many ideas .at one time--lightnes~ of treatment--banality lack of theological basis--ignorance theologically unsound. Emotionalism and dramatic manner . . 40 (8) Oratorical---excessive emotion--flowery langfiage--sentimentalism in choic~ of poems, prayers, etc.--too many gestures--unnecessary play on words. Lack of preparation . .,. . . 40 (15) Unpreparedness---lack of organization--lack of immediate preparation. 258 September, 1956 SISTERS' RETREATS--V Excessive intellectuality .". . . 39 (15) Subjects too deep--explainer of theology too philosophical--theological learning' --bookish conferences--high sounding explanations~ Critical spirit in general .3.4. .(10) Chip on the shoulder---critical spirit--pet grievances---critical toward his own corn: re.unity or supenors-~constant scolding-~criticism of sisters studying for degrees--, Cynical" spirit. Lack of sense of humor .: . . . 34 (10) Too serious--gloomy--never a sense of humor. Critical spir'it toward sisters .3.1. (6) Belit'tling nuns--atti.tude that religious are frustrated-~-' unfriendly toward our com-munity-~ critical toward sisters--lack of respect for religious women--making fun of nuns-~critical of our rule, constitutions, and customs--says he dislikes giving retreats to sisters. Worldliness .~. . .~ . 29 (7) Lack of spiritual depth--too l~lasi--play boy type~lacks ho!iness-~easy going-- selfish. Narration of personal experie,nces . 26 (8) Too much personal reference--talking about what they have done-~-~introducing himself and his beloved relatives --- details of family history. Lack of kindness .,. .25 (5) o Harsh, unkind, especially in the confessional--unapproachable--unsympathetic. - Condescension toward sisters . 21 (4) Acting as though we can't understand him--talking down to women-~condescend-ing toward nuns-~belittles the intelligence of nuns and hence waters, down doctrine --treats sisters as beginners in the spiritual life, ' Negative approach .1.5. (4) Too much sin, no love--stressing the negative--emphasis on God's justice. Lack of understanding .1.4. (1) Doesn't understand human nature--lack of understanding of nuns and their problems. In or, der neither to prolong our list beyond due m~asure nor to deny the sisters' views full recognition, we will treat the remaining de-fects in paragraph form and indicate only the total number of times each failing was mentioned. Defects in examples (lack .of, exag-gerated, too many), 14; narrating faults~and scandalous stories re- ~arding other religious, 12; mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, 12; brev-ity, 12;language defects (crude, coarse, slang, grammatical errors), 11 ; nervous and timid ' (restless, fidgeting), 11 : not looking :at audience, 10; inexperience, 8; apodictic, 8; insincerity (affected sanc- 2:59 THOMAS DUBAY ~ Review /or Religious tity, not practicing what he preaches), 8; lack of originality (espe-cially in illustrations and expressions), 8; too familiar, 8; watering down spiritual life, 7; slovenly at Mass, 6; no theme in the retreat, 5; late for. conferences, 5; too eager to please, 4. Subjects receiving three mentions were vagueness, rigid retreat routine, self-depreciation, effeminacy, and excessi;ce praise of sisters. Those noted twice were curiosity and p~ying, stress on unimportan.t matters, loud speaking in the convent, neglectof the liturgy; and provincialism. A few of the many items mentioned by only one sister were immaturity, use of cliches, preoccupation with a favorite subject, lack of refinement, joking about sacred things, and use of pietistic expressions. We must not fail to note that 208 sisters chose not to answer this question. While we cannot be sure just what their reasons may have been, it seems likely that some sisters simply could not recall any outstanding defects. Others may have thought it unkind or unappreciative to record defects of their retreat masters. These latter we may admire even though we, do not agree with them. Whatever the reasons may be, more sisters abstained from replying to this question than abstained from any other. In other questions thus far treated in this series of "articles, .we have given representative excerpts from the sisters' further comments, but for the present question any attempt to be really representative would far exceed the bounds of one article. We will, therefore, limit ourselves to excerpts characteristic of some of the more-frequently mentioned defects. Reading notes-- [ also do not like for the retreat master to read his conferences. He may wish to refer to notes,, but he should have his material so well at his finger tips that he cari deliver it without reading. Some are far from interesting. It is a real penance to sit through six days of listening and straining while someone drones away from some notebook. The only real dislike is toward the retreat master who rea,ds all his talks. I don't say he can't have notes, etc., but the reading of entire lectures and meditations has simply no effect. I'd rather ten minutes of a straight talk. Lack' of interest-- The worst fault is perhaps an attitude of mere tolerance of this job of giving nuns a retreat. The sooner it's over the better! Sisters look forward to their annual retreat with eager anticipation for months, and most of them really do want to progress in the spiritual life. It is a big dis-appointment when they have to listen to a retreat master who apparently does not care for this type of work. 260 September, 1956 SISTERS" RETREATS--V Conceit-- One who calls attention to himself --- the 'T'--more than necessary in conferences. Shows off his intelligence and forgets retreatants also have some. Sarcasm-- Sarcasm and ridicule of women in general and of riuns in particular. Critical negativism-- If there is any observation I should like to make it is this: whatever you can do to dissuade retreat masters for sisters from flavoring their conferences, meditations, and talks with stories exemplifying the ¢ricities and quirks of sisters--usually these apply to only a relatively few--please do . There is nothing so devas-tating and So harmful, it seems to me, than just, that t~;pe of story. If our youth-~ ful entrants grow cynical, distrustful, perhaps even weak in their vocation, may it not be because of the unwise, imprudent choice of illustrations chosen by retreat masters? True, there are odd sisters, but for every odd one, there are at last eight or more sensible, normal ones. Why select the queer and rarely allude to the truly noble and fine in every sense' of the words? Young people are shocked, and rightly so, at the strange things they sometimes hear. "It may~ be that retreat masters wish to be entertaining, amusing. But at what a cost! Ours is an age in which reverence is fast wanifig. Couldn't it help to a restoration' if retreat masters were occasionally more reverent? Tendency to overemphasize the fact that disagreements and petty jealousies do occur in religious life. We know they do, but there are plenty of sisters who are outstand-ing examples of beautiful si?terly charity as well as communities ,where the spirit of charity is outstanding. Joking manner-- What the sisters need is practical help toward sanctity . . : , but too often the" maste? uses the shell of the pulpit to reflect Father Retreat Master instead of the will of God to his listeners. This is especially true of the "joker" who uses the time for his stories and leaves the sisters with nothing to take with them except mem-ories of his cleverness. Severity.--- Pounding, scolding, and "yelling," though I don~t mind being told the truth,--- but not so loud! Lacl~ of understanding~ Sometimes the retreat master forgets that the sisters have more to do than just say their prayers. He should look into the entire picture and help both'subject and superior. Some retreats the subject gets all the corrections, and then sometimes the superior is all to blame. Why not lead all to God by charity, patience, and a. kind understanding of our difficulties? I think community life is a far happier and "homey-er" state than some retreat masters imply. After 29 years of it, under 16 different superiors, I can say I've never lived in a house where happiness and virtue didn't far outweigh human failings and "blue Mondays."--(I'm a realist, not an optimist!) 261 THOMAS DUBAY We now have the happier task of noting a few of the unsolicited compliments rciany of the sisters paid their retreat masters. To neg-lect these and dwell on defects alone would be to give the reader a badly distorted' picture of the whole situation. As is usu~ally the case in human affairs, all is neither black nor white. Among the favorable observations made, the following are characteristic. Most retreat masters are sincere, earnest, and holy. We can make allowances for lack of absolute perfection. If a retreat master is sincere and works hard I¯can't dislike much in him. I have had none whose characteristics made me.lose the value of retreats. I never really thought about this [defects], for I can truthfully say and I thank God for it, I enjoyed every one of my retreats. I learned something every time, betause I was looking for something. I have never had a dislike for a retreat master. I see in him God's messenger for my soul, who will only do his best to bring me nearer to God. I have observed no serious undesira~01e characteristics. Actually I have liked every retreat and every retreat master in my twenty years in religion. These very minor dislikes are:mentioned only to indicate how trivial are the things we let get between us and the message of the retreat. Heavens! I don't know--I've never stopped to think. I always figure the poor man is doing a job that's hard enough without our being critical; He's out to help us and we ought to help him to help us. I'm told, '~It's easier to criticize a retreat master than to be one." Most retreat masters have the necessary characteristics requisite for such important work--God bless them! And we might add: God bless these'sisters! both those who in fraternal charity pointed out defects and those who in the same charity saw none to, point out. OUR CONTRIBUTORS JOSEPH F. GALLEN is professor ~f canon law at Woodstock College, Wood-stock,, Maryland. SISTER M.TERESITA is stationed at the Holy Family. Motherhouse, 890 Hayes Street, San Francisco, California. P. DE LETTER is a member of the faculty of St: Mary's Theological College, Kurseong N. E. Ry., India. THOMAS DUBAY teaches philosophy at the Notre Dame Seminary, 290l S. Carrolhon Ave., New Orleans, Louisiana. 262 ( ues .ions and Answers [The following answers are given" by Father Joseph F. ~allen, S.J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College. Woodstock, Maryland.] I am guiding a young man who is entering our own institute. He casu-ally remarked to me that his family wanted him to sign over his mor3ey to his brothers and sisters before entrafice. By careful questioning I learr~ed that his money amounted to several thousand dollars. Should he sign over th~s money to others before his entrance? A renunciation'is the giving away, the gratuitous, abdication of the ownership of property. An obligation is any act by which own-ership is lessened, rendered less secure, or impeded, e. g., putting up property as security for the debts of others. Can. 568 renders both illicit and invalid any renunciation or obligatmn placed on the prin-cipal of his property by a novice. The canon applies only to the noviceship, but it" is contrary to the spirit of this same law for a renunciation or obligation to be placed on the property of a candi- .date during the postulancy or before entrance becafise of the inten-tion of entering religion. The purpose of c. 568 is to protect the novice's right to. leave religion and to prevent him being, deterred from doing so because he had given away his property. This reason applies equally to the time before the noviceship. Therefore, postu-lants and candidates should in practically every case be dissuaded from any renunciation or obligation. 'The professed of simple vows may give away the income on his property even after first profession. He c6uld later ask the Holy See for permission th give away all or part of the principal of his property, if there should be real need of this; and the solemnly professed will have to give away all his prop-erty at the renunciation effective at solemn profession. Relatives are not often selfless in a case of thi~ nature. It is also at least becoming for those in or approaching the state of perfection, if they are to give away any property, to follow the counsel of perfection, which is not to give to relatives but to give to the poor. A postulant was in danger of death. Could he have been admitted to the profession that is ~ermiffed to novices in danger of death.'? A plenary indulgence in the form of a jubilee is attached to the profession permitted to novices, and this profession also requires ad-mission by a higher superior, the superior of the novitiate house, or the delegate of either. This profession is restricted to novices and" 263 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Revidw [or Religious may not be granted to a postulant. However, canon law does not forbid professed religious, novices, and postulants to make private vows (c. 1307, §' 2). Such vows are most rgrely advisable for them, and should never be made without consulting a confessor who is prudent and sufficiently conversant with the habitual state of soul of. the subject. There would rarely be any reason for opposing a private vow by a postulant in danger of death. Therefore, the postu-lant in danger of death can be instructed that he may, make the vows of the institute completely of his own volition. There is no ad-mission in this case on the part of superiors, and the indulgence is not attached to this profession. The essential effect of the profession granted to novices is .attained, i. e., the greater oblation of oneself to God and the co.nsolation of the postulant. In this case also, the or-dinary formula of profession of the institute "is to be used but with-out any determination of time. The implicit duration of the vows is until the postulant zecovers his health. If he does, the vows cease; and he is in exactly the same state as if he had taken no vows what-soever. Cf. Wernz-Vidal, III,.De Reli~liosis, 258-59, note 71. m32-- Is it canon law or merely our own constitutions that forbid the assign-ment of any but exempla, r¥ religious to the novitiate house? Is it always possible to observe this prohibition? Can. 554, § 3, commands higher superiors to assign only ex-emplary religious to novitiate houses. The evident reason is the in-fluence that the lives of the professed.can exert on the novices. The sense of this law is that religious who are not exemplar.y must not be assigned for habitual residence to the house in which the novitiate is located. The code presumes that ,only the master and his assist-ants will reside in the novitiate itself. In clerical institutes the same prescription of the code extends t6 houses of study. Lay i~astitutes should be directed by the same principle with regard to the houses where the professed of temporary vows reside during studies. Every effort is to be made to observe this law, of the code, but it is quite often impossible in practice to send a refractory religi0us to any house except the novitiate house. The religious' at times has to be removed from contact with externs, and even more frequently he or she simply has to be sent to a very large community. Religious of this type can make life impossible for a smaller community. In cases ¯ of this nature, superiors are to strive tO observe the purpose of the law by preventing such religious from having a harmful influence. on the novices. ' 264 September, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 33 ¯ Must the nov;t;ate be located at the residence of the superior general or prov~ncla~? Neither canon law nor the practice of the Holy See in approv-ing constitutions demands that the novitiate be located at the resi-dence of the superior general or provincial. Article 88 of the Normae of 1901 contained the self-evident prescription that the novitiate wasoto be located at the place most suitable for the formation of the novices. The supervision of the higher superior can be more readily exercised when he resides at the novitiate, but the same purpose can and should be attained by more frequ.ent visits to the novitiate. --34--- Must we admit to the novlceship one who has been approved in the canonical examination of the local ordlnary~ and ~s it of" obligation that this examlnafi6n be made outside the clolster7 The canonical examination prescribed for institutes of women by can. 552 .is not admission to the noviceship or first temporary or perpetual~profession but a prerequisite for a licit admission. There-fore, a subject, who has been approved in this examination may be dismissed, excluded from further professions, or have her time of postulancy, noviceship, or temporary vows prolonged by the com-petent higher superior: The examination is to take place outside the cloister of both orders and congregations, but .any just or reason-able cause (c. 604, § 1) will suffice for holding the ~examination within the common cloister of congregations, i. e., institutes of simple vows." What is to be done ff in giving Holy Communion at the grille a Host hlls within the papal cloister of nuns? A priest may enter the cloister to pick up the Host, or a nun may pick up the Host with the paten, a clean piece of paper, or'her fingers And either consume it, if she has not already co'mmunicated, or give it to the priest. The place where the Host had fallen is after-wards to be washed by a nun, and the water is to be thrown into the sacrarium. Cf. Fanfani, De Religiosis, 460; J. O'Connell, The . Celebration of Mass, 242; De Amicis, Caerernoniale Parochorum, 181; De Herdt, Sacrae Liturgiae Praxis, II, n. 188. --36-- I asked a priest to say a votive Mass of the Annunciation of the Bless- 265 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for' Religious ed Virgln Mary. He told me he was not allowed to do so. What is the reason for this? Only the Masses for which permission is expressly given may be said as votive Masses of the Divine Persons, the Blessed Virgin, and the angels. This permission is verified when the Mass 'is listed as a votive Mass in the missal ~r when directions are given in the. Mass, usually after thi~ gradual, for saying it as a votive Mass. The votive Masses of the Blessed Mother universally permitted., are the five Masses of Our Lady for Saturdays according to the season, Immacu-late Conception, Seven Dolors, and Immaculate Heart. All the Masses of the Blessed Virgin in the Masses for Certain. Places may be used as votive Masses, except that of the Expectation of the Birth of Our Lord (December 18), but only in places where the festal Mass is permitted. Particular dioceses or religious institutes can also have indults to say some other Masses of the Blessed Virgin as votive Masses. A votive Mass may be said-in honor of any canon-ized saint whose name is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, in its~approved supplements, or in tlhe calendar approved by the Holy See for any diocese, religious order, or congregation. Votive Masses may also be said for the various necessities contained in the second series of votive Masses of the missal. Cf. 3.O'Connell, "T'he Cele-bration of Mass, 68-73. --37m What is thb meaning of lay brother and la~/sister? When found, different classes of religious in the same instittite are commonly those of clerical religious and lay brothers, teaching brothers and lay brothers, choir nuns or sis~'ers and lay sisters. Lay brothers and lay sisters are sometimes called coadjutor, coadjutrix, auxiliary, and converse religious. The Latin n.ame for their class is conversi(ae). A lay brother or sister is not simply a. lay religious. All religious wo'men are lay religious, Since a lay religious is one not destined for, the priesthood. Lay brothers can be had in ~i male in-stitute in which all, the members are lay religious, e. g., in a congre-gation of teaching brothers, The class of lay brother and lay sister is distinguished ,by the following notes. There are two juridical classe's of members of distinct rights 'and obligations in the institute. The lay brother or sister is destined for domestic, manual, and tem-poral la.bors, while to the other class appertain the priestly ministry, teaching, nursing, and the formation of postulants, novices, and prbfessed. The lay brothers and sisters have no part in the govern-ment of the institute, which is reserved to the other class. Therefore, 266 September, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS they cannot be voted for or appointed to any office; nor do they have a vote in any chaptbr, general, provincial, or local. In virtue of c. 526, lay sisters have a vote on prolonging the term of the ordinary confessor; but this is.not a matter of government. ~38~- We prolonged the temporary vows of a junior professed for three more years'. May we admit him to perpetual profession before the ex-plratlon of these three added years? By canon law both the postulancy and the noviceship may be prolonged but not longer than six months. This prolongation ma~ be made even if the duration of,the postulancy and noviceship is longer than the six months and the year prescribed by canon law. Some constitutions restrict prolongation, e. g., by forbidding an tension Of more than three months to a prescribed post~lancy of nine months or to a noviceship of two years. Canon law also per-mits a prolongation of temporary vows for' three years but forbids that the whole time of- any case of temporary profession, without an indu.lt from the Holy See, be more than six years. If an institute has five years of temporary vows, they are prol6ngable-only for a year; if six, they may be prolonged only by an indult from the Holy See. Prolongation of any of these probationary states is to be avoided as far as possible by a system of reports to the highe[ superior and the prompt instruction, counseling, and admonishing of the unsatis-factory subject. Prolongation is rarely found to be a satisfactory expedient except in a case such as that of health. A prolongation of any of these probationary states does not have to be made for the frill time permitted by law. Any of them may be prolonged for days, Weeks, months, and the temporary pro-fession for one or two years. ,Whether the prolongation has been made for the full time allowed or any lesser period, the competent higher superior may admit a subject who has proved himself satis- . factory before the expiration of such a period. --39m What ,is the difference between the canonical impediments that' make a noviceship ,invalid and those that render it merely illicit?. An impediment to the noviceship is a circumstance affecting a per.son that would make his novi'ceship either invalid. (diriment im-pediment) or merely illicit (merely prohibiting impediment). All religious' institutes are' obliged by the impediments of can.~ 542. Some 267 QUESTION~AND ANSWERS Review f~r" Religious institutes have additional impediments of their own constitutions. All laws of the code oblige immediately under sin. Their vio-lation is consequently a sin, at least, objectively. The common ef-fect of law is to produce a moral obligation. A law produces no other effect uialess this is certainly stated in the law. For example, ' some laws enact'a canonical penalty, such as an excommunication against a Catholic who attempts marriage before a non-Catholic minister (c. 2319, § 1, 1"). In the present inatter, a law produces only the common effect of a moral obligation when it is a merely prohibiting impediment. To be also a diriment impediment, the law must state certainly, either explicitly or implicitly, that it is an invalidating law. This i~ done explicitly by the phrases that the person is incapable of making a valid noviceship or ~afinot be validly admitted to the noviceship. Implicitly the same effect would be ex-pressed by stating that the circumstance was a diriment impediment or that no noviceship could exist because of the circumstance or by requiring a circumstance for a noviceship or a novice to exist. Invalidating ecclesiastical laws are-concerned only .with juridical acts. These are acts that effect the acquisition, change,~nd loss of rights and ol~ligafions, such as contracts, marriage, and religious pro-fession. It is impossible to invalidate a simple act of disobedience; but marriage, since it produces the rights and obligations of husband and wife, can be invalidated. Let us suppose that a religious pro-fession is invalidly made. The invalidating law does not and can-not annihilate the physical enyity of the act of l~rofession; nor can it annul the moral entity of the act, i. e., that the act was or was not knowingly and thus sinfully made contrary to law. However; the act of profession would otherwise have produced the rights and ob-ligations of the religious state. The' p.recise effect 0f the invalidating law is tO annul these rights and obligations. The one who made the profession is not a religious and h~i's none of the rights and obliga-tions of a religious. The juridical effect of a valid noviceship is to make the subject capable under this" aspect of a valid religious pro-fession; a diriment impediment not dispensed annuls this capability. Inculpable ignorance excuses from the sin but not from the invali-dating effect of a Violation of such laws. Ignorance would excuse even from the invalidity of a particular law when such a law states that ignorance has this effect (c. 16, § 1). None of the invalidating laws on the religious state admit ignorance as an excuse from the invalidating effect. ¯Religious should faithfully observe all the laws of their institute 268 $eptember, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS and especially of the Church, but the invalidating laws are to be even more carefully studied and most strict~ly observed.Very serious consequences can arise from negligence in this matter, since the in-validating laws on the religious state can quite readily cause a chain of invalidity in the institute; For example, an invalid noviceship makes all subsequent professions invalid, and a house not validly designated as a novitiate house renders all noviceships in that house invalid. These possible cases could be multiplied, and all possible cases appear to have been verified in fact. The care for the observance of. invalidating laws on the religious state rarely falls on subjects or local superiors. It.is the master of novices, higher superiors and' their councilors, and the general and provincial secretary who must take care of the observance of such laws. They should know enough canon law to recognize or at least suspect an invalidating law and they must seek competent advice in any doubtful matter. ~0-- Poverty is a constant, iproblem in our institute. The principal difficul-ties are the use of money.wlthout permission, the very frequent request to use all or part of cjiffs, the obtaining of personal necessities, practlca~ly always of better quality, from seculars, and the obtaining of money from seculars for special purposes, which appear very extraordinary to the other religious. The last two are often solicited, directly or indirectly, by the rel[glous. It is hum[llatlng to realize that this is being done, and es-pecially the last two practices cause difficulties, discontent, and 9radua| loss of observance in quite a few other religious. I am sure that, with the possible exceptlbn of rare and accidental cases, local superiors are cjen~ erous. Are there any law~. that we should add to our constitutions to strengthen the observance of poverty? The principles with regard to such practices and even thespecific practices themselves have often been treated in the REVIEW FOR RE-LIGIOUS. It is a delusion to believe that new or added laws neces-sarily effect a renewed spiritual life. Defective laws,should b~ cor-rected; but the laws of the institute in question, as of so many others that are faced by the same problem, are not defective. The precise difficulty of many religious is that they confine their understanding and practice of poverty to the mere obligation of the vow and .of law. Superiors are to insist on the observance of both the vow\ and the laws on poverty; they are to. remember that it is easier to prevent than to eliminate abuses; and by apt ~nstruction and individual guid-ance they are to strive.to rfiake their subjects realize the purpose of poverty, without which poverty in many cases will be a matter of, 269 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Reoieu~ for Religious ;'what I~can get away with." The purpose of the religious life is the perfection of divine charity, and the primary purpose of the three vows of religion is to remove the chief obstacles that impede the soul from complete,love of God. The princilSal purpose therefore of tt~e vow of poverty is not mere external observance but a detach-ment from external goods that will lead to an increased love of God. Detachment here is the habitual interior state by which one uses, requests, and desires ma'terial things, not for themselves, but only in-sofar as they are necessary or useful for personal sanctification, prog-ress in that sanctification, and work. Permission is a help to the at-tainment of deta~chment, but no assurance of its acquisition. Per- .mission is highly compatible with attachment to the object permitted. It should be axiomatic that religious pove~rty is efficacious only to the degree that it effects detachment. If a religious iS not striving for detachment, poverty is contributing very little to his religious life. This purpose of povery is not commanded under sin; but a religious is grievously deceived if he does not realize that his sanctification, even after profession, is placed principally in matters of counsel. Religious poverty consequently is real and effective only in the degree that it is increasing love of God, detachment from material' things, and the ~ correlative virtues of trust in divine providence, patience, meekness, humility, and the spirit of mortification. A candidate applied for admission~ who had evidently been conceived before the marr[acje of his parents, but the parents married in the C~hurch before his birth. Is he lecjitlmat~? A legitimate child is one either conceived or born of a valid or a putative marriage (c. 1114). It is therefore not necessary that a Child be both conceived and born of such a ¯marriage, but either con-ception or birth is sufficient. This child was born of a valid mar-riage and is consequently legitimate. ¯ If'will be clearer to put the present question in the form of'a case with fictitious names. Irwin, a Gatholic, attemp÷ed marFiacje with an Episcppalian, before an Episcopalian minister. A daughter, Jane, was born to the couple a year later. The marrlacje was ne~;er ¢onvalidated in the Gathloi¢ Church. 'Irwin has always been certain ofthe invalidity" of his marriacje, but Irma has never had a doub~ about its validity. -Jane has olways been a C~athollc and wishes to enter relicjion. Is she lecjitim~te? 270 " September, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS A child is legitimate if conceived or born °either from a valid or from a putative marriage. A putative marriage is an invalid mar-riage, but at the time of the celebration at least one of the parties believed'the marriage valid. It is sufficient that a non-Catholic party be the one in good faith. (Cf. Vlaming-Bender, Praelectiones Iuris Matrimonii, 45-46; Woywood-Smith, A Practical Commentary, I, 646.) This good faith required in at least one of the parties means that such a party at the time of the celebration either had no doubt about the validity; or, if there was such a doubt, it was proportion-ately investigated. If such anlnvestigation was neglected, the party was not in good faith. The marriage remains putative until both parties are certain of its invalidity. A child either conceived or both while the marriage is putative is legitimate and remains so forever, even though later both parties become certain of the invalidity. A putative marriage can occur, when the invalidating .cause is el}her a defect of consent or a diriment impediment not dispensed. On January 26, 1949, the Code Commission gave an au.thentic inter-- pretation, whose sense is that a .marriage attempted completely with-out canonical form cannot be puta, tive if at least one of the parties is held to c~nonical form. Canonical form consists in the presence of a competent priest and at least two witnesses. As a Catholic, Irwin was held to canonical form; and his marriage with'Irma before an Episcopalian minister was attempted completely without ~canoniCal form. Therefore, the marriage cannot be putative; and Jane is iilegitimate. --43m Does the impediment of a religious profession effect one ~vho left after profe~slon and later wishes to be readmiffed to the, same institute? This diriment impediment of can. 542, 1 °, reads: "Those who ~ire or were bound by religious profession." The language of the canon is absolute and i.s to be understood absolutely. The impediment )herefore is verified in those who. are now bound or at any time in the past were bound by valid religious vows, sOlemn or simple, per-~ petual or temporary, iri the same or a different institute, whet,her an order or a pontifical or diocesan congregation. The iNpediment does not affect , those who were merely novices or postulants in any re, ligious institute, nor novices who were admitted to profession in dan-ger of death, nor finally anyone who was a member of a society of common life without public vows or of a secular institute. How-ever, m~iny institutes have a merely, prohibitive impediment of their own constitutions with regard to.those whd were novices or pos~u~- 271 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS lants in another, religious institute, which some extend also to those who had been nox;ices or postulants in the same religious institute. The impediment is dispensable. Greater care is to be exercised in this case to secure assurance of a religious vocation. The departure from ,,another institute is, generally speaking, a strong argument against the presence of a religious vocation. The petition should give the circumstances and reasons for the departure, i. e., the name of the 6ther institute, of what vows the candidate was professed, how long, and whether the departure was voluntary or by exclusion at the end of temporary vows, by secularization, or dismissal. The reasons for the departure should be given truthfully arid completely. Should novices be separated from the postulants? Canon law does not command the separatioh of the novices and postulants. Constitutions of lay congregations approved by the Holy See after 1901 are based in great part on the Normae of 1901. Article 64 of these Normae prescribed such a separation when this could be conveniently accomplished. Some institutes have such a prescription in their constitutions, due either to the influence of the Nor.maeor to the fact that these institutes believe separation to be more conducive to the religious formation of both novices and postulants. What does canon law command about the place of postulancy? Can. 540, § 1, commands that the postulancy be made in the novitiate ,house or in another house of the institute where the religious discipline prescribed by the constitutions is faithfully observed. The canon does not forbid the distribution of the postulants in many houses of the institute nor the repeated transfer of a postulant from one house to another. Experience, however, 'more than fully dem-onstrates that it is far more preferable for the postulancy to be made , in the novitiate house. It can be taken as a thorotighly sound and general practical principle that the effect o,f separation from the master of novices or postulants is little instruction 6r formation in the religious li~e. A small number of congregations have wisely pre-scrib, ed that the postulants must spend two complete months in the novitiate house before their entrance into the noviceship when the earlier part of the postulancy has been made outside the novitiate house. 272 (Material for this department should ,be sent to: Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs~ Indiana.) THE MIND OF THE CHURCH IN THE FORMATION OF SISTERS. Se-lectlbns from Addresses Given durln9 the Six Regional Conferences and the First National Meeting of the Sister Formation Conference, 19S4-19SS. Pp. 282. Fordham University Press, New York. 19S6. $3.00 This book is another milestone in the Sister Formation move, menL The inspiration of the movement was the address of Plus XII at the first International Congress of Teaching Sisters in September, 1951. The Holy Father dxhorted the ~ sisters to make all of their schools excellent, to make sure that the education of sister teach-ers corresponds in quality and academic degrees to that demanded by the state, and to adapt themselves to new conditions. "You," he added, "must serve the cause of Jesus Christ and of His Church as the world t~oday requires." The movement was inf~rmally laurlched at the Kansas City NCEA convention in 1952 when a ggoup of sisters was authorized .to survey the current status of sister education in the United States. ,The findings of the survey underscored three major problems of sister education: (!) the. needed time for sisters to complete a bachelor's degree program and state certification requirements beford entering the classroom, (2) the resources (financial and academic) necessary for this adeq

Issue 30.4 of the Review for Religious, 1971. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, 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 REVIEW FOR R~LIGIOUS; ~12 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63to3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St.- Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ~9m6. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis ~. ~.,'ersity, the editorial oflfices being located . ';12 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard. Saint Louis, Missour 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright ~ 1971 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Published for Review fi,r Religious at Mr. Roval & (;uilford Ave., Bahimore. Md. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore. Maryland and at additional mailin~ offices. Single c~pies: $1.25. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order paya-ble to REVIEW eort REL1OIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW IgOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. - Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REvmw ~OR RELIGIOtJS; P. O. Box 1110; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editorial correspondence, and books for re-view should be sent to REVIEW FOR 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. JULY 1971 VOLUME 30 NUMBER 4 SISTER MARIE BRINKMAN, S.C.L. Toward a Theology of Women's Religious A theology of any aspect of the Christian life by its nature evolves. Perhaps the greatest difficulty of living in an age of transition in the Church is to feel the process and not the fruits of theological evolution. That seems to be where we are in what has long been called--and lately "unlabeled" by Brother Gabriel Moranl--religious life. Whatever such a theology has been for the past, it is no longer adequate if we are to judge by current efforts to enunciate a theology of celibacy for the present, or fu-ture. If it is fair to generalize, we might call that of the past a "theology of negation." In the sense used here, the term means an understanding and practice of the vows o~ religion which emphasized mortification or restraint of human inclinations and desires, in order to realize an ideal of universal charity dedicated to service, sharing of goods in community, and snbmission to the will of God. The end was wholly positive: to follow Jesus Christ in establishing His kingdom on earth. The ground of the theology was the gospel. But complex factors resulted in emphasis on the self: self-denial, self-perfection, and a profound privacy in living united with God. Such em-phasis wa~ natural and necessary when the life of celibacy for the kingdom struck its roots in a primitive Christian-ity inimical to its pagan surroundings. Flight from the world to the desert--literally or simply in spirit--was a dramatic and effective model for following Christ. If Augustine's experience and temperament brought liim to it in struggle, others sought it by inclination. It ~See his article in National Catholic Reporter, December 18, 1970. ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Marie is a faculty member of ¯ St. Mary College; Xavier, Ks. 66098. VOLUME 30, 1971 4" 4" 4" Sister Marie ¯ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 564 would be some time, furthermore, before the asceticism of the desert and Augustinian theology, influenced by Paul, would be modified by Benedict's rule of modera-tion. Even then, throughout the Middle Ages, as the monastery came to grips with the world, the need for strict asceticisnl gTew. If its roots in the gospel became manifest in the joy of Francis's mendicant poverty, the joy was no less the fruit of renunciation. Yet within the Poverello's .lifetime, that reach of the spirit that says "yes" to all creation proved too difficult an integra'tion for many. Extremes and strife divided his followers. But if negativism and individualism were always abuses of celibate life, spiritual freedom and individnal-ity were its frnit in every age. The passion of universal charity, of profound friendship, and of intimacy with Jesus Christ is the part of the mystery that Benedict, Francis, and John of the Cross knew to its depths. So too conntless others. A positive theology then is nothing new--except in an interpretation and practice appropriate to contempo-rary experience and language. The question is not the validity of renunciation under vows, which by Christ's promise brings the hundredfold of communal life, but the meaning of that recompense. If emphasis in the past has been on limitation and self-denial for the sake of the spirit, it is growing into a desire for celebration of the spirit. If, in the past, a certain privatism of spirituality paralleled external community life, today personal and communal relationships are becoming ways to God in a different manner. Far from a secularistic or humanistic approach to reli-gious commitment, the question may involve a more de-manding and mature way of living in simplicity and obe-dience to the Spirit than did older forms of communal living. It may call for a fuller renunciation in the very experience of personal commnnion and communal rela-tionships. The point is that, primarily, the question is one of community. Here is no suggestion that the historical phenomenon of individual persons freely coming together to live in celibacy and service, and publicly declaring their inten-tion to the Christian community, is pass~ in the life of the Chnrch. That personalism, freedoin of life style, and sharing can become fetishes of a new kind of communal life is an evident risk. That the life may broaden to include celibate anti married persons in the same commu-nity is an evident possibility. But the risk of any communal life is loss of solitude sufficient to sustain it, and sharing that becomes expo-sure. Put another way, the nltimate risk is absence, rather than presence, of God to lnan in his heart. Then the presence of fellowmen becomes an absolute necessity-- and a new flight to the desert follows. Paul's analogy of marriage and the Church can be a foundation stone for a new enunciation of an old theol-ogy of celibate communal life. The analogy has less to do with the submission of woman to man and a concept of virginity as superior to marriage than with the comple-mentary values of marriage and celibacy. The Church is imaged in neither one nor the other, but in both. This is so because the analogy to the Chnrch lies not only in the sexual union of man and wife, fruitful in the family, but in the union between mature persons in friendship. Without this highest valne--which is Christ's own word for man's union with him--marriage is imper-fect, and celibacy is not fully hnman. It may be that for most people the ration of Cltrist and tl~e individual per-son is fully realized only within a spiritual union of free, eqnal persons. Marriage wants this; celibacy shoukl nur-ture it. Further, in Augustine's doctrine of uni~m with God, it is not the negative and ascetical aspects of the spiritual life that are significant so much as his emphasis on pres-ence, the inner Light that is God dwelling in man. That presence between persons is a reality analogous to, even conducive to growth in presence with God was not a strange idea to Augustine. He knew it fully in relation to his mother, if to no one else. In the twelfth century, Kichard of St. Victor, by way of Augnstine's doctrine of exemplarism, the "necessary rea-son," explained from the experience of human love the communion of Persons in the Trinity. Ewert Cousins, in a recent issue of Thought,'-" perceptively analyzes Ri-chard's treatise as a contribution of medieval theology to contemporary philosophy and psychology. Examining the dynamics of interpersonal love in the faith-transformed tradition of the Christian community, Richard sees that charity demands that a person love to the fullness of his capacity: "To enter into a partial rela-tionship with another person, without depth or intensity, is to fail to realize the possibilities of human love." And in realizing such capacity "one mounts into the life of God . The human person ~nost imitates his divine Exemplar--and is therefore most a person--when he transcends himself in a union of love for another per-son." :~ The author then explores a deeper level of Richard's theology of love, as a growth from charity to the happi-ness of loll communication to the generosity of sharing -""A Theology of Interpersonal Relations," Thougt, t, Spring 1970, pp. 56-82. :~ Ibid., pp. 71 and 65. 4- 4- + Women's Ret~g~ous VOLUME 30, 1971 + ÷ + Sister Marie REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 566 this ~nutual love. In explaining the exemplary reason for the Trinity of Divine Persons, the medieval theologian speaks of three aspects of charity: self-transcending union, individuality of persons, and their creativity. In this third and perfect stage of charity, it is fruitful in a third per-son: ua the Trinity, the Spirit; in the union of hnsband and wife, the child; and in friendship, community with yet another. But a theologian, contemporary now rather than to his own time, offers a doctrine of analogy even richer in implications, perhaps, for present thought about the spir-itual life. It may well be that Ricbard's and his own thinking coincide. John Henry Newman, especially in his writings about the act of knowledge, the life of faith, and the development of doctrine, dealt with man's relation-ship to God in a way that foreshadowed the insigl~ts of philosophers and psychologists of human relationships for a century to come. Althongh he speaks in the traditional language of Catholic doctrine about revealed mysteries, he is con-stantly describing and reflecting on experience, and re-fuses to leave mystery or doctrine on any abstract plane. The act of conscience, observed in the earliest life of reason, becomes for him a consciousness of AnotlYer and a response that demands fidelity. When this moral princi-ple becomes a growing knowledge of Person, faith be-comes experiential. That it becomes an experience to be shared is the explanation for Newman's writing about it. As be knew faith, it was the fulfillment of reason. It was a profoundly human experience of a divine gift, so fitting to the mind, rigorot, sly exercised, as to seem na-tural. This experience, as the ground of a concept of anal-ogy, is so far from being simply intellectual that it be-comes an act of relationship, a response to presence that is the very analogue of friendship. Analogy here means no mere parallel between knowl-edge and belief, between human and divine relationship; neither did the exemplar, or "necessary reason," for Au-gustine or Richard. It means an interaction, a comple-ment. Levels and quality of experience remain distinct even while illnminating and enlarging one another. But the implications cannot receive fair treatment outside the context of Newman's full reflections and development of ideas. They are the ground for asking some serious ques-tions about communal life nnder vows, as it develops today. If the most serious of these tend to converge, it is per-haps toward an nltimate qnestion: Is there something absolute that constitutes religious life as a necessary fac-tor in the life of the Church, and if so what is it? Answers wonld not be slow in coming: the vows, corn- munity, celibate consecration to Jesus Christ, service to the people of God according to the Gospel . or others. Then, because any one of these, in relation to the others, can evoke a fair argument for its primary value for reli-gious life, the question remains, what is there in com-munal living, or an act of dddication, or apostolic witness that demands patterns of living in obedience, poverty, and chastity? For not only the patterns but their princi-ples are in question. The thesis here is that an experienced relationship to God in Jesus Christ, known througla a like relationship to one's companions, is the absolute factor without which religious life wonld not exist. The theological, psycholog-ical, and strnctnral dimensions of the relationship are not different approaches to the question, but aspects of a single phenomenon of celibate consecrated life--here considered as it may be for a woman. Companions, in tbe traditional context of religious life, are tile members of one's immediate religious family and include all the members of the community. In the whole view, however, they are not defined by either of these groups, for at one time in the history of the Church, celibate women witnessed to the kingdom within the sin-gle Christian community, without need for a gronp set apart, and it is conceivable that the condition conld pre-vail again. Then the Christian commnnity itself would be so renewed that its communal witness would be all that the Church would require and individual celibate men and women would minister within it, but in more varied ways demanded by the needs of a Church in a secularized society. A married clergy within the ranks of the diocesan priesthood might be prophetic of such celibate life in the Church, which ah'eady exists along with religious com-munities. Celibates, priests, and laity would then make one whole community. The relationship in question is that which tlows from the life of the Trinity to man in God's acts of Father-hood, or creation and providence; of Sonsbip, or revela-tion in redemption; and of Spirit, or indwelling to make whole, integTal, or holy. All this is a matter of initial, continning belief for the Christian who, gradually by God's graciousness, comes to know experientially what it means to be created, forgiven, and loved. Fm'tber, the quality of that experiential knowledge of faith is undefin-able and dilferent for each believer. The point here is that it takes on a special aspect for one who responds to the call to live by the evangelical counsels. Then the relationship to God entails a complete dedication, or giving over, of oneself to Jesns Christ for ÷ + + Women's Religious LiIe VOLUME 30, 1971 567 Sister Marie REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 568 the sake of extending His kingdom on earth. The de-mand on a person may be simply that of God's will, a desire to live in a religious community, gratitude for what God has given and the need to share it, or any other form the call may take; bnt it is answered with the knowledge that it means service, nndetermined by oneself and in a condition of personal poverty. The service and its necessary conditions, as well as the connnunity in which it is given, are secondary to the ultimate motivation which comes from the realization that God is one's Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifying Life, and that He wishes to be so to others who do not . know Him. The initial undertaking of a vowed life for such reasons is like the commitment of a young woman to a man whom she knows and loves for his goodness and wishes to marry; as yet she has no real knowledge of what he is like in his whole self and in the power of his relation to her. That can only come in their day-to-day mntual giving and growth in conjugal love. The consent and gift of the marriage vows arc an act of faith that fuller realization of each other will bring to maturity. If the love grows in the depth that the sacrament signi-fies, and when it includes the full dimension of friend-ship, the realization must come in the most intimate and generous hnman relationship possible to man. This then is not model for, but parallel to the realization and inti-macy that the religious woman should achieve in relation to Jesus Christ: parallel in th:~t a conamitment either to marriage or to religious life depends upon an extension, in concrete experinaental terms, of the faith and hope and love in which a believing person lives with God--but frequently at a less profound depth of experience than he knows in a human relationship. In fact, it is almost easier for a yonng woman to believe in the creative power for her of the man she loves than in the highly personal creative providence of God for her. She may experience his forgi~reness in a more immedi-ately healing way than she knows the mercy of Christ; and her sense of oneness with him grows more strong than her awareness of God's dwelling in her. When reali-zation of her relationship to God eqnals in intensity of experience her relationship with her husband, she will live to the full the sacrament of marriage and be herself a channel of God's action. But the same difficulty in realizing a personal relation to God that integrates ;ill hunaan relationship can attend the spiritual growth of a religions. It is not so ranch a matter of which must take precedence as it is a constant projection of one to the other for the sake of understand-ing, and realizing God through knowing and loving man. Whatever the actual level of experience in relationship a person knows in marriage or religious life, the two are parallel, .or complementary, in the Church as a sign of God's relation to man in a human commnnity. One is as necessary to the Cburcb as the otber. But in tbe parallel lies their difference. Marriage isa formal sacrament, be-cause the family community is fundamental to buman natnre and stands in need of special grace beyond that of the individual Christian life; because families propagate the Christian community of believers; and because the union of man and wife signify the union of Christ and his Church. Furtber, marriage lind the family witness to the mysteries of Incarnation and Redemption as they renew man in time. The religious community, on the other hand, bad its beginning later in bistory when a special witness within the Christian community was needed. The witness con-sists in colnmunity, as does that of the family, bnt not in any particular form--monastic, mendicant, apostolic, or contemplative. The form may even be the Christian com-munity as a whole, with certain members living in celi-bate witness and service. The essential note of religious life is the witness of a relationship to Jesus Christ unique in the Church, dependent upon the absolute surrender of oneself to God for the sake of the kingdom. II The religious consecration and the common life that ordinarily flows from it are sacramental by their nature, a sign of the escbatological mystery of the fulfillment of the kingdom, that is, the full realization of God's creative, redemptive, and nnitive action upon an individual man and the whole human community. Religious life itself is the temporal sacrament of the Church as it will be be-yond time when all realities signified will be revealed. But just as nothing of the God-man relationship is an abstraction of doctrine or theology when realized in expe-rience, so this connection between the individual and the human community under God's action is a living reality to be experienced, if it is true. If the nature of its truth could be realized by the individual, living either in the natural family or the religious group, then much of the conflict between the personal and the communal, be-tween the natural and the supernatural would disappear. To say its trutb lies in living out the doctrine of the Mystical Body and in realizing the community of the people of God is not to perceive how this is accomplisbed psychologically. To say it is the work of grace is not to explain what grace is, in the interaction of God's and man's freedom. And the words of Cbrist that "what you do to the least of tbese you do to me" are a truth that, like all trntbs of such dimension, is in danger of becom-÷ + ÷ Women's Religious VOLUME .30, 1971 569 4" Sister Marie REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ing axiomatic. Perhaps his other words, "This is my Body, which shall be given for you," bear upon these truths in such a way as to make clear what the experience of the relationship of the believer, and more particularly of the religious, to Jesus Christ can be. The full dimension and significance of the Incarnation is latent in these words of consecration. The mystery of God's taking on a created body, in order to be present to us fully in suffering our human condition, becomes here the mystery of Christ's signifying His creative and re-demptive presence in us in the form of food. Because He Himself is the food, we become one in eating it together --a unity of personal communion with Him and inter-communion with one another, a community hidden and yet to be realized in human personal communion. As with Him, this grows and expresses itself in the aware-ness of another's presence, in a growing knowledge of another's reality, in merciful acceptance of one's own and another's sinfulness, and in free creative unifying love. If these are effects of our communicating Jesus Christ, they are to be the effects of our communicating with one another. They are what man in his nature needs and constantly seeks in a fellowman; they are what only God can supply fully. But it may well be that God does not ordinarily work these effects in man except through his communion with those associated with him in a human community. When marriage becomes what it is meant to be for a man and a woman, their interrelationships are God-like in their effects, are, in fact, the very way in which God comes to and acts upon them. Ideally, as a couple mature in marriage, husband and wife increasingly liberate the creative power of the other, in the public ways of making and governing a home, of rearing a family. But the im-measurable factors of personal liberation of the spirit that determine the growth and interaction of personality between a man and a woman are the real cause of the family's unity. When a woman is fully recognized for what she is_and can become, is even brought to be what she could not be alone; when time after time she receives forgiveness for what she has done and compassion for what she is from one who knows her; when imperceptibly she comes to freedom and peace in union with one who loves her, then all of her creative powers are awakened to be exercised primarily upon her children, within her home, and beyond it. If she believes and contemplates this action of God upon her spirit through her relation to her husband, her faith in God's providence, her hope in His mercy, and her love for Jesus Christ become one with and realized in the bonds that unite her with husband and children in their community. The same needs of the spirit are fulfilled .or frustrated in the human community of those wbo have consecrated themselves by vow to Jesus Christ. But just as a husband can be neither substitute for a relation to God nor an "instrument" of salvation for a woman, so relation to Christ, for a celibate woman, is in no way a substitute for or even a sublimation of what a husband might be to her; nor is her religious community a substitute for a family. The relation to Christ is the ultimate human fulfillment in either familial or religious community; the human relations are not image of or psychological substi-tute for but the very substance and realization of the personal relation to God, in Jesus Christ. They are, or should be, fulfillment of Christ's words, "This is my Body." It is such relationship---of creative freedom, of healing mercy, and of unifying love--in a strong consciousness that this is what shonld be happening between them that can bind together the members of a ~eligious community. What they are to one another, in varying degrees of knowledge, affection, and effectiveness, God is to each of them. Their awareness of and action toward one another is in their presence to and action toward God. The two relationships ideally tend to be one. If relations with fellow religious in community reveal and make concrete the relation with God, the latter, as it is realized, purifies and strengthens the former. For to live deeply in faith and bope and charity is to know that relation to God constitutes one's being and qualifies all existence. The knowledge is not merely of the mind bnt the whole person, in the Biblical sense, and conditions all other relationships, afflicted with self-inter-est as they ~nay be. Realizing this, religions can under-stand what it means to find Christ in another, or to be Christ to another, because He has said and makes it come abont that "This--person and human community--is my Body." Yet he only does so within the limits of our psy-chological capacity and free choice to make such human commnnion a reality. That is why it is important for a young woman enter-ing upon religious life to understand that it is meant to fulfill bet as a woman quite as fully and selflessly as conjugal love and motherhood fulfill a married woman. Celibacy is a condition of life that means relationship as intense as that of marriage but more extensive, for its purpose or end is different. The sacramental community of marriage propagates and nurtures, within the family, the kingdom of God, while the sacramental commnnity of celibate men or women witnesses and ministers to the ÷ ÷ ÷ Women's R~tigious Li]e VOLUME 30, 1971 ÷ ÷ + Sister Marie REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 572 kingdom in its universal extension. But to accomplish this end the celibate woman must realize her capacities as does the married woman, and for both the fulfillment must come through commtmion with other human beings. To be what God intends her to be to man, any woman must exercise fully her power of creative love. If the woman dedicated to Christ were to be denied this, God would not be just. She undoubtedly denies herself the joy, the comfort, the strength of marital union; but she in no way denies herself womanhood. In her, then, passion must become whole, purified, and fruitful in her total surrender to Jesus Christ and in the human loves such dedication implies--love of such single-heartedness that it demands of her the devotion and selflessness that a husband and children require. And this love in her, too, is a receptivity to the strength and life that another can give in friendship. For in the life-begetting love that is the spirit of a woman, nothing can be lost or repressed. The reality of her sex, the psychology of her love, ;~re not lessened or transcended, but snbsulned in the comprehensive, effec-tive tenderness and devotion she is free to offer others. This increased and extended womanly power is the meaning of virginity. It is a power of love that does not fear, for the power is from and fruitful in God. It manifests itself, further, in ways that make celibate COllllnuual life, among equals and tinder authority, more difficult for a woman than is tile natural communal life of the family~that is, in certain ways. By natnre, a woman is receptive in human relationship, rather than aggressive; open to receive all another has to.give and desirous of giving in turn where she can be received. For a wife and mother, these qualities fulfill her when family life is normal. For a religious, when this openness and freedom are inhibited for any reason--lack of genuine comnumication or loss of self-confidence--she suffers iso-lation and can hardly relate even to one other. So com-nlunity is lost. It happens not infi'eqnently, for even while we know that we cannot live except in response to one another, we do not in any human community readily live in full responsibility for one another. That costs, and the price is oneself. To be responsible for another is to invite his pain to oneself and to accept the terms of his love, which can appear not as love but as self-defense or even aver-sion. It is to respect one another's freedom and integrity with something of the respect in which God holds us, knowing us wholly. Awareness that God's action comes in all the ways we react to one another can be traumatic and hard to accept, but can deepen faith not only in God but in the other person as well; then growth in grace is the same reality as growth in a human bond. When this identification of God's action with the action of one's sisters extends itseff in very ~nany relations in a religious community, its bonds are born at once of grace and human needs, ful-fillment, and suffering. This is the degree to which nature and grace, personal and communal fulfillment are one. Granted, it is for the most part achieved in the desire that it be so, always imperlectly in fact. But to believe that it is possible is the substance of hope, which "knows what it believes is true." Further, the bonds that unite a religious community in this way are the strict measure of the effectiveness of its apostolic service. Only insofar as the members liberate, have compassion for, and love one another can they be redemptive in their relations with others. It is as if the co~nmunity were the fruit of each member's relation to Christ, extending itself to others, just as the union of a man and woman in marriage bears fruit in the commu-nity of the family. But this creative power a woman has is love that does not grasp its object, as zeal and desire can make her do. It is the difference, in her human relation and apostolic witness and service, between a self-motivated determina-tion and a peaceful confident waiting for God's discovery in her and through her. A woman always wonders, with joy that does not obsct~re pain, at the life God brings forth in her; so this power of the life of pure faith that is virginity awakens her wonder. And that is lost when she reaches ot~t to take what she was made to receive, in discovery. Nor can the celibate woman depend, as can a married woman, upon another's singular love to support and in-spire her; hence, her radical solitude. She knows, in each human bond, that she is one of many whose relation to anotl~er reveals and re-creates that person. Making no exclusive claim, she acts with regard to another in the knowledge that any creative result will be the fruit of union with .]est~s Christ: t~ltimately His action, not her own, and this breeds a diffidence and restraint that re-spects the other's freedom and does not presume. A woman instictively knows, perhaps, that her latent power does not lie in the project and plan, in the self-confidence that acts without allowing hindrance; these are the characteristic roles of man, who rules the earth. A woman's power lies in re-creating persons, through suffer-ing what they bring to her, through freeing them from fear that they do not suffice for themselves and others. But it lies as well in the sensitivity and personal dimen-÷ + ÷ Women's VOLUME 30, 1971 573 sion she can bring to leadership and service in public actiou and institutional structures. Whatever bet role, in private and public life, as a woman is herself free, she supports and restores others. The liberation each achieves is really received, as creative grace or gift from God, through this hnman interaction. This kind of relationship is woman's natural fertility, and it matters little, so long as she is faithful, whether she realizes it through union, with a single man or as vowed solely to Jesus Christ. She must inevitably realize it in nnion with human beings--in free and unselfish love for another. But, united by vow to Jesus Christ, she is fruit-ful in darkness of faith, in freedom that does not kuow itself, and in love that cannot see what it creates. In a celibate life she cannot hold any child of her own beget-ting. III ÷ ÷ Sister Marie REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 574 Such considerations, theoretical as they may seem, lead to certain conclusions regardiug the structure of religious life. If this relationship of a celibate woman to Jesus Christ, realized in and determined by her relationsMp to her companions in comnmnity, is the absolute factor of religions life, then the forms and conditions of that life are wholly relative to it. N6ne of them are the end or essence of religious consecration; a woman does not give herself over to a community, nor to a way of life, nor to an apostolate. She gives /lerself to Jesus Christ in an extension and intensification of the relation of faith and hope and love in wbicl~ baptis.m established her. She is simply converted, or turned to Him wholly, in the grow-ing experience of that relationship and, like any other woman, must, if she is to be what God intends her to be, realize it at the greatest possible depth in a human com-munity. The latter, in fact, results from the relationship. That it demands a ministry of service and witness is as natural as that marriage demands of a wo~nan child-bearing and nurturing of a family. If human relatiouship and free-dora to serve as she can according to her abilities do not develop her, she can be ;i. detriment to strong communal life rather than a vital member. The natural, human, and personal dimensions of her life are not simply the base for supernatural dedication; the two are the same, when a person is sonnd and whole of body and spirit. It is out of place, then, to orientate discussion of com-munal authority, poverty, and service from the determi-nation to safeguard strnctnres--valid as they were in their origins--or values which are simply asking for new expression. An absolute end will always require certain conditions; this personal and communal relationship to .Jesus Christ demands the most stringent ones. In the family, the conditions are determined by nature: "witness, within the single dimension of a constant natnral group, to the God-man relationship, incarnated in this family in a singular time and place. Its creative, redemp-tive, and unitive acts will procreate the hufiaan and Chris-tian communities and, given man's frailty, its continuity needs guarantee and safeguard. The marriage contract is taken before and within the existing commnnity. Paren-tal authority is all-embracing in the rearing of children, and life style is highly concentrated and uniform--allow-ing for contemporary developments to the contrary. The limits of interdependence and natnral responsibilities condition freedom in day-to-day living, which has as its end the maturing of children to independence. But the conditions of celibate commnnal living are altogether different. The Incarnation of Christ i,a reli-gious commnnity is a continuing celebration of Eucha-rist: of thanksgiving that we are here together, who have come to witness to the mystery of Jesns Christ. The grace of a con~munity's sacramental value for the world is the graciousness of a Savior. More simply, perhaps, it is the manifest joy of meeting, between friends, whose presence to one another is what matters. From the start they are, or need to be, adnlts, capable of a life commitment and creative human bonds. What is absolutely necessary to the life of snch a com-munity is that the forms of communal living, of govern-ment, of anthority and responsibility, of personal and comnlunal poverty, and of apostolic service are conducive to each individual's realization of her relationship to Christ in her companions. There is no dichotomy be-tween personal and communal needs; they are one, when recognized in this context. The difficulties and suffering that attend responsibility for one another in such rela-tionship are a deeper asceticism than self-imposed forms of penance and prayer may be, for they demand thor-ough self-abnegation. Even the external practices of commnnity life, with the self-denial they entail, do not guarantee the experience of community unless they are informed by this experience of knowing and being known, in the way God knows and loves, by some few, or even one, of a religious woman's companions. The value of any given form, strnctnre, or practice is strictly determined by its contribution to the context in which each sister can freely and responsibly grow in the relationship to Christ that constitutes her life, determines her service, and produces community with her fellow reli-gious. Ironically, this relationship, spoken of as the spirit-ual life, is the growth in holiness that has been tradition- + + + Women's Religious Li[e VOLUME 30, 1971 575 + .4. Sister Marie REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ally held as the first end of the vows. But its psychological implications in the context of commnnal living and per-sonal fnlfillment need to be explored. It is there we can discover the common ground from which person-oriented' and commnnity-oriented concepts spring. This is not to say that the psychological needs and experiences of different generations are the same. But they can be quite different and still depend on the same values; the point is that legislation will not safeguard the commnnal values nor guarantee the personal realization here discnssed. The freedom of life style and respect for diversity of experience that such realization demands will l)e secnred by individuals, regardless of legislation that frustrates their action, and they will not consider them-selves disrespectful of authority in the taking. For their integrity and peace may, nnder certain circnmstances, de- But more important, the multidimensional natnre of the religions comnnmity demands it. Unlike the family, its end is a witness to the universality and fnlfillment of the kingdom of Christ in service that extends rather than concentrates itself. Becat,se it resnlts from the self-gift of responsible adtdts, acting nnder personal charisms, and continuing life together in daily voluntary offering, its structnre cannot be predetermined by traditions, nor can its govermnent be essentially hierarchical. To say that it is ecclesial is simply to reiterate the charismatic and communal aspects that it draws from the Church to which it is a witness. The hierarchical aspect is secondary to this, as it was in the early Chnrch. Yet it is nnlikely that strict collegiality rnled the early Christians who, even in communal living, needed strong leadership. The authority and collegiality are one in a community, when honest and educated responsibility govern its members. The evolution of the Christian com-munity and of religious commnnities, through many ages of dependence on authority, demands now much more trnst in the capacity of those in community to govern themselves. But the trust can come only from a mutual confidence that they ,~re persons committed in a common endeavor to witness to .Jesus Christ and to serve His peo-ple. The contract it religious makes by her vows is to God within this total ecclesial commnnity. It is also within a given religious community insofar as that gronp relates to the end of the Church. In a transitional age such as this one, the service a community gives within the Church must evolve even as the Chnrch's relation to the world is evolving. Hence, the evolntionary quality of any commu-nity, as the experience of its members and demands of its service cause it to change and renew itself. Flexibility of form and diversity of experience, now leadir;g to even freer forms and more varied services, actually guarantee the continuity of a religious community, if it is strong enough to change and grow within without loss of unity. Responsibility for that unity rests on each one, facing the valid and very different experience of .others with whom she lives. Past and present and future experience must he encompassed somehow, so that corn,non values and differing concepts can continue to grow together. Then varieties of life style need not threaten the unity. Latitude of practice in manner of dress, of government, of prayer life can actually guarantee the unity if the freedom allowed is not considered a concession to some kind of self-interest, or independence from the whole. Freedom then is not merely a means or condition, but an end: a liberty of spirit necessary for trne ~inity of persons in God. And authority is ,a means to it, especially when exercised by a woman. For the ultimate purpose of her power ls to assist others to the self-value that makes obedience acceptable to God. Then exercise of authority is more a ministry than a function, and can become the most creative of hnman acts and the most self-effacing. It is a woman's unique imaging of the action of God, which gives autonomy while it creates and in governance gnar-antees freedom. As in other apparent conflicts between natural and su-pernatural values, integration is the desired end. Author-ity and freedom, like celibacy and love, complement each other; the second is the fruit of the first. Whether experi-enced in counsel from one in an office of ministry, or sim-ply in friendship, the human relationship, grounded in Jesus Christ, is the sine qua non of religious community. This kind of bum:m relationship, with or without for-realities of office, can help religious women in community to come to a deeper realization of their vows. It estab-lishes obedience more firmly in the Spirit throt.,gh the depth of this htm~an dimension; it makes actual poverty the condition for simplicity of life and poverty of spirit in human relation; and celibacy, the condition of life that allows for the fullness of charity. Women's Religious Lile VOLUME ~0, 1971 577 BARBARA DENT The Mediocrity Challenge ÷ ÷ ÷ Mrs. Barbara Dent lives at 17 Piago Rd.; Clande-lands; Hamilton, New Zealand. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS God calls each human being in a unique way to come to Him. This unique way ~s that particular person's individual vocation. The quality and degree of his identi-fication with it is the measure of his powers of love, of his capacity for self-giving. Christianity has never pretended that to conform perfectly with a God-given vocation was easy. Our Lord Himself warned that anyone who compromised was not worthy of the kingdom of heaven. The foolish virgins were shut out. So was the guest without a wedding gar-ment. The man busy filling his barns died that very night under unfortunate circumstances. There was no time for a disciple to go back and bury his dead. The un-forgiving servant was "handed over to the torturers till be should pay all his debt." The house built on sand collapsed in ruins. It is human nature to hear God's call (for, after all, that is why he gave us ears), but it is also human nature to become so busy counting the possible cost that we answer with only a half-hearted murmur: "I may come--prob-ably tomorrow," or perhaps refuse: "I'm busy now for an indefinite period. Call again later." Even those who respond generously and enthusiasti-cally--" As Jesus was walking on from there he saw a man named Matthew sitting by the custom house, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up and followed him" (Mt 9:9)--seldom improve on that initial enthusiasm or even manage to maintain it. In the first fervor of dedi-cation, they are sincerely convinced that they want to make the total response, say the uncompromising yes; yet they often fail to continue through the years without surrounding that initial gift with reservations and elaborate systems of self-protection. They want to give, but their flawed human nature, played upon by the devil, forces them into mediocrity. In all the current controversy about the need and value of consecrated celibacy, the human urge to com-promise, to have one's cake and eat it too, plays its part. The argument for self-fulfillment sometimes forgets that any human being's ultimate fidfillment is in God, and therefore that whatever way of life aims straightest at God and is therefore that person's true vocation is also most designed to complete him as an individual: "The Church knows that only God, whom she serves, meets the deep-est longings of the human heart, which is never fully satisfied by what this world has to offer" (Church Today, 41). Human living provides innumerable routes to God, all of which can be the means of tmion with Christ; yet "sin has diminished man, blocking his path to fulfill-merit" (ibid. 13), and "a monumental struggle against the powers of darkness pervades the whole history of man" (ibid. 37). An element in tiffs struggle is that divided purpose which seeks to evade the .consequences of total commit-ment, and in the process often develops compromise into a fine art. However fashions change, whatever way-out forms theological speculations adopt, the call of Christ to each individual person remains the same, and its de-mand total. A true response to this call, whatever mode of life it involves, must lead to affirming with St. Paul: "For me, to live. is Christ." "The Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longings of history and of civilization, the centre of the human race, the joy of every heart, and the answer to all its yearn!ngs" (ibid., 45). This is a fact of life, whatever the individual's voca-tion, celibate or married. There can be no essential self-fulfillment apart from Christ. We discover our true selves as we become those particular extensions of His incarna-tion tlmt He has chosen us to be. Any apparent fulfill-ment that occurs in alienation from Christ is spurions and dependent upon factors that chance can shatter, and t,st, ally does. Leaving aside the question of whether Christ and hu-manity are better served by a celibate or married clergy, let us look at the state of celibacy itself, whether in priest, religious, or lay person, male or female, and assess some of the ways in which it is subject to the mediocrity chal-lenge. No one can realize the full implications of the promise or vow of celibacy at the time of making it (lust as no marriage parmer can, on his wedding day, assess the im-plications of his vows). The vow is made as the formal seal of the gift of one's whole self and life to Christ in response to His call. ÷ ÷ 4- Mediocrity = VOLUME 30, 1971 579 + ÷ 4. Barbara Dent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 580 It is in the subsequent living of the vow that its impli-cations are gradually made clear, so that one either as-sents more and mote deeply to them, relying more and more fully npon grace, or withdraws,' aghast, and com-promises, giving in before thb mediocrity challenge. Consecrated celibacy is a way of life, and a vocation, freely chosen as a positive good because intuited as one's personal rotate to God ordained by Him. The service of God and the service of humanity are inseparable. There- [ore, to travel courageously along this route for love of God is also to love one's neighbor. To be consecrated as a celibate is to become in a publicly recognized way Christ's man, Christ's woman, pledged to participate in the Savior's redemptive work, answering the call to total love for the sake of others in an all-embracive sense. In other words, the consecrated celibate is directly dedicated to the building tip of Christ's kingdom without deviation or withdrawal, to the bringing forth of spiritual children for God in eternity, instead of children of the ttesh for this world. Any route to God is straight and narrow with Calvary an inseparable part of it. The married state is no easier than the celibate state i[ it is entered into as one's pe-culiar and God-indicated route to Him. Of course this is often not the case, whereas the celibate's choice is usually a deliberate and conscious dedication to Christ first and foremost. The total love that consecrated celibacy demands is in-carnated in Christ Himself, and only in Christ. It can ex-press itself through human lives when infused into them as an extension of the divine life itself, those living wa-ters, that indwelling of the Trinity, that our Lord prom-ised to those who love Him. It means a passionate, un-compromising involvement of the whole self with the whole self of the personal, living, triumphant yet glori-ously wounded risen Lord. This entails becoming "a fragrant offering and a sacri-fice to God" (Eph 5:2) because incorporated into the sacrificial love-offering of the Son, made for the sake of humanity, to the greater glory of the Father. Human nature, disintegrated and flawed as it is, nat-urally fears such complete involvement with both God and man. We want to preserve intact the ego with all its intra-venous systems for feeding self-satisfaction and self-pres-ervation. We cannot help fearing and repelling such an invasion of the Other, although without it the enchained ego cannot be released into the freedom of the sons of God. We tare prisoners who have become dependent upon the enclosure of our cell walls for our sense of security. Just :is the trumpet blast shattered the walls of Jericho, so would the blowing of the Holy Spirit upon our pitiful ramparts raze them finally--if we let it: "For he bursts the gates of bronze and shatters the iron bars" (Ps 106:16). We recoil from even the thought of encouraging such invasion. The ego is certain it would mean disaster. Its instinct for preservation rebels against the dissolution of its barriers. Such fears are involuntary. Tbey are part of the com-plex defense mechanism against God that is I~orn with us in onr flawed human nature. We cannot help our myopic way of looking at things, our instinctive reaching out for half-truths, our intense anxiety at being taken over by God, our dread of Him as an alien, destructive force instead of our loving, eternal Father. What is required of ns is the calm recognition of all such systems of evasion, and the willed construction in the power of divine grace of contrary systems of encour-agement. We are called upon by God to recognize the insidious nature of the temptation to mediocrity, of the urge to compromise. We have to counter it by persistent prayer for His help, by the will to give and receive all, and by actions which express that will: I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the su-preme adwlntage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him . All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death (Phil 3:8,10). This must be what we consciously will in opposition to our involuntary desires and schemings to retain our walls, to refuse "the loss of everything." The temptation to mediocrity is essentially the tempta-tion to choose comfort. It is a special danger to the celi-bate whose vows and way of life can insulate him lrom involvement with others, from all those battering, in-vigorating, stress-provoking, exacerbating and fecundat-ing fluctnations of give and take that are inseparable from married and family life. It is necessary to remember always that consecrated celibacy has been chosen not in order to evade or be spared these, but to facilitate an even wider, deeper, and more selfless involvement with the human family itself. It should lead not to a peaceful withdrawal and the COln-forts of a serene bacbelorbood or spinsterdom, but to an nnending and painfnl generation and parturition of children for the kingdom of heaven: My children, I must go through the pain of giving birth to you all over again, until Christ is formed inyou (Gal 4:19). The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory . It is ÷ Mediocrity VOLUME 30, !971 581 4" + + Barbara Dent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 582 for this I struggle wearily on, helped only by his power driving me irresistibly (Col 1:27,29). Like a mother feeding and looking after her own children, we felt so devoted and protective towards you, and had come to love you so much, that we were eager to hand over to you not only the Good News but our whole lives as well (1 Thes 2:8). The danger of celibacy is not sexual pressure building up to possible transgression level, but tile evasion of tension, stress, and battles in favor of ~omfort and safety. This can lead to petrification, through repression or cir-cumvention, of a person's whole affective powers. The personality becomes sterile, dehydrated, protected by a complex system of evasions and compromise, the real person who was meant to be reborn into Christ through total dedication and "undivided attention to the Lord" (! Cor 7:35) gone to earth from sheer lack of encourage-ment. Alternatively, the affective powers, instead of being stifled, may be diverted. Theu the celibate's life and pas-sion become centred on snbstitutes--liturgical niceties,. research, art, administration, power, antiqnes, aesthetics, sport, animals, relatives, or one other particular person. They may even become fixated on some such mundane and irreligious activity (if lie is a secular priest, for ex-ample, and free to follow it) as golf, racing, or dog-breed-ing. Or his passion may become raising monuments ostensibly to the glory of C, od but perhaps more to per-petnate his own memory (in lieu of sons and daughters of the flesh) if all hidden motives were made plain. The temptations to compromise over the demands of total love are ~nany and dangerous. The celibate is perhaps more open to them than the person whose vocation is marriage. In marriage, if it is a dedicated Christian one, total love is also demanded, but its channel is tile mar-riage partner, there in the flesh, obvious, defined and inescapable. For the celibate tile channel, being the hu-man family loved and served in, for, and by means of Christ, is much more easily mistaken, or silted up, or wrongly labeled, or simply ignored just because it is so ubi(jtfitous. The htunan family means not some nebulous abstract, but real persons whose abrasive presence anti perpetual demands cannot, and are not meant to be, evaded. In all cases it is people, individuals, persons, actnal living, pal-pitating entities who cannot be avoided, and who must be made contact with in some fructifying way if Christ is to be served and honored, if celibate love is to be fnl-filled. The whole of humanity is one organism, and this orga-nism is the Body of Christ in the process of being incar-nated. Through it we are meant to confer the sacrament of love upon one another. Through it we can, on the con-trary, by hate and sin shut off ourselves and others from participating in this sacrament of love. The consecrated celibate has cbosen by his vow to be a means of conferring the sacrament of love upon others. His role is to be a visible, actual sign that God's tender care and solicitous yearning for us is present among us, to be a reservoir of the living waters laid up in human hearts. The temptation to mediocrity suggests that this reser-voir be turned into a stagnant lake of sel~-enclosure by blocking off the Ebannels by which God's love pours into it and the outlets that are meant to pour it out again upon others. In time the whole place becomes "a fen of stagnant waters," with the affective powers choked: "They have abandoned me, the fountain of living waters, only to dig cisterns for themselves, leaky cisterns, that hokl no water" (Jer 2:13). To dig a cistern for oneself means to construct it with the intention of not sharing it with others. One form the temptation takes is that of doubts about the value of celibacy itself together with all kinds of rationalizations concerning the importance of human sexual relationships and of the need to experience them in order to be a whole person, in order even to be able to tmderstand others. Excuses are readily found for reading the kinds of books, watching the kinds of films, and encouraging the kinds of conversations that titillate and provide disguised --and not so disguised--sexual enjoyments.Iustifiable and necessary reverence for sex and acknowledgement 'of its power and wide ramifications give way to obsessive interest in its minutiae and manner of functioning. When snch a mental invasion has been encot, raged, the borderline between legitimate attainment of information and committing adnltery in one's heart has become blurred. The whole ideal of consecrated celibacy is in danger of becoming meaningless, and it will probably not be long before convincing excnses are found to abandon it. Also evident where mediocrity threatens is the "one for you, and one for me" trading mentality. The celibate considers that in .return for his gift of himself to God, God owes him certain satisfactions, comforts, consolations, snccesses, recognitions, rewards. If he does not get what he believes is his due he becomes sour, bitter, self-pitying, cynical, savagely critical (perhaps of the Chnrch as "a juridical institution"). He is a disappointed man who feels he has not been wdued and recognized at his true worth, and someone or something must be made to suffer for it. ÷ 4- ÷ /tlediocrity VOLUME 30, 1971 Barbara Dent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 584 He has forgotten that the initial total gift of self to God was a form of interchange by which he accepted in return, and unquestioningly, whatever God chose to give him. Total love means embracing what God gives, and lets happen as the token of His loving kindness and the means of both one's salvation and sanctification, and also one's redemptive work for others. There is no barter involved. God gives. We accept, welcome, absorb, in faith and loving trust. There can be heroism here, unavoidable majesty of selflessness that can register on the ego as its contrary-- humiliation, defeat, squirming self-seeking. God's gifts and their effects are often paradoxical, and recognized as good qnly by means of faith. The "one for you, one for me" temptation is aimed at making one repndiate or avoid suffering and that death o~ self, that burying of the seed in the dark tomb of the earth fi'om which alone can emerge the risen self in the power of Christ's own Resurrection, and hence the crown-ing of total love. It is well to remember that "God's gift was not a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power, and love, and self-control" (2 Tim 1:7). There is also the temptation to succumb to mediocrity in personal relationships, avoiding intimacy and the pain of self-revelation and of receiving the confessions and love of others. In such relationships honesty is avoided in favor of polite half-trnths, soothing evasions, and surface agreements, these being rationalized as kindness or even Christian charity. Those blinding moments of truth in which we acknowledge how we use others (and they us), how we are run by our mechanisms of self-interest by which we feed secretly on those we profess to love most sincerely, are repndiated. Instead are chosen the sly pre-varications that assure us we are good mixers and not the type to give offense to anyone, and that this is the best way to he. Mediocrity can also be succumbed to in our relation-ship with ourselves. We have to love ourselves as God loves us, but this does not mean self-indulgently excusing ourselves. Rather it involves a pitiless self-honesty in which we pray fervently for the grace to face ourselves as we are. "My God, beware of Philip, else he will betray yon," prayed St. Philip Neri; and St. Paul saw with searing clarity his inability to do the good that he wanted to do unless he relied entirely upon the "grace of God." Consecrated celibacy with its vocation to total love means there can be no mediocrity regarding self-knowl-edge. If the truth that God offers, together with the grace to bear it, is accepted when and how He offers it, the ntmost interior humiliation is inevitable. Christ sets out to invade and permeate the life and the person dedicated to Him, and this means progressive insight into the un-christed self down to its demon-haunted depths. These depths have to be cleansed in what has aptly been called the "passive purgations," to' submit to which requires both a torrent of grace and heroic courage. It means the painful relinquishment of all masks, all comforting illusions, all evasions of reality, all dramas, all role-playing. Christ is truth. He is also light. Where He is, lies and darkness cannot also be; yet the unredeemed per-sonality is steeped in these. Total love becomes a reality only when heroic courage has refused the temptation to mediocrity in one's relation with onself, to choose instead Christ's invasion and powers of transformation at what-ever cost to oneself: If any man come to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple (Lk 14:26-7). The mediocrity temptation also presents itseff as one to self-cosseting. Having renounced all the comforts of home life and the consolations of marriage, one has a right to pamper oneself a little here and there by way of compensation. There are legitimate pleasures, necessary relaxations, prudent concessions to one's own acknowl-edged weaknesses. The danger is when these are indulged in as a result of self-pity or a desire to make up to oneself for rennnciations once made but now secretly hankeretl after or envied in others. In other words, when we seek substitnte satisfactions for what is denied to us because of celibacy and the vocation to total love, we are compro-mising with that vocation. An old name for mediocrity is acedia, or spiritnal sloth. There is an old-fashioned ring about these terms which inclines some to dismiss them and what they stand for as irrelevant to modern life and post-Vatican II spiritnality. Yet Vatican II documents themselves affirm the ancient call to total love, and hence to a war against all forms of mediocrity: The followers of Christ are called by God, not according to their accomplishments, but according to his own purpose and grace . All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity (Church, 40). Hence the more ardently they unite themselves to Christ through a self-surrender involving their entire lives, the more vigorous becomes the life of the Church and the more abun-dantly her apostolate bears fruit (Religious Life, 1). Through virginity or celibacy observed for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, priests are consecrated to Christ in a new and distinguished way. They more easily hold fast to him with undivided heart. They more freely devote themselves in him 4- ÷ Mediocrity "VOLUME 30, 3.971 585 and through him to the service of God and man. They more readily minister to his kingdom and to the work of heavenly regeneration, and thus become more apt to exercise paternity in Christ, and do so to a greater extent (Priests, 16). Consecrated celibacy as a route to God can never be-come out of date because Christ will always remain the way, the truth, and the life, and intimate union with Him will always be a human being's highest form of fulfillment. The vocation to celibacy is a vocation to direct embrace-ment with the Bridegroom for the sake of the kingdom He became incarnate to establish. Those called to such a vocation are called also to total love of God and man and to an heroic battle against all temptations to mediocrity. God provides with the vocation all the graces necessary to endure and defeat these temptations, even when it ap-pears subjectively that failure is all that is achieved: 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, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God. We know that by turning everything to their good God co-operates with all those who love him, with all those that he has called according to his purpose. They are the ones he chose specially long ago and intended to become true images of his Son, so that his Son might be the eldest of many brothers. He called those intended for this; those he called he justified, and with those he justified he shared his glory (Rm 8:28-30). Barbara Dent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 586 SISTER MARY SERAPHIM, P.C.P.A. Living Creatively under Stress Stress, tensions, pressnres all tug and pull at ns day in and day out. We get up in the morning with a sense of having spent the whole night rnnning and getting no-where. Urgency clogs our steps. Clocks tick inexorably at us, staring clown from walls, peering up from dash boards, glowing in the clark on our wrists. Appointments, assignments, schedtdes rtde our clay and haunt our nights. Even when we manage to salvage a 15it of "free time," we spend it worrying whether we could not put it to more profitable use. This phenomenon of twentieth century living has provoked much discussion lately. Techniques for relaxing, drugs to tranquillize our shattered nervous system, systems of yoga and zen to lift us out of the present into a timeless nirvana glnt the common market. Despite this proliferation, I offer a few more insights, this time based on the experience of cloistered contemplative liv-ing, which might be of interest and assistance to us Chris-tians of pressurized society. Yon may have noticed that I said "us" of pressurized society, for cloistered ntms are just as apt to be canght in the bind of too "nauchwork" and not "enonghtime" as the rest of the human race. How then can a person who senses that life is meant for something more than just "to get things clone" work creatively within this fleeting thing called time? How can we escape the pressure to "do" in order to simply "be"? As most of ns have already discovered tension results, not from all the demands made upon us frorrtowithout, bnt from the pressures we generate w~thm Stress-~s not an evil in itself. It actually constitutes ~-positive good when it serves as a prod to move us to higher achieve-merits. The meeting and surmounting of difficulties is the normal process which leads to maturity. Most of the great inventions of the world would not have been discovered 4- 4- + Sister M. Sera-phim, P.C.P.A., is a member of Sancta Clara Monastery; 4200 Market Ave-nue N.; Canton, Ohio 44714. VOLUME 30, 1971 587 Sister Seraphim REVIEW FOR RE/I~II00S 588 unless there had been a need to overcome some inconven-ience or obstacle. Many of the great masterpieces of art, literature, and music might never have been executed had not the artist been forced by some circumstance to plumb the depth of his genius. Stress and difficulties have their positive side then; and we should not expect them to be totally absent from our lives, any more than we should, as Christians, expect the cross hot to cast its shadow across our days. The handling of the problem of stress can be ap-proached from many angles, such as the psychological, the sociological, the anthropological. However, I propose to utilize a more theological dimension without overlook-ing the necessity of integrating theological ideals with practical psychological data. Supernature and Nature As we know, grace builds on nature. Supernature is simply a highly developed, highly gifted operation which has its seat in our natural faculties. To be in a position to insure steady spiritual growth our natural faculties must be in as good working order as possible. Much insistence is laid today on the necessity of healthful and happy climates in our religious houses. The human in the conse-crated man or woman must be given consideration so that the whole person progresses in holiness. We have shifted from an overemphasis on the divine and spiritual aspect of our religious life to an almost exaggerated con-cern with the mundane and bodily elements in our daily existence. The movement away from a purely spiritual concept of religion was a necessary one. If we divorce our soul from its intrinsic relationship with our body, we are in clanger of becoming split-level creatures. We would end in the neurotic condition of perpetually ascending and descend-ing the staircase between onr "higher" mode of living and our "lower" bodily state of existing. Afraid to remain on only the lower plane, yet unable to live perpetually on the higher one, we would literally live on the stairway--a most unnatural and unrestful state of affair!! Now that we have acknowledged that we must stand firmly rooted on the ground-level of our huma.nity if we are to stretch our branches high, we must beware of spending too mnch time mulching the soil and preparing the proper amount of water and sunshine. It is undenia-bly true that good environment contributes heavily to the full development of the human creature. Yet if most of us are honest we must recognize that the majority of persons realize their finest potential when facing adverse condi-tions. Furthermore we know that there exists nowhere on earth a paradise of idyllic situations. To look for it is useless or to try to develop it will prove fruitless. We could spend a lifetime looking for the perfect siti~ation in which we could become our true selves. Since such a solution to the problem of stress and tension is chimeri-cal, we might do well to accept our present situation with its good and its bad and try to work creatively within it. I submit that if we can order our inner (spiritual) life to fnnction harmoniously with our "outer" life, we will have reduced the stress and tension in our days to a minimum. We Are Not God First of all, let us humbly admit that we are not God. We do not know the complete plan for our own exist-ence, much less that of others or of society as a whole. Obliged to work with only partial knowledge, we are not responsible for the barmonions ordering of the universe. Although as Christians we do have a responsibility to each and everyone of our fellowmen, yet as finite crea-tures our personal response is not expected to reach all of tfiem directly. Much which goes on in the world cannot and even should not be solved by us personally. We are asked to do what lays before ns to the best of our ability, nothing more. Does this sound like mere selfishness? Or simply common sense? Actually it can become very uncommon sense when we view it in God's perspective. He has a plan and a work for each one of ns. He weighed it beforehand to meet our limited strength. He measured our capacities to make sure they were adequate for the task at band. He is very careful not to ask more of us than He knows we are able to do. Why should we strive against Him and demand that we take care of situations and solve problems which are beyond our scope? Humility can be a very restful virtue. It teaches us to recognize what we are and what we are not. With its clear vision, we see our talents an~.l we recognize our limita-tions. We learn to look up to God for strength and for wisdom. The bumble man goes peaceftilly about his as-signed job and usually is able to make a good success of it because be does not waste a lot of psychic energy attempt-ing to solve difficulties that are not his to solve. He leaves all that is beyond his immediate scope to God's provi-dence. This does not mean, however, that he does not care. On the contrary, the person who really lives in the faith of God's guiding hand in the nniverse will care more effectively than many others who become so caught up in their own plans for reforming the world that they see nothing but themselves. ÷ ÷ ÷ Living Creatively VOLUME 30, 19T1 589 + 4. 4. Sister Seraphim REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 590 Power and Splendor We cannot help becoming immersed to the point of being enmeshed by our everyday problems if we concen-trate all our attention only on them. If we permit our prayer life to consist merely of begging God's assistance for the project in hand, it will be difficult to rednce the problems involved to manageable size because we will have magnified them to the point where they and God are the only realities in the universe. Instead we might do well to devote a good portion of our personal prayer time to considering the magnificence of God as He is in Him-self. If even for a fleeting, breathtaking moment we sense the grandeur and greatness of this Being whom we ad-dress as our Father, a moral earthquake occurs in our portion of the Lord's vineyard. Problems and vexations sink nearly out of sight for the time being and the ground we stand on raises us startlingly near to the stars. Huge becomes tlm universe, immense the (limensions of God's activity and small, very small onr share in this cosmic pageant. Such an intuition does not destroy our appreciation of the little things of life but rather enables ns to see them in their proper perspective. In such a setting their true beauty and value shine forth. We are free to "be" among all these encompassing wonders for inwardly we have expanded to the degree where we now encompass them. We learn to support the "horizontal" with the "vertical." St. Benedict, it is said, once saw the whole universe in a single ray of light. "How conld a man see all creation in one glance?" asked St. Gregory in his Dialogues and he answered himself: "He who sees God sees all things in Him." Do you perceive how integrating such an attitude can be and how beneficial to us as human beings if we culti-vate it? Tensions and difficnlties we meet will not become too large for us to handle and even nse creatively. With our minds free and onr energies concentrated fully on the task at band, we will bring to our work fresh insights and profound wisdom. New sources of energy will be released as we meet new obstacles. Instead of mentally attempting it all ourselves, we will take it to the Lord whose strength we know is equal to the task. While laying the bnrden of worry at His feet, we will be enabled to stand light and free before Him. God will grow greater and greater in our estimation and our problems proportionately smaller. When we attack the difficult situation which cannot be avoided we will be able to experience the tug and pull of contrary tensions without being shattered or torn apart. We will move in the conscious awareness that a power greater than our owu is at work here. That power, that strength, is a Person. It is a Person whom we profoundly love and whose Presence is onr supreme joy: "The joy of the Lord is our strength." An-other way of expressing this phenomenon is to call it growth in contemplative awareness. ~te utilize the prob-lems of the "lower story" to call down the assets of the "tipper story" of onr nature. XYe grow in stature so as to live spiritnally in the midst of materialities. All of this requires time and . tension. Until tension enters onr lives, we feel no need to become more than what we are. Until we find ourselves under the pressure of more than we can do, we will not experience the necessity of throw-ing ourselves on our knees before our sovereign Lord and looking humbly to His greatness. When His aid is vonchsafed, we shonld remain humble enough to use it in the manner He intended. A marvelons freedom marks the man who knows, in the roots of his being, that he is only the custodian and dispenser of the creative energy of ahnighty God. This man appears to accomplish tremen-dous things with serene ease. We do not know for certain but can gness that in the depths of his spirit, this man kneels in constant and hnmble supplication before His Lord. Before the shrine of this overmastering Presence, lie knows himself as nothing. In the light of this over-whelming Love, he knows himself heloved. In the strength of such love, nothing is impossible. Hope is in-vincible. Hope The virtue of hope here manifests itself as the trnst to leave the past and the future in God's hands. If we strive to live only here and now, we can eliminate much of the artificial stress which stretches our days beyond the limits of their twenty-four bonrs. How often have we not wor-ried ourselves into a stew abont possibilities which never materialized? Again, how frequently have we not fretted ourselves thin over past events which nothing can change now? The hope which is strong enough to le~ve the p~st to God's mercy, the future to His providence, and the present to His wisdomis a marvelous help to relaxed and fruitfnl living. We do not develop such hope overnight. Indeed we need many "nights," often painfully dark, be-fore our hope is refined to snch perfection. If we can view the dit:ficulties created in ourselves by tensions as so many stepping stones to hope, we have begun to work creatively with one of the most fi'ustrating aspects of our lives. We would like to be persons who do ~lot feel tension, who do not experience nerves, to whom nothing is a serious threat. But the more we strive to deny the deadening effects of anxiety and nervonsness in ourselves, the worse it becomes. We are humiliated by the 4- 4- 4- Living Creatively VOLUME 30, 1971 + + + Sister Seraphim REVIEW FOR RELiGiOUS 592 outward manifestations of our inner inadeqnacies. In-stead of humbly recognizing our human needs, we try even harder to suppress them. One (lay, however, we are forced to admit that we are practically "nnglned" and barely holding our sbattet~fd self togetber with rapidly weakening will power. Hopefully, such awareness occurs long before serious neurotic disturbances take over. We are still capable of being the master of our ship if we look to another to be the Captain. Quietly accepting the fact that tensions will wreck havoc with onr digestive or nervous or muscular system, we are in a position to work with them creatively. Reality recognized hecomes a pliable instrument in the hands of a thinking man. Reality unrecognized becomes a demon in the closet of the unconscions man. We need help to come to such recognition--God's help. He is the One who made us with these peculiar tendencies and weak-nesses. He Mone knows how ~'e are to work with them to accomplish His ends. Our task is not to augment ~the problem with useless imaginings. Tomorrow will bring its own problems., and its own solutions. Perhaps this interweaving of common sense and snper-natnral motives into a harmonious whole does not seem an extremely new or exciting solntion to. the problem of living creatively under stress. Yet it has proved a very workable one in the environment of the cloister. Few persons live in a situation so fraught with artificial ten-sions aud i,~grown perspectives as the cloistered nun. These dangers are what may be termed the "occupational hazards" of cloistered living. They are not reasons for dissolving cloisters, however! Almost any occupation, if it is worthwhile, carries with it certain hazards. The diffi-culties of living a celibate and consecrated life in the active religious orders are not valid reasons for doing away with religious life in the Church. Rather these very hazards can prove to be a most provocative challenge to yonng idealists. If we keep our vision broad and our feet steadfastly on ascending paths, the dangers will threaten bnt not overwhehn ns. Beauty One of the most closely allied natnral and snpernat-ural activities is the contemplation of beatlty. Beauty excites the noblest aspirations of human nature. On the natural plane, familiarity with beauty refines and purifies our sensitivities. We find in its contemplation a peculiar rest and contentment. Yet it rarely satiates. We forever bnnger for more. Onr thirst is ultimately for Beauty itself --the splendor of the undimnaed attractiveness of tbe Trinne God. God has placed in our souls a capacity for infinite loveliness. The passing beanties of this earth wound our sensibilities, with their constant fading and withering, instinctively we know that beauty is meant to last forever. To grow into a "see-er" of beauty is to de-velop a capacity for mystical contemplation. The hair-breadth line which separates them is easily and naturally crossed. If all human beings are made to respond to beauty, women are especially endowed with this reflective faculty. As Father Bernard H~ring remarks, "I think that women have a distinctive sense [or beauty in their spirituality. The great beauty of all created things consists in their being the language of a personal God" (Acting on the Word). Since women naturally "personalize" all the "things" they encounter, they spontaneonsly apprehend beauty as the speaking of the Beloved. The words may be mysterious but the Voice is well known. Development of our capacity for the appreciation of beauty does not reqnire special training. It only asks for time. Somehow we must learn to "take time for the good things of life." Instead of pressuring ourselves with a perpetual motion precept we should condition ourselves to moments of tranqnil stillness. We should strive to see time as primarily space in which to "be." Be what? Be ourselves. We discover who we are by becoming aware of our actions and reactions to persons, things, and events. If we foster the reaction of silent admiration before any source of loveliness, our contemplative self grows stronger. A new phenomenon unfolds within us. For a tiny moment there is silence--a quiet space in our spirit where we are nndistractedly absorbed in the immediacy of beauty. X,\re savor the loveliness of the moment and discover we are side by side, if not face to face, with eternal Beauty. If this quiet space within onr spirit is permitted to expand, it soon penetrates our exterior activity. Others become aware of a mysterious dimension in our personal-ity which attracts them. We exhibit a marked serenity and freedom. Whenever we find ourselves in situations of tension, we can more easily cope with them becanse of an inner strength fostered by habitually striving to integrate the transcendent with the mundane. This is not an unreal existence divorced from the concrete circumstances of our life. Rather it could very accurately be termed the "im-manent" level for we learn to penetrate to the deepest (and most beautiful) realities of all the surface phenom-ena we meet. Contemplative living is the result of striv-ing for h;fl)itual attentiveness to natural beauties. In the cloistered contemplative life, beauty plays an extremely important role. Much rethinking should be done in this area. Education to the appreciation of good art is of only minor ir.,portance. The more important 4- 4- 4- Living Creatively VOLUME 30, 1971 593 thrust should be towards the recognition of deeper and more lasting loveliness hidden in every atom of creation. The contemplative is a person who withdraws from the world only to view it more comprehensively. Such a one distances himself from worldly turmoil in order to pene-trate its inner significance. His should be a thoroughly optimistic, thoroughly Christian outlook. The fleetingness of beauty teaches him forcefully that man is only a pilgrim on earth. The infinite longing of his spirit for beauty proves to him the necessity of an everlasting Loveliness. Made for eternal splendors, finite man is forever restless in time. He longs for the repose of unchanging possession. Freed from the impossible task of finding complete fulfillment in the present situation, he experiences no false tensions. Set loose from the obsession that he must order the universe aright, he does not writhe in the stress of too little time and too much work. He pauses momentarily before the passing beauties of time and permits them to enkindle his spirit with the desire of everlasting splendors. Then freely, gaily he walks on, bearing the burdens of mankind but lightly for the joy of the promise set before him. 4- 4- 4- Sister Seraphim REVIEW FOR RELI{~IOUS 59,t CHRISTOPHER KIESLING, O.P. Celibacy, Friendship, and Prayer In recent decades, and especially since Vatican Council II, the potentialities of marriage for holiness and prayer have gained the attention of many Christians. Young peo-ple desirous of following Christ closely are less inclined to enter religious life or the priesthood. They are apt to choose a more adventurous following of Christ to holi-ness through the largely uncharted land of marriage. Many already living the celibate life wonder whether they have chosen the "better" way to holiness after all. In marriage they could have the natural fulfillment of their God-given sexuality and at the same time zealonsly follow Christ. Marriage, no doubt, complicates the following of Christ, but the history of the priesthood and religious life in the centuries of the Cht~rch's existence testifies that celibacy by. no means guarantees a Christlike life. Mar-riage, moreover, in daily care for spouse and children, provides many opportunities for growth in charity. As far as prayer is concerned, no intrinsic incompatibility exists between marriage and prayer; in fact, marriage offers many spurs to growth in prayer. The celibate life, on the other hand, certainly does not automatically produce a deep life of prayer. What, then, is the value of the celibate life for prayer? What potentialities for growth in prayer are found in celibacy? The question is not whether celibate life is better for prayer than married life, or the single state, or widow-hood. No attempt is being made here to discover possibil-ities for prayer in the celibate life superior to the possibil-ities in any other state of life. Each state of life has its own opportunities for growth in prayer, and any at-tempts to compare the opportunities of celibacy with those of any other state will always be limited and ulti-mately of little practical value. Comparisons fail because + ÷ Christopher Kies-ling, O.P., is a fac-ulty member of Aquinas Institute School of Theology in Dubuque, Iowa 52001. VOLUME 30, 1971 595 C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ,596 they imply some standard of judgment, for example, free-dom from family demands and concerns. In this perspec-tive, celibacy has an adwmtage over marriage in regard to prayer, for the celibate has more time free from family claims and few, if any, family responsibilities to occupy his thonghts. But another standard of jndgment may be awareness of the needs of others which prompts one to pray. By this norm, a husband or wife, a father or mother, has an advantage over the celibate, for the bonds of marriage and parenthood make oue especially sensitive to the needs of at least a few persons for whom one is inspired to pray. Comparisons fail also because generali-zations abont life are open to many concrete exceptions. In coutrast to the generalizations made above, some older married people have more time and freedom for prayer than celibates who are teaching, and some celibates are more sensitive to the needs of others tban some married people. So the concern here is not to prove that the celibate is in a better position to grow in prayer than the person who is in some other state of life. It is not even of con-cern whether the possibilities for prayer in the celibate life are unique to it. The aim is simply to explore the opportunities for prayer given in the celibate life, so that celibates may exploit them fully. The discernment and exploitation of the potentialities for prayer in other states of life is preferably done by those living in them. The question is not co~lceived, moreover, as a search for a reason why someone should.choose the celibate life or remain faithful to it. The inquiry is regarded, rather, as a help to those inclined or commited to celibacy, so that they may take advautage of the gift which God has given tbena or now offers them. The celibate life is not the product of reasoning. Celi-bates are a fact in the history of the Church up to this moment. These men and women have entered upon, and continue in, this way of life for many reasons of a per-sonal nature, rather than from any theoreti'cal ideas abont the valne of celibacy. Temperament, character for-mation, family life, environment, edu.cation, interests and talents, particular interpersonal relationships, and uniqne interior experiences explain their celibate lives. When initially inclined to this state of life, or after adopting it, they undoubtedly welcome theoretical ideas about its value to legitimize or justify their choice. But the motives for their choice are much more complex and deeply buried in individnal history than any rational justifications. The believing Christian, of conrse, sees a religious meaning in all these factors: they fall under the loving care of a provident God and constitute a divine vocation to the celibate life. That life is ultimately a charism, a gift, from God. Without His call realized in personal history, there is no authentically religious celibate life. The inspiration of the celibate life is the Holy Spirit calling one through one's personal history, not some ra-tional demonstration of the superiority of the celibate state over other states of life. Celibacy is a mysterious gift. The aim here, therefore, is to explore the potentialities for prayer in a state of life ,~hich many find God has already given to them, or which many feel God wishes to give to them. For the success of that God-given life, at whatever stage it is, the exploitation of its potentialities is imperative, and particularly its possibilities for growth in prayer. Having put one's hand to the plow (or having reached toward it), and perhaps even having pushed it partly across the field of life, one does not wish to be looking back to weigh the advantages of this state of life against those of another state; one wishes, rather, to get busy actualizing the potentialities for prayer in the life which God has already given or begnn. The potentialities of celibacy for growth in prayer may be seen as residing radically in celibacy's exclusion from one's life of an intimate companion such as one has in a marriage partner. The celibate may indeed have very close friends, bnt the closeness of friends is not the same as the intimacy of marriage. He will not have some one person with whom be shares, in mutual loyalty, a joint responsibility and care for the development of life, fam-ily, and the world in fulfillment of God's vocation to mankind. He will not have another person closely united to him in daily life to alleviate the loneliness which haunts human beings. He will not have someone at hand whose fidelity be can count on, with whom he can frankly talk over many of Iris worries, aspirations, and satisfac-tions, and in whose presence he can be himself, setting aside the masks he must wear and the roles he must play in business and society. Nor will he have some one person for whom he can create and build and provide, whom he can cherish and protect, knowing that his care and con-cern are welcomed and appreciated. And of course he will have no one with whom he can express all his powers of love, including the physical,t This description of what a wife provides for her hns-band may sound romantic rather than realistic, or indica-tive of neurotic needs in the husband. We do not wish to be romantic about what marriage provides. Marriage is fundamentally an arrangement for living in which man a These reflections are cast in terms of the male celibate because that is the experience which the author knows from the inside, so to speak. What is said, however, will be applicable, with appropriate "adjustments, to the celibate woman. + + + Celibacy VOLUME 30, 1971 597 + + + C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 598 and woman can have the full natural development of their sexed humanity.2 Marriage, more6ver, is more likely to be successful and happy if the partners are not merely satisfying subjective needs by means of one another but, being somewhat matnre, secnre, and capable of standing on their own feet, are free to care for one another's welfare? What we wish to note by this description of what a wife provides for her husband is tbat his life is enriched by intimate companionship with another per-son. To say that in marriage one's life is enriched by an-other person does not mean that a marriage partner is a crutch for personal weaknesses or a pleasant bnt unim-portant trimming added to one's life. What the marriage partner provides is essential for personal matnrity. A common theme of contemporary psychology, psychiatry, and philosophy is that to become mature persons we mtlSt interact with other persons, and mnst even have some intimate relationships with others. 0nly through interaction with other persons, and through some inti-mate interactions, do we come to awareness of our own unique selves with our pecldilu" qnalities, good, bad, and indifferent. Only through such interaction do we learn to master our constructive and aggressive drives and direct them to personally and socially beneficial goals. Through interpersonal relationships we acquire that freedom of self-possession which is characteristic of man. So a mar-riage partner provides, not a supplement for personal inadequacies or for pleasanmess of life, but a comple-ment necessary for the achievement of personal maturity. Briefly, to be mature persons we need other persons in our lives and even some intinaacy with others. For most men and women this need is supplied largely, though not necessarily exclnsively, by naarriage. The celibate, how-ever, excludes marriage from his life and thereby ex-clndes the common means of developing personal matu-rity. Herein lies both the peril and the opportunity of the celibate life. If the celibate's potentialities for personal matm'ity are unfnlfilled, lie will become a dull non-en-tity, if not a disgruntled, nenrotic, nnltappy person. If these potentialities are not sublimated, he will be in-clined to abandon the celibate life for marriage. The celibate must have other persons in his life, even inti-mately, if lie is to become a mature person and give himself its a full human being to God. Where will lie find these other persons? He will find them in friendships, first of all with God 2Sce Aron Krich with Sam Blum, "Marriage and the Mystique of Romancc," Redbook, November 1970, p. 123. sScc Erich Fromm, The Art o[ Loving (New York: Bantam, 1963), p. 17. the Father, His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and then also with other human beings. Intimate friendship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will be realized in prayer, and friendships with people will ma-ture in prayer. Thus celibacy, by excluding an intimate relationship with another person such as one has in mar-riage, yet leaving the need for personal relationships and even some intimacy, creates two great potentialities for prayer: the potentiality for prayer in the need to develop intimate friendship with the three divine Persons of the Trinity, and the potentiality for prayer in the need to develop friendships with people. Celibacy creates in one's life a vact~um which craves to be filled. For a mature personality, for happiness, and for a truly successful celi- I)ate life, the wise celibate fills this vacuum with intimate personal relations to the F:tther, Son, and Spirit and with hun~an friendships. Filling the vacut~m in these ways in-volves prayer. We will consider the possibility for growth in prayer first in relating personally to God and then in establish-ing friendships with people. A married man who, in the course of the day, has experienced failure, disappointment, or hnrt can un-ashamedly recount his tale of woe to his wife that evening. She can console him and make love with him and so ease his pain and restore his self-confidence, so that he can go on with life. The celibate has no person who can do all th;~t for him in the way a wife can. He is usually forced, therefore, if he wishes consolation and restoration, to seek them in prayer to God. The same holds true for the expression of joy. The married na~n can recount his suc-cesses and tritmiphs to his wife who will consider them as her own, share his happiness, and reward him, so to speak, by m:~king love with him. The celibate will have to turn to God in prayer for comparable satisfaction in the expression of joy. The married man does not have to make all serious decisions and bear their consequences alone. Fie makes many of them with his wife and can count on her loyal support in the conseqnences that fol-low. The celib;~te has no one who can so closely cooperate with him in making decisions and in living with their consequences. He will have to find help and support in God in prayer. All this tells us something about wh:lt prayer should be for the celibate. It should be an encounter with a per-sonal God, with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as per-sons. The celibate must cnltivate a sense of the person-hood of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He cannot afford to allow God to remain some distant, impersonal force behind the universe and his life. The three divine Persons mnst become genuine persons for him to relate 4- 4- + Celibacy VOLUME 30, 1971 ,'599 + + + C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 600 to, even as a man's wife is a person for him to relate to. Of course, the divine Persons are not persons in exactly the same sense as a human person. But°divine person-hood includes what is most essential to personhood as we know it in human beings. It includes a knowing,, loving, caring subject who can sympathize and can act to help oue. Important in the life of the celibate, then, is the cnltiva-tion of a sense of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as genuine persons in his life, as truly as a man's wife is a person in his life. This cultiw~tion will be accomplished " through various forms of prayer. It will be done by meditative reading of the Scriptures through which the celibate will discover and appreciate more and more how truly the Father, His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, and Their Spirit are knowing, loving, sym-pathetic, caring, belpfnl persons relating themselves to men in their sorrows and joys. Tbrongb familiarity with the Scriptures, the celibate will disceru that he, iudividu-ally, with his good and bad qualities, is accepted uncondi-tioually by the Father, even as the prodigal son was by Iris f;ither, th:~t he is loved by Christ, even as the woman taken in adultery was, and that he is supported by the Holy Spirit who deigns to dwell in him as his constant companion. Also important for the. celibate is the practice of the presence of God, that is, the effort to be aware of, and respond to, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as personally present to him. Personal presence is not merely physical proximity. In regard to God~ it means not only that He is near the celib:lte to snstain his being and activity. It means also that be is in God's thoughts and affection. The practice of the presence of God, the heart of mental prayer, is awareness of God's personal presence and re-sponse to it by holding God in one's own thoughts and affection. Bnt we should be more precise and speak of the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Chris-tian God is threefold in person. What must he cnltivated is awareness of, and response to, these three Persons pres-ent in one's life. Through various forms of prayer, the celibate mnst become as mt, tually personally present to the three divine Persons as a man is mntnally personally present to his wife, thougl~, of course, the former presence will always be in the obscurity of faith. Because the presence of the Trinity is realized only in faith, it is difficult to have a sense of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as genuine persons in one's life. Besides, the persons of the Trinity are not like hmnan persons: unlike a man's wife, they are not bodily beings, visihle, andible, tangible. They do not talk back to the celibate immedi-ately, as does a man's wife, bnt answer him only through his search into revelation, the signs of the times, and his own peculiar situation. Bnt through the humanity of Jesus, the personal being of God is clearly revealed; with-out question God understands and sympathizes with us in our miseries anti joys, anti He accepts us despite our limitations anti failings. Through communion with the person Jesus Christ, the celibate learns also to recognize the Father anti the Spirit as genuine persons in his life. Christ's presence in the Eucharist is a further help to the celibate in relating to God personally. The Son of God incarnate lays hold of bread and wine and trans-forms them so that they are no longer bread and wine, except in appearance, but Himself for men. Thereby He is personally present to the celibate not only spiritually, by thought and affection, but also concretely, spatially, and temporally (though through'the mediation of the appearances of the consecrated elements), as a man's wife is present to him. It remains only for the celibate to respond to this most intense anti full personal presence of God in Christ by sacramental communion or by a "visit" to Christ in the Eucharist. Foolish is the celibate who never turns to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament for conso-lation in sorrow or for the sharing of joy. On the part of God, Christ in the Eucharist is the most concrete realiza-tion of the presence of God in the celibate's life. Com-munion with Christ in the Sacrament is analogous to the commnnion which a husband has with his wife as they embrace. It may be objected that the Christian married man also lntlst develop a sense of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as krxowing, loving, and caring persons in his life if he is to progress in holiness and prayer. There are times when lie will not have his wife at hand to snpport him anti share with him; anti even when she is at hand, there are needs and experiences which he cannot fully share with her, as mnch as lie may try and she may be willing. On these occasions lie must turn to Father, Son, anti Holy Spirit in prayer. It is even more obvious that the single man and the widower also are invited to relate to the Father, Son, anti Holy Spirit as genuine persons in their lives. In answer it may be said that it makes no difference to the celibate if others are called to an intimate friendship in prayer with the three divine Persons. hnportant for the celibate is the fact that, in Go'd's gift to him of celi-bacy, there is a great potentiality for prayer opened tip to him. Whether or not others have a similar potentiality for prayer is not nearly :is important as his making the most of the potentiality which has been given to him. Yet the celibate's situation is different from most other men's. The married man does have a wife in whom lie + + + Celibacy VOLUME 30, 1971 601 + ÷ + C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 602 can often and at least partially fulfill his need for inti-mate personal relationship. The single man can marry. The widower, if his faith is vigorous and vivid, can enjoy the spiritual presence of his wife, whose life has not ended with death but changed; he can also remarry. The celibate, in virtue of his vow, is without any of these possibIe means of satisfying his need for intimate per-sonal relationship. In times of need, he cannot turn to any of these possibilities but is compelled, as it were, to turn immediately to God. The celibate should rejoice that a potentiality for prayer which is a normal part of his life as a result of God's gift of celibacy is also bestowed on others by the circumstances of their lives. He should develop a keen sense of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as persons in his life to whom he intimately relates, so that he can help his fellow men do the same thing for the times in their lives when they need it. This is one way in which he serves as an example of Christian life and as a help to his fellow Christians in other states of life. The call of the celibate to turn in prayer to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as genuine persons in his life for personal fulfillment tells us something about the content of prayer. One is inclined to think of prayer as saying "nice" things to God or thinking edifying thoughts in His presence. To pray is to recall God's wonderful works for men in the history of salvation. It is to praise God for His power, wisdom, and providence and to thank Him for .Jesus Christ and the gift of the Spirit. It is to express faith, hope, and charity in His regard. It is to have beau-tiful tl~oughts inspired by passages in Scripture or in spiritual books of meditation. It is to pray for the salva-tion of souls, for the growth of the Church, for the Pope and bishops, for health and holiness. As the content of prayer, all this is excellent. But if this is all that one ever regards as appropriate content for prayer, it may be doubted that one very often prays with the deep conviction and feeling with which the Psalmist or Jeremiah or Jesus prayed. If we turn again to the married man, we can get some idea of further and more realistic content for the prayer of the celibate. Marriage provides for the support and fulfillment of the married man because be has another person to whom be can unburden his soul. He does not talk to his wife only about beautiful and inspiring things. He does not always praise and thank her. The concerns which be ex-presses to bet are not limited to the general needs of mankind or society. He sometimes speaks to her about his doubts, his anger, his pity, his misery. He sometimes com-plains about her household management. Out of sincere admiration and gratitude, he sometimes congratulates her for a delicious meal or for a well-planned dinner party. To her he expresses deep emotions of fear, grief, hostility, hope, and joy, without fear that he will be rejected or tl~ougbt silly. He expresses to her his carnal desire for her. With his wife he is himself, lets himself go, and discovers what is in himself. As the married man expresses himself to his wife, the celibate expresses himself to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In prayer the celibate talks to God about his doubts and convictions, his misery and his happiness. To God be rehearses his dislikes and hatreds, knowing that God will not condemn him but will heal his hostilities or at least help him live with them in a way which will not harm him or others. He vents his disappointments, his hurts, his aspirations, his feelings of triumph, without feeling that God will think him damnable or vain but, on the contrary, will go on loving him the more for opening his beart to Him. He tells God bow annoyed he is by his snperior or how vexed he is that his plans for the summer have been thwarted. He tells God about the happy visit he had that clay with a clear friend or about the program which he directed with remarkable success. He thanks God for the many blessings He has bestowed and complains to Him about His designs for him now. In a word, the celibate's prayer is not only saying things to God which one is expected to say to Him, as one is expected to say certain things to a bishop, or a superior, or the president of the United States. A married man does not find support and fulfillment in married life by telling his wife only those things which are expected in some romantic notion of marriage, but by telling her what is really in his mind and heart. So the celibate prays authentically to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by ex-pressing to Them what is trnly in his mind and heart, whether it is beautiful or ugly. In this way he discovers himself through prayer to the three divine Persons. It should be noted that it is not mere self-expression that leads to self-discovery, but self-expression to which there is a response from another self. A husband's expres-sion of himself evokes a response from his wife; she ex-presses herself in silence or in words, favorably or unfa-vorably, admitting and accepting or challenging and re-fusing what her husband has presented. A husband's wife "talks back" in various ways. Dialogue between two per-sons arises. As a result of the exchange, the "truth" emerges into the light: what sort of person each is, what motivates each, strong and weak points of character. This truth about the self may not be recognized in the conrse of the exchange but only afterwards as one reflects on what happened in it. Nor does the whole truth emerge from one dialogue. It is only tbrongh repeated dialogue ÷ ÷ ÷ Celibacy VOLUME 30~ 3.971 603 + ÷ ÷ C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 604 over the course of time tbat a husband understands him-serf better, acquires some self-possession, and thus ma-tures. The analogous relation between husband and wife on the one hand and, on the other, the celibate and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit appears to break down at this point. The Persons of the Trinity do not talk back. But they do! The three divine Persons talk back in reve-lation, in the external circnmstances of the celibate's life, and in his internal condition. In revelation, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit express the sort of persons they are, their motives, their designs. As a husband has to adjust himself to his wife as he discovers her to be through their dialogue together, the celibate must adjust himself to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Important for the celibate, then, is his continual searching in revelation, especially as found in the Scriptures, for God's response to what is in his mind and in his heart. In the external circum-stances of his life (where and with whom he lives, the duties he has, the claims made on him by others) and in his internal condition (his strengths and weaknesses of character, his interests and talents, his fears and hopes), God also talks back to the celibate. The celibate must adjust himself to these circumstances and conditions which divine providence has imposed or permitted. By examining his thoughts, feelings, desires, and activities in the light of revelation and the circumstances and condi-tions of his life in prayer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the celibate, over a period of time, discovers more and more of the truth about himself. This truth makes him free, makes him a mature human person. I[ prayer is the expression to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of all the celibate's thoughts and feelings, the "not-nice" ones as well as the "nice" ones, then prayer will not be limited to neat little times of prayer punctuating the (lay. The celibate can be personally present to the three divine Persons while he is walking down the street, tak-ing a shower, or dropping off to sleep at night. Moreo-ver, it is during just such times when he is alone and involved in activities which do not engage his mind very mnch, that he finds himself rehearsing in his mind and imagination his resentments, disappointments, failures, pleasures, and achievements. Dnring these times he has an opportunity for prayer. All that is required is the recognition that he is in the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the wish that They hear his recital of woe or happiness. The celibate will welcome times set aside for prayer, for then he will have the opportunity to express more fully his thoughts and feelings to the three divine Per-sons. He will have an opportunity to ask Them to forgive him for the wrong he has discovered in himself and to help him persevere in the good which he has found. He will welcome more formal and objective liturgical prayer, or spontaneous prayer in a group, for in some words of the liturgy or some words of a fellow Christian, there is the possibility that God's response to his self-expression will finally come: God will at last talk back. The dia-log. ue between the celibate and God will be consummated and the celibate will discern the truth about himself. God will not talk back to the celibate every time he engages in common prayer, liturgical or informal, but certainly on some occasions God's word will be there for him. Conse-quently, he will not neglect such prayer lest he miss the word of God which is meant just for him. When this word comes fi'om God in common prayer, it will continue to resound in his mind and heart as he goes his way, a new man, knowing himself better, more free, more ma-tllre. Real prayer is not always pretty. It is a cry to God in anguish or anger. Real prayer is not dispassionate. It is a song of gladness and triumph. It purifies because it places before a loving Father, Son, and Holy Spirit both what is ngly and what is beautiful in one's life. Coupled with the response of the three divine Persons, it leads to dis-covery of one'~ self, freedom, maturity, and personal ful-fillment. Celibacy creates a condition which calls for snch prayer with special urgency. Snch prayer is necessary in every state of life, but it is especially necessary for the celibate if lie is to achieve personal maturity, for lie has excluded from his life the ordinary means of achieving that maturity through the intimate interpersonal rela-tionship of marriage. The second great potentiality for prayer in the celi-bate's life resides in the need to develop human friend-ships. Tills.potentiality for prayer will be considered in the second part of this article. The first part of this article considered the first great potentiality for prayer in the celibate life, namely, the need to develop an intimate, truly personal friendship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, analogous to the relationship which a man and woman have in marriage. The second great potentiality for prayer in the celibate life resides in the need to develop human friendships. We begin exploration of this potentiality by noting different kinds of fi'iendship in the celibate's life. The first sort of friendship is toward those people with whom the celibate ordinarily lives, works, and recreates. The second class is toward those few people with whom lie shares particular views, interests, and wdues. The third kind of friendship is toward those persons to whom he is strongly attracted because they especially satisfy his + + + Celibacy VOLUME 30, 1971 605 + + + C. Kie~ling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 606 particnlar subjective needs for certain other persons in his life. In the case of the first sort of friendship, the name "friend" is used in a very broad sense. The "associate" expresses more literally the relationship wlficb the celi-bate has with people in this first class of friendship. These people are his associates in daily work, meals, rec-reation, and prayer. With them he shares some general views, interests, and values, and be "gets along" with them. His interaction with them provides some personal support and happiness, but they do not satisfy some of his deeper, unique, human, and personal needs. lu this first group is included a subclass of associates to whom the celibate relates only with difficulty, perhaps even in continual conflict. Bnt such people are not strangers to him nor he to them; they know one another better than they know the clerk at the store or the passen-ger they meet on the plane. They "associate" with one an-other daily or very fi'cqucntly in w~rious activities. Inter-action with these people plays an important role in the celibate's personal development and pursuit of happiness. The name "friend" applies quite well to people in the second class of friendship, though here we will call them "good friends" to distinguisla them from friends of the first and third kind. The celibate particularly enjoys the company of his good friends and feels especially at ease with them. He feels free to express to them his opinions ~n(l feelings about many things because he knows that they will be respected and accepted. Most of the time, with most of these people, however, be will not express his most intimate thoughts and feelings about some things, and especially abot, t himself and them. The bond here is not mutu;d attraction to, and interest in, one another, but particular views, interests, and values which they bold in common. Witbont some good friends, the celibate may find life difficult. He will more likefy feel the pain of loneliness which the first kind of friends, associates, only superfi-cially alleviates. It is even possible that without some good fiiends he may develop neurotic tendencies, for he will not express to sympathetic listeners many thoughts and feelings, especially of hostility or discouragement, that would better be brought out into the open, lest, being confined within, they produce depression or mor-bidity. "Friend" is a rather pallid name for people in the third class of fiiendship. These people we will call "close friends" to distinguish them from associates and good friends. From the first sort of friend, the celibate parts with equanimity and, in some cases, relief; fi'om the sec-ond sort, with regret; from the third, with great reluc- tance and even anguish. If a close friend suffers misfor-tune, the celibate's own life is upset, perhaps to distrac-tion and disorientation; he finds it difficult to go on tran-quilly with his ordinary duties. It is as if be himself suffered the misfortune. Close friends are most truly "other selves." The celibate is interested in his close friends, not simply in their views and values, but in them, their innermost thoughts and feelings, their physi-cal, mental, and spiritual welfare. To them he reveals his deepest thoughts and feelings, his doubts, convictions, and emotions, confident of their affection (not just re-spect) and their loyalty toward him. He is more or less emotionally involved with them. in them he finds fulfill-ment of his need for intimacy with persons. They are surrogates for the marriage partner which he has ex-cluded from his life. Sonie celibates cannot live well-balanced, full, and happy lives without one or more close friends. Others can, though they will lack sympathetic understanding for some experiences of the human heart. On tile other hand, every celibate's life can be imlnensely enriched by close friendship, even though lie may not absolutely need it for persoual maturity and contentment. The celibate's friends of all three kinds may be men or women. One and the same person may be a friend in one or more of these three ways. Thus the celibate may be strongly attracted to a member of his local community with whom he finds particular compatibility in likes and concerns. On tile other hand, he may find such compati-bility or such personal attraction or both in someone with whom lie rarely associates. This typology of friendships in the celibate's life has, of course, the limitations of every typology. It is an at-tempt to find some intelligible pattern in the infinite variety, complexity, and fluidity of life. Actual friend-ships will approximate one or another type, sometimes partaking of characteristics of more than oue type. The whole matter is complicated further in actual life by the fact that tile celibate and a certain friend may not re-spond to one another in the same class of friendship; lie may regard as a close frieud someone who looks upon him as simply a good friend. Hence one may find that one's own experiences of friendship do not fit neatly into this or that category of the typology that has been pre-sented. In spite of its inadequacies, this typology serves to sug-gest that some o~ the celibate's friendships will not be very problematic, while others will; some will evoke re-sponses from him beyond what be expects and is immedi-ately prepared for and thus will demand growth in per-sonal matnrity. Compatible associates and good friends + + + Celibacy VOLUME 30, 1971 607 + ÷ C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 608 are usually taken for granted. They are lubricants, so to speak, which make the wheel of life turn easily. They do not make very great demands on the celibate but make it possible for him to bear with the demands of life which come from other sources. Relating to irritating associates or to close friends, on the other hand, is not easy. Relating to irritating associates is difficult because of the conflict of personalities. Relating to close friends is arduous because strong instinctual drives, powerful emo-tions, deep personal needs, and wish-fulfilling illusions are involved, and because the focus of attention is not the stable, objective mntual interests and activities shared by good friends, but the person of the close friend, a free agent, susceptible to moods, hence often falling short of expectations, and ultimately a mystery, as every human person is. In attempting to develop these two kinds of friendship, the celibate discovers his limitations and is driven toward prayer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for help. Hence these two sorts of friendship may be said to contain more conspicuous potentialities for growth in prayer than the other kinds of friendship. Actual instances of these two difficult sorts of friend-ship are infinitely varied by circumstances. The difficulty in relating to an annoying associate may be due to nor-real differences of temperament and character or to neu-rotic traits in one or both. The irritating associate may be a superior or a peer, or may be someone with whom the celibate lives elbow to elbow or someone with whom he deals only in his work. The person toward whom the celibate feels drawn in close friendship may be a man or woman, celibate, single, or married, frequently or only occasionally in his company. Becanse actual instances of these two kinds of friend-ship are so different fi'om one another, to speak of the potentialities for prayer in them in general would not be very helpful. Hence, we will restrict ourselves to explor-ing the potentialities for prayer in a close friendship of the (male) celibate with a woman, also dedicated to celi-bacy, whom he sees only occasionally; it will also be as-sumed that both persons are firm in their dedication to the celibate life. From this single instance, one can gain some idea of what it means to speak of the potentialities for prayer in friendship. One can then explore on one's own the possibilities for prayer in one's own difficult hnman relationships. In a close friendship of the kind stipulated, the celibate finds pleasure, satisfaction, and joy. Deep cisterns of sex-ual, human, and personal needs are filled to brimming with cool, fi'esh water. Life becomes extraordinarily beau-tiful in the present and rich in possibilities for the future. He marvels at the qualities he discovers, one after the other, in Iris friend and at the total uniqueness and mys-tery of her being. In her presence, life assumes a timeless, eternal quality. Particular words and actions are lost to view in the more comprehensive awareness of the inter-personal presence which they mediate; just being to-gether is more significant than anything said or done. Because of tiffs friendship, the whole of life and the world receive a new interpretation and meaning. A frequent form of prayer found in the Bible is praise of God in thanksgiving for his gifts of creation and salvation.4 The Bible contains countless joyful songs (Psahns and Canticles) in which God is praised and thanked by simply reciting in His presence the beauty and awesomeness of creation and His wonderful works of salvation on behalf of His people or individt, als. In the pleasure, satisfaction, and joy which the celibate finds in Iris friendship, there is inspiration for praise of God and thanksgiving to Him for what gives so much happy ful-fillment. As he rehearses to himself the wonderfulness of his experience and of the loved one--be can scarcely avoid doing tbis~he has only to place himself in the presence of God and add to his rehearsal, in a spirit of gratitude, acknowledgment to God for His gift. Knowing experientially what it means to break out in praise and thanksgiving to God for one gift so keenly appreciated, the celibate more readily values the prayers of praise and thanksgiving for other gifts of God (some of them, in the final analysis, far more itnportant than his friendship) which constitute so much of the liturgy. He welcomes a period of mental prayer, for it provides time to recount before God, in thankft, l praise, the joys of his friendship. But there is also the pain of separation--the anguish of parting and the ache of being apart. What does the cell bate do with this pain? He nnites it with the pain of Christ on the cross-and thus makes it, not an inexplicable dead-end, but redemptive and life-giving. He does this in tl~ought whenever be feels the pain with particular acute-hess, but be does it also when be offers himself to God in, with, and through Christ in His unique offering of Him-self and all mankind on Calvary rendered sacramentally present in the celebration of the Eucharist. The pain of separ~tion is grist [or the miil of t, nion with Christ in suffering and death, even as the joy of presence antici-pates the joy of sharing in the resurrection of Jesus. Through the pain and joy of friendship, the celibate ~Sce T. Worden, The Psalms Are Christian Prayer (New York: Sbccd and Ward, 1961), for an excellent analysis of tbc Psalms and other prayers in Scripture as basically praise (thanksgiving) or lamen-tation (petition, hope, confidence). Both kinds, especially the first, have been carried over into the Christian liturgy, with modifica-tions. Both arc exemplary for private prayer. ÷ ÷ + Celibacy VOLUME .:30, 1971 609 C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIE

Issue 17.2 of the Review for Religious, 1958. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious MARCH 15, 1958 Teaching Brothers . Pope Plus XII Religious and Psychotherapy . Richard P. Vaughan A Sense of Balance . Robert W. Gleason Pattern for Religious Life . Da.ie~ J. M. Ca~aha. The Might of ~ood . c. A. I-lerbst Summer Sessions Book Reviews Communications (~uestions and Answers Roman Documents about: Movies, Radio, Television Seminarians and Religious The Role of the Laity VOLUME 17 NUMBER 2 RI::VII:::W FOR RI::LIGIOUS VOLUME 17 MARCH, 1958 NUMBER 2 CONTI::NTS THE HOLY SEE AND TEACHING BROTHERS . 65 SUMMER SESSIONS . 72 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY-- Richard P. Vaughan, S.J . 73 A SENSE OF BALANCE~Robert W. Gleason, S.J . 83 COMMUNICATIONS . 90 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 90 THE PERFECT PATTERN FOR RELIGIOUS LIFEm Daniel J. M. Callahan, s.J . ' . 91 THE MIGHT OF GOD--C. A. Herbst, S.J . 97 SURVEY OF ROMAN DOCUMENTS~R. lq. Smith, S.J . 101 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS: Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 112 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: 7. Sisters Overworked . 121 8. Elimination of Silence .¯ . 122 9. Illegitimacy and the Office of Local Superior . 123 10. True Meaning of Tradition in the Religious Life .124 11. General Councilor as Treasurer General . 126 12. Unsuitable Spiritual Reading . 127 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, March, 1958. Vol. 17, No. 2. Published bi-monthly by The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Blvd., St. Louis 18, Mo. Edited by the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approval. Second class mail privilege authorized at St. Louis, Mo. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J.; Gerald Kelly, S.J.; Henry Willmering, S.J. Literary Editor: Robert F. Weiss, S.J. Copyright, 1958, by The Queen's Work. Subscription price in U.S.A. and Canada: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U.S.A. Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to: Review for Religious, 3115 South Grand Boulevard. St. Louis 18. Missouri. The Holy See and Teaching Bro!:hers A LETTER BY Pope Plus XII, dated March 31, 1954, and addressed to Cardizial Valeri, prefect of the Sacred Congre-gation of Religious, discussed the nature and dignity of the teaching brothers' vocation. The official Latin text of this letter is in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 46 (1954), 202-5. Several English translations have appeared in our country. C, ornmen-tarium .pro religiosis, 33 (1954), 150-61, published the Latin text, with some annotations by Father A. Guti~rrez, C.M.F., and some interesting background. According to the Commentariurn, the procurators general of~i~!ght institutes of teaching brothers have the custom of meet-ing.~.' in Rome and discussing their mutual problems. The insti-tutes are: Christian Brothers; Christian Brothers of Ireland; Marists; Marianists; Brothers of Christian Instruction mel; Brothers of the Sacred Heart; Brothers of St. Gabriel; and the Xaverian Brothers. The main point discussed in their meeting in the spring of 1953 was the problem of vocations to their institutes, and especially the very delicate problem of mis-understanding by the clergy. Deeply concerned about this prob-lem, the procurators general de.cided to ask His Holiness for an official statement concerning the nature, .dignity, and value the teaching brothers' vocation and apostolate. Thus, with the approval of their own superiors and of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, they addressed a letter to the Pope. The French text of their letter, dated October 15, 1953, is given, in. the Commentarium /~ro religiosis. The Annotations Since Father Guti~rrez' remarks serve as a so~rt of brief commentary on the papal letter, the Gommenlarium publishes them immediately after the letter. It seems better for our 65 TEACHING BROTHERS Review for Religious purpose, however, to incorporate his principal points into this introductory background material because this will help to appre-ciate the' content of the papal letter, as well as of the letter addressed to the Pope by the procurators general. The principal points stressed by Father Guti~rrez are these: (1) The teaching brothers are religious in the full sense of canon law. (2) They have a special divine vocation, which is approved and specially protected by the Church. (3) Their apostolate of teaching is given to them by the Church itself; and the Church recognizes this apostolate as a higher call than Catholic Action. (4) The object of this apostolate is to form good men, good Catholics, and leaders; and this is accomplished not only by having excellent schools and teaching methods, but also and especially by teaching Christian doctrine and morality. (5) Since the pontifical institutes of brothers have received from the Holy See a commission to teach religion, they have a .right to exercise this apostolate within the limits of canon law. (6) One sign of the fruitfulness of the brothers' apostolate of teach-ing is the number oi: ecclesiastical vocations among their alumni. On the last point, Father Guti~rrez gives some interesting statistics concerning seven it~stitutes of teaching brothers with a total professed membeiship of 31,006. Of their former pupils who were still living in 19~3, there were 10 cardinals, 218 bishops, 31,938 priests, and 11,398 seminarians. I. Letter of the Procurators General Most Holy Father: The undersigned procurators general of eight institutes of teaching brothers lay at the feet of Your Holiness their respect-ful homage as loyal and obedient sons; and, in full agreement with the officials of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, they beg you graciously to consider a problem which their superiors are now making efforts to solve, that is, the misunderstanding by certain members of the clergy of the usefulness and canonical 66 TEACHING BROTHERS status of our vocation as lay religious men engaged in the teach-ing apostolate. Recalling the provisions of canon law (c. 107), Your Holi-ness declared to the religious' assembled in an international congress at the end of the Holy Year, I950, that "Between the two states--clerical and lay--which .constitute the Church, there falls the religious state." As religious with simple vows, our profession places us in the humblest category of the religious state. We are religious in so ~ar as we tend toward the perfection of charity by the practice of the ~three vows of the state of per-fection; we are laymen inasmuch as we have deliberately offered to God our sacrifice of~th_e priestly dignity and of the spiritual privileges which priests enjoy in order to concentrate all our activity on one apostolate alone: the Christian education of youth. This apostolate wa~ entrusted to us by the Holy Church. It is "a tedious work and a thankless task,''~ as Your Holiness pointed out when speaking to the m~sters of the French uni-versities on April 10, 1950; -But divine Providence. has con-tinually blessed such work and has rewarded it with the most noble of harvests through the priestly and religious vocations which spring up in our schools. "It is an unassailable fact that the number of p~iestly voca-tions is, if not the only criterion, at least one of the surest criterions for measuring the strength and fruitfulness of a Catholic school or of any Catholic educational institution." This is the judgment Your Holiness pronounced on May 28, 1951, at an audience marking the fifth centenary of the College Marc-antonio Colonna. The statistics on this subject which we have. the honor submitting to Your Holiness are based on the most recent research and are of such a nature as to console the heart of the Holy Father by showing in just what proportion the labors 6¸7 TEACHING BROTHERS Review for R~ligious teaching brothers contribute to the increase of the clergy through-ou~. the entire world. These results would be even more noteworthy if the nu-merical growth of our own institutes permitted us to answer all the appeals we are constantly receiving for the further expan-sion of our present works and for ventures into new fields of apostolic endeavor. We here touch upon the unfortunate problem which we wish to bring to the attention of Your Holiness. In many places our recruiting is hindered and the perseverance of those whom we do recruit is jeopardized by the misunderstanding or the opposition of certain members of the clergy. These ecclesi-astics are ignorant, or appear to be ignorant, of the canonical status of our vocation as well as of the mission which the Church, by its approbation of our institutes, has confided to us. In Appendix No. 2 0f this petition, we recount to Your Holiness some of the fallacious arguments disseminated against ui and some of the methods used in certain regions to turn young men away from our novitiates or to direct toward the clerical state some of our own religious even though already bound by perpetual profession. We thought, Most Holy Father, that a word from the Chair of Truth would-be most helpful to us in our efforts to refute these fallacies, to break down the prejudices which they engender, to encourage and guide souls of good will somewhat confused by these false ideas. The recent yearly congress of the Union of Teaching Brothers held at Paris--the report of which we beg you to receive as a humble testimony of our loyalty--seemed an appro-priate occasion for addressing the present petition to Your Holiness. Confident of the gracious welcome it will receive from the head of Christendom and the father of all religious and implor-ing your blessing, very respectfully we profess ourselves once 68 March, 1958 TEACHING BROTHERS more Your Holiness's most humble and obedient sonsR. ome, October 15, 1953. II. Letter of Pius XlI to Cardinal Valeri Beloved Son, Health and Apostolic Benediction: The procurators general of eight religious institutes of brothers, whose special mission is the instruction and education of youth, have presented Us with an official report of the annual meeting of the French provinces of their institutes, held last year at Paris, in order to inform Us of what had been accom-plished there and what they hope to accomplish in the future. At the same time, they besought Us in a submissive and respect-ful spirit to give them paternal instruction and to point out to them the best means to increase their numbers and to achieve the happiest results in their recruitment of vocations. That is what We gladly do in succinct form by means of this letter. And in the first place, We congratulate them very much, because We know with what zealous and untiring will these brothers are fulfilling the mission confided to them, a mission that can be of the greatest assistance to the Church, to the family, and to civil society itself. Indeed, their work is of great importance. Boys and young men are the blossoming hope of the future. And the course of events in the years ahead will depend especially upon those young men who are.instructed in the liberal arts and every type of discipline, so that they may assume the direction not only of their private affairs but also of public matters. If their minds are illumined by the light of the gospel, if their wills are formed by Christian principles and fortified by divine grace, then we may hope that a new gen-eration of youth will era"" t, appily triumph over the difficulties, beil -esently assail us a:ad which by its I e can establish a better and health. It is Our grent c~. ~nat these religious institutes are laboring to that end, guided by those wise rules 69 TEACHING BROTHERS Review for Religious which their founders have bequeathed to their respective insti-tutes as a sacred inheritance. We desire that they perform this task not only ~vith the greatest alertness, diligence, and devotion, but also animated by ~that supernatural spirit by which human efforts can flourish and bring forth salutary fruits. And specif-ically We wish that they strive to imbue the youth confided to them with a doctrine that is not only certain and free from all error, but which also takes account of those special arts and prodesses which the present age has introduced into each of the disciplines. But what is most !mportant is this, that they draw super-natural strength from their religious life, which they ought most intensively to live, by which they may form to Christian virtue the students committed to their care, as the mission confided to them by the Church demands. For if this virtue were relegated to a subordinate position or neglected entirely, 'neitl~er literary nor any other type of human knowledge would be able to estab-lish their lives in rectitude. In fact, these merely human attain-ments° can become effective instruments of "evil and unhappiness, especially at the age "which~ is as wax, so easily can it be fashioned to evil" (Horace, De arte l~Oetlca, 163). Therefore, let them watch over the minds and souls of their pupils; let them have a profound understanding of youth-ful indifference, of its hidden motivations, of its deep-seated drives, of its inner unrest and distress, and let them wisely guide them. Let them act with vigor to drive away at once and with the utmost determination, those false principles which are a threat to virtue, to avert every dange~ that-can tarnish the brightness of- their souls, and to so order all things about them that while the mind is being illumined by truth, the will may be tightly and courageously controlled and moved to embrace all that is good. While these religious brothers know that the education of youth is the art of arts and the science of sciences, they know, 70 March, 1958 TEACHING BROTHERS too, that they can do all these things with the divine aid, for which they pray, mindful of the word of the Apostle of the Gentiles: "I can do all things in Him who strengthenth Me" (Phil. 4:13). Therefore, let them cultivate their own piety as much as they can, as is only right for those who, although not called to the religious priesthood, yet have been admitted to the lay form of the religious life (c. 488, 4). Such a religious institute, although~ composed almost entirely of those who by God's special calling have renounced the dignity of the priest-hood and the consolations that flow therefrom, is all the same held in high honor by 'the Church and is of the gr.eatest assist-ance to the sacred ministry by the Christian formation of youth. On a previous occasion we turned our attention to this subject, saying: "The religious state is in no sense reserved to either the one or the other of the two types which by divine right exist in the Church, since not only the clergy but likewise the laity can be religious" (Allocution to the meeting of re-ligious orders held at Rome, AAS, 1951, p. 28). And by the very fact that the Church has endowed laymen with this dignity and status, it is quite plainly signified to all that each part this holy militia can labor, and very ~ffectively, both for its own salvation and that of others, according to the special canonical rules and norms by which each is regulated. Wherefore, let no one lack esteem for the members these institutes because they do rmt embrace the priesthood, or think that their apostolate is less fruitful. Moreover, it is afact well known to Us that they gladly encourage the youths com-mitted to their care for instruction and education to embrace the priesthood when it seems that" divine, grace is calling them. Nor is there any lack of instances of their former pupils who now adorn the ranks of the episcopate and even the Sacred College of Cardinals. These religious institutes merit and de-serve Our praise and that of the whole Church; they deserve, also, the good will of the bishops ~and" the ~ clergy, since they give them their fullest support, not o.nly in providing a fitting 71 TEACHING BROTHERS education for youth, but also in cultivating the vocations oi~ those students whom divine grace attracts to the sacred priest-hood. Therefore, let them hold to the way upon whichthey have entered, their vigor increasing day by day; and one with the other religious orders and congregations to whom this work has been confided, let them devote themselves to the instructior~ and education of youth with peaceful an~d willing souls. As a pledge of the divine help, which" we implore for them with earnest prayer, and as a testimony of Our personal benevo-lence, we lovingly impart the apostolic blessing to you, Our beloved son, and to each of the superiors of these institutes, to their subjects and to their pupils. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the 31st day of the month of March, of the year 1954, the sixteenth year of Our pontificate. SUMMER SESSIONS [EDITORS' NOTE: The deadlinefor summer-session announcements to be included in our May number was March 1. Since the May number is the last one to be published before the summer sessions begin, it will be useless to send us further announcements for 1958. We wish to take this occasion to make one candid remark. In our November, 1957, number, page 32~, we outlined several specifications to be observed in draw-ing up summer-session announcements. Most deans who sent us announcements either completely or partially ignored these specifications. May we suggest that someone who reads this magazine might call his or her dean's attention to this?] St. Louis University will feature an institute in liturgical music: Gre~gorian Chant and Polyphony, June 9-13. During the six-week summer session, June 17 to July 25, there will be graduate courses .in the Theology .of the Mystical Body and in Moral and Ascetical Theology, together with undergraduate courses in Sacred Scripture, Divine Grace and Corporate Christianity, and in other topics. For further details write to: Department of Religion, St. Louis University, St. Louis 3, Missouri. Registration for the summer session at St. Bonaventure Uni-versity will take place on June 30. Classes will extend from July 1 until August 7. Special attention is called to the School of Sacred Services for the sisters. The purpose of this program is to afford teaching sisterhoods an opportunity of broaderiing and deepening their knowledge of religion and of acquiring a scientific and scholarly (Continued on page 81 ) 72 Religious and Psycho!:herapy Richard P. Vaughan, ~.J. THE PAST TWO decades have seen an ever-increasing awareness of the p~esence of mental illness in our midst. Newspapers and magazines have served as media to educate the public. As a result, the person who previously had been ac-cepted by his family and friends as "just naturally odd" is looked upon as mentally disturbed and in need of psychiatric care. The usual treatment of twenty or thirty years ago, which consisted of relegating the peculiar member of the family to the back of the house or excusing his presence by an embarrassing wink, has to a great extent given way to the realization that the emotion-ally and mentally ill can be helped only by adequate psychiatric treatment: Within the cloister and the convent, however, this changing attitude has been slow to make its appearance. Many superiors recognize signs of mental disorder in one or more ot: ¯ their subjects, but they are hesitant even to consider the pos-sibility of psychiatric aid. In general, they will exhaust every other possible source-of assistance before they will send the subject to a psychiatrist. If one stops to analyze this distrust, a number of reasons come to mind. Sources of Negative Attitudes In the first place, this negative attitude toward psychiatry is partially due to the historic role of the priest. From the earliest days of the Church, the clergy have been the accepted pastors of souls. The very notion of pastor implies a duty to guide and direct. Since there was no other source of profes-sional guidance until quite recently, the full burden of this duty fell upon the shoulders of the priest. It became the accepted practice for the faithful to seek his help when confronted with the vexing problems of phobias or compulsions as well as in their strivings toward spiritual perfection. As a matter of fact, many looked upon these purely psychological disorders as spiri-tual difficulties. 73 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review [or Religious This attitude has persisted uniil our own day. It is espe-cially prevalent among priests, brothers, and sisters. Even though experiende has shown that most prie.sts are not equipped to deal with pathological emotional disturbances, many religious cling to the outdated view that the priest should be the sole ~source of assistance. They are convinced that spiritual guidance and the frequent reception of the sacraments are the best remedies for neurotic disordeks. Psychiatric care is deemed necessary only in those cases where the individual can no longer live in the religious community. A further source of antagonism is tl~e materialistic and anti-religious philosophy held by some of the most important psy-chiatrists. Foremost among these is Sigrnund Freud, who. has done more to shape psychiatric thought than any other individual. Unfortunately, most rdligious have heard only of Freud's errors. They have made no attempt to understand his valuable contribu-tions to the science of treating the mentally ill or to sort out his scientific findings from a biased and i'rreligious philosophy, which came as an after-thought. They summarily dismiss Freud's works on the false assumption that their sole topic is sex in its basest form. This view has led to a condemnation of the scien-tific as well as the philosophical teachings of Freud. Since most psychiatrists are Freudian to a degree, a distrust for the whole profession has resulted. Finally, there are the often-quoted examples of seemingly immoral advice given by some psychiatrists. One of the traits of the mentally ill is a resistance to treatment. It sometimes hap-pens that this resistance takes the form of trying to undermine the reputation ot~ the therapist. If this can be successfully ac-complished, the neurotic feels justified in discontinuing treatment. Thus, he sometimes either consciously or unconsciously misin-terprets the words of the psychotherapist. This misinterpreta-tion gives rise to some of the stories of immoral suggestions offered during 'the sessions ot: therapy. Of course, it cannot be 0 74 Marck, 1958 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY said that this is true in every instance.~ Undoubtedly, thereare genuine cases of psychiatrists advocating sinful actions. Such advice does not, however, constitute good therapy. It is not the function 0~ the psychotherapist to make moral judgments 'for his patients. It is rather a sign of incompetence. However, just as there is a certain amount of incompetence in the other branches of medicine, so too we should expect it in psychiatry. We do not condone such incompetence, but look forward to the day when it will be eliminated. The s01ution to the problem is not to ~ondemn the whole .profession, but to know the qualifications of the psychotherapist to whom we refer a patient. Church's Position As can r~eadily be seen, the three above-mentioned sources of hostility toward psychiatry as a medium for treating mental illness are the product of personal attitudes and personal ex-perience. They in no way express the official view of the Church. Up to a few y~ars ago, the Church had not as yet officially indicated her position in regard ~o psychiatry. She prudently and cautiously waited before making any statement. The nega-tive views that were prevalent among Catholics some ten or fifteen years ago simpIy reflected the personal attitudes of a large percentage of the clergy. In 1953 th~ Holy Father, Pius XI.I, at the Fifth Congress of Psyhotherapy and Clinical Psychology concluded his address to the delegates with these words: "Further-more, be assured that the Church follows your research and your medical practice with warm interest and best wishes. You work on a terrain that is very difficult. Your activity, however, is capable of achieving precious results .for medicine, for the~ knowledge of souls in general, for the religious dispositions of man and for their development. May providence and divine grace light your path!" These words represent an official statement of the Church. They certainly indidate anything but a negative and hostile attitude toward the arduous work oi: the psycho.therapist. 75 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious Types of Psychiatry In general, therapy for the mentally ill takes two forms: one which is strictly medical and one which is psychological. The medical approach makes use of such means as brain surgery, electric shock tre~i~ment, and the use of drugs. This approach is entirely in the hands of medical specialists. The second ap-proach, which is called psychotherapy, makes use of a continuing series of interviews. This latter approach is not limited exclu-sively to the medical profession. At present, not only psychia-trists but also psychologists and psychiatric social workers are practicing psychotherapy. In a number 0f instances, the mem-bers of the latter two professions practice psychotherapy under the supervision of a psychiatrist, because of the physical impli-cations involved in many cases of mental illness. With those who are so seriously ill that little personal con-tact can be established, the purely medical techniques are used until such a time as psychotherapy can be profitable. With the less seriously disturbed, some psychiatrists make use of a com-bination of psychotherapy anddrugs, while others look upon drugs as a crutch and prefer to depend entirely upon psycho-therapy. It is this latter type of treatment toward which numer-ous religious are so antagonistic. If the only technique used by psychiatry were the administration of drugs or surgery, there would probably be much less oppogition to it. Psychotherapy If one surveys the history of mankind, it becomes apparent that a type of psychotherapy has been practiced for centuries. It seems safe to say that people have always had problems that they were unable to solve without the help of others, and these problems disturbed their emotional equilibrium in" varying de-grees of seriousness. The writings of ancient Greece and Rome tell of troubled individuals seeking advice and aid from the wise and learned. From the very beginnings of the Church, people brought their troubles and problems to the priest. In past 76 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY generations, most had a dlose friend with whom they could dis-cuss their most intimate affairs. The help derived from these above-mentioned sources came not only from the advice given by the friend, priest, or learned counselor, but also from the relationship that was established through numerous sessions of conversation and from the insight into the problem that the disturbed party g~ined through the very act of talking about it. However, because of a lack of knowledge and skill in deal-ing with human emotions and feelings, those consulted fre-quently found themseives at a loss to help those who sought their assistance. With the development of scientific methods in psychiatry, men discovered that they could apply the results of their in-vestigations to the emotionally and mentally ill and thus aid those who had previously been immune to all known sources of help. In this manner, psychotherapy, as it is known today, was born. One practices scientific psychotherapy when he car~ analyze an emotional disorder and then during the course of his dealings with the afflicted person apply the psychological techniques that are the product of fifty years of clinical experi-ence and research. The good therapist must have learning, skill, and experience. Basically, therefore, psychotherapy is nothing more than the age-old practice of aiding others through communication, but now built upon a scientific foundation. It has the added factor that the therapist has a psychological knowledge and skill which his predecessor lacked. Morality and Psychotherapy Since religious men and women are by no means free from emotional and mental disorders, the development of psycho-therapy should have offered a welcome solution to a very vexing and persistent problem. However, owing to the previously mentioned factors, a negative and hostile attitude arose among religious toward the whole movement. As a result of this at-titude, today when a religious superior is faced with the necessity of seeking psychiatric help for a subject, he frequently hesitates 77 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious for a "considerable length of time, questioning the advisability of such a step. Because of the seemingly close connection between religion, morality, and psychiatry, the superior sees in psycho-therapy a potential danger to the faith and religious vocation of the subject. Psychiatric aid has, therefore, become in most instances a last resort. For the most part, this attitude is built upon a false notion of the nature of psychiatric treatment. The treatment of mental illness pertains to the science of medidine. Just as there are specialists in the fields of surgery, obstetrics, and internal medicine, so too there are specialists in the area of mental disease. The specialist in this branch of medicine is the psychiatrist. His training, which consists of three years of concentrated study and work with the mentally ill over and beyond his general course in medicine, adequately equips the psychiatrist to treat the mentally ill. His auxiliaries, the psychologiit and psychiatric social worker, likewise have an in- ¯ tensive training; but the orientation of their studies restricts their activity to psychotherapy and diagnostic testing. The religious who .is psychotic or neurotic is just as sick as the religious with a heart or stomach disorder. And he is just as much in need of treatment. He, therefore, has an equal righ~ to the specialized services of those who have been trained to treat his particular disorder. In all probability, unless he does obtain this specialized care, his condition will grow progressively worse. In view of this fact, the emotionally afflicted priest, brother, or sister is certainly justified in making a request for psychiatric care. And in those cases where the mentally ill are unable to make such a request because of their disorder, superiors have the obligation to see that these sick religious obtain specialized treatment. We are all bound to preserve our life and health. Severe mental diseases sometimes hasten death, and in almost every instance undermine physical health. More-over, mental health is equally as important as physical health for happy and efficient living. The superior, therefore, who disregards the condition of a severely neurotic or psychotic sub- 78 March, 1958 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY ject because of an erroneous prejudice against psychiatric treat-ment works a gross injustice upon the afflicted religious. Any Psychiatrist? Granted that a religious is given permission to seek psy-chiatric treatme.nt, the next problem that presents itself deals with the particular therapist to whom the religious is sent. In brief, should a priest, brother, or sister seek the services of any psychiatrist? Obviously, some psychiatrists have a'better reputa-tion than others, just as some heart specialists have a better repu-tation than others. Thus, it seems needless to say that religious should seek out the best possible psychiatric treatment available in the area. This means that the therapist should be competent in his profession.One of the foremost characteristics of a com-petent psychiatrist, in addition to knowledge and skill, is a deep understanding and respect for the person of his patient. These two factors result in a relationship between the patient and the therapist that becomes the cornerstone of successful treatment. Understanding and respect naturally include an appreciation of the religious and moral convictions of the patient, since these are an integral part of'his ipersonality. Thus, contrary to the thinking of a number of priests and sisters, the competent psychiatrist does not try to undermine the faith and moral principles of his patient but rather accepts these convictions. He knows that he has had no specialized training in religion and morality which would qualify him as an authority in these areas, Furthermore, he looks upon these areas as foreign to his "function as a professional man. Should a religious problem arise with a patient, he sends the patient to a specialist; namely, the priest who is a trained theologian. Thus, any conflict that might arise between morality and psychiatry is the product of incompetency rather than the natural outcome of the psychotherapeutic process. A Catholic Psychiatrist? One of the questions which is most frequently asked is whether a Catholic should seek the services of a Catholic psy- 79 RICHARD P. VAUGHAN Review for Religious chiatrist in preference to those of a non-Catholic. This question is especially pertinent when one is dealing with a religious who is in. need of psychotherapy. If there is a choice between two psychiatrists who are equally skilled, but one is a Catholic and the other is notl then it would seem that the better choice would be ~he Catholic. The reason for such a choice does not rest upon moral issues, but rather upon the need for full under-standing of the patient. A Catholic psychiatrist is in a much 'better position to understand the religious life and all its implications than the non-Catholic. Thus he is more likely to be able to offer greater assistance to the mentally-ill religious. However, it sometimes happens that a particular non-Catholic psychiatrist has a deep interest in priests, brothers, and nuns and, as a result, has spent considerable time and effort in trying to gain an appreciation of the religious life. In such instances, it may well be that the non-Catholic psychiatrist is equally as well equipped to treat the religious as the Catholic psychiatrist. It should also be noted that the fact that a psychiatrist is a Catholic does not mean that he is a good psychiatrist and capable of treating religious. Some Catholics have little understanding of or sym-pathy for the religious life. In those few cases where religious and moral problems are deeply interwoven with the neurotic co.ndition, the Catholic psychiatrist who is well versed in his faith is in a considerably better position to help the religious patient than the non-Catholic, because he has a better understanding of what his patient is trying to convey to him. It is needless to say that in these instances the priest with training in psychotherapy is in a unique position. Unfortunately, however, there are very few priests who have sufficient skill and experience in psychotherapy. In the majority of psychological problems found among religious, however, faith and mo.rality play a relatively minor role. Generally speaking, the roots of the disorder spring from those periods of life which preceded entrance into the convent 80 March, 1958 RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY or cloister. The conflicts" and problems that have to be faced are of such a nature as to be experienced by any patient, re-gardless of faith or walk of life. In these instances, psycho-therapy aims at helping religious get at the source of the neurosis and then change the patterns of thinking and feeling that pro-duce the condition. Thus, for many emotionally disturbed religious the non-Catholic psychiatrist who has some under-standing of the religious life is adequately equipped to handle treatment. Conclusion The pr~actice of psychotherapy is a rapidly developing method of treating mental illness. Because of certain negative attitudes and a lack of understanding, many religious hesitate to make use of it or turn to ~t only as a last resort. As a result, numerous priests, brothers, and sisters needlessly continue to suffer untold anguish from the various forms of mental and emotional illness. In as much as mental and emotional dis-turbances disrupt the whole personality and hinder advance in the spiritual life, this usually unfounded distrust of psychiatry is in all likelihood damaging the growth of the religious 'spit:it in our country. Summer Sessions (Continued from page 72) understanding of the teaching of the Church. Further information will be gladly supplied by the Director of Admissions, St. Bona-venture University, Olean, New York. The Theology Department of Mai'quette University will offer two non-credit summer institdtes from June 30 to July 12. An institute on canon law for religious will be conducted by Father Francis N. Korth, S.J., J,C.D., a specialized lecturer and consultant in canon law. The institute will provid~ a thorough course in the current church law for religious. Although the lectures are designed especially for superiors, mistresses of novices, councilors, bursars, and others engaged in administrative or governing functions," other religious would profit from the course. These lectures will be held in the mornings. In the afternoons an institute on prayer will be 81 SUMMER SESSIONS conducted by Father Vincent P. McCorry, s.J, author, professor, and spiritual director. The purpose of the institute is strictly prac-tical: to provide for an interested group such exposition and direction as will enable the individual religious to practice mental prayer with greater fidelity and profit. Campus housing for the institute par-tidipants will be the new Schroeder Hall. For further information write: Director of Summer Institutes, Marquette University, Mil-waukee 3, Wisconsin. Graduate courses in theology leading to the Master of Arts degree will also be offered. The two introductory courses i:or those students entering the graduate theology program are: Fundamental Theology which will be taught by Father Bernard .L Cooke, S.J'., S.T.D., of Marquette University, and the Church of Christ to be conducted by Father Cyril O. Vollert, s.J., S.T.D., professor of theology at St. Mary's, Kansas. For advanced students, The Unity and Trinity of God will 'be taught by Father John J. Walsh, s.J., S~T.D., of Weston College, Weston, Massachusetts; and Father R. A. F. MacKenzie, S.J., S.S.D., of the Jesuit Seminary, Toronto, Canada, will conduct the course on Special Topics in Scripture. For further information about the program write to: The Graduate School, Marquette University, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin. In the Canadian capital, the Pontifical Catholic University of Ottawa offers courses in its summer school, July 2 to August 6, leadin~ to the degree of Master of Arts in Sacred Studies. The curriculum stresses the kerygmatic presentation ot: theology. It is planned particularly to meet the needs of sisters and brothers teach-ing religion, and of novice mistresses or others giving religious or spiritual instrudtion. These courses are also open to students work-ing toward other degrees. The summer school offers a separate series of courses in sacred studies in which the language of instruc-tion is French. For the sacred studies prospectus and the complete summer school announcement, write: Reverend Gerard Cloutier, O.M.I., Director of the Summer School, or Reverend Maurice Giroux, O.M.I., Head of the Department of Sacred Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa 2, Canada. Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles, California, will open a iix-week summer session on June 24. An extensive liberal arts program leading to the Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees will be supplemented by workshops in art, drama, language arts, and library science. T[fe curriculum of undergraduate courses lead-ing to a Certificate in Theology will be continued this summer. The Immaculate" Heart Graduate School will ina~ugurate a new depart-ment of religious education, offering a major ia theology and minors in Sacred Scripture or church history. Elective courses will be given in Catholic Social Thought and Liturgy. Designed especially to prepare teachers of religion ~•or high school and college, this program .is open to those who hold a Bachelor of Arts degree from an accredited college (with a major in any field) and. have sufficient (Continued on page 128) 82 A Sense Balance Robert ~X/. Gleasonr S.J. IT IS CHARACTERISTIC of Christian doctrine to maintain the delicate balance between extremes. Moreover, without los-ing hold of any aspect of a" complex truth, the Church unites all its elements in a synthesis that throws light on each of them. And the Christian himself is often called upon to do something of the same sort in his spiritual life. He has to tread a careful path between attitudes which are apparently opposed, though each of them reflects some truth. This di~i-culty is sometimes experienced when the Christian soul ap-proaches the antinomy between the natural and the supernatural or between what we migh't call the accent of optimism and the accent of pessimism in Christianity. For both currents, opti-mism and pessimism, have played an historic role in Christian thinking; and both seem destined to be with us for ~quite awhile. Each of these perspectives is capable of dangerous exaggeration', ~for Pelagianism is an overblown optimism and Jansenism is pessimism run riot. As an examl61e of a thoroughly unchristian pessimism, we might point to those words of the French novelist Andr~ Gide: "Commandments of God you have embittered my soul; com-mandments of God you have rendered my soul sick; will you never draw a limit? Will you go on forever forbidding new things? Is all that I have thirsted for as beautiful on earth, forbidden, punishable? Commandments of God you have poisone.d my soul." Gide was a tortured personality, even to the end of his life; and in these lines we can perhaps glimpse a reason for his unhappiness. For they reveal a fundamentally unchristian point of view, a thoroughly pessimistic point of view that perfectly reflects his Calvinistic background. In striking contrast to those lines are two sentences from St. John's Gospel which are almost startling in their optimism. 83 ROBERT W. GLEASON Review for Religious In the tenth chapter of that Gospel, Christ the Lord, the Alpha and Omega of truth, gives us a summary of His plat-form. "I am come that you may have life and have it more abundantly." In this direct utterance Christ enuntiates a posi-tion of relative optimism. He explains the purpose of His existence as Incarnate Word, both God and Man, and He explains it in terms of an increase of life---an optimistic point 'of view, surely. He put it in other words at other times, but they all come down to the same thing in the end. He also said: "Those who are well have no need of a doctor; I am come to the sick." And He said: "I am come to rescue all that which was in the act of perishing." But perhaps the clearest expression of His purpose is that simple declaration: am come that you may have life and have more of it." In that one line Christ compressed the whole spirit of what we might call Christian optimism. It has taken philosophers and theologians a good many years to unravel some of the implica-tions of the program summed up in these few words. God has planned a new life for us; He has planned to expand, to increase our capacity for living beyond any capacity we might have dreamed of. In fact, He has planned for us an entirely new grade of life~-known as the life of sanctifying grace. The story of Christ's coming we usually call the Gospels; and the Gospels, the e.vangels,are the great and good news, the announcement of the definitive victory of this new life over death, over sin, and over Satan. As the whole of human history unfolds before us centered in this momentous figure of Christ in whom God wrote the definitive chapter of the history of our salvation, we cannot but feel the optimistic position in which we Christians of these latter days find ourselves. The victory belongs to the Christian; that is the meaning of Christ. The victory over death, sin, and Satan is ours. Is ours, we must say, not will be ours, for Christ, our Victory, already exists. We have conquered in Him; and 84 Ma~'ch, 1958 A SENSE OF BALANCE the victory is ours for we ,are not separated from the conquering hero, rather we are closely united by physico-mystical ~bonds to Him who has the victory, who won it on Calvary. There is one of our race and family, one of .us, crowned with victory in the glory of the Trinity in heaven. And His victory i.s ours for He did not enter into it as an isolated individual alone, but as the Head of the Body, His Church, .of which we are mem-bers. The Head of the great column o.f humanity to which we belong has already entered upon His triumph; and, if we but remain united to Him, our victory too is assured and inevitable. After the conquest which was Calvary, then, there is really no place in the Christian life for a depressed pessimism. There is no place for a spirit of defeatism. There is no place for a small-spirited, mean-spirited mentality. We are the victors al-ready, and ours is a ~spirit of optimism. Despite this, life still has its dangers and its difficulties. The roses did not lose their thorns on Easter day. Because this is true, the Christian must be realistic about the dangers ~nd the difficulties of life. His traditional asceticism, maintained in a spirit of optimism, will preserve him from both'. But at bottom there still remain two fundamentally opposed ways of looking at life. One we have labeled pessimistic, and Gide's words exemplify it. The other we may call optimistic, and the words of St. John are its charter. The pessimistic attitude is negative. It is a depressed view 6f things ifi wh~ich the vic-torious Redemption which has already taken place appears to be forgotten. It might seem a~ though such an attitude could never creep into authentically Christian li~es, yet, since error is al-ways possible, even for the well-intentioned, such negati~,e at-titudes have not been entirely unknown even among earne'st Christians. It is surprisingly easy t6 drift into these" dangerous waters, particularly if one's theological perspectives are' awry. This will be clear if we think for a moment on the rigfi't and the wro_ng understandings of certain religious realities. 85 ROBERT W. GLEASON Review fo~" Religious Consider, for example, the way in which these two classes of souls, the negative and the positive, approach the great mystery of God. The negative ~oul will light at once upon certain isolated texts from Scripture and come up with a picture of God as a hard Master who reaps where He did not sow, who lies hidden in the shadows of our life, always prepared to fall upon us in a moment of surprise and seize us in some misdoing or sin. The God of these people is a hard God, ready at any moment to drag out the account books and show us our deficits, not omitting the idle words. Alas, if God takes to playing the mathematician, how few of us can endure. For as the De Pro/undis puts it: "Lord, if you take to numbering our in-iquities, who ot: us shall survive?" ,. The attitude of the op.timistic Christian, on the other hand, is quite different. He knows that God is the absolute Lord and Master, the unapproachably holy and just one, the transcendent, the totally.other. But He also recalls God's recorded definition of Himself, "For God is love." St. John gives Us this phrase, and St. John was neither pietistic nor particularly poetic. He was an excellent theologian, the best in this respect of all the evangelists; and his definition is inspired. God' is indeed a just God, but He is als0 a justifying God. He justifies us irz His sight by the free, undeserved gift of His grace. He is indeed a demanding God--"I am a jealous God"--but He is never hard, uncomprehending, or cruel. He is very demanding, and His demands are ever-increasing. But they all go in the same direction. For they all rgquire us to accept more from Him. God insists that we prepare ourselves, with His help, to receive His floods of generosity. He asks us, to be sure, for ~more--more acceptance, more readiness to receive the new gifts He has laid up for us. His demaads are the demands of one who loves, not the demands of a suspicious bank auditor. We see somewhat the same contrasts if we look at the way these two classes of souls regard man himself. For ~he 86 March, 1958 A SENSE OF BALANCE pessimistic soul, man is essentially/ a spoiled creature, a ruined, unbalanced creature all too heavily laden with the effects of original sin. Evil seems so often triumphant in him. Hell is always just around the corner. Satan appears to 'be the real victor in this world, and man is his victim. Man is a poor thing; his nature is fallen. The phrase "fallen human nature" is repeated even with a certain relish. Fallen indeed, but fallen and redeemed, replies the Christian soul. We cannot underrate the Redemption of Christ our God. Satan is not triumphant. His back was broken on a certain hill outside Jerusalem, and the victory of Christ is written large for all to see who have eyes to.look upon a crusifix. Man is no .ruined, spoiled .creature, half-demon and victim of his own determinisms. He is the spoils of the victory of Christ. He is the prize of the Redemption, won in the sweat and the blood and the tears of Calvary and valued at a great price, bought with no blood of oxen or goats, but with the blood of Him who is God. In. the center of :all creation stands Jesus Christ, and with Him stands man. We two, He and I, are members of the same race, members of the same family. Where sin did abound now grace does superabound. Grace it is which replaces sin at baptism and raises us to the heights of quasi-equality, where we can claim the friendship of the God of the Old and the New Testaments. We Christians are a family with a great tradition. We are wounded but remade and more marvelously remade, for God does not do a poor patchwork job when He repairs us. In our family we have legions of martyrs, men like us. We have legions of virgins, men like us. We have legions of con-lessors in our family, and t.hey have all put their merits at our disposal for this is only normal in a loving family. When we turn trrom the question of the meaning of God and of man to the third great problem of the spiritual life, the 87 ROBERT W. GLEASON Review for Religion,s meaning of creatures, we find the same two contrasting attitudes. For the negative, pessimistic soul creatures are all deformed, twisted beings with little value or meaning in themselves. They are only tenuous beings serving us as instruments. In general they are things to be feared, for they are all traps for the unwary soul. They all conspire to ensnare man and to destroy him. But the genuine Christian insight discovers in creatures.a meaning, and a dignity of their own; for they, too, are mirrors of God. The sacred humanity of our Lord is a creature; and, if it is a net, it is a net designed to catch and save us--that I may be caught by Christ, says St. Paul. The wine at Mass and the water at baptism and the oi! of 'confirmation . . . all are creatures. We live in a sacramental universe in which all crea-tures speak of God. For they are the means God has given us to form us as His children. They are called by" a wise and ancient writer "our viaticum," our sustenance during this period when we are on the way. It is on creatures that we practice our apprenticeship in the art of loving God. They do demand of us a wise, lucid, and generous choice; but they 'are not evil. We learn much about loving God from our use of them--a use that can take many forms from contemplation to absention. Creatures always have a role to play in our lives, and we cannot forget that we too have a role to play in theirs. We have to reconsecrate them to God and rededicate them to Christ, the Center and Owner of all cre~turedom. We have to bless them by our use and stamp them with the image of the risen Lord. Does not the Church write special blessings for such shiny new creatures as typewriters and fountain pens? In doing so she resp'onds to the age-old appeal of creaturedom for its redemption. For the very material world about us groans for the day of its liberation, and we are called upon to extend to it the effects of the Redemption.~ 88 March, 1958 ASENSE OF BALANCE Of course, with such different conceptions of the world, the two classes of souls we have been envisaging will regard the moral or spiritual life in very different lights. For the negative soul the moral life is a long battle, a series of prohibitions, an ever-expanding Decalogue that is purely negative. Above all, one must be on his guard to do nothing to .anger a God who is always ready for anger. Do nothing that can be punished . . and there is almost nothing that is not tainted in some fashion, and so punishable. Such a view, replies the truer Christian, is essentially in. adequate. The moral life consists above all in living, in doing something, in being something. It consists in life and an expansion of our divinized life so that we may live for God and gro.w in love and make our talents fructify. Virtues ire not negative dispositions but positive .dispositions. And prime among all the don'ts on that list is the one great and transcendently great do. "Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God." The spiritual life is not one long escapism. It is not a flight from life. It is a positive living of love for God and my neighbor. The Christian soul's apostrophe would run quite differently from Gide's. "Commandments of God," the Christian would say, "you are all so many-signposts on 'the road toward the lasting city; you point out the road to love and of developing life to foolish humanity. And if I but read you right, you are all so many declarations of love on the part of God for me. Commandments of God, you indicate and you preserve all that life has to offer that is beautiful and worthy of search. Without you beauty would dry up from the face of a scorched earth." The pessimist has an unrealistic view of God and the world, for he lives as though the Redemption had an incomplete efficacy. The realism of the Christian's optimism takes into account both his own weakness and the power of God who has conquered the world. The pessimist's view is an incomplete view and an incomplete truth; it needs to be completed with 89 COMMUNICATIONS a real assent to the truth of the Redemption, gloriously accom-plished. For an incomplete truth is a half-truth, and a half-truth is nearly as dangerous as a lie. Communica!:ions More on Delayed Vocations (See REVIEW Fog RELIGIOUS, May', 1957, page 154) Reveiend Fathers: The Congregation of Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus professes a special worship of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, above all in the Blessed Sacrament. This spirit of reparation is concentrated in daily adoration before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, and offered in an active apostolate in the education of youth, retreat work, catechetical instruction, and foreign missions. The spiritual training is based on the rules of St. Ignatius. The Handmaids have some sixty houses throughout the world. The mother house is in Rome. Mission work has taken 'root both in South America and in Japan. A future field of work is opening up in India. The foundress of the congregation, Blessed Raphaela Mary oic the Sacred Heart, was beatified in 1952, only twenty-seven years after her death. Her process of canonization is now,going on. Candidates are accepted up to the age of thirty. Those who wish to dedicate themselv'es to domestic work are accepted up to the age of thirty-eight. We accept widows. Our novitiate is located in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Private retreats, may be made there by a candidate to decide her vocation. Mother Maria Angelica Iq'an, A.C~J. Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus 700 East Church Lan~ Philadelphia 44, Pennsylvania OUR CONTRIBUTORS RICHARD P. VAUGHAN, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of San Francisdo and a staff member of the McAuley Clinic, St. Mary's Hospital, is currently engaged, in psychotherapy with religious men and women. ROBERT W. GLEASON is a professor of dogmatic theology in the Graduate School of Fordham University, New York. DANIEL J. M. CALLAHAN is professor of ascetical and mystical theology at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. C. A, HERBST is now a missionary in Seoul, Korea. 9O The Pert:ec(: Pa!:l:ern t:or Religious Lit:e Daniel J. M. Callahan, S.J. DIVINE REVELATION assures us of our elevation to the supernatural state and of'the o.rganism which equips us for life and action on that superhuman level. The question immediately presents itself: Who will inspire us to respond to God's .beneficence and supply the pattern for such a life? God predestines us to be, not creatures only, but His children through adoption and heirs of His beatitude. ~Voblesse oblige; rank has its obligations; nobility of station demands nobility of con-duct. As God's children we should resemble our Father in our conduct no less than in our nature, and such is the injunction placed on us by Christ: "~ou therefore are to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48) and resumed by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (5:1): "Be you, there-fore, imitators of God, as very dear children and walk in love, as Christ also loved us." To imitate God we must first know Him, and this is one reason why He has manifested I-Iimself to us. in His Son and through His Son. It is by means of the Incarnation that the Son has revealed to us the Father. Christ, the incarnate Son of the Father, is God brought within human reach under a human expression, and in Him and through Him we know the Father. In reply to Philip's request: "Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us," Jesus said to him, "Have I been so l~ng a time with you, and you have riot knowa Me? t~hilip, he who sees Me, sees also the Father . . . I am in the Fathe.r and the Father in Me" (John 14:8 ft.). To know and imitate God, we have only to know and imitate H~s Son, who i~ the expression at once divine and human of the perfec-tions of the Father. Jesus is perfect God and perfect, man, and under both aspects He is the ideal for every one, for religious most of all. 91 DANIEL J. M. CALLAHAN Review for Religio~ts He is the natural Son of Go,d, and it is His divine sonship that is the primary type or pattern of our divine adoption. Our filiation is a participation of His eternal filiation; through Him and from Him we share in divine grace, are in reality God's children and partake of His life. Such is to be the fundamental characteristic of our likeness to Jesus, the indispensable requisite for our sanctity. Unless we possess sanctifying grace, we are dead spiritually; and all that we can do is of no strict merit entitling us to our everlasting inheritance. We shall be coheirs with Christ only if we are His brethren through habitual grace. Here it may not be amiss to examine our appraisement of sanctifying grace, our prudence in safeguarding it, and our diligencd in its increment in our souls. Do we ~ippreciate its embellishing effects and how unlovely and helpless we are with-out it? Mortal sin alone despoils us of this precious treasure; and, because we are subject to temptation from within and from without, it is expedient, at least occasionally, to probe our atti-tude to sin, to the frailties and perhaps unmortified passions that induce it, and to the constructive measures to be adopted. Growth is the law of life, and it is through the cultivation of the theological and moral virtues that we are to fortify and expand our supernatural life. . Every least good action per-formed with the requisite intention by one in the state of grace, as well as every sacrament worthily received, effects in us an iricrease in grace and in all the infused virtues. Christ is in truth a perfect man, and in this He is for us the attractive and accessible model of all holiness. In an in-comparable degree" He practiced all the virtues compatible with His condition. He did not have faith in God, for this theo-logcal virtue exists only in a soul which does not enjoy the immediate vision of God, a vision that was Christ's privilege from the mbment of the Incarnation. He did, however, have that submission of will inherent in faith, that reverence and adoration of God the supreme truth that imparts to faith its excellence. Neither did Christ possess the virtue of hope in the proper sense, 92 March, 1958 PATTERN FOR RELIGIOUS LIFE since the function of this 'virtue is to enable us to ddsire and'to expect the possession of God and the means necessary for its attainment. Only in the sense that Christ could desire and expect the glorification of His body and the accidental honor that would accrue to Him after the Resurrection, could He have hope. Charity He possessed and practiced to a supreme degree: the purest love of the Father and of His adopted children in-undated His soul and motivated His activities. Love unites the wills of the lovers, fusing them into oneness of desire and con-duct. Christ's first act in entering into the world was one of ardent love: "Behold I come . . . to do Thy will, O God" (Matt. 10:7), and His subsequent life was the prolongation of His initial sacrifice: "Of Myself I do nothing He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, because I do always the things that are pleasing to Him" (John 8:26 ft.). Our Blessed Lord's soul was adorned with all the moral vir-tues: humility, meekness, kindness, patience, prudence, jus-tice, temperance, chastity, fortitude, zeal, each in its own per-fection. His every least action glorified and eulogized His Father, and was the object of the latter's complacency, as voiced by Himself: "This is My beloved Son in whom I am ~ell pleased" (Matt. 3:17), a proclamation which covered everymome.nt and every deed of Christ's life. His actions as man, while in them-selves human, were divine in their principle, for there was in Him only one person, a divine person, performing all in union with the Father and in the most complete dependence on the divinity and therefore confdrring on the Father infinite glory. Religious, obligated by their state to strive for perfection, have need of an ideal, of a perfect pattern to be realized in their lives. Mere human beings are too imperfect. God in His divine nature seems too distant from us and beyond our repro-duction. The God-man is the consummate ideal for all, at all times, for childhood, youth, maturity; for the hidden, public, apostolic, and suffering life. There is no phase of human life' which He does not exemplify, illustrate, adorn, and enoble. 93 DANIEL J. i~I. CALLAHAN Review fo~" Religious Far from resembling the cold blueprint of the architect or the lifeless page of our favorite author, Jesus is always the most attractive and appealing man who lived in circumstances similar to our own; and, while He enlightens our mind, He awakens love and emulation in the will, meanwhile offering the necessary strength and the assurance of ultimate success. In our endeavor to fashion a Christlike character, obviously there is need of intelligent interpretation. As we turn over the pages of our New Testament, often we read of deeds that were the outcome of superhuman power and clearly beyond us. However, even in such instances we can fall back on the spirit and motive of these achievements. Christ used His infinite ¯ power, not for His selfish aggrandizement, but for the honor of the Father and the benefit of souls--a procedure within our finite reach and sedulously to be duplicaked. In our attempt to imitate Christ we are constrained by the nature of the case to reduce His traits to terms of human capability. We cannot, for instance, forgive sins against God; but we can pardon offences against self. We are unable immediately to cure the sick, but we can alleviate their sufferings by sympathy and kind-ness. We may not be permitted to spend the night on the mountain in prayer with Jesus, but we can cultivate the spirit of communion with God amidst our activities throughout the day and pray with attention when we do pray. We may not be in a position to teach with authority, but we can say a salutary word of instruction and counsel when occasion offers. We may not hope to die for mankind, but we can sacrifice our-selves for the convenience and happiness of our fellow religious. 'We are not called on to undergo the scourging and the crown-ing with thorns, but we are expected to endure a little pain or accept a humiliation without becoming ill-tempered and render-ing others miserable. We cannot redeem the world from sin, but we can exercise zeal in promoting the fruits of the redemp-tion by shunning sins ourselves and prudently doing what may be feasible to draw our neighbor to a better life. Thus, every- 94 March, 1958 PATTERN FOR RELIGIOUS LIFE where we can reduce our Lord's example to the humbler terms of ordinary life; and, out of the result, together with appropriate precepts from His moral teaching, we can construct for our-selves an ideal which, ever haunting our minds, is to be pon-dered and realized, or at least aspired to systematically in shap-ing our lives. "A Christian is another Christ" applies with' additional force to every religious. These have dedicated their lives to Jesus in order to share through sanctifying grace in His divine filiation and to reproduce by their virtues the features of His asceticism. To ambition a career so sublime, far frora being presumption, is God's eternal design for them and His sincere will Jesus said: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6). Such is the pattern faith proposes to us, truly transcendent and yet easy of access, since through grace we share in the divine filiation of Christ and our activity is supernaturalized. Clearly we keep our personality, remaining by nature merely human creatures. Our union with God, however intimate, is accidental, not substantial; but it in-creases in perfection the more the autonomy of our personality, in the order of activity, is effaced before the divine. If we "desire to intensify our intimacy to the extent that nothing interposes between God and us, we are to renounce not only sin and willfdl imperfection, but moreover we are to despoil ourselves of our personality in so far as it obstructs perfect union. It is such an obstacle when our self-will, our inordinate self-love, our suscepti-bilities lead us to think and to behave otherwise than in accord-ance with the divine will. The habitual attitude of soul which wills to keep in everything the proprietorship of its activities seri-ously hampers familiarity with God. We must, therefore, bring our personality to a complete capitulation before Him and make Him the supreme, mover of our thoughts, volitions, words, and actions, entire life. Only when we have divested ourselves of our excessive attachment to self and to other creatures, in order to surrender ourselves to God in absolute dependence on His good 95 DANIEL J. M. CA~LAHAN pleasure, shall we have attained to the perfect imitation of Christ and be able to say with St. Paul: "It is now no longer I that live, but Chrisf lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not cast away the grace of God" (Gal. 2:20-21). And we should apply to ourselves his plea to the Romans (12:.I): "I exhort you therefore brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God, your spiritual se~rvice. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in the newness of your mind, that you may discern what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God." Christ is the head of the Mystical Body of which we are the members, and there should be identity of life and conduct in both. He has merited for us the courage and strength ¯ requisite; and divine revelation assures us that with Him, in Him, and through Him we are competent to travel the one and only way to the Father. Our persevering endeavor consequently should be to know Christ more thoroughly and more intimately through prayer, study, and our manner of life: "He who has My command-ments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. But he who loves Me will be loved by My Father and I will love him and manifest Myself to him" (John 14:21). Love issues from knowledge, and love adjusts our daily conduct to that of Jesus. This was the mind of St. Paul when he reminded his converts of Ephesus that they were to be: "No longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine devised in the wicked-ness of men, in craftiness, according to the wiles of error. Rather are we to practice the truth in love and to grow up in all things in Him who is the head, Christ . Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man which has been created acdording to God in justice and holiness of truth" (Eph. 4:14- 24). To accomplish in us this transformation is the precise pur-pose for which Jesus comes to us in Holy Communion. 96 The MighI: o1: C. A. I-.lerberI:, S.J. A meditation made at sea enroute to the Korean missions AS THE S. S. Fair/~ort plows her way through the wild Pacific a few thousand miles out of San Francisco, the thought that strikes one forcefully is the thought of the might of God. Religious seem not to emphasize this attribute of God so much, seem almost to de-emphasize it, in fact. It is rather God's love and mercy that occupy their thoughts and prayers. Yet in God's mind and in that of His Church, His almighty power stands out. "I believe in God, the Father. al-mighty, Creator of heaven and earth." The creator-creature relationship is most fundamental to all religion. Only the Al-mighty can create. In the creed, both in and outside of Mass, "almighty" is the only attribute of God mentioned at all. And how often the official prayer of the Church begins with "al-mighty!" The Old Testament is full of almighty God, the God of armies, and very, very often the God of the sea. As I sit here on the boat-deck reading the Invitatorium of the Office I pray: "His is the sea: for He made it" (Ps. 94:5). Only He could. One realizes that more and more as one looks out or~ the vast circle of water stretching away to the horizon in every direction. Yet those are only a few of the seventy million square miles of the Pacific. God reaches from end to end of it mightily, up-holding every particle of it by the word of His power. A great artist works miracles with his brush and a little pair~t. He tries to imitate nature. What a masterpiece the almighty Artist creates in each sunset at sea! Tonight, Hallo-ween, I watch the sun sink into mountains of gold and silver clouds and make the whole ocean a cauldron of blazing gold. There is no imitation of nature by this Artist; He is at play 97 C. A. HF_~BST Review for Religious creating the most exquisite origina!. The more delicate shades and colors come. as the evening deepens. This is the time for the most loving and awesome thoughts of God. Somehow, on this particular night, I cannot help thinking of the little lights flickering on each grave in southern Austria on All Souls' eve. As the last rich violet cloud is absorbed into the night up north toward Siberia, I think of the suffering, silenced Church behind the iron curtain. The moon is high in the east now, building a silvery bridge to the Philippines three thousand' miles from here. The shep-herdess of the night is queen over her flock of woolpack clouds. She is a type of Mary, our queen, reflecting the light of her Son as the moon does. The stars seem so near and companion-able out here so far away from home and everyone. The big-gest and brightest are the ones we long to see in the crown encircling the head of the Artist's virgin mother. We constantly hear of the power and destructive force of typhoons. We are running into the typhoon area now. Again, we are reminded of the might of God: God of old came in the whirlwind. We struck south several hundred miles in order to get away from the wild weather the equinox brings to the north Pacific but ran into a gale. As the wind thunders through the gear fore and howls through the rigging aft and one sees the angry ocean all around, one feels very small and helpless. The largest ship is a tiny toy in an angry ocean. It is good to be at peace with the Almighty out here. I think of the heavy toll the ocean has taken. How many a guardian angel has had to plead the cause of his charge in these depths! Perhaps the angel of the Pacific helped him. Countries have their angels to watch over them, the Scripture says. Should not these boundless waters have one, too? The Far East radio network out of Tokyo is telling us these days of the troubles in Egypt and the sinking of ships in the Suez Canal. Their number is zero compared with the burden 98 Marck, 1958 THE MIGHT OF GOD this north Pacific bears. What are the secrets of the sea? They have always enticed man. But to them again only the almighty mind of God can reach. One of the mates says there are eight thousand feet of water under this ship; ahead of us there are forty thousand and more. What lies down there and what goes on down there only God knows. Uncounted ships and men have perished here. Here the almighty Judge sat enthroned to pass the sentence of justice and mercy on many a lonely,child of God since Pearl Harbo.r struck. Only He and this restless, silent ocean know the anguish of those-days. Time means nothing to the great timeless One. But its mystery, too, confuses us. We have just crossed the one hundred and eightieth meridian and passed from Monday to Wednesday. There will be no Tuesday for us this week. But for us time is the stuff of which we make our eternity. God gave it to us for that and it goes by quickly. For wasted time and every idle thought we shall have to give an account. Such an occasion as this is like the year's ending. It gives us pause for some serious thinking on the value of time. Here one is impressed by almighty God's providence, too. Large albatross-like birds, "gooney birds" the seamen call them, have been following the ship since San Francisco. For hundreds, even thousands of miles now, they have been following: soaring, soaring all the while, never flying or exerting themselves. Beauti-fully colored little birds appear, too, just out of nowhere, catch-ing insects and feeding, then resting on the water. They are very content ' and carefree. ~At night they sleep on the sea. Naturally there come to mind some of the most consoling words the almighty Christ spoke in the Magna Carta He gave His Church: "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than they?" (Matt. 6:26). A school of porpoises went sporting by today. Their omnipotent Father has given them a happy disposition. They 99 C. A. HERBST are playful and friendly to men, yet are one of the few watery creatures a shark holds in dread. Then a whale went spouting by: big, showy, always attracting attention, but terrible, too, in his way, and almost the hero of the sea since Moby Dick. How big the Almighty has made him, the largest of all known animals, to supply so many products for man! In the evening, as I say the fifth glorious mystery, the Coronation of Offr Blessed Mother Queen,of Heaven, I look up into the big comfortable-looking clouds "over the East China Sea towards Nanking and Shanghai. I wonder what our Lady of China is thinking about tonight. A missionary to China wrote: "Our men are still rotting in Shanghai. They really must be suffering now because the winters in Shanghai are grim." Mary was assumed and crowned for China, too, even for today's China. This evening we are slipping through the East China Sea toward Korea. Off to the right over fifty miles of beautiful blue water to the northe~tst lie Nagasaki and Nagasaki Hill, the hill of the martyrs. Again I think ~f the might of God: how these poor frail men needed His .almighty arm to support them in the terrible torment they had to undergo. Three hundred years later came to the same spot a manifestation of might of another kind; August, 1945, brought the atom bomb that smashed this same Nagasaki to pieces. The power of God, at work in the death of the martyrs and the fissure of the atom, is also bringing a second spring to the Church in Japan. As we pass among the countless rocky islands along the west coast of Korea, mighty China lies four hundred miles to the west over the Yellow Sea. Its iron curtain closes her to Christ toda~ as her exclusiveness made her impenetrable to St. Francis Xavier four hundred years ago. But all things are pos-' sible to almighty God. The length of His arm is not shortened. The exquisite sunrise over the hills around Inchon Bay at the end of this voyage seems like a promise that in these Far Eastern lands the might of God will bring forth a rich harvest. I00 Survey oJ: Roman Document:s R. F. Smlth~ S.J. IN THE FOLLOWING pages there will be given a survey of the documents which appeared in the ~cta /Ipostolicae Se~/z's (AAS) during the months of October and Novem-ber, 1957. Throughout the article all page references will be. to the 1957 AAS (v. 49). Motion Pictures, Radio, and Television Under the date of September 8, 1957 (AAS, pp. 765-805), the Holy Father issued a lengthy encyclical which, is entitled IVIiranda/~r~rsus and which treats of the mass communication arts of the contemporary world. After an introduction wherein he gives the reasons why the Church must be interested in the matter of movies, radio, and television and outlines a brief history of previous papal documents on the subject, Pius XII begins the main body of the encyclical, dividing it into four principal parts which treat in succession the following topics: general norms for the movies, radio, and television; the movies; the radio; television. In developing the first principal part of the encyclical, the ViCar of Christ points out that God who communicates all good things to men has also. desired that men themselves share in the power of communication; human communication, therefore, is an activity which of its very nature possesses nobility and if evil is found in it, that evil can come only from the" misuse of human freedom. Because true human freedom demands that men use for themselves and communicate to others whatever augments vir-tue and perfection, it follows that the Church, the state, and the private individual have the right to use the communication arts for their differing purposes. It is blameworthy, however, to maintain that these arts may be utilized for the dissemination 101 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious of matter that is contrary to sound~mora!ity, provided only ~hat the laws of art are observed. Human art, the Pontiff remarks, need not perform a specifically ethical or religious function; nevertheless, if it leads men to evil, then it corrupts its own nobility and departs from its first and necessary principle. To avoid such evils the Church, the state, and the communication industries should cooperate with each other in working for the attainment of the legitimate goals of the communication arts; this is particularly necessary in the case of the cinema, the radio, the television, for each of these arts is a remarkably effective way of large scale communication. Motion pictures, radio, and television, the Pontiff points out, must first bf all serve the truth by. avoiding the false and the erroneous; they must also aim at the moral p'erfecting of their audience, and this especially in th~ case of those enter-tainment programs where vivid scenes, dramatic dialogue, and music are united and which, by appealing to the whole man, induce him to identify himself with the scene being presented. The power of these communication arts to affect the whole man together with the fact that these arts are destined not for a select audience but foi ~he great masses of the people leads the Holy Father to consider solutionsto the moral problems connected with these arts. He accordingly proposes three practical means by which the mass audience can be led to pass a mature judgment on the products of the communication arts and to escape being carried away uncritically by their superficial attractiveness. The first of these means is that of education, whereby men will be given the artistic and moral norms by which the products of communication arts can be ~orrectly evaluated. Accordingly, the Holy Father expresses the desire that training in the right .appreciation of motion pictures, radio, and television be in-cluded in schools of every kind, in associations of Catholic Action, and in parish activities. The second means is that care be taken that young people should not be exposed to programs 102 March, .I958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS which can harm them psychologically and morally. The third means is that in each country the bishops should set up a na~ tional office for the supervision of motion pictures, radio, and television. The second principal part of the encyclical then considers the problems of motion pictures in particular. The bishops should see. to it that the national office of supervision imparts needed advice and information concerning the movies and moral evaluations of current films should be published. The faithful should be reminded of their obligations to inform themselves of the decisions of ecclesiastical authorities ~ith re-gard to films. All those connected with the movie industry, from the exhibitor to the director and the producer, must be mindful of their duty of fostering morally wholesome produc-tions. Finally, the Holy Father urges that the approval and t.he applause of the. general public be generously given as a reward to those motion pictures that are really worthwhile. The third principal part of the encyclical concerns the radio. Listeners should admit into their homes, only programs which encourage truth and goodness. National Catholic offices for radio should attempt to keep the public informed of the nature of radio programs, and listeners should make known to radio stations and chains their preferences and criticisms. The bishops are encouraged by the Holy Father to increase the use of radio for apostolic and doctrinal purpose~, taking care, however, that such programs meet the highest artistic and technical, standards. The fourth part of the encyclical concerns itself with tele-vision which, among other advantages, has that of inducing members of the family to stay at home together. The obliga-tions with regard to television are the same as for the movies and for radio. In the conclusion to his encyclical the Holy Father encour-ages priests to acquire a sound knowledge of all questions per-taining to motion pictures, radio, and television; moreover, as 103 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious far as it is possible and usefu!, they should utilize these aids for their pastoral work. The same subject matter of the communication arts was the topic of the Pontiff's talk on October 27, 1957 (AAS, pp. 961-65), on the occasion of the blessing of the new quarters for the Vatican radio. In the course of his talk the Vicar of Christ pointed out that radio furnishes Christians a new means' for the better fulfillment of the command to preach the gospel to every creature; and he expressed the hope that the new and more powerful.radio station of the Vatican will prove a new bond of unity among the Christian community, since by its aid more peoples will be able to hear the voice of the Vicar of Christ. To Seminarians and Religious On September 5, 1957 (AAS, pp. 845-49), the Pope addressed a group of students from the minor seminaries of France. After encouraging them to look forward to their priesthood with the greatest of eagerness, he praised their clas- " sical studies as an unrivaled means of' developing penetration of judgment, largeness of outlook, and keenness of analysis. The Pontiff concluded his talk to the seminarians by extolling the value of minor seminaries for the good of the whole Church. On July 30, 1957 (AAS, pp. 871-74), the Sacred Con-gregation of Religious published an important decree, M'ilitare servitium, which henceforth will be the controlling legislation in the matter of religious who must undergo military service for at least six months. Full and exact knowledge of all the provisions of the decree can be obtained only by a direct study of the docu-ment, and no more than the principal points of the legislation will be noted here. According to the decree perpetual vows may not be taken unless a religious has already served his required time in the armed forces or unless it is certain that a given religious is immune from such service. During milit.ary sekvice temporary vows are suspended, though in given-cases the major superior can allow a religious to retain his vow~ during such service. 104 March, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS In either case, however, the person involved remains a member of his religio~s institute and under the authority of its superiors. One whose vows are suspended during the period of mili-tary service may leave religion •luring that time according to the norms of canon 637, provided that he has declared his intention of leaving to superiors either in writing or orally in the presence of witnesses. The decree also gives directives concerning temporal possessions acquired during the time of military service and stipulates that between the conclusion of military service and the taking'of perpetual vows there must be a probation period which generally should not be less than three months. The final provision of the decree is to extend the above legislation, where applicable, to all societies liging in common, but without vows. The same Congregation of Religious issued on March 12, 1957 (AAS, pp. 869-71), a decree giving the norms for aggre-gation to the pontifical institute Re~ina 2V~undi. (For the nature and purpose of this institute, see REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, January, 1957, p. 25.) Aggregation places a house of studies of religious women under the patronage of the institute Regina Mun~/~" and allows the house the right to confer pontifical diplomas, with the reservation that the highest diploma can be granted only to those students who have studied at least one year at Regina 2"V~unc/i. The decree concludes by noting that a house of studies may acquire a special relationship to Regina 2V~unc/i by reason of a special act of recognition, which, how-ever, does not give the house the right to confer pontifical diplomas. By an apostolic letter dated December 27, 1956 (AAS, pp. 889-94), the Holy Father united the two parts of the Order of the Daughters of Mary Our Lady' under the new title, Order of the Company of the Daughters of Mary Our Lady. Two documents of the period surveyed were addressed to religious orders of men. The first was a letter from His 105 SMITH Review fo~" Religfous Holiness to Very Reverend Michael Browne, Master General of the Order of Preachers. Written on the occasion of the seven hundreth anniversary of the death of St. Hyacinth, the letter proposes the saint as a clear image of the apostolic work entrusted to the Dominican order. On September 10, 1957 (AAS, pp. 806-12), the Pope addressed the members of the general congregation of the Society of Jesus, recalling to their attention their ideals of loyalty and obedience to the Holy See. He urged superiors to be vigilant in their care for re-ligious observance and discipline. The Pontiff insisted on the need for austerity of life to be manifested especially by an observance of poverty involving not only a dependance upon superiors but a moderate use of temporal things and the priva-tion of many comforts. In conclusion the Vicar of Christ insisted, to his listeners upon the need to retain the Society's traditional monarchical form of government. For Laymen and Laywomen A large number of the documents published in AAS during October-November, 1957, were devoted to the role of the laity in the .life of the Church today. In a radio message deliv-ered September 15, 1957 (AAS, pp. 854-57), to the faithful present at the Marian shrine of Mariazell in Austria, the Holy Father touched briefly on the subject of the urgenc.y of the lay apostolate in the Church today; three weeks later on Oc-tober 5, 1957 (AAS, pp. 922-39), th.e same topic formed the subject matter of the long and important allocution which the Pope delivered to the Second World Congress for the Lay. Apostolate. The Pontiff began his allocution by framing and answering the question whether a layman who has an ecclesi-astical mandate to teach religion, and whose professional work is almost exclusively such teaching does not therefore pass from the lay apostolate to the "hierarchical" apostolate. The Holy Father replies to the query in the negative, for the layman possesses neither the power of orders 'nor that of jurisdiction. It is interesting to note that at the end of this part of the allocu- 106 Marck, 1958 .ROMAN DOCUMENTS tion the Holy Father refers to the possibility of re:establishing in the Church deacons who would have no intention of going on for the priesthood. His Holiness does not show himself unsympathetic to this idea, but nevertheless notes that the times are not yet ready for such a practice. The Pontiff continues by noting that it is wrong to dis-tinguish in the Church a purely active element (ecclesiastical authorities) and a p.urely passive element (the laity), for all the members of the Church are called to collaborate in the building up of the Mystical Body of Christ. Even apart from a scarcity of priests, the work of the laity is necessary, for the task of the "consecration of the world" is essentially the work of laymen, intimately associated as they are with the economic, social, political, and industrial life of the world. In showing the relations between the lay apostolate and Catholic Action the Pontiff begins by saying that the lay apostolate is the performance by the laity of tasks which derive from the mission given the Church by Christ. Accordingly, the apostolat~ of prayer and personal example and the Christian practice of one's profession are lay apostolates only in a wide sense of that word; the Pontiff emphasizes, however, that lay Christians who exercise their professions in an exemplary fashion perform an activity that is comparable to the best kind of lay apostolate in the stric~ sense of the word. Catholic Action, the Pope remarks, always bears the char-acter of an official apostolate of laymen. It cannot, however, claim for itself a monopoly of the lay apostolate, for alongside of Catholic Action there always remains the free lay apostolate. In this connection the Holy Father discusses a possible change in terminology and structure which may eventually be put into effect. According to this plan the term. "Catholic Action" would be used only in a generic, sense to signify the sum of organized lay apostolates recognized on the national level by the bishops or by the Holy See on the international level. Each individual movement would then be designated by its own proper and 107 R. F. SM~ Review for Religious specific name and not by the generic term "Catholic Action.;' Each bishop would remain free to admit or reject such or such an individual movement, but he would not be free to reject it on the grounds that of its nature it Was not Catholic Action. Observing that not all Christians are called to the lay apos-tolate in the strict sense of the word, the Pope then notes that the lay apostles will always form an elite, not indeed because they stand apart from others, but precisely because they can influence others. As such, they need to be given a serious formation; and this training of lay apostles should be taken care of by organizations within the lay apostolate itself, though diocesan and religious priests, secular institutes, and women religious should assist in this formation. The final part of the allocution is devoted to a detailed consideration of the many areas where lay apostles are urgently needed today; and the Roman Pontiff concludes his allocution by urging his listeners to conquer the world, but only by the weapons of Christ. On ~ugust 25, 1957 (AAS, pp. 837-45), His Holiness addressed thirty thousand members of the Young Catholic Workers. He spoke of his audience as a great hope for the Christian regeneration of the world and urged them to re-establish the Christian notion of work as the personal act of a son of God and of a brother of Christ for the service of God and of the human community. On September 29, 1957 (AAS, pp. 906-22), the Holy Father addressed the Fourteenth International Congress of the World Union of Catholic Organizations of Women, speaking on the mission and apostolate of women. Women's apostolate, he notes, must be rooted in the tru.th, that she comes from God; that she is an image of God;" and that h'er everlasting destiny is God. Not only has God created woman, He has also given her her proper physical and psych!cal structure. 108 March, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS She has been given the gifts which permit her to transmit not only physical life, but also qualities of a spiritual and moral nature---and this not only to the children she bears, but to social and cultural life in general. In married life woman expresses the gift of oneself; this symbolization, however, of self-giving receives a higher form in consecrated virginity, for there her giving is more total, more pure, and more generous. Moreover, the Pope continues, woman belongs to Christ; accordingly no form of heroism or sanctity is inaccessible to her. This belonging of woman to Christ attains its perfect realization in the Blessed Virgin. If actual life sometimes reveals to what depths of evil woman can descend, Mary shows how woman in and through Christ can be raised above all .created things. In the exercise of the apostolate, says the Pontiff, woman finds herself in a welter of ideas, opinions, tendencies, and systems. She needs, therefore, a guide and a norm of judg-ment and action; and this she will find in the Church which is the guardian and interpreter of divine revelation. The aposto-late of woman, concludes the Holy Father, even when rooted in the above truths, will remain largely ineffective, unless it is inspired by a deep love of God that flows over into a universal and fruitful activity which seeks to bring all men into one fold under one pastor. In an allocution given on September 16, 1957 (AAS, pp. 898-904), the Vicar of Christ gave a moving allocution on the nature of Christian widowhood. The Church, he ob-served, does not condemn second marriages; neve~rtheless she has a special love for those who remain faithful to their spouses and to the perfect symbolism of marriage. Christian widow-hood is based on the conviction that death does not destroy the human and supernatural love of marriage, but rather per-fects and strengthens it. Doubtless after~death the juridical institution of marriage does not exist;¢~but that which con- 109 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious situted the soul of the marriage--conjugal love--still continues in existence, for it is a spiritual reality. If the sacrament of marriage is a symbol of the redemptive love of Christ for the Church, it may be said that widowhood is a symbol of the Church militant deprived of the visible presence of Christ, but nevertheless indefectibly united to Him. Socially too the widow has a definite mission to perform, for she participates in the mystery of the cross and the gravity of her comportment should show the message she carries: she is one who has through sorrow gained entrance to a more serene and supernatural world. "In times of trial and discourage-ment the Christian widow should strengthen herself by the thought of the Blessed Virgin who lived as a widow during the early years of Christianity and who by her prayer, interior life, and devotion called down divine blessings on the infant com-munity. Miscellaneous Matters By a decree of July 1, 1957 (AAS, pp.'943-44), the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments announced that local ordinaries need no longe~ send an annual report to the congre-gation concerning the number of confirmations conferred in their territories by extraordinary ministers of that sacrament. On October 7, 1957 (AAS, pp. 954-58), the Holy Father spoke to a group of sick persons reminding them that they do not suffer alone, for Christ lives in them and makes of them in a real but mysterious sense tabernacles of His presence; moreover, they must complete the Passion of Christ by their suffering and the offering of their pain can preserve the in-nocence of many, recall sinners to the right path, assist the indecisive, and reassure the troubled. In a message dated August 5, 1957 (AAS, pp. 857-61), His Holiness wrote to a group of teachers meeting at Vienna that the Catholic teacher who perfectly exercises his profession I10 March, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS performs an activity which is equal to the best lay apostolate', adding that this is true of those who teach in Catholic schools and almost more so of those teaching in non-Catholic schools. In a later letter dated September 18, 1957 (AAS, pp. 830-36), and directed to Cardinal Siri, President of the Italian Council of Social Weeks, the Pope urged the necessity of protecting the human values of rural life and stressed the need for an increase of faith in agricultural areas. On November 4, 1957 (AAS, pp. 966-69), the Holy Father addressed the parliamen-tary representatives of the European Coal and Steel Authority, congratulating them on the success of their work and expressing the wish that their accomplishments may lead to a greater federation ofEurope. On September 8, 1957 (ASS, pp. 849- 53), His Holiness addressed a group of dentists, showing a competent grasp of the latest phases of dentistry and manifest-ing a delightfully human side of his personality by his solicitude for children who suck their thumbs or bite their nails and by' his hope that the newly discovered method of painless drill-ing of teeth may prove to be really effective. The Sacred Consistorial Congregation issued three decrees by which it canonically established military xiicariates in Argen-tina (AAS, pp. 866-68), in Belgium (AAS, pp. 940-43), and in the United States (AAS, pp. 970-73). The Sacred Con- ¯ gregation of Seminaries and Uni~iersities by a decree of July 28, 1957 (AAS, pp. 975-77), canonically erected De Paul University, Chicago, as a Catholic University according to the norm of canon 1376; moreover, the faculty of music of the same institution was a~liated to the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. Finally, by the same decree the metropolitan archbishop of Chicago was made grand chancellor of De. Paul Catholic University. In the last document to be noted, an apostolic letter of May 9, 1957 (AAS, p. 823), the Holy Father announced the inauguration of an apostolic internhntia-ture for the country of Ethiopia. 111 Book Reviews [Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.] MARIOLOGY, VOL. II. Edited by Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M. Pp. 606. The Bruce Publishing Company, 400 North Broadway, Milwaukee 1. 1957. $9.50. This second volume of a most ambitious trilogy on Marian theology contains fourteen articles by some of America's leading theologians. The treatment is scholarly; the articles are well docu-mented; proofs are advanced soberly in an attempt to shed light, not generate heat. . Primarily a reference work, Mariology, Vol. II, covers the major fea'tures of Marian dogma: Mary s-- predestination, divine maternity, perpetual virginity, fullness of grace, knowledge, universal queenship, etc. Among the better parts of the volume are Father Cyril Vollert's two introductory essays, "The Scientific Structure of Mariology" and "The Fundamental Principle of Mariology." The latter serves as a natural basis for some of the articles that follow. Father John Bonnefoy's article "The Predestination of Our Blessed Lady" and Father Gerald Van Ackeren's "The Divine Mother-hood" should provoke discussion and stimulate theological specula-tion among readers of the book. The latter article contains a brief interesting account of modern Protestantism's attitude toward the Mother of God which is worthy of study. Since the volume's bent is less devotional than scientific, the reader should not expect from it what the editor and his contributors did by no means intend. This second volume offers the reader considerable insight into the past progress and present status of the science of Mariology; it makes a distinct, and quite co~ivincing, apology for Mariology's place in the traditional theological dis-ciplines. Religious and priests will especially profit from a thoughtful reading of the book. Seminarians and teachers will find in it a concise and ready reference work on the more important tenets of Marian dogma as it has developed to this day. But for the study of Marian devotion we must await Volume III. To prove the numerous theses presented in Mariology, Vol. II, the individual authors invoke the Church's magisterium, Scripture, tradition, and theological reasoning--the traditional approach. The 112 BOOK REVIEWS general method of presentation is excellent; it is orderly and clear. If there be a flaw in this mode of argumentation, it will probably be found in the scriptural interpretations advanced by some of the theo~ logians in this volume. Quite briefly, they fail to convince. This is especially true of the treatment given the oft-invoked text of Genesis 3:15, which, according to Father Wenceslaus Sebastian, refers to Mary alone "and that in the strict literal sense" (p. 355). The case for Mary's prerogatives as found in the Old Testament seems in this article--fis well as in some others--to be somewhat overstated. But these are slight blemishes on the canvas. No better reason for this entire series can be assigned than that employed in a more specific context by Father Francis Connell. At the conclusion" of his article on Mary's knowledge, he asserts: "And so it is not unprofitable to seek some definite ideas on Mary's knowledge, since a study of this kind helps us to understand the sub-lime dignity of the Mother of God and inspires us to be more ready to seek through her intercession the wisdom and the understanding that we need in the journey of life" (p. 324). What Father Connell remarks about Mary's knowledge may legitimately be predicated of the other facets of her unique personality and character, about which a volume such as this affords us all the opportunity to learn more and more.--THo.x~AS G. SAVAGE, S.J. MANUAL FOR NOVICES. By Felix D. Duffey, C.S.C. Pp. 232. B. Herder Book Company, 15 South Broadway, St. Louis 2. 1957. $3.50. Father Duffey is to be congratulated on his book Manual for Novices. As the title indicates, the book is written primarily for novices and those who have the care of novices; but it is pertinent, profitable, and of interest even to those formed religious who have been away from the novitiate training for a number of years. Is not a good treatment of the vows always a welcome book for our spiritual reading! Manual for Novices is geared to a better understanding of the three vows and their corresponding virtues, which we know to be the essence of the religious life. Father Duffey's thesis is that novices should be carefully schooled in the science of the vows; they should know what the vows entail, what is demanded by the rules and con-stitutions that they might enter the life of the vows with "minds pre-pared." Thus the novitiate is a place where the novice is to form 113 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious the proper religious attitudes, where each novice has ample time to test himself and to be tested to see if he can live the life of the vows. It is a time to consider and pray over the great privileges and duties of being a vowed laborer with Christ; /~ time to examine his intention and motives and even to purify them if necessary; the novitiate is a time to understand himself as he has never understood himself before and establish a correct hierarchy of valui~s based on Christ, the model of the vows. Father Duffey tries to give, and quite successfully too, the moral and canonical demands of the vows together with a doctrinal back-ground and ascetical incentive for the faithful living out of the vows. He emphasizes over and over again that the vows are a supernatural way of life led in imitation of Christ; they are something positive, and not a series of "suffocating denials" nor a legalistic ladder to heaven. The living of the vows gives the religious freedom from creatures to do God's will. It is on this positive character of the vows that novices should fix their minds and hearts, for it is the vows that permeate the whole day of the religious! The-book is well planned. There are twelve interesting chapters dealing" with such subjects as: The Novitiate, The Religious Life, Perfection, The Meaning of a Vow; two chapters on each of the three vows; one on Authority and Obedience, which is a very fine treatment of the duties of superiors; and a final chapter on Religious Profession. As the book stands it is broad enough to embrace all spiritualities. It is not meant to be a substitute for the instruction that the master or mistress is accustomed to give, but rather a complement to that instruction. The novice has a source to which he can go if he wishes to refresh his knowledge. The great insistance on the dynamism of the vows as the religious way of living in imitation of Christ is to be commended. "The chap-ters on chastity and obedience are especially well done and bring out the positive character of the vows exceptionally well. However,' the chapters on poverty fall short when compared with the treat-ment of the other two vows. In general the book is instructignal, motivational, full of good common, as well as supernatural, sense. It will be easily understood by the novices. Like a good teacher, Father Duffey repeats his key ideas throughout the book and frequently makes a summary of what has been seen in various chapters. In all the book is most worth-while, highly recommended, and will repay with. interest the time one spends reading it.--RALPH H. T~.LK~N, S.J." 114 March, 1958 BOOK REVIEWS THE YOKE OF DIVINE LOVE. By Dom Hubert Van Zeller, ¯ O.S.B. Pp. 238. Templegate, Springfield, Illinois, 1957. $3.75. The tireless pen of Dom Hubert has, in this small volume, pre-sented another challenge to comfort-loving nature, this time taking for his audience the seekers after conventual perfection. He makes it clear from the outset that he is not writing merely for monks, and certainly not exclusively for those of Benedictine Rule, but for all religious, men and women, though the medium through which he aptly chooses to impart his lessons and deliver his frank and kindly blows is Benedictine vocabulary culled from the wisdom of St. Benedict and his greatest interpreter St. Bernard, The whole concern of his book, as he tells us in the preface, is to show how to work up from the fundamentals of religion, prayer, reading, silence, labor, and enclosure to God and not inward toward self. Such a caution is of vital interest to all religious; and they will eagerly submit to Dom Hubert's admoni-tions, delivered with a freshness and candid realism not too often encountered in spiritual treatises. The volume might almbst be ~ermed a "Book of Sentences," or another version of The Following of Christ, with its many incisive, diminutive paragraphs. Thus the first chapter on Supernatural Motive of less than nine pages is presented in gixty-two thought-packed para-graphs. Any one of them might serve as an outline for a more pro-found meditation. And almost a good third of them would present the thesis of the book, the yoke of divin~ love, in a nutshell. There is always love in the background to give light and warmth whenever it does not appear explicitly or at the head. But it is not an easy doctrine of love the book preaches. It can and does issue startling warnings. "The heart of the monk, if it deviates from the love of God alone, can become an unquiet evil. It wanders, looking for rest and finding none. It fastens on other hearts and drains them of the love of God. If it shrivelled up in solitude it would be a waste enough, but the heart that has tired of the love of God and that hungers still for love is a menace." Dom Hubert tells us exactly what his method in writing the book will be. "What we have to do is to find principles common to most religious orders and examine them in the light of love, prayer, and faith. To agree on foundations is at least a start." From' this humble beginning he develops a gripping code of religious life as he finds it substantially presented by all religious founders. The Yoke of 115 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religious Divine Love, a clever title for the book that follows, is broken down into three minor "books" treating of the religious life, prayer, and community life. Each of these essential constituents of religious life is reviewed with a freshness and vigor that opens the eyes of the reader to a number of surprising subterfuges and alibis that even sincere religious may construct for themselves to escape the more exacting pressures of the yoke of love. One might cite countless instances of plain-spoken axioms of religious living which in one form or another bear out the author's verdict: "The trouble about renouncing the world is that it comes back in another form. You bar the windows of your cell against it, and it comes up through the boards of the floor. You throw it out by the door, and it comes in through the ventilator." It appears that this candid volume to be truly appreciated had better be read first cursorily, with many a smile and more than one mea cull~a, and henceforth be left on the desk or priedieu as a vade mecum for the purpose of snatching now and then tiny crumbs from its pages to be refreshed by its invigorating frankness. More than one reader will be disappointed at the lack of definite references to the many scripture passages cited. St. Thomas, too, St. Benedict, and the Fathers are frequently quoted by name only. ~ALoYSIUS C. KEMPER, S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCI:MI:NTS THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 400 North Broadway, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin. Conferences on the Religious Life. By Aloysius Biskupek, S.V.D. You will find these conferences refreshing and original both as .re-gards the topics chosen and as to the treatment accorded them. Some of the unusual topics are: The Religious Habit, Patrons, The Refectory, Living the Mass, Sick Religious. The author is forthright in his treatment. Part of his answer to those who say that they cannot meditate reads as follows: "Meditation requires the exercise of memory, mind, and will; the use of these faculties is wholly or partially impossible in the case of infants, mental defectives, and insane persons. Does any one who claims he cannot meditate classify himself as belonging to these categories?" Pp. 204. $3.50. Live in the Holy Spirit.By Bruno M. Hagspiel, S.V.D: This is a book" of conferences onthe religious life written for religious 116 l~larch, 1958 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS women. The author speaks with the authority 6f one who has done much work for religious women and knows their virtues as well as their faults. It is a modern book and does not omit to discuss modern topics such as motion pictures, radio, television. Pp. 170. $3.50. You. By Father M. Raymond O.C.S.O. Living in an age that looks on the individual as expendable and negligible, we have great need to realize anew the dignity, sublimity, exalted vocation, and priceless character of even the least of the children of men. Father Raymond emphasizes these truths not in the abstract but in the concrete; not as applied to some one else but to you. His exhortations, . each chapter is a fervent exhortation, are addressed to both religious and lay people. There are no chapters applicable only to religious, and only one (14) intended specifically for parents. It makes encouraging spiritual reading. Pp. 301. $4.50. My Sunday Reading. A Popular Explanation and Application of the Sunday Epistles and Gospels. By Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M. We have all heard the Sunday Epistles and Gospels oftener than we care to admit. Do we understand them? This .book serves as an excellent introduction to such understanding. It is written primarily for the layman, but even the religious can profit by a study of this volume. Pp. 345. $5.00. A Christian Philosophy of Life. By Bernard J. Wuellner, S.J. We are guided on our journey through life on earth by the light of reason and by the light of faith. Both are necessary, and both should come into play many times each day. Both also need to be developed. As we may grow in faith by the study of revela-tion, so we perfect reason by the study of philosophy. If you have had the advantages of a college education, you will find Father Wuellner's book an excellent refresher course in philosophy; if you have not, it will give you a brief introduction to the most significant course a Catholic college has to offer. A great merit of the book is that the author does not hesitate to appeal to revelation to supplement the findings of reason. Here is a book which a religious can afford not only to read but to study. Pp. 278. $4.25. Angels Under Wraps. By Edward. Vincent Dailey. A book of stories, all about angels. They are interesting and enjoyable, and it would be surprising if they did not increase your devotion to your own guardian angel. Pp. 149. $2.95. 117 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS .Review for Religious FIDES PUBLISHERS, 744 East 79th Street, Chicago 19, Illinois. One in Christ. By Illtud Evans, O.P. The author accurately describes this collection of essays in these words: "The purpose of these pages is not to argue or to prove. It is simply to say that the life of the Church is the life of Christ continued in time and place, made available to men. The truths we believe are declared every day and the prayer of the Church (which is the prayer of Christ) exists to express them. The life of charity exists to make them incarnate here and now." Pp. 82. Paper $0.95. The Modern Apostle. By Louis J. Putz, C.S.C: Priests and religious will be interested in this book as a means to learn more about the modern lay apostolate and to help to spread this move-ment among the laity. It was written by a priest who has probably done more for this movement in America than any other. The material in the book first appeared as a series of articles in Our Sunday Visitor. Pp. 148. $2.95. Key. to the Psalms. By Mary Perkins Ryan. More and more lay people are beginning to discover the treasure of the Psalms. To help them Mary Perkins Ryan has written this book. She has made her own all the latest findings of the scripture scholars and has written a book that is both authoritative and popular. The translations of the Psalms are particularly excellent. Read this book and discover for yourself why the Church has always made the Psalms such a large part of her liturgical prayer. Pp. 187. $3.50. Together in Marriage. By John J. Kane. This i~ another volume in the "Fides Family Readers Series." It is of special interest to priests who are engaged in Cana Conference work and very suitable for the libraries of 'all houses for lay retreats. Pp. 154. $2.95, The Meaning Of Christmas. By A. M. Avril, O.P. Translated by S. D. Palleske. This is a volume of sermons that were orig-inally broadcast on the National "French Chain. Their subject matter is the Christmas cycle, from the first Sunday of Advent to the sixth Sunday after Epiphany. Pp. 153. $2.75. Going to God. By Sister Jane Marie" Murray, O.P. This is the first volume of a four-year series of textbooks in religion for high schools. The series bears the title "The Christian Life." These books are the product of much thought, study, planning, and con-sultation with fifteen experts in the fields of theology, Sacred Scrip- 118 March, 1958 ~BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS ture, education, the apostolate, and art. All four of the volumes are to be available by the summer of 1958. Before adopting a new set of texts for the religion classes in high school~ be sure that you examine these new books. Pp. 430. GRAIL PUBLICATIONS, St. Meinrad, Indiana. Pope Plus XII and Catholic Education. Edited by Vincent A. Yzermans. We owe a debt of gratitude both tb the editor and to the publishers for collecting in d single volume twenty-two addresses of Pope Plus XII on Catholic education. Teachers will find in them encouragement, wise directives, and much matter for fruitful examination of conscience. Pp. "180. Paper $1.00. B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, 15-17 South Broadway, St. Louis 2, Missouri. The Sacred Canons. A Concise Presentation of the Current Disciplinary Norms of the Church. Volume I, Canons 1-869; Vol. II, Canons 870.2~14. Revised Edition. By John A. Abbo and Jerome D. Hannan. The purpose of this commentary on the Code of Canon Law is explained in the preface: "The work was begun to answer in some degree the spontaneous demand for a better knowledge of ecclesiastical law that has arisen in~ English-speaking countries among religious who are not clerics and among laymen, especially those engaged in the professions." Vol. I, pp. 871; Vol. II, pp. 936. $19.00 the set. P. J. KENEDY & SONS, 12 Barclay Street, New York 8, New York. Handbook of Moral Theology. By Dominic M. Priimmer, O,P. Translated by Gerald Shelton. Adapted for American usage by John Gavin Nolan. This is0 an English compendium of the justly celebrated four-volume Latin edition. It requires no gift of proph-ecy to predict that it will prove very popular with priesis, sem-inarians, and any who have frequent occasion to familiarize them-selves with the moral teachings of the Church. Pp. 496. $4.00. Maryknoll Missal. If you are looking for an English missal, you will want to examine this one, the first to be published since the recent decrees simplifying the rubrics. It is dom. pletely up-to- . date, and the translation is in modern English. References have been reduced to a minimum. It is a very handsome and convenient missal. Pp. 1699. 119 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review ]or Religious LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY, INCORPORATED, 55 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, New York. Catholicism and the Ecumenical Movement. By John M. Todd. Introduction by the Abbot of Downside. Mr. Todd, author, as-sistant editor of the Downside Review, and radio commentator, writes for both Catholics and non-Catholics. His aim is: "(1) To inform Catholics of the nature of the ecumenical problem and of the solu-tions that are offered by the non-Catholic world; (2) To inform non-Catholics of the reasons for the contemporary (Roman) Catholic attitude to the problem, and to show how a Catholic layman ap-proaches the situation today." Pp. 111. Paper $1.50. THE NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Maryland. God's Bandit. The Story of Don Orione, Father of the Poor. By Douglas Hyde. The author, a newspaper reporter by training and temperament, writes the dramatic story of a priest possessed of an immense love of the poor and unfortunate. To promote his work he founded four religious congregations, of which the principal one is the Sons of Divine Providence. As a boy he spent two years with St. Don Bosco. As a priest he was on intimate termswith St. Plus X. He died in 1940 and already many legends have grown up around his memory. It is probable that we shali one day honor him as a saint, for the causeof his beatification has been introduced in Rome. Pp. 208. $3.50. New Life in Christ. By Ludwig Esch, S.J. Translated from the German by W. T. Swain. The author spent forty years working for youth and in' this very comprehensive book gathers together what he has learned so that others may profit by his experience. There are four main divisions. ¯ The Fundamental Principles Gov-erning Our Growing Up in Christ, Our Life in Christ, The Growth of Life in Christ, and Maturing in Christ. Any of the problems that youth must meet today you will find treated in these pages. The book will be useful not only for youth but also for all those who have to assist in their training and education. Pp. 294. $4.50. SHEED & WARD, 840 Broadway, New York 3, New York. Martyrs from St. Stephen to John Tung. By Donald Attwater. Here are fifty-eight graphic and gripping accounts of martyrdom. They will make many a saint you know only as a name come to life for you and, as a result, become a real influence in your life. Pp. 236. $4.00. 120 March, 1958 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS The Roots of the Reformation by" Karl Adam; Marriage and the Family by F. J. Sheed; Confession by John C. Heenan; The Rosary by Maisie Ward; The Devil by' WC'a[ter lCarreI[, O.P., and Bernard Leeming, S,J. These are the first five books of a new series called "Canterbury Books." They are paper-covered books that average one hundred pages and sell for seventy-five cents. They treat their subject matter in greater detail than is possible in a pamphlet but more concisely than a full-length book. They are to be on religious topics and are intended for both Catholics and inquiring non-Catholics. The Making of Church' Vestments. By Graham Jenkins. Part One details the history of the liturgical vestments. Part Two gives easy-to-follow instructions abundantly illustrated on how ~o make church vestments. Pp. 32. $0.95. The New Guest Room Book. Assembled by F. J. Sheed. Illus-trated by Enrico Arno. Here we have a miniature library guaranteed to contain something to please any taste. Pp. 448. $7.50. ( ues ions and Answers [The following answers are given by'Father Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., professor canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland.] When you repeatedly state that sisters are overworked, don't you realize that almost universally the blame is cast on their superiors? And yet what can the superiors do? Are they to blame for the num-ber of Catholic children to be educated? for the opening of new schools? for the vacation schools? for the added demands of modern education? The fact that sisters are overworked is an evident and incontro-vertible fact, and the harmful effects are equally evident. The sense of the remarks on this point has never been that superiors are wholly to blame but that they can do something to lighten the burden. This thought is also completely evident and has been expressed by many others. "In my opinion, a policy almost heroic adopted by certain superiors is deserving of signal praise, that is, the refusal to accept 121 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious new works, certainly useful, but which would overwhelm their religious men or women. A more cogent reason is that these religious are already overburdened as they become too few to accomplish the works already accepted which become progressively more compli-cated. The religious who is overburdened, exhausted, iaervous is in danger not only of doing his work poorly but, what is more serious, of being unable to draw spiritual profit from the time of prayer pre-scribed by the constitutions. He thus falls into activism, and there is no need to demonstrate here that this is the contradiction of the . primary and common purpose of the state of perfection" (Reverend A. Pl~, O.P., ztcta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Per-fectionis, II, 146). "Superiors should be forbidden to accept new foundations unless they are able to staff them in such a way that their subjects are given the leisure needed for their own souls. What 'is needed are fervent foundations, not mere physical buildings in which a few religious, overwrought and exhausted, live and work in a frenzied round of activity. I believe that the cause of the Church would prosper far more with fewer buildings and projects, erected at the cost of the religious spirit, and with more prayerful religious" (Reverend F. Rice, C.P., ibid., III, 517). "Overwork will inevitably pull down the sl~iritual life. It is al-most impossible to live up to the ideals of the religious life when we are launched upon a troublesome sea ill-prepared and ill-equipped. Careful training and a good, broad education will do much to obviate this and so help considerably in preserving the religious spirit" (Brother P. C. Curran, F.S.C.H., Religious Life Today, 181). Since we are not contemplative, couldn't we dispense with the rule of silence? You are partially contemplative. The mixed religious life is the harmonious union of the contemplative life with apostolic activity. Every religious is supposed to attain a deep spirit of prayer and interior life. Neither of these is possible without recollection

Issue 15.2 of the Review for Religious, 1956. ; MARCH ]5', 1956 VOLUME XV NUMBER 2 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS VOLUME XV FEBRUARY, 1956 NUMBER 2 CONTENTS MOTHER CORNELIA CONNELLY--Mother Mary Eleanor, S.H.C.J.57 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE-~--Bernard Leeming, S.J .6.9. SUMMER SESSIONS . 90 SISTERS' RETREATS--II--Thomas Dubay, S.M .9.1. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 9. Entrance Fee for Postulants and Novices . 97 10. Residen~ Chaplain as Confessor . 98 11. Legal Protection Against Remuneration for Services . . . 99 12, Correspondence with the Vicar Also Exempt .100 13. Washing of Purificators, Palls, and Corporals ., . .: . . . :. 101 14. New Rubrics for Little Office of the B.V.M .1.0.1 15. Sending Letters to Superior General .102 16. The Meaning of a Plus Book . 102 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS-- Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 103 CATHOLIC ALMANAC, 1956 . 112 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 112 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, March, 1956. Vol. XV, No. 2. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November, at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter, 2anuary 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ell~d, S.3., Gerald Kelly, S.3., Henry Willmerlng, S.3. Literary Editor: Edwin F. Falteisek, S.J. Copyright,'1956, by Reoieto for Religious. Permission is hereby granted for quo-tations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the ahthor Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a .copy. Printed in U. S. A~ Before writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. The Myst:ici m of Obedience Bernard keeming, S.J. ALL great things are simple. God is great and God is simple. If we are united with God's will, we are uiaited with God,. because God's will is" God. And if we are united with God, we are united with F~ither, Son, and Holy Ghost; for the Trinity is simple also. Obedience is a great thing and obedience is simple. "If you love me, ke~p my commandments" (John 14: 15). If you wish to be perfect, just~ do as y~u are told. "He that keepeth my commandments, is he th~at loveth me, and he that loveth me, ~hall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him" (John 14:2.1). In obedience we truly receive a revelation of Christ. St. Teresa gives several rexamples Qf what she thought sim-plicity or ":innocenc'e" in obediende. At Avila, she, says, "One thing I remember, which is this: once'in the refectory we had cucumbers given us'for our portions, and to me a very small one, "rotten within. Pretending not to l£e aware of. thi), I called a sister, one of the most able and sensible in the h'ouse, and, to try her'obedi-, ?nce, told her to go and plant it in a .little garden we had. She asked me Whether it was to be planted endways or sideways. I told her sideways, She went and planted it, without thinking that it could not possibly fail to die. The. fact that she was acting under obedi-ence made her natural reason blind, so that she believed that what she did was perfectly right" i( Foundations, ed. Lewis, p. 6). And, probably at Toledo or Mailagon, she narrates: "To a prioress came a nun, and showed her a very large worm, saying, 'Look how beautiful it is!' The prioress in jest replied 'Then go and eat it,' She went and fried it. The Cook asked her why she fried a worm, and she answered, 'To eat ;it,' and would have done so. Thus thro,ugh a great carelessness of that prioress that nun might have done herself much barni" (ibid., p. 161)." For my own part, fear I wonder if the two nuns in question were quite so simple as St, _Teresa imagined they were! However, not to delay on planting cucumbers or frying worms, there are four considerations we make about obedience which show that there is a great mystery in it, and a great reality' Of union with God. , 69 BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religious 1. Our Saviour's obedience to His Father reveals to us some-thing of the eternal relations of the Blessed Trinity. 2. Through obedience we attain union with Christ and with His Father in the Holy Ghost. 3. Our Saviour's obedience sums up the mystery of the Re-demption of mankind. 4. Through obedience likewise we "cooperate with Christ, in a true sense make one with Christ, in His redeeming and saving mlSslon. CHRIST'S OBEDIENCE AND THE BLESSED TRINITY Nothing is dearer in the Gospels than that Christ is one with the Father in understanding, willir~g, accomplishing, and in very being. Christ's teaching was at once His own, and yet in a sense, not His own but the Father's: "My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent me" (John 7:16), that is, the teaching is not Christ's alone, but'equally the Father's: it is not' Christ's as separated from God. "He who sent me is true, and the things I have heard of Him, these same I speak in the world . I do nothing of m;fself, but as the Father has taught me, these things I speak" (John 8:26, 28). Even the Father does not judge alone: "Neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22); and yet the Father does judge with the Son: "Arid if I do judge, my judgment is true: because I am not alone,but I and the .Father that sent me" (John 8:16). Hence it is that acceptance of Christ is acceptance of the Father: "He that believeth in me, doth not believe in me, but in him that sent me . I have not spoken of myself; but the Father who sent me, he gave me com-mandment what I should say and what I should speak" (John 12: 44, 49). Incidentally, the same is true of the Hol~ Ghost: He, too, "shall not speak of himself: but what things soever be shall hear, he Shall speak . . . he shall glorify me, because he shall receive of mine" (John 16:13). Only the Father has knowledge without origin; the Sod and the Holy Ghost bare the same identical knowledge, but from the Father. In the same way, Christ says that He did not come to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. None can doubt that Christ's will was for the salvdtion of men: "I am~ the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep . . . therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life 7O March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE that I may tak~ it again" (dohn 10:il, 17). And yet He says: "I came down from heaven not to do my own w, ill, but the will of Him that sent me" (3ohn 6:38 andcf, v. 30). The heart of Christ is not more compassionate nor more tender than the heart of His Father: "For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him,' may not perish, but may have life everlasting" (John 3:16). The will of the Father and the will of the Son for the salvation of the world is the same, "for God sent not his "Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world might be saved by, him" (John 3:17). This unity of will is touchingly manifest.on the death of Lazarus. Jesus had wept, "and the Jews said, "Behold bow be loved him." And when the stone was removed, lifting up his eyes, He said: "Father, I give thanks that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always; but because of the people who stand about I have said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." Then He cal.led the dead man out of the tomb. He knew His Father's will was to do what He wished. They willed the same, and Christ's human will was perfectly in accord with His Father's divine will. Christ's power is the same as His Father's. "The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things so ever he doth, these the Son Mso doth in like man-ner. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life: so also the Son giveth life to whom he will" (John 5:20). "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not" (John 10:37). The works, of course, referred pri'marily to the miracles: stilling the storm, feeding the five thousand, giving sight to the blind man, raising Lazarus from the dead;, but they include all that Christ did. "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in ,me, he doth His own works" (John 14:10). But the unity of power is most clearly showia when Christ speaks of protecting His sheep: He knows His sheep and they follow Him and He will give them life everlasting. "No man shall pluck them out of my hand." Whence this absolute confi-dence that no created power can steal away His sheep? "No one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father. I and the Father are one" (John 10:29, 30). His power is the same as His Father's All that Christ'has is given. Him by the Father; and the Father holds nothing back from the Son, not even His own life. His dis- 7.1 BERNARD LEEMING Review /:or Religious ciples wh~ weke,faithful to Him were given Him by His Father: "Thine they were, and to me thou gavest them" (John 17:6). deed, all the Father has, is the Son's: "All my things are thine, and thine are mine" (John 17:1Q). "The Father loveth the Son, and he hath given all things into his hand;' (John 3:35). And . before the washing of the feet, perhaps surprisingly~ St. John tells us: "Knowing that the Father had given him all things into 'his hands, and that he cache from God and goeth to God: he "riseth Trom sup-per, and layeth aside his garments, and having .taken a ,towel, girded himself'" and put the water into a basin and began to wa~sh ¯ ,the feet of the disciples (John 13:3 ff.). His knowledge that all He had was of the Father is perhaps the very reason why He wished to inculcate humility; since the Father kept back nothing from Him, He in turn wished to give His service and to show that such humble service is a reflection of the very life of God. But the Father gives even His own life: "As the F'ather hath life in himself, so be bath given to the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26). "The living Father has sent me and I live by the Father" (John 6:58). "Philip, he that seeth me, seeth the Father also. How sayeth thou, Shew us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?" (John 14:9, 10.) Hence it is that Christ is the Utterance of God (John 1:1), the Image of God (II Cor. 4:4), the Radiance of God's splendour and the very expression of His being (Heb. 1;3), the Light of God (John 1:9), the Way to God: "No man cometh to the Father but by me" (John 14:6). Yet in spite of this perfect equality, the Son is sent by His Father, and receives commands from His Father. "Do you say of him whom the Father. hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?" (John 10:36.) "Thou hast sent me into the world" (John 17:18). After the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, the apostles urged Him to eat: "But he said to them: I have meat to eat; which you know not. The disciples therefore 'said one to an-other: Hath any man brought him to eat? Jesus said to them: M_y meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that~I may perfect his work"' (John 4:32-35). His very life, His sustenance and strength consisted in d, oing His Father's will and work. The Father even commands Him; at the very end of the discourse about the Good Shepherd, our Lbrd said: "This commandment have I re- March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE ceived bf my father," (John 10:18), and the commandmbnt ap-pears to be that He should be the Good Shepherd, who lays down His life for His sheep. Just before going, to Gethsemani, He said: "But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, so do I: Arise let us go hence" (John 14:31). And Of his whole sojourn in the. world, at the end He said: "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gav, est me.to do" (John 7:4). Now, of course, the giving of a command can only be because Christ is man; and. yet the commandment, like the sending, reflects the eternal relation between Father and Son. It is the Son who is sent, not the Father: not sent as a servant by a master, nor even as a king might be sent to war by advisers and counsellors; but sent somewhat as a flower is sent forth by a .plant. The temporafl sending, with its resultant presenc,e in a different way--f.6r Christ as God is present everywhere, but as man only in Palestine--re-flects the eternal relation of origin from the Father (St. Thomas, Summa, 1, Q. 43,-a.1). The Father could not be sent, because He is Father; and, although all that He has is the Son's, neverthe- .less that "all He has" and even the divine being is the Son's, al-ways with the relationship of originating from the Father. As of the sending, so too of 'the obedience. That too arises naturally from the eternal relationsh'ip between Father and Son; for as the 'Son originates from the Father in very being, so too do all His thinking and His willing. What our Lord wanted was what or-iginated in the Father, and He could not want anything whatever' which did not originate in the Father. Thus His obedience reflects his eternal relationship to ,the Father and is a manifestation to us of that. mysterious unity of being and nature which yet admits distinctive of persons. Through our Lord's unity with God by obedience in his incarnate life, we are led on to know his unitY with God in His divine life. , OUR OBEDIENCE AND OUR SHARE IN THE LIFE OF GOD Very often obedience is thought of as a matter of our owrl effort, something we must do, and do with striving and resolution. We must, indeed; nevertheless, obedience is a gift of God. As the Father gave all things to His Son," even t6 having absolutely the same will, so, too, if we are to have absolutely the same will as our Father and as Christ, we must receive it of the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. For to have the same will "as God 73 BERNARD LEEMING Reoiew for Religious means that we become sharers in God's nature, as Christ our Lord truly was God and showed it by doing the works of His Father, -while yet remaining a distinct person. There was unity of nature, ot: doing and accomplishing: they willed absolutely the same and tl~is willing the same reflected the unity of being which was theirs. So too our, coming to bare the same will as God can only arise from a unity of being. God's will" IS Himself: He does not change, to-day wanting one thing, tomorrow another; but from all eternity He is His will; and, 'though in time His will is accomplished in different acts, those acts only reflect the will that was unchanging from eternity and conform the changing to the Eternal. "The Father who abidetb in me, He dotb the works" can become true of us, likewise, but only because of the gift of God of Himself, the gift of His abiding in us. And that God should abide in us, surely that is His free gift to us, which no effort of our own could at-tain and no prayer of ours--apart from His desire told to us-- could aspire to ask. God is God and man is man, but His surpass-ing gift is that we should truly become sharers in the divine nature (II Peter 1:4) and hence sharers in His divine will, sent forth from Him as Son and Holy Ghost are sen,t forth, yet completely and utterly one with Him always. This is one of the greatest gifts that God gives us in our vo-cation as religious, to enable us~ to share in that complete self-giv-ing which is the life of the Blessed Trinity, to be enabled to give to Him our last self-possession, our own will and judgment, and by giving it to Him, to receive it back from Him glorious, and divinized,.part even of Himself. "And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one" ~Jobn 17:23). "To leave the world and give up exterior pos-sessions," says St. Gregory, "is possibly easy to some; but for a man to give up himself, to immolate what is most precious to him by.surrendering his entire liberty is a much more arduous task; to forsake what one has is a small thing: to forsake what one is, that is the supreme gift" (Horn. 32, MPL 76 col. 1233). And it isthe supreme gift, because it most reflects the life of the Blessed Trinity. Our obedience is grounded upon faith. Military obedience-- aport from the subjective motive of individuals--is based upon practical necessity and utility: someone must decide, and there is not. time to explain the reasons for the decision to each soldieL Without obedience, there would be confusion and defeat. Never- 74 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE theless, military obedience has its limits. Of certain soldiers who refused to obey it was said that "they were to~ intelligent to get themselves killed just to prove that some general was a fool." That is one reason why General M~ntgomery in his book on generalship declares that "it is part of the art of command to inspire and main-tain confidence in the soldiers, and why in his battles he explained a great deal of his plans to the soldiers. But religious obedience has a different basis. It is true that obedience does make for efficient work, for order, for unity. But this is not the reason ultimately why religious obey. We obey because we belieoe, believe that it is God who speaks to us in the person of our superior, and that, consequently, when we do the superior's will, we do God's will and hence are united to God. In this sense, obedience is not a means to an end; it is an end in itself; for by faith we believe that in uniting ourselves to the superior's will we unite ourselves to God's own will, and unity with God is not a means to anything else. This, naturally, supposes that we obey from love of God, git)ir~q ourselves to God in obedience; and thus the utility of doing what we are told to do does not enter in; whatever the effect of what we do, here and now by obeying I am united to God; and, in the absolutely ultimate result, the effect must be good, no matter what the immediate effects. Obedience is like faith. Often, though we know it is fully reasonable to believe, the obscurity of faith comes home to us: hoto can it be that Christ is present beneath the appearances of a wafer? How can a good God permit so many evils? Neverthless, this ob-scurity does not shake our faith, though it may afflict the imagina-tion and the power of reasoning. We know that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and that His dwelling is in unapproach-able light; no human eye has ever seen Him or can ever see Him (I Tim. 6:16). We know that "my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways: for as the heavens are ex-alted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts" (Isaias 4:8, 9). Nothing could shake our faith, because it is God whom we believe. Now, similarly, our obedience like our faith involves obscurity. How could God be represented by one so ignorant, prejudiced, and unlikable? How could God ratify so stupid a policy, one based on complete ignor-ance of the conditions? How can God permit this situation to con-tinue, when His own interests are at stake? Such obscurities may indeed trouble our imaginations and even our powers of reasoning; 5 'BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religio-s nevertheless they cannot shake the deep conviction that in obeying this superior, in this policy, in this mariner of proceeding, I am obeying God Himself; I am doing His will, arid notthe ignorant, stupid, or prejudiced will of any creature. My obedience rests on the faith that believes God does act thro,ugh creatures, that He is immanent to creatures and-not afar off. St. Margaret Mary had revelations from our Lord, revelations approved by the Church afterwards; and yet our Lord said to her that she should prefer th'e will of her superiors to a'fly command of His. W~e' look with ey,es of faith, not upon a weak creature, but upon the infinitely holy and infinitely wise God of all consolation, who acts in and through the creature. Blessed Claude de la Colombi~re once wrote: "A Superior may 'govern badly, but it is impossible that G~d should not govern you well by means of him. My dear Sister, let that be your deepest conviction. For if you do not', base yourself firmly on this prin-ciply, you are losing your time in religion: for your whole life is nothing but obedience, arid this obedience.is meritless unless offered to God in the person whom He has put in place of Himself. A:nd we certainly do not turn our gaze on God when we undertak'e to judge, examine and above all to condemn what is commanded us. When it is the Holy Ghost who possesses us, He inspires us with the simplicity of a child who finds everything good and everything reasonable; or. if you prefer, with a divine prudence which discov-ers God in everything,' and recogmzes Him in. all those who rep-resent Him, even in those who are poorest in virtue and in natural and supernatural qualities." (Oeut;res, VII, 109-10, 1853 ed.) = ,In those words Blessed Claude expressed part of the gift of obedience: the inspiration of the Holy Ghost to make us simple, to give us supernatural prudence to see God truly in superiors. St. Catherine of Siena, in her delightful Dialogue ot~ Obedience (trans-lated by Algar Thorold). insists greatly on faith being the means of obedience and teaches likewise that we may progress in obedi-ence. God speaks and says to her: "Now I wish thee to see and know this most excellent virtue in that humble and immaculate Lamb, and the source whence it proceeds. What caused the great obedience of the Word? The love which He had for My honour and your salvatiofi. Whence proceeded this love? From the clear vision with which His soul saw the divine essence and the eternal Trinity, thus always looking on Me, the eternal G6d. His fidelity obtained this vision for Him, and most perfectly, ~ which vision you 76 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE imperfectly enjoy by th~ light,of holy faith" (Ch. 135). And thig vision both comes through obedience and fosters obedience. "Does the weight of obedience," she asks, "cause the obedient man pain? No, for he has trampled on his own will and does not care to ex-amine or, judge the will of his superior, for with the light of faith he sees My will !in him, believing truly that My clemency causes him to dommand according to the needs of his subject's sal-vation" (Ch. 140). "Obedience gives a !ight in the soul, which shows whether she is faithful to Me and her order and superior, in which light of holy faith she forgets hersel£; for by the obedience which she has ac-quired through the light of faith, she shows that her will is dead' to its own feeling, and seeks the advantage of others and not her own. Just as the disobedient man who examines the will, of his superior, may ju.dge~it according to his own low opinion and dark-ened knowled~ge instead of judging his own perverse will which' gives him death, the truly obedient man, illumined by faith, judge's ~the will of his superior to be good, and therefore does not examine it, but inclines his bead and nourishes his soul with the odour of true and holy obedience. And this virtue increases in the soul in proportion to the shinin~.l of the light of fhith, with which the soul knows herself, and Me, whom she loves, and humbles her-self; and the more she loves Me and humbles herself, the more obedient she becomes, for, obedience, and her sister patience prove whether the soul is in truth Clothed with the nuptial garment of charity, which is necessary to enter into eternal life" (Cb. 44). St. Teresa of Avila also declares that obedience is something like a treasure in a mine, Which can only be. dug out gradually and progressively. Speaking of the treasure of complete union with God, she says: "Bellevue me, then there is no better way of finding this treasure than that of toiling and digging so as to draw it forth from the mine of obedience; for the more we dig the more we shall find, and the more we ,subject ourselves to men, having no other will but that of those who are over us, the more we shall master our will so as to conform it to the will of God:' (Foundations, Ch. 5).,~ St. Ignatius of ~oyola puts three degrees of obedience: the first, when wi actually do what we are c6mmanded; the second, when wedo it willingly; and the third, when we submt.t our understandL ing to the superior's and come to have the,lsame judgment as bis: Now these are not necessarily stages through iwhich we hi~ve to pass, 77 BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religious though indeed they.may be kinds of stages through which we pass; but they clearly indicate divisions into which obedience may fall. It is possible to do what we are ordered but to rebel interiorly, or even to grumble and complain and yet carry out the order. It is possible also to cajole a superior into agreement with what we want. This is indeed a certain kind of obedience. Then there_is willingness ,in obedience: to do the thing promptly, perseveringly, and putting our best efforts into it to make it suc'ceed. But the highest degree is' had when we agree with the superior's mind and have the same view and ~outlook on the thing aS he has. It is clear that this last most closely approaches to the obedience of'Christ to His Father: His docffine, was not His own, but His Father's. He judges with the Father; He does not speak of Himself, but as the Father gives Him to speak; and He is the very word of the Father, the expression of the Father, the very mind of the Father: He and His Father are one. If the superior represents God for us, then no lower standard than our Lord's obedience to His Father can content us. How is it possible to be united in mind with a superior who is stupid," unwise, and imprudent in his commands? Christ could obey His Father absolutely because His Father was absolute truth; absolute wisdom; but how can we conform our minds to one who is by no means absolute truth or wisdom? The answer is that where the superior commands, we unite our wills and minds with his exactly insofar as he commands, not necessarily insofar as his command is designed to attain a particu-lar purpose. The purpose of the command is not part of the com-mand. For instance, a provincial superior may order a local superior to be indulgent, or to be severe, with a particular s, ubject. The local superior may on natural' grounds be convinced that i.ndulgence, or severity, is injurious to the subject, that the provincial superior is mistaken in his estimate of the method required. It is here, partly, that the mystery enters; for the theory of obedience holds that the judgment about success or failure is irrelevant: who can tell what, in God's eyes, is success or failure? The order must be obeyed, and in the spirit, with trust in God's over-riding providence: He will bless the obedience, although we cannot see how. For me, I see Christ in the command and that is enough. What does it matter, in the last analysis, about the "success" or "failure" of the policy? God must look to that; and I can leave it to Him, doir~g so the ¯ more trustfully the less I see how He can draw good out of it. 78 March, 1956 THE ~MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE How do we progress in obedience~? Ver~y gener1a1 y at the be, ginning of our religigus life obedience on theI whole is not difficult; there may be strange customs, repugnances to be overcome in ac-commodating ourselves to different points of the Rule. But on the whole, obedience is likely to be taken more or less for granted as part of the religious regime. Nevertheless, sooner or later trials are likely to arise. A superior may not understand us, ol may dis-approve of us; and then obedience can be a very arid affair indeed. There is small comfort in it; and, if one takes literally the superior for God, one is inclined to imagine that a superior's disapproval means God's disapproval. This is not, of'course, strictly irue; for a superior is not judge of our spiritual state, but takes the place of God in telling us what to do. Nevertheless, a superior's disapproval may be a searing trial, especially for some characters; and it is then that one must walk by blind faith, hoping against hope, as it were, that God will bring all right, possessing our soul in patience and bending our minds and wills as best we can. This may be only a purifying trial: to wean us from our purely natural obedience, to prevent us thinking obedience is within our own natural power. Then we can only be faithful, be patient, andtrust God: believing still that He is acting in the superior. But, if we are faithful, the light will surely break through: there can come a certain sense of reverence for God, even in this superior: a sense that we are really held captive by God, and so a certain peace in obeying which is not upset by surges of feeling, whether of depression or of irritation or of rebellion. God is there in spit~ of everything; and somehow fears begin to vanish: in sick-ness or in.health, in success or failure: "For I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, against that day" (II Tim. 1:12). Our trans-formation into Christ proceeds; and His obedience begins to seem a reality to us, and self-will, self-settlement, self-judgment begin to fade away. The memory, the imagination, and even the reason-ing powers may play tricks; but the calm conviction remains that it is good for me to cleave to the Lord, and that at the head of my book it is written that I should do Thy Will, O God. And here it may be well to return to another aspect of Christ's obedience; an aspect which shows how obedience made Him our °saving Victim, and how obedience will unite us to Him in a u~nion truly trarisforming. , 79 BERNARD LEEMING Reoiew for Religio'us CHRIST'S OBEDIENCE AND.THE REDEMPTION OF MANKIND Our Saviour's obedience was neither negative nor passive; He did not merely abstain from forbidden things, nor-did He, as it were, merely wait on events and allow Himself to be governed' by them. It w, as not the case that He came to endure death, and in consequence merely waited for the Jews to come and kill ,Him. On the contrary, His obedience was positive and active. 'He knew in-deed the inevitable end, but He knew that end was to come only as'a consequence of His active obedience to His Father's command to be the Good Sh.epherd. He journeyed from Nazareth to Caphar-nauru through Galilee, up to Cesarea Philippi, nearer Damascus than Jerusalem, and to Bethsaida, and through Sar;aaria, and to Jericho and Jerusalem, probably more than once. Pharisees were attracted to him from every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem (Luke 5:17). He gathered twelve apostles and seventy-two d~isciples and instructed them. He ,taught the people in the synagogues, in the tqwns, in the fields, on the mountain sides, by the lake sides, His energy and His force, the power he had, roused the fear of thd chief priests and the Jews, and they said: "Do you" see that we preva, il nothing? behold the whole world is gone after him" (John 12:19). He rebuked their hypocrisy fiercely and fearlessly. He drove the buyers and sellers from the temple, "and the disciples remembered that it was written 'The zeal of thy house hath eaten meoUP' " (John 2:17). The Jews put spies to report His words, and to lay traps for Him (Luke 20:19-20). "This command 'have I received'frdm my F'athe~," a command to spread the truth and the charit,y of His Father, even if in ful-filling that command He was to provoke the enmi'ty of the wicked and to draw down death unto Himself. About ,this obedience of Christ, St. Thomas puts the objection: ,"The will of God is not for the death Of ,men, even of sinners, but rather for their life, as Ezechiel ~ays:'I will not the death ofthe sinner but tl~at he should b~ converted and live. Much less then could it have been thd will of God the Father that the most perfect of .all men should be sub-jected to death." And ~he answers: "Although the will of God is 'not for the death of any man, nevertheless God-wills the virtue by which a. man bravely endures death and from charity exposes him-self to the peril of death. And in this.sense was the will of God for the death of Christ, in as much as Christ incurred the risk of death from charity and bravely endured death" (Contra Gentiles, 4, 55, ad 15). "As the Father has given me commandment, so 80 (¢larch, 1956 THE MYSTIC.ISM OF ~)BEDIENCE do I." Christ incurred the risk of death-not by passivity,' but by an activity which provoked opposition, by an actiVity which upset the whole of 3udaea and Palestine. Thus our Lord's obedience was vibrant with energy and was most complete.ly in accord with the mind and intentions and desire of His Father. He and the Father were one, in very being, though not in person; and when the Son became man among men there was One who gave to the most loving God the rndst energetic and loving service and praise, and gave it not on.ly for God's sake, but. for man's sake. It was by His obedience that Christ redeemed the world: "for as by the disobedience of one man," says St. Paul, "th~ many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, the many shall be made just" (Rom. 5:19). Surely a great mystery, that the destiny of us all should be so linked with the obedience or dis-obedience of two men: a mystery reflected in minor degree by the mysterious fact that we are all to some degree dependent upon one another in so many ways. It was because of obedience that Christ received the name Jesus. St. Paul tells us" that God in his fore-knowledge of the obedience unto death had given Him the name above all names (Phil. 2:8, 9).; and the angel ordered St.Joseph "and thou shalt call Hi~ name Jesus, ~for He shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). Because He was obedient unto death, therefore He has that name above all names: Jesus the obedi-ent, Jesus the Saviour. And because of that same obedience He is a priest forever. Our redemption was accomplished by the sacrifice of Christ, pr.ecisely because that sacrifice was an expression of the 'most ab-solute submission of the will of the Incarnate Son of God to the will of God. St. paul puts it in chapter ten of his letter to the Hebrews: "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. Hence he saith When entering into the world: Sacrifice and offering thou hast not desired. But thou hast pierced ~ars for me (a body thou hast prepared for ine). In holocausts and sin-offerings thou hast taken no pleasure: Then I said: Behold I am come (In the volume so it is written of me) To do, O God, thy will. In virtue of this 'will' we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all" (Heb. 10:4 ff., Boylan's, transla-tion in the Westminster versiorl). The line quoted by St. Paul from Ps. 39: "thou has pierced ears for me" is given thus in the Hebrew and in the Douay: but St. Paul probably quoted from the Septuagint. The piercing of ears 81 BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religiod's means the power of listening to God and hence of obeying Him. We find the same usage in English. Children are told by their mothers, "You will not listen to me"--you will not accept my advice nor do what I want; and children in turn think it wrong "not to listen .to me muther." What pleased God in Christ was the complete acceptance of His divine will: the highest offering to God is the offering of the whole b~ing to do His will; and, because it was a divine Person who made that offering with the uttermost perfec-tion as a man on earth, and made it for our sakes, to fulfill God's will that we might be .sanctified, we therefore all receive the power of being made holy through the sacrifice of Christ. There is yet another m~stery in this obedience of Christ: al-though He was God's own Son and knew perfectly His Father's will and loved that will, nevertheless He feels repugnance in the actual carrying of it into effect. One might perhaps imagine that' one so infinitely holy as our Lord would be so lifted up that there would be no feeling of recoil or repugnance from whatever His loving Father willed. Yet we know it was not so. When He was riding to Jerusalem just before the last Passover, certain Gr.eeks wanted to see Him, and He spoke of the underlying mystery of His life and death: "Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal" and then, mys-teriously, "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I sa.y? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause I came unto this hour" (John 12:27). How can He pray His Father to save Him from the pain and suffering and death, when it was precisely to endure them that He came? And yet, His very soul is distressed; it is an anticipation of the agony in the garden, when He "began to fear and t6 13e heavy, and he said to them, 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death' . . . and he fell flat on the ground; and he prayed, that.if it might be, the hour might'pass from him. !~nd he sayeth, Abba, Father, all things ar~ possible, to thee: remove this c~halice from me; but. not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:33-35). What His Father willed was not to be fulfilled directly between Him and His Father, but through people like Judas, Annas, Caiphas, Pilate, the Jewish mob, and the Roman soldiers; and it means not only physical suffering but denial of justice, denial of a fair bear-ing'of what He had to say, and. to say not so much for Himself 82 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE but for His Father, for God; 'it meant acceptance of that humanly mysterious providence of God which_ permits so much evil. Our Lord was a real man, with all a man's feeling, instincts, natural reactions: His divinity did not derogate in the least fro'm the full-ness of His humanity. Consequently, He experienced the ifistinc-. tive recoil of the feelings against pain and against death; further, even His natural reason and intellectual choice judged that death and rejection were hateful and in themselves to be avoided, and so His prayer was "if it be possible; let this chalice pass." St: Thomas tells us that our Lord prayed so to show us the reality of His human nature and to show that it is permissible, according merely to natural impulses to wish what God does not wish ("ut ostenderet quod homini iicet secundum naturalem affectum aliquid velle quod Deus non vult," Summa, 3, (~.21,a.2). Nevertheless the absolute choice; when all is conside.re.d, goes out straight to God's will, however repugnant to instincts and feeling and merely natural judgment (Summa, 3, Q. 18,a.6), and is in a sense the more united to God's will, because with His human will He ap-proves the instinctive reluctance of human 'nature, is glad to find it hard; and thus He can make the offering .of submission most truly as a man and with the fullness of His manhood. Not, in-deed, that these natural recoils against the horrors of the Passion in any way divided Christ in Himself, or lessened His glorious ac- ¯ ceptance of His Father's will, or blurred in any way the clearness of His vision--as fears and hopes and emotions do in us; never-theless, He felt the difficulties, even mental, just as acutely and more acutely than we could do, just as He could suffer physical pain as we do, and feel it more acutely. St. Paul spea.ks of Christ's obedience in a,way in which per-haps we might hesitate to do; he says: "Christ during his earthly life, offered prayer and entreaty to the God who could .save him from death, not without a piercing cry, not without tears; yet with. such piety as won him a hearing. Son of God though be was, he learned obedience in the school of suffering, and now, his full achievement reached, he wins eternal salvation for all those who render obedience to him" (Heb. 5:7-9, Knox tr.). St. Thomas, in his commentary on this text, makes this ob-jection: "To learn things, presupposes that one is ignorant of them. But Christ from all eternity~ being God, and even a's man from the first instant of His conception knew everything and had the fullness of knowledge. Consequently, since He knew every- 83 BERNARD LEEMING ~ Reoieto for Religious thing, how can it be said that He learned ,things?" . St." Thom, as answers': "There is a double kind of knowledge, the first being simple awhreness of the truth, and in this sense~Christ was ignorant of nothing. But there is also the knowledge begotten of experience, and according to this Paul says 'He learned from what He suffered [or in the school of experience]',' that is by actu-ally °experiencing. And the Apostle speaks thus because he who learns anything must willingly put himself in a position to learn it. Now Christ willingly took to Himself our weakness; and hence Paul says 'he learned obedience,' that is, how hard it is to obey, becauseoHe obeyed in most onerous and difficult matters, even to the death of the cross. And here he shows how difficult it is to attain the good of obedience. Because they who have not experi-enced obedience and have not learned it in difficult matters, believe that to obey is very easy. But in'fact to grasp what obedience really is, one has to learn to obey in difficult affairs, and he who has'not learned by'obedience to be subject, never knows how to command well and be a superior. Christ, therefore, although from eternity he knew by simple awareness what obedience was, nevertheless learned by experience obedience from what He suffered, that is, in. actual difficulties, through suffering and death" (Cornmentartl in Hebrews, ad loc.). But there is yet a greater myster~ here. The prayers of Christ, His tears, His entreaty to God who could save Him from death, these are not merely individual: they are His as head of the body, as forming one with us. He prays, entreats, weeps, ~uffers .for us and with us. S~. Gregory~Nazianzus says that w.hen Christ prayed upon the cross: "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?'" He spoke in the person of all mankind; and adds that this text about learning obedience must be understood in the same way: ':Having taken the nature of a slave, He condescends to enter fully into the life of His fellow-slaves and of slaves generally; and assumes a form different from His own, bearin'g the whole of me and all that I am within Himself, in order that in Himself. He may melt away my lower self, as fire the wax and the sun the morning mists, in order that I, through fusion with Him, may take in exthangeall that is His. Hence in very deed does He honour obedience and make trial of it in suffering. For the mere intention was not enough, just as it is not enough for us, unless we 'carry it out in act. For the act is the proof of the intention. Nor would it be far wrong to" understand that. He experienced our obedience and measured all 84 March, 1956 '~. THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE human things by, His own sufferings, and did so because of ,His affection and love for men: so that He.can estimate our experiences by His own, and reckon by suffering and weakness how much to demand of us and how much to yield to ,our infirmity" (Oratio Theologica 1, n.6; Migne Patres Graeci, 36, col. 109, 112). It was not He alone who was saved from death, but,the whole Of mankin~l who are united to Him, for whom He prayed, for whom He obeyed, "and offered His sacrifice. St. Leo says that the cross was the altar on ~vhich "through that saving victim the of-fering of the whole of ,human nature was a, ccomplished" (Sermo c.3; M.P.L. 54, 324). He ,bears "the whole of me and"all that I am within Himself" and offers His obedience for me to make up for my failures, to transfuse my dull and murky obedience with the radiance of His infinitely glorious obedience; and to* do the same for the, whole of mankind, becoming "hostiam. puram, hostian~ sanctam, bostiam immaculatam'" a sacrifice wholly sincere, holy, immaculate, and hence utterly acceptable to God for all of us. OUR OBEDIENCE AND OUR UNION WITH CHRIST THE SAVIOUR Our Lord is very explicit that "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me." .It is only Christ who sends the iSpirit of God (John 16:7) and even the Spirit of God "receiveth of Christ's and shows it to us (John 16 : 15). "And because you are sons God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts'" (Gal. 4:9). "God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we may live by him" (I John 4:9). There is no way in which we can go to God except in. Christ. There is no right manner of praying which neglects the Incariaate Word, or so tries to dispense with images or use of the imagination 'that-it passes over Jesus of Nazareth. There is no true mysticism save that Which is based upon faith in Jesus Christ. Now our Lord greatly commends obediencd to us. "Whoever shall do "the will of my Father, 'that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Matt 12:50). Even His own dear~other was dear to Him most of all because she "heard the word of God" and kept it (Luke 9:28). "Fie that bath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be lox)ed of my Father: and I will love Jaim': and will manifest myself to him." Our Lord could not make us a greater promise than to be~loved of His-FatheL to be Ioved.by Him, and to receive a manifestation, a re;celation of our Lord" Himself. BERNARD LEEMING Review [or Religious Based~upon these promises, to our Lord, the saints most strongly commend obedience to us'. St. Teresa says: "I believe that since Satan sees there is no road that leads more quickly to the highest perfection than this of obedience, he suggests many difficulties under the colour of some good, and makes it distasteful: let people look well into it, and they will see plainly that I am telling the truth. Wherein lies the highest perfection? It is clear that it does not lie in interior delights, not in great raptures, not in visions, not in the spirit of prophecy, but in the conformity of our will to the will of God, so that there shall be nothing we know He wills that we do not will ourselves with our whole will, and accept the bitter as joyfully as the sweet, knowing it to be His Majesty's will" (Fodndations, ch. 5). The reason for this statement, that our, union with God is in ~vill rather than in any perceptions that belong to our intellectual fac.ulties, seems to be this: anything that we know, we know accord-ing to our o.wn mind; the object known comes into our mind and necessarily to some extent takes on the shape of our mind, and hence shares in the limitations of our mind. The mind assimilates to itself the object known, and in so doing limits the obje'ct in some way. Consequently, we can only know God by means of comparisons, indirectly: in this life we cannot see God directly as He is, because be is too great for our minds to take in. -But the will is different from the intellect in that it does not ~bape the object by drawing the object into itself, but ,rather goes out to the object as it is in itself; the will therefore does not limit the object by its own limitations as the mind do~s. It follows from this, tb_at, although we cannot know God, in this life, exactly as He is, nevertheless we can love God Himself exactly as He is, be-cause our minds can get to God truly ~nd hence our wills can go out to God insofar as He is truly represented in oflr minds, and not insofar as the mind obscures God by imperfect, indirect knowl-edge. I can love a person, even though I do not knov¢ him thor-ougbly: I can know him enough to love him, and it is he himself that I love, and not my own imperfect conception of him. Hence, in this life our union with God is primarily a uni6n of will, although since man is one whole, that union of will reacts upon the intellect and upon all the powers of the soul, and bell~s to greater perception and awareness. One cannot be united to God in will without somehow coming to be aware of that~ fusion of wills and thus coming into almost direct contact with God Him- 86 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE self. St. Catherine of Siena was told that "the truly obedient man , always retains the desire of submission, and that this desire is like an inward refrain of music" (quoted by Marmion from the Dialogue~ on Obedience : Christ the Ideal of the Monk, p. 262). In this way, obedience is really a form of contemplation, simple, easy, and effective; and not wearisome to the bead. "This is what I am or-dered to do. It is God's will for me. I do it. That is God. That is all." Nor is this hindered if our obedience is very active, even if in obedience we must use initiative and ingenuity and resource. It is then that the very powers of the mind are given to God, wl~at intelligence we may have, what force of character, what gift of imagination, even what magnetism we may have to attract others. These are given to God, through the hands of the human beings who represent Him, and used gladly as we are directed~ because there is great security in using all our gifts as the mind of God, represented by a human superior, directs. Nothing could be m6re mistaken than to take the comparisons 9ften used by the saints, of a d~ad body, or an old man's staff, and apply them beyond their real application. They are not used to indicate complete passivity, but to indicate that we make no resistance to being moved from this house to the other, from this post to the other, or, even, that we are content if obedience makes no use of our talents at all. They in-dicate that we are completely dead and nothing but a walking stick as regards our own peculiar ideas when they clash with the su-perior's. Perhaps if the saints bad known of bose pipes, with a strong and full pressure of water in them, they might have used the comparison of a hose pipe which could be turned in this direc-tion or that, made to'give a heavy stream of water or a narrow jet, according as the bands holding it directed. The comparisons mean that the force and power which God may- bare given us is placed utterly in the control of the superior, as representing God; and that by faith we believe that the only good result will come from the union of that force and powe.r with the will of God as interpreted to us by His representative. . Here, too, enters what is called blind obedience. Now to inter-pret blind obedience as unintelligent, stupid obedience would be itself unintelligent and stupid. The more intelligent people are the more they must use their intelligence in order to obey well. The blindness only comes in after all due representations bare been made --and it is part of the duty of obedience to make reasonable repre- BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religious sentations, even to make them forcibly on .occasion-- and the su-perior orders us to do something with which our natural reason does not agree, for which we cannot see the reasons or the reason-ableiaess. It is then that we must be carried by an impulse of the will, blind to natural reasons, desirous only of conforming the understanding to the mind of the superior. And mtich can be done in this way: to close our mental ears to contrary reasonings, to look at it from the superior's side, and to make ourselves well af-fected to our superior. We cannot, of course, assent contrary to the known truth; but often the truth about the wisdom of a course of action can be perceived differently according to the antecedent state of mind in which we train ourselves, and according to the way we allow our minds toact. If we have opened our minds to the reve-lation of 6ur Lord beneath the deficiencies of the human agent, then it is easier to see God's will in what may naturally only look like ignorance, prejudice, favouritisrri, or vanity, So often it happens that lack of the spirit of obedience leads to narrow and restricted views. Obedience can and does take the ,long view. God's providence works oddly. Perhaps God sometimes 'wishes a poor superior, an incompetent superior, in order to use them as a lesson for subjects, or perhaps one special subject, a lesson to teach them what to do, and ~hat not to do, when they themselves are superiors! And to oppose that superior, to magnify his defects, to allow feelings to become ruffled, or depression to take possession of the 'spirit--this is Clearly to oppose God Himself, contrary to what we have promised Him." Perhaps God wants a certain 'work to fail, and to fai.1 precisely through our most obedient efforts and strivings, in order'to obtain some greater good of which we cannot be aware. In this sense, it is perfectly true that obedience, although. its proper fruit may seem to be to perfect the will, :nevertheless also perfects the understanding: it gives the understanding length and breadth and depth, conforming it to the infinite wisdom and knowl-edge of God. Often only in retrospect are we able to see that it was not only virtuous to obey, but was very wise, also. "Because you are conscious within yourselves," says St. Ig-natius of Loyola, "that you have undergone this yoke of obedi-ence for the love of God, to the end that you might, in following the Superior's will, more assuredly follow the divine, will; doubt not, but that the mgst faithful charity of our Lord continually directs you and .leads you in the right Way" by the hands of those whom He gives you for Superiors.''~ 88 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE This yoke of obedience: it can indeed bear heavily, it ban chafe and sometimes cut, and force us to go on and on dragging a weari-some burden. Christ Hirhself'felt the burden, and even prayed that it might be lifted from Him. And yet to Him, His Father's charity was faithful, most faithful; and even through the hands of Annas and Caiphas, of Judas and of Pilate, that faithful charity of His Father led Christ in that right way that led to our salvation. Christ obeyed for me. Christ }rusted His father for me. Christ loved me and delivered Himself for met delivered Himself for me not only that my sins migh}: be forgiven, that grace might come to me, but als'o that to me might come the honour of sharing His obedience with Him, of offering the noblest part of me to His Father with His offering, even of making myself one with His self-giving for the redemption~ of mankind. Nothing so unites us to Christ as Obedience;. for perfect obedi-ence gives to Him our liberty, our memory, and our very under-standing. What more" have we that we can give? And this giving is the most perfect charity: if you love me,. keep my commandments. Yet we give them in such simple, often almost commonplace, ways: doing what we are told, be it great or small, be it important or un: important, be it hard or easy. Nevertheless, if we do gi.ve our whole selves to Him in this simplicity of obedience, be sure that His most faithful charity does stay~ with us. Gradually He ta.kes us all: our remnants of self-contentment, our rags of pride, our dirtiness of devious self-seeking; of all these and suchlike His faithful charity gradually strips us: a pain at once and yet a joy, He is meek and humble of heart, even in His purifying of us to make us more fit to share with Him in His unutterably pure sacrifice to God. ,,He fills us with His own love of His Father. He gives us sometimes to feel something of that. joy with which He went to His Father. He allows us sometimes to see that His saving work goes on, even thrbugh me, even through me: but yet not through me, only through Him, and I spoil it, and yet He does not let me Spoil it quite, because it is truly He who obeys in me, and His obeying is of infinite love, even God's own love, The mystery of obedience: it is the mystery °of Christ; the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, in whom all is one, even to the blessedness qf giving of the WhOle and yet" receiving, of the Whole". And yet, it is quite simple: "If you love me, keep my command-_ ments. BERNARD LEEMING To conclude, then: ! 1. Obedience is a good in itself, and not for any utilitarian purpose, because obedience in itself unites me to God; and unity with God is an end in itself. 2. Obedience reflects the unity of Christ with His Father and reflects the divine life in Him. So it does likewise in me. 3. It is through obedience, as such, and not through human advantages secured by obedience, that Christ redeemed us. It is through obedience that we share His redeeming mission, share His power to save souls. 4. Progress in obedience means progress in union with Christ and means, too, greater accomplishment in our redemptive union with Him. With Christ we are co-workers in redemption; but that co-working (s, first and middle and last, union in His obedience. 5. Conkequently, let us pray for opportunities of obedience: that we may do each task because God commands it, that we may find our love and our life in doing His will. If the commands are simple, thank God; if they are difficult--perhaps removal from an office, perhaps subordination to an uncongenial senior--thank God more, for what else" are we for but to obey? SUMMER SESSIONS The Institute for Religious at College Misericordia, Dallas, Pennsylvania (a three-year summer course of twelve days in canon law and ascetical theology for siste.rs), will be held this year August 20-31. This is the first year in the triennial course. The'course in canon law is given by the Reverend 3osepb F. Gallen, S.2'., that in ascetical theology by the Reverend Daniel 2. M. Callahan, S.2., both of Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. The registration is restricted to higher superiors, their councilors, general and provincial officials, mistresses of novices, and those in similar positions. Applications are to be addressed to the Reverend doseph F. Gallen, S.2., Woodstock College, Woodstock, Md. Gonzaga University offers three summer institutes for religious women only. These institutes were inspired by the recent emphasis on the religious formation of sisters. The topics and dates for the institutes are: moral direction for others~ dune 19-30; understanding human nature, 2'uly 2-13; personal holiness, 2.uly 16-27. Gonzaga also offers two institutes for priests only; one on sacred eloquence, the other on-the psychology of the adolescent. For further information write to the Reverend Leo 2". Robinson, S.3., Gonzaga University, Spokane 2, Washington. 90 Sist:ers' Ret:reat:s--I I Thomad Dubay, S.M. APPROACH TO SUB3ECT MATTER |N this second article on our sisters' retreat survey, we will discuss I the retreat master's approach to his subject matter. The first of the questions asked the sisters dealt with the technique the re-treat master uses in setting forth his tea.ching. We can convey what is here meant~ in no better way than by, reproducing the question just as it was asked.To avoid needless repetition, we will indicate the sisters' choices together with the statement of the survey question. Which of the following emphases in meditation exposes do you usually prefer? __many quotations from Sacred Scripture . 27 4.0%) __intellectual explanation of doctrine, principles, etc .115 16.9 %) __emotional approach (stress on beautiful images, language, etc.) .o . :'. . 4 .6%) ____combination of first and second . 195 (28.6%) ¯ __combination of first and third . 16 (2.3%) __combination of Second and third . 28 (4.1%) __mixture of all three . 297 (43~.5%) Further comment: (space p.rovided) From this data several conclusions seem unavoidable: 1. Almost none of the sisters (.6%) want stress placed on the emotions alone. 2. The group of sisters who want any notable stress placed on the emotions is decidedly small (7%). This conclusion is reached by combining categories 3, 5, and 6. 3. The vast majority (91.3%) want emphasis placed on solid intellectual content whatever the combination of emphases might be. This con, clusion is obtained by combining groups 2, 4, 5, and 7. 4. A large minority (45.5%) prefer no emotional appeal mixed in with the intellectual. This can be seen by uniting the results from categories 2 and 4. 5. The frequent use~of Sacred Scripture follows the intellectual approach in popularity among the sisters. The comments of the sisters on this problem are both interest-ing and enlightening. All three, but the emotional element ought to be relatively small. If the intellectual explanation is ignored, women's piety tends to becom~ soft, enervated, spineless. A thought-provoking, solid presentation with enough of the emotional to make it spiritually palatable appears best to me. 91 THOMAS DUBAY Reuieu~ for Religious I believe that principles for religious life should be based on .Holy Scripture. It is only too late that one finds the beauty and worthwhile passages in Holy Scripture. Personally, I have, found myself living in close union with God by just one passage studied in the New Testament at meditation or spiritual reading. Let's have intellectual explanation. If the priest has the ability to express his ideas well so much the better. The use of Scriptu.re must be an overflow from the medi-tative life of the speaker. There has been too much emphasis on' the emotional approach, so why not get meditation on a solid basis for a change? Intellectual and emotional--I don't mean sentimental. God made things t0 be beautiful. Why not~ talk about those beautiful things? A balanced mixture with no excess in any one. Flowery language annoys more than appeals, I think, Father; however, a correct, flfient style helps much--language from the heart to the heart--without being dramatic or emotional. Mixture of all. A retreat group made up of different personalities, characters, men~ talkies, etc. needs meditation exposds that will to a certain extent reach all. Beautiful thoughts stay in the memory much longer than cold cut and dry ones. Women love beautiful things, why not give them to us? I dislike retreat masters who key their meditations to the emotions. Probably they do this because they have been led to think women prefer this. I do not find the e~otional approach "stands up" under the r~alistic test of a year in the religlous life, Exposition of the Sacred Scriptures appeals to me as most fruitful for meditation. (Texts on Public Life of Christ.) Some emotion has its place, undoubtedly, but I think to be effective it requires the most complete sincerity on the part of the retreat master--otherwise it only makes one uncomfortable. Some emotional stress helps, but I resent having my emotions obviously played upon. Besides, the emotional effect is most iikely to wear off. I would like to add emotional approach in the original meaning of appeal to the emotions or affections, not sentimentality, but with much intellectual and doctrinal support. Never emotional. ,Meditation becomes more fruitful, more satisfying as knowledge, of the Scriptures and doctrine increases. Quotation from Scriptures is fine IF that quotation is explained. Content thoroughly intellectual. Manner of presentation depending on the indi-vidual's broad reading, conversations, and own conviction and realization (we need some variety here!). Structure stemming from Scripture. All three. ~owever, oratory (?), (shouting, whispering, and dramatic pauses) can be omitted in ALL exposes. God forbid! (emotional approach) It is amazing how all three sprinkled in can provide the "oil" for my own "ma-chinery"-- in other wolds, "the Holy Ghost can work through all three approaches to fit the individual--don't limit the approach and.keep 'em happy! and thinking. 92 March, 1956 SISTERS' RETREATS "---II IX view of the sisters' observations just given and the numerical data previously noted, it appears that retreat masters should attempt to tailor their techniques accor~ling to the conclusions we have al-ready indicated. AMOUNT OF THEOLOGY We approach now a much-bandied-about question in the circles of sister formation interests: theology. Here we shall view the problem from the vantage point of retreat content, which, of course, touches upon in-service sister f6rmation. The amount of theology desirable in a retreat and the degree in which the sisters un'derstand it were the objects of two questions, the first of which follows: Do you think that the amount of theology ordinarily presented in retreat meditations is __ekcessive '.2__~too little __about right Further comment :__ A notable majority, 486 (72.6 %), of the sisters are well sails-fled with the amount of theology they ordinarily receive in their rdreats, although a sizeable minority, 171 (25.6%), decidedly think they hear too little. A v~ry small gr0ui~, 12 (1.8%), feel that too much theology is presented. The pres~ent writer has the impression from reading the many replies that the more completely educated sisters tend in greater ,.numbers to want more theology in their retreats, whil'e those with less formal training tend in greater nu~nbers to feel satisfied with the status quo. These tendencies are not, however, universal, for there are sister-teachers in college who are satisfied with retreat theology as it stands and some domestic sisters who desire more. The sisters offered the following comments on' their answers: Representative of those who think the theology is excessive: Excessive because of mixed groups of domestic sisters, etc.; otherwise it would be about right. Sisters who think the theology too little: ' Too much "dry" repetition of elementary data on the fundamentals., Religious should be mature and treated as such. o ¯ The more the better. We need it for .our teaching preparations. I have found it of great advantage when theology was much presented, since I only had an elementary education. Superiors should be advised to give books of theology to read to their sisters, if the confessor appr6ves of it, when a sister desires .it. ' 93 THOMAS DUBAY Revieu~ for Religious \ Many sisters are starved for real spiritual meat which can be satisfied only through theology. For many of the sisters retreat time is the only time they get a chance to get some theology. I don't think xve can get too much! Much too little. In some God is hardly mentioned except as author" of this or that law. And the Holy Ghost not so much as heard of. "Religious who think the amount of theology about right: Some tend to overdo it, but I think it appears excessive only if the retreat master uses too many abstract technical terms. I like points of theology brought out since I never studied it as such. Although it is not too little, there could be more as a number of us have the oc-casion to use it daily, Depends on retreat master. I find retreat masters about right; too little usually. Also depends on individual. It differs from a great deal to too little. Perhaps it could be more in most cases. I am satisfied with just the Personality of Christ according to Gospels. Retreat days ought not be a course in theology. If necessary, this should be taken care of otherwise. Some give more, others less, so that on the whole I'd say it evens up about right. As far as I am concerned, a deep theological retreat would be out of place. The mental training of our sisters is too varied to admit of excessive technicality in meditations. Sound, simple explanation of dogma is always welcome. Rather excess than defect. Sisters need solid dogmatic principles always. Do much harm a,mong those taught if they lack principles. Sometimes it is very excessive, but usually about right. However, they often presuppose more theological knowledge on our part than many of us actually possess. For our younger sisters who have had many courses in theology, it may be about right. For our older people and those who because of the work they do, do not continue.their education, it is probably excessive, except where the retreat master takes the trouble to clearly explain his points. Distinguish: amount of theology usually presented--O.K.; skill in bringing out theological implications, e.g., in a meditation on the Passion, without getting dry and classroomish--tbis is rarer. Too much, I believe, would dishearten the less intellectual; too little would make it impossible to form a foundation for the convictions necessary in living a spir-itual life. In coming toa satisfactory conclusion on this whole problem of theology it seems that the retreat m~ister must keep two cardinal points in mind: the sisters' background and his own treatment. March, 1956 SISTERS' RETREAT'S--II Both of these points are so relative that no possible suggestion to be adopted by all retreat masters can be given here. What is excessive for one community (or for one group of. sisters within it) may be too little for a second and about right for a third. Likewise, the same theology in the mouth of one priest may be excessive; in that of another, too little. To adjust the first relative element the retreat master might conduct a careful investigation of the sisters to whom he is going to give his retreat. He could write the provincial superior requesting information on the education and works of the sisters making the retreat and then adapt his methodology accordingly. An appraisal of the second element (the priest's treatment of theology) could be effected by. a simple, one-page questionnaire given by the retreat master to the sisters after his retreats. He could ask whether he had given enough theology, whether his e~planation was simple and clear, and any other question that might contribute to greater efficiency. This information would not benefit the sisters who furnished it, but it could be most helpful in subsequent retreats given by the retreat m~ister. /SISTERS' UNDERSTANDING OF THEOLOGY The sisters were next asked if they thought that the theology that was presented in their retreats was understood. Do you think that the sisters can understand the theology that is presented at least fairly well? __.most of them "do __some do __few do Further comment:__ The breakdown of the answers to this .query is percentage-wise quite close to that of the preceding question. The presence of too many diverse factors, however, prevents us from asserting that this correlation is really significant. For example, on this question some of the sisters answered in an unexpected way. These few indicated that the amount of theology discussed in retreats is too little and then in the present question chose the response ""some do" rather than "most do." Of the sisters ans.wering this question, 517 (76.2%) "think that most understand the theology, 153 (22.5%) that only some grasp it, and 9 (1.3%) that few sisters understand it. For this question it does not seem necessary to divide the sisters' further comments into categories, for their meaning is clear enough as they stand. 95 THOMAS DUBAY I'm not anything when it comes to brain power, but 1 can say. that I understood everything I've heard so far. Most sisters with high school or. colleg'e education can understand. Sisters with elementary education who have grown old with hard manual labor in homes or seminaries cannot. All in my community understand what is presented,, and most do it better than "fairly well.'~ I don't know how other sisters feel about it, but I like it. I think perhaps most of the priests think we have had more theology than we really have had. I certainly feel the sisters would be capable of receiving more if it were given. Before retreat begins we are able rather accurately to predict the outline of the con-ferences, if not .the matti~r of each conference. No challenge! ,. Very poor foundation in theology obtained in thee novitiate. Since most sisters either have a college education or are receiving it, they can under-stand considerably more than is usually offered, i believe. The fact that they might not [understand] would seem to indicate a further need for it. Too often I feel that the retreats are directed prima,rily to the teachers and the others find it difficult to follow ot:' gain much from it. Most' of them do, but not all like it. There is a certain type of nun who likes simple retreats. I do not believe it is a case of sisters failing to understand theology, but a case of retreat masters failing to present theology. Sisters have often gone through retreats without deriving much practical help. All sisters do not have a high inte!ligence and need more explaining. Much depends On the master's ability to make theological truths clear and mean-ingful, A retreat master should conduct the retreat on as high a theological, philosophical,. ascetical, and even mystical a plane as he is able. He should give sisters exactly the same substantial content as he would give to other priests. He need have no fear that they will not be able to understand and live what he himself understands and lives. He should deliver his message however without scholarly verbiage, Latinisms, and all the other .trappings~which' serve to impress rather than to clarify. Through no fault of 'their own, sisters do not have the information to cgpe with this. It is a great m'istake however--and sad to say a common one--to confound a sister's lack of technical theological learning with a lack of intelligence. It is the priest's task to make the technical comprehensible to the non-theologian. This of course demands much more unde~rstanding than does a presentation in the language of the manu'als. Most retreat masters present a very thin spiritual gruel by comparison with what they could give if they. had greater respect for the potentialities of the sisters. ~ The suggestions appended to our discussion of the immediately preceding question would appear to apply to this present problem with equal validity. 96 ( .uesHons and Answers [The following answ,ers are given by°Father Joseph F. Gallen, S.d., professor of canon law at Woodsiock College, W, oodstock, Maryland.] tI,t 9 ' Ih our concjrecjatlon of :sis ers here is a fee c~harcjed for the expenses of the postulancy and noviceshipI. Recently a novice had to have an op-eratlon for append|c,tls. Are tile expenses of th,s operat,on included ~n the fee, or are her parents obl,cjed to pay them? As permitted by can. 570~ § 1, and found at least frequently in all types of religious institutes', the constitutions of nuns and sisters ordinarily d~mand that the ca!ndidate brin~ prescribed clothing and personal effects with her to the postulancy and pay an established sum for the expenses ofthe" Ipostulancy and noviceship. The ex-penses for which payment mawr be demanded are only the ordinary and common expenses of food and clothing. The cost of the medi-cines and similar personal necessities that are usually required may be included under food. The I . ~ordmg of the canon does not permit an exaction for lodging nor for the cost of formation. Much less does it permit that the sum be~ established also for the profit of the institute, as if the,subject wer,e a student of an academy or college. The spirit of the canon is rather that nothing should be demanded if such a polic3r is a practical conform to this spirit at least readiness to grant necessary di Extraordinary expenses, e. g., serious illness, are not inciucJ The institute may rightfully that such expenses be borne b3 cases can readily and frequent'~ dent or inconsiderate to urge possibility~ Superiors should and do the extent of a prompt and cheerful pensationL whether whole or partial. those of :a surgical operation or of a '.d in this fee for ordir~ary expenses. demand, as in the present question, the subject or her parents. However, ~" occur in which it would be impru-his right: If the postulant or novice leaves or is dismissed, the insti}ute is entitled to payment of ex-p~ nses only for the time spe~nt in'the institute. 'Some aspects of the practice should be studied for possible re-vision. The list of things thalt the candidate is to bring with 'her should ,not be so massive as to]dismay a~ay-girl. Perhaps this is male ignorance, but it does not seem efficient to have each candidate bring such objects as towels, sheets, blankets, napkins, and silverware. I should think that uniformity of size and quality would be desir-" QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Re~iew for Religious able in such objects, that the institute could purchase them at a lower price, and that it would be more efficient to increase the fee somewhat. Despite any ancient authority that may be cited for this and similar.practices, I cannot see how personalized silverware contributes to speed in setting up a large refectory and much less to the supposed simplicity and humility of the religious life. Although extraneous to the present question, I would hold the same for a train on the religious habit, which appears to me to be neither simple nor humble and to be at least dubious in the field of hygiene. The customary practice of requiring that parents continue to supply during .the postulancy and noviceship things such as soap and toothpaste and articles of clothing that have been exhausted or worn out is the deceptive economy of money saved, but with un-noted spirit, ual depreciatiofi. The practice does not manifest a gen-erous spirit on the part of the institute and is not apt to engender a spirit of devotion and loyalty in the subject. It may also be the primaryreason why so many professed secure necessities from ex-terns. The psychology of religious infancy can be more lasting and tenacious than that of human infancy, and the usual correlative of stinginess of superiors is stubborn infidelity of subjects to. the ob-ligations of the vow and the laws on poverty. It is evidently con-trary to the quasi-contract of profession for an institute to exact payment from parents for expenses incurred after profession. Free gifts may be accepted. Expenses for food and clothing should not be charged for any period in which the postulants and novices are 'fully applied to the external works of the institute, e. g., as full-time teachers or nurses. It is conservative to state that few parents of religious are wealthy. Many have exhausted their financial capability in giving a son or daughter a high school education. They have sac-rificed any return on a child's earnings by the entrance into religion. Further exactions should not be imposed on them without at least careful and considerate thought. Finally, it is always to be remem-bered that it is extravagance, not~generosity, that is incompatible with religious poverty. ~0 Is it true that a resident chaplain should never hear ÷he confessions of ~'he sisters of the convent of which he is chaplain'? A chaplain as such is not the ordinary, extrhordinary, nor a sup-plementary confessor of the community. He may be appqinted as such. I believe that many would agree with me .in the statement that it is better not to appoint him as the ordinary" or extraordinary 98 March, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS c~nfessor of the c6mmunity. Anything alSproaching authority, mere friendship, and frequent soc"la 1a1n d b u s'iness contacts can be harmful to the greater efficacy of confeIs s. ion. It is therefore bettek not to ap-point a priest such as a chapla~in or one teaching in the school' with the sisters as their ordinary or extraordinary confessor. Since the confession will be the choice of the individual sister, no such reason exists against his appointment as the special ordinary of a sister or as a supplementary confessor of the convent of which he is,chap-lain. In the latter case he is evidently obliged in virtue of this ap-pointment to hear the confession of any sister 6f the convent who approaches him for confession when there is a just reason and for as long as the just reason continues. There is no question that he will be willing to hear'the confession of a sister in danger of death¯ Inasmuch as he possesses confessioIial jurisdiction for women, he can be both an occasional and a confessor of seriously sick sisters¯ As such he is obviously not to usurp the duty of the ordinary confessor of the community, but he should be willing to hear the confessions of sisters who reasonably request him to do so. He cannot be un-mindful of charity, and his study of moral theology and can6n law should have convinced him that cases of real spiritual necessity occur in all states of life. Furthermore, the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments has emphasized the principle with regard to the members of any type of community: ". what is especial, ly important, that they should have the opportunity to make a confession also shortly before the time of Communion . . . where frequent and daily Com-munion is in vogue, frequent and daily opportunity for sacramental confession, as far as that is possible, must also be afforded¯"' (Bous-caren, Canon Laco Digest, II, 210.) The Sacred Congregation could not have been unaware of the fact that the only priest who is cus-tomarily present in a house of lay religious daily, especially immedi-ately before Mass, is the resident chaplain or the priest who says the daily Mass. II We are a diocesan concjregation. Sometime in the past we had a particular sister who left; if she had not left, we would have tried to dis-miss her. She was a most difficult and peculiar subject. On leavlncj, she threatened to sue us for the work she had done in the concjrecjation. How could we have protected ourselves.'! Relig'ious progression contains two elements, the taking o;f the vows and a quasi-contract between the subject and the institute. One of the elements of this quasi-contract is that the religious gives 99 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERff Review for Religious over all her. labor to the institute. For. this reason can. 580, § 2, logically declares that anything given to a religious for his work belongs to the institute~ With equal logic can. 643, § 1, declares that a professed religious who leaves or is dismissed may not seek com-pensation for services rendered to the institute. This Canon is in-serted in constitutions approved by the Holy See. It is also under-stood that the same dedication of services applies to postulants and novices. The Holy See in approving constltut~ons adds a provision to can. 643 § 1. This provision enacts'that aspirants on their admis-sion to the postulancy must signa civilly valid document in which they dechlre that they will not demand any remuneration for serv-ices given in .the institute if they leave or are dismissed. The Holy. See of late has also been requiring that this declaration be renewed at the time of perpet[~al profession. It is understood that this pro-vision applies also to the postulancy and noviceship and is to be so wprded. To avoid any future difficulty, "such a provision should be made, even if it is not prescribed in the constitutions. The reason for the renewed declaration prescribed at the time of perpetual pro-fession is to make certain that the declaration will be made at a legal age, since .perpetual~ profession cannot be validly made until the day after the twenty-first birthday (c. 573). -12 Is correspondence'with the vicar for religious exempt from the in~pec-tion of superiors? Canon 611 exempts from inspection correspondence °with the local ordinaries to whom the religious is subject in matters in which the religious is subject to the ordinaries. It is probable that this same exemption extends to corresigondence with the priest delegated by l;h.e local ordinary to take care of the affairs of a igarticular community or of some or all communities of the diocese, since in fact such a priest i's handling the matters that appertain to the ordinary. It can be objected that the canon does not say, "to the local ordinary or his delegate," and fi superior could licitly deny that the exemption is proved.' However, it would be the part of prudence at least' not to subject such mail to any inspection. Religious ~bould be instructed not to be quick td write to the Holy See, the cardinal protector, " the apostoli~'deleg~ite; or the local ordinary, or his delegate. Such letters derriand a serious m~itter that cannot be resolved by recourse to one's own religious, suPeriors. °External authorities and dignitaries'should. 100 March, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS n6t,be annoyed by, needless a'nd extraneous correspondence; and do-mestic grievances, especially if purely personfil' or subjective, are to be confined by the family walls. How many "washings must alprlest do of the puHficators, palls, and corporals? Purifactors, palls, and cor~orals~ used in the sacrifice of the Mass are to be washed by. a cleric in major orders ,before being laundered by lay persons. The water of thls first w, ashing is to be poured into the sacrarium. The cleric in m~jor orders is obliged to only one ritual .washing; he may'do three if l~e wisbes to do so. The first washing may not be done even by rehglous women without an indult from the Holy See. The local ordinaries in mission countries have the power of granting such perm~ssmn to religious women. Cf. c. 1306, § 2; Cori3nata, Institutiones Iu~is Canonici, II, n. 887, 2*; J. O'Con-nell, The Celebration of Mas's, 256; Collins, The Church Edi[ice and Its AppOintments, 219-2~: Britt, Church Linens, 32; Murphy, The Sacristan's Manual, 12-13; Winslow, A Cornrnentarg on the Apostolic Faculties, 61. " Does the general ~decree on ~he simplification of the rubrics apply to the Lfffle Office of the ELV.M.? The decree of the Sacred [Congregation of Rites is confined to the rubrics of the Divine Office, and Mass, but from analogy the norms on the beginning and ~nd of the hours nSay be licitly used in both the choral and indivi~tual recitation of the Little Office of the B. V. M. The following, is a summary of the ~.ertinent parts of the decree. In beginnin~ both the pub(ic and private recitation c~f the canoni-cal hours, the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Apostles' Cr~ed are omitted; and the hours begin~ absolutely as follows: Matins from Domine, labia mea aperies; Cc~mpline from Iube, dorone benedicere; all others from Deus, tn adtut~orturn. In both public and private recitation, the canonical hours end as follov~s: Prime with Dom~mus nos benedicat; Complin~ with Benedicat et custodiat; all others,including Matins if recited pri-vately, with Fideliurn anirnae.~ The office ends after Compline with the recitation of the ,custo-mary antiphon of the B. V-. M., which is said here only, and Divinum auxiliurn. The indult and indulgences granted for the recit'ation of QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Sacrosanctae are attached to this same final antiphon 6f the B, V, M. Cf.~ M.'Noir0t, L'Arni du C!erg~, August, 1955, 512, note 2. 15 I wished to send a letter ,÷o ~he superior general, and I believed there was a serious reason why'th~ sehdincj of this letter should hive remained completely unknown to the local superior. How c,oulc~ I have accomplished this without violating our regulations? Correspohden~e with-higher superiors is exempt in virtue of c. 611. Exemption means the right to send and receive determined let-ters without permission, to receive them u~aopened, to send them uninspected, and probably the right to send and receive ttSem com-pletely unknown to the superior. Therefore, a superior is not to open sfich letters; and they are to be sealed before being presented to a s'uperior. The probable right o.f sending and receiving them com-pletely unknown to the superior is founded on the wording of c. 611, which states that exempt letters .are subject to n6 inspection. Article 180 of the Normae of 1901 aflir;ned that th~se letter~ were free of any inspection. It can be argued, at least with probability, that they would be subject to some inspection if they had to be presented to or received by the superior. Ordinarily there will be no special reasons against transmitting these letters sealed through the local superior. However, it should be possible to obtain a stamp unknown'to,the.superior; e." g., by having some stamps in the custody of the local.assistant or another religious. If a subject cannot so ob-tain a ~tam. p and wishes to send an exempt letter free of all inspec-tion,° he may obtain a stamp from other sources. He is to avoid all disedification in such.an act. It is not necessary to go to the ex-treme of having the porter separate all exempted envelopes and hand them immediately to the individual religious. ~16~ Our constifutlons state that the reading at table is to be from a pious book. What is the meaning of a pious book? This article of the constitutions is based, on article 182 of th~ Normae of 1901, which specified that the reading was to be from "some 16ious book." This does not demand that. the .reading be always from~ a ~spiritual book; the interpretatior~.is that the reading should be spiritual or useful. Therefore," the reading mgy be also from su{h book~ as" ecclesiastical histories, histories of'religious in-stitutes, e~clesiastical biog~aphies,'etc.,, and, also from instructive and hppropridte secular works. Cf. Battandie'r, Guide Canonique, n. 303. 102 90o! Reviews [All material for this department should be sent to: Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College. West Baden Springs, Indiana.] THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST AS THE BASIC PRINCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL,LIFE. By F~iedr[ch Jurcjensmeler. Translafed by Harrier G. Sfrauss. Pp. 379. Sheed and Ward, New York. 1954. $5.00. If ever there was a work of love; it is Father Jurgensmeier's The Mystical Bod~l of Christ. This is flue not ~nly of its subject matter but also of its authorship" an4 translation. The author, rector of the Archiepisocpal Seminary of Paderborn from 1938 to 1946 and martyr of necessary overwork, wrote only this one book, spending years on it and seemingly integrating his whole life, thought, and reading in it. The translator, Harriet G. Strauss, a convert, worked intermittently for five years under 'the direction of Provost Heinrich Seidler of Dresden putting the book into English. The first part of the book. is a comprehensive synthesis df Pauline "texts concerning the Mystical Body, a synthesis which both leads "the reader to the conclusion that the living union with Christ in the MysticalBody is the core of St. Paul's message and makes him anx-ious to read through the Epistles of St. Pa'ul to discover for himself ,their.wealth ~of meaning~ This section is followed' by a difficult dogmatic_ exposition demonstrating that whether one traces the dogmatic path leading from man to God or the one leading from ¯ God through grace to man, one nevertheless ends up at the same place, union with Christ in the Mystical Body. Thus the Mystical Body dogma, because of its central and fundamental position in dogmatic theology, ,is also the basic prificiple for the ascetical life. The last and most rewarding part of the book shows how the Mystical Body doctrine, 'as the fundamental principle of the as-cetical life, not only balances the roles of grace and human effort in" asceticism, but centers attention on Christ rather than on peripheral matters. It does this because it clearly-shows union with Christ as the center and source of all spiritual life; because it focuses atten-tion on the'sacraments as forces integrating us into the structure of the~Mystical Body of Christ and uniting us more closely with Him; because it regulates private devotion and'the liturgy,: and co-ordinates them into .the sacrificial action of Christ the High Priest;- because without neglecting the moral virtues it emphasizes the the- 103 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Retigiou~ ological as uniting with Christ, because it reveals suffering as the finest living of Christ's life and charity as the chief duty in one united with Christ; because it spotlights the fact that each one of us, no matter how insignificant, has a unique and important personal work to accomplish' in Christ's Mystical Body. ° If there are three strata of knowledge in theology, the topmost for the experts, the middle for eager students, and the lowermost for the average Catholic, then Father 3urgensmeier's work would be on the second level sinc,e it demands concentration and study. The translator-edftor is to be lauded for her work in bringing this book into conformity with Pius XII's~M~stici Corporis, but sh~ has not succeeded in all respects. For example, Father Jurgensmeier's errors concerning the extent of and conditions for incorporation in the Mystical Body, though removed in mor.e evident passages, still persist in less noti.ceable ones. Nor are the quotations from M~stici Corporis always apt in selection and textual integration. Father Jurgensmeier himself has complicated the task of the translator by using the same terms in two senses, sdmetimes within the same sen-tence, wiihout warning the reader. Further, in praiseworthily en-deavoring to clarify the meaning of that special mystical identifica- 'tion with \Christ, he has ambiguously described it as a personal character. But these,qualifications, though meant as a warning of caution too the reader, are not intended as derogatory to this magnificent work. Rather it should be considered, as Archbishop Cushing notes in the Foreword, o"a spiritual masterpiece" which can be reread and reread always with g~eater profit. DAVID d. HASSEL, S.J. I AM A DAUGHTER OF THE CHURCH. A Practical Synthesis of Car-mellfe Splrifuality. Volume II. By P. Marie-Eucjane, O.C.D. Trans-la÷e~: l by SMer M. Verda Clare,: C.S.C. Pp. 667. Fides Publishers, Chicacjo 10, Illinois. 19SS. $6.75. In 1953 Fides Publishers produced the first part of a synthesis of the teachings of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross (with examples from the life of the Little Flower) under the title 1 Want to See God. The present work brings to a close this bril-liant and compendious study, explaining as it does the; soul's prog-ress from the beginning of supernatural contemplation in the fourth" of the Teresan.mansions to ~the~ ultimate union °with God in the seventh, .104 March, "1956 ." BOOK REVIEWS Anyone interested in the various stages of supernatural and mystical prayer will find this work of great assistance. The author's genius for synthesis--abundant quotations woven together "with commentary into an orderly development--is evident as he treats in turn supernatural recollection and the prayer of quiet, contem-plative dryness, the dark night of sense, union of the will, the dark night of the spirit, and, finally, transforming union of the soul with God in perfect love. His deft reconciling of apparent divergences in the doctrines of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross is especially notable. Two short sections of the book stand out significantly for souls whose vocation is to be apostles in the modern world, whether or not God has raised them to the higher mansions. The first is Chap-ter X of Part IV, "The Mystery of the Church" (pp. 186-201). Upon reaching a state of union of the will with God (fifth man-sion), Teresa says that the soul is seized with an intense concern for the salvation of other souls. Its eyes are opened to thee.mission it must fulfill in' the Mystical Body. This is what Fath'er Marie- Eugene terms the soul's "~iscovery of the Church." At this point, tvhaetnio, nh eto s kbeet cehffeesc atend e bxyc e~lltehnet usnuimtimnga royf oafll t mhee dni vtoin Ce hprliasnt, oinf sthale-. Mystical Body--a program which dominated' St. Paul's thinking, and which he called the mystery. In Chapter IX of Part V, "The Saint in the Whole Christ" (pp. 606-62), the author b.egins by stressing the exalted and im-perious demands the lov~ of God makes on the soul raised to the sixth and seventh mansions to help in saving other souls. Then in a section'which is almost wholly original, though strictly in har-mony with Teresan spirituality, Father Marie;Eugene discusses the place of contemplation in the lives of modern apostles. It is this section of the book which, he says in the introduction, "he was tempted toe expand. What he has written is most valuable; we may hope that he is able to develop his ideas in their fullness in a future work., Among other sections which may attract special interest., are those on extraordin.ary.favor~ (pp. 243-97), which a.mounts to,a concise treatise on the~subject, and the. lengthy explanation of the dark night of the spirit (pp. 300-506): The publisher .has rendered a distinct .service to American read-ers by presenting these books in English, The typography is well chosen (save, I would say, for the title page and table of contents). 105. BOOK REVIEWS Review [or Religious A handy summary of Teresan spirituality, according to, the char-acteristics of the seven mansions, is printed inside the front cover. The inclusion of a combined index for both volumes would have enhanced the book's value even more. A final word of congratulation must be reserved for the trans-lator, who has produced as smoo.th and' forceful a translation as if the work had been written originally in English. May she turn her hand to other works where less skilled translators" fail to tread! --THEODORE W. WALTERS, TRUE MORALITY AND ITS COUNTERFEITS.' A Critical Analysis of Ex-is÷en÷ialisfic E÷hics. By Diefrlch yon Hildebrand wi÷h Alice Jourdaln. Pp. 179. David McKay Co., Inc., New York. 195S. $3.00. This book, after a brief introduction in which the author clearly states his object and method, contains nine chapters dealing mostly with "circumstance ethics." An appendix, "Allocution du St. P~re d la Fdd~ration. Mondiale des deunessbs "F~minines Catboliques'" (April, 1952) forms the conclusion. As far as can be seen, the book is the work of Von Hildebrand alone. We have ~here a vigor-ous attack both on "situa~tion or circumstances ethics" as well as on "sin m~rsticism." The former, already analyzed and condemned by the Pope in the allocution above referred to, is subjected to a ldnger analysis here. The results are the same--a ringing condem-nation of "situation ethics." The author grants the complexity ~of the individual moral situation, details the pertinent f~ctors'at play therein, but insists with the Pope upon the primacy of universal moral laws. Th~ exaggerations, even the unchristianity, of "~itu-ation ethics" is shown.- The final chapter is a positive statement of Christian ethics. Of more interest and originality, perhaps, are the parts which deal with "sin mysticism," a phrase taken from the German the-ologian, K. Rahner, S.d. This is a.kind of lived .application of some of the principles of "situa~tion ethics" manifested especially in liter-ature. It con'sists in the exaltation'of the tragic~ sinner over the self-righteous, mediocre, or merely conyentionally moral man. Von Hildebrand fi, nds traces of this tendency, in varying~ degress~ in' Catholic writers like Mauriac, Greene, Gertriad~ yon Le Fort and others. Since these Catholic authors~ are read by our students on the college level, at least, teachers of literature will want to read the indictment. Von Hildebrand is certainly not unsympathetic 1.06 March, 1956 ' " BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS towards these writers; he admits~ what he considers the truth they contain, recalls several necessary dtstlnctlons from Catholic ethics, but, in the end, is driven to condemn this tendency in them. --JAMES d. DOYLE, S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS )kVE MARIA PRESS, Notre Dame, Indiana. Spirituality for: Postulate, NoOitiate, SchoIasticate, l~y Jar~es F. McElhone, C.S.C., is a book on the spiritual life written ex-plicitly fo~ beginners. It !is not a complete treatise on the religious life but alms to lay a solid foundation for such a life. It fills a need long felt by directors of young religious. Pp. 196. $3.00. THE B'RUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee 1, WiSconsin. Helps and Hindrances to Perfection, by Thomas J. Higgins, S.J., is a sequel to the author's Perfection Is.for You. The readers for whom it is intended'are all ~he members of the Mystical Body of Christ, for each is bound to tend toward perfection. All can find in these pages help and inspiration. Houses where closed lay re-treats are conducted would do well to add both these volumes to the r~treatants library: .Pp. 258.$4.50. CARMELITE THIRD ORDER PRESS, 6415 Woodlawn Ave., Chicago 37, Ill. Mary and the Saints of Carmel, By-Reverend Valentine L. Boyle, O.Carm. This is a book of meditations on the feasts of our Lady and the saints of the Carmelite Order. Each meditation con-sists of a hundred-word biographical sketch, a one-sentence appli-cation, and the prayer of the-saint from the Carmelite missal. It is profusely illustrated in black and white. Pp. 185. $1.50. Carmel--Mary's Own. A History of the Carmelite Order. Part I. The Elian Origin o? Carmel. Pp. 64, 25c. Part II. The Golden Age of Car~el. Pp. 70. 25c. Part III. Carmel in Modern Times. Pp. 68. 25c. CLONMORE AND REYNOLDS, LTD., 29 Kildare St., Dublin. The Spiritual Teacl~ing of Venerable Francis Libermann. By Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp. Founders of religious orders and con-gregations receive many. special graces from God to enable them to guide wisely in the paths of perfection those ,whom God gives them as followers. That is why the writings of. such founders are esteemed and treasured. The Venerable Francis Libermann, founder. 107 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religious of the Congregations of the Holy 'Ghost and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, left his followers many valuable documents. Father Kelly has put these in the framework of a treatise on the spiritual life and so has made the wise counsels of the founder of his congrega-tion available to a wider circle of readers. Pp. 201. 13/-. DAUGHTERS OF SAINT PAUL, Old Lake Shore Road, Derby," N. Y. In The Daily Gospel we bare a harmonization of the four G~s-pels due essentially to Father Szczepanski, S.J. A portion of the Gospel is presented for each day of the year. Each selection is fol-lowed by a pertinent quotation from the fathers of the Church and a reflection. The reflections were compiled by John E. Robaldo, S.S.P. The text of the Gospels is the Confraternity version. Keep this book hand~; on your desk and nourish your soul with the Words of Life. Pp. 495. Paper $3.00. Cloth $4.00. Bible Stories for Children. Written and illustrated by the Daughters of' St. Paul. The book contains twenty-six stories from the Old Testament and fifty from the New. Each story is illus-trated with a full page attractive picture in four colors. Pp. 165. Soft cover $1.75. Cloth $3.00. St. Paul Catechism of Christian Doctrine. Prepared and illus-trated by the Daughters of St. Paul. There are six books in the set, one for each grade from one to six. They are richly illustrated in four colors. "Each lesson is divided into three parts: Catechism, Sacred Scripture, and Liturgy. Single copies retail for from 30 to 60 cents. DESCLEE COMPANY, INC., 280 Broadway, New York 7. A Short Histoql of Philosophg. By F. J. Thonnard, A.A. Translated by Edward A. Maziarz, C.PP.S. This is an excellent philosophical presentation of the major trends, schools, and leaders of Western philosophic thought. The intrinsic connection between the presuppositions, basic principles, and doctrines of the major philosohers is emphasized and their thought is briefly evaluated in" the light of Thomistic principles. The. work has excellent bibli-ographies and a valuable doctrinal table. This Efiglish translation, though faulty, will be welcome. Pp. 1074. $6.50. DOYLE AND FINEGAN, Collegeville, Minnesota. The-Simplilication of the Rubrics. Text of the Decree toitb Commentar~.1. By Annibale Bugnini, C.M. Translated by Leonard J. Doyle.~ Father Bugnini's commentary is by far the best that 108 March, 1956 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS has appeared so far and will do much to give a better understanding of the new rubrics. Pp. 131. $1.50. Order for Office and Mass, 1956. This is an English Ordo written for those who say the Divine Office in Engllsb. Pp. 115. $1.25. FELICIAN SISTERS, 600 Doat .St., Buffalo, N. Y. Magnigcat. A Centennial Record of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Felix. The appearance of this book announces the happy completion of a century of growth and progress of the Felician sisters. All religious will find this book both interesting and in-spiring. To learn what others have done and are doing for the love of God is an external grace which stimulates to greater and more generous efforts in the following of Christ. It is a .valuable his-torical do.cument that every Catholic library should have. Pp. 155. GRAIL PUBLICATIONS, St. Meinrad, Indiana. Religio Religiosi. By Aidan Cardinal Gasquet, O.S.B. Though published in England in 1923, this little volume is not very well known in this country; and it should be better known. If all who have to face the problem of a choice of a state in life 'would read this book, vocations to the religious life would be multiplied. Pp. 120. $2.50. True Christmas Spirit. By Reverend Edward J. Sutfin. Here is a °book on the Christmas liturgy written at the request of edu-cators to assist them in teaching liturgy to children. It draws on the treasury of world literature and custom. Religious devoted to teaching will find this book most helpful. Pp. 154. $3,00. The Help of His Grace. The Storg of a Benedictine Sister. By Sister Jean Marie, O.S.B. This booklet is a new addition to vo-cational literature. Girls who wish to decide whether they have a vocation to the Benedictine way of life will find it most helpful. Pp. 108. $.50. ~ B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, 15 South Broadway, St. Louis 2, Mo. The Names of Christ. By Louis of Leon, O.S.A. Translated by Edward J. Schuster. The author of this book was a professor of the University of Salamanca and a contemporary of St. Teresa of Avila and of St. John of the Cross. His spiritual doctrine is well summed up in the present volume. It is the sixth in the Cross .and Crown Series of Spirituality. Pp. 315. $4.75. The Church Teaches. Documents of the Church in English 109 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Reoiew [or Religious Translation. By the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Mar~;s, Kansas. The gratifying growth of the departments of religion in our-Catholic colleges and universities makes bool~s like the pres.ent volume a necessity. The argument from tradition will always be a major argument in all religious questions. Hence the necessity of translating the documents enshrining this tradition into English, since a knowledge of Latin and Greek can no longer be presupposed in tb~ students of religion. This book is a "must" for teachers of "rel'igion. Pp. 400. $5.75. :" Introduction to the Philosoph~t of Animate Nature. By Henry J. Koren, C.S.Sp. Teachers of philosophy will welcome this ne~i addition to Catholic texts on rational psychology. There is more 'than enough material for a three-hour one-semester course. An ap-pendix .contain~ a list of review questions and suggested readings. Pp. 341. $4.75. An Introduction to the Science of Metapbgsics. By Henry J. Koren, C.S.Sp. This clear, understandable, and orderly textbook, giving the traditional Thomistic doctrine of being, is divided into two parts: being in general (,its nature, its transcendental properties and its limitation), and finite being (its nature and multiplication, its categories, and its causes). For a three-hour one-semester course some selection of material will be necessary. Pp. 341. $4.75. THI~ NI~WMAN IaRI~SS, Westminster, .Ma'ryland. An Hour with Jesus. Meditations for Religious. By Abbe Gaston Courtois. Translated by 'Sister Helen Madeleine, S.N.D. Religious women whose work is education will find enlightenment, encouragement, and many practical, suggestions in this volume. Used as an aid for meditation, the book should do much to advance its users in. the art of mental prayer. Pp. 161. $3.00. :'"Cleanse mg Heart. Meditations on .the Sunda~t Gospels. By Vincerit P. McCorry, S.J. Readers of America will be familiar with Father McCorry's liturgical column "The Word." They will be pleased that one year's offerings have been given a more permanent form in the present volume. Pp. 179. $2.75. Graceful Living. A Course in the Appreciation of the Sacra-ments. By John Fearon, O.P. This is a book on the theology of the sacraments written in a popular vein to catch the interest of the ordinary Catholic and so help him to a fuller Catholic life. It was a selection of the Spiritual Book Associates. Pp. 160. $2.50. Leauen of Holiness. Conferences for Religious. By Reverend 110 March, 1956 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Charles Hugo Doyle. Those who have read Father Doyle's first book of conferences for religious, In Pursuit of Perfection, will find in this volume the same freshness of style and vigor of presentation. Pp. 242. $3.50. Meditations Before Mass. By Romano Guardini. Translated by Elinor C. Briefs. Despite the title, this is not a book of medi-tations. It is rather a collection of conferences given originally before Mass to enable the congregation to enter fully into the divine action. Its purpose is to teach a greater appreciation of and participation in the holy sacrifice. Pp. 203'. $3.00. THE PRIORY PRESS, Asbury Road, Dubuque, Iowa. Beginnings: Genesis and Modern Science. By Charles Hauret. Translated and adapted from the 4th French edition by E. P. Em-mans, O.P. and S.S.Prolyta. There can be no conflict between faith and science since God is the author of both. Yet there may be ap-parent conflict. Father Hauret, a scientist in his own right, squarely faces the problems posed by the account of creation in the first three chapters of Genesis and the findings of modern science. If you teach religion, this is a book you should read. You will learn much about the Sacred Scriptures as well as about modern science, and you will be in a position to give satisfactory answers to modern doubters. Pp. 304. $3.25. SAINT CHARLES SEMINARY, 209 Flagg Place, Staten Island 4, N. Y. Father to the Immigrants. dohn Baptist Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza. By Icilio Felici. Translated by Carol della Chiesa. On June 1, 1905, John Baptist Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza died a holy death. He was a remarkable man, and his memory is honored particularly for his heroic labors in behalf of Italian immigrants in both Americas. He came to their aid by founding the Society of St. Raphael, a lay organization, to alleviate their material wants; by founding a society of missionary priests, now popularly known as the Scalabrinian fathers, to care for their spiritual needs; by starting a congregation of sisters to care for the orphaned and the sick among them. It. was be who came to" the rescue of the Mis-sionary Zelatrices of the Sacred Heart, when it seemed that they must disband, and interested them in work for immigrants. It was he too who urged Mother Cabrini to choose America rather than the Orient for bet field of labors. This is the first full-length bi-ography in English of this saintly bishop, a milestone on the way to his beatification. Pp. 248. $3.00. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS SAINT PAUL PUBLICATIONS, 2187 Victory Blvd., Staten Island 14, N. Y. The Perennial Order by Martin Versfeld is a book on Catholic philosophy which is not a textbook. It will be read with interest and profit even by those who have had the usual courses in philo-sophy, for it deals with many topics not mentioned in the conven-tional courses. It is an apostolic book in the sense that it is written also for non-Catholics. It should do much to answer many an in-tellectual difficulty of the sincere inquirer and so prepare the way for conversion. Pp. 250. $3.00. SHEED AND WARD, 840 Broadway, New York 3. Su)ift Victory. Essays on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. By Walter Farrell, O.P. and Dominic Hughes, O.P. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that most Catholics know so little of the gifts of the Hoiy Ghost that they cannot even name them all. The reason possibly is that they are not something to strive for, but something freely granted to those who love God. Every Catholic should know more about these treasures which are his. Pp. 211. $3.25. In Soft Garments. A Collection of Oxford Conferences. By Ronatd A. Knox. This collection was first published in 1942. The present reprint is in response to popular demand. Pp. 214. $3.00. TEMPLEGATE, Springfield, Illinois. Loue of Our Neighbor. Edited by Albert Ple, O.P. Translated by Donald Attwater and R. F. Trevett. This book is the report of a symposium on charity in which this virtue was dealt with from many angles. Part one deals with charity and Revelation. Part two treats of the theology of this virtue. Part three has such chapters as "A Philosophy of Relation to Others," "Psychoanalysis and Love of One's Neighbors," "Love of Our Neighbor and the Economics of Giving." Part four consists of an outline of what a complete treatise on the love of our neighbor must be if it is ever to be written. Pp. 182. $3.95. CATHOLIC ALMANAC, 1956 The 1956 National Catholic Almanac, a very valuable reference book, is now available at the St. Anthony Guild Press, 508 Marshall St., Paterson, New Jersey. Cloth, $2.50; paper, $2.00. OUR CONTRIBUTORS MOTHER MARY ELEANOR teaches at Rosemont College, Rosemont, Penn-sylvania. BERNARD LEEMING is a professor of theology at Heythrop College, Oxon, England. THOMAS DUBAY teaches theology and homiletics at Marist College, Washington, D. C. 112 InJ:orma!:ion [or Subscribers BUSINESS OFFICE ADDRESS: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas. SEND ALL RENEWALS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas. NOTICES OF EXPIRATION have been mailed to all sub-scribers whose subscriptions expired with Jan., 1956. We hope that those who have not yet done so may find it convenient to renew at an early date. When renewing please return the postal-card notice sent to you. It is of great assistance to us in making prompt and ac-curate identification of renewals. EARLY RENEWAL of subscriptions enables us to prepare our ~-~.mailing list for tl~ next issue and avoids delays incurred by later additional mailings. 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Issue 14.3 of the Review for Religious, 1955. ; Review for Religious MAY 15, 1955 Empress of America . c.J. McNaspy The Relicjious Life . Pope Plus Throucjh His Blood . Joseph H. Roh~i.g Community Life . Bernard I. Mullahy Third Mode of Humility. ¯ . . c. A. Heri~st Mary and Joseph Find Jesus . " . . Paul Oent Book Reviews Questions and Answers Summer Schools VOLUME XlV NO. 3 RI Vli::W FOR Ri::LIGIOUS VOLUME XIV MAY, 1955 NUMBER 3 CONTENTS EMPRESS OF AMERICA---C. J. McNaspy, S.J .113 SURSUM CORDA . 122 POPE PIUS XII AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFF_;--doseph F. Gallen, S.d1.23 THROUGH HIS BLOOD~doseph H. Rohling, C.PP.S . 139 COMMUNITY LIFE--Bernard I. Mullahy, C.S.C . 141 TI-IE. THIRD MODE OF HUMILITY---C. A. Herbst, S.3 .1.50 MARY AND dOSEPH FIND dESUS--Paul Dent, S.d .155 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS-- Editor: Bernard A. Hausman~, S.3. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 157 SOME BOOKLETS . 164 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- ll. Dismissal of Novice without Giving Reason .165 12. Novitiate Extended until Regular Profession Ceremonies 165 13. Mental Patients with Temporary Vows . 166 14. Changing Constitutions in regard to Mail . 166 15. Handbook for Sacristans . 167 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 167 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS . 168 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1955. Vol. XIV, No. 3. Published bi- " monthly: ,January, March, May; 3uly~ September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter ,January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Augustine G.Ellard, S.,J., Adam C. Ellis, S.,J., Gerald Kelly, S.3., Francis N. Korth, S.,J. Literary Editor: Edwin F. Falteisek, S.3. Copyright, 1955, by Adam C. Ellis, S.d. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on inslde back cover. Empress ot: America INTRODUCTION o F the world's favorite Marian shrines it may seem surprising that the oldest is on our own continent. Three centuries before the apparitions at Lourdes, our Lady appeared in America and left her miraculous image in Guadalupe, then a suburb, now part of Mexico City. Every year many Americans join their fellow Catholics of the South in paying homage to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Again and again the Holy Father has joined them in spirit, and ten years ago he proclaimed Our Lady of Guadalupe patroness of America, with the title of "Empress." The outline of the history is familiar to all religious. But not all may realize bow completely reliable and authentic are.our sources, Bishop Schlarman's Mexico Land o# Volcanoes indicates a number of scientific historians who have studied the question. Principal among them are Fathers Bravo Ugarte and Cuevas. In the following pages we present a close English translation of a document that goes back to the very period of the miracle and is accepted as historical. It was written by an Indian, Antonio Valer-iano, a relative of the Aztec Emperor Montezuma. Valeriano com-posed his text in his own language, some ten years after the event (December 12, 1531). It was translated recently into Spanish by Primo Veliano Velazquez, and this translation was made from the Spanish. A word about the style. The original, we are told, is written in the very formal style of the period: the Spanish translator has kept this blend of formality and naivet~. The present translator has tried to preserve some of the charm and simplicity, together with what to us might seem artificiality. But his main effort has been to give a faithful version of the document, even to the point of literalness.--C. J. McNAspY, S.J. ANTHONY'S STORY Herein is told how the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, our Queen, most marvelously appeared not long ago in Tepeyac, which is called Guadalupe. First she allowed herself to be seen by a poor Indian whose name was Juan Diego; then her precious image was made manifest before the new bishop, Fray Juan de Zumarr~ga; and then came all the miracles which she has accomplished. 113 EMPRESS OF AMERICA Reoiew [or Religious Te'n years after the capture of the City of Mexico, when war ceased and there was p~ace among the peoples, there began to blos-son the faith and knowledge of the true God by whom we live. In those days, in the year 1531, early in the mon.th of December, it b'appened that tber~ lived a poor Indian, by name Juan Diego, arid as it is related, a native of Cuautitlan, which in m~tt~rs spiritual then belonged to Tlatilolco. Very early on the morning of Sal~ur-day, Juan Diego was coming by in order that be might pay wbrsbip to God 'and perform some errands. He arrived at the hill called Tepeyacac when it was dawn. He heard a singing above the hill, a~ singing which seemed the song.of various precious birds, although at times, when the voices of the singers were silent, it seemed "that the mountain answered them. Their song was very gentle and de-" ligbt,ful, surpassing that of the Coyoltototl and the Tzinizcan and the other beautiful birds that sing. Juan Diego stopped to look and said within himself, Can it be that I am worthy of what I am hearirig? It may be I am dreaming. Did I arise from sleep? Where am I? Am I, perhaps, in the earthly paradise that the ancients, our ancestors, spoke of? Or it may be I am in heaven. 'But as be turned his bead toward the east, above the hill, whence the precious heav-enly song was proceeding, it suddenly ceased; and there was silence; and he l~eard himself called from above the hill, "duanito, duan Dieguito." So he m~de bold to go whither he was called, nor was he fright-ened for a moment; but, on the contrary, happily he climbed the bill to see whence .he was being summoned: and, arriving at the summit, he saw a lady standing there and telling him to come closer. Now wb~n he came inl~o her presence he marveled mU'db bet more than human glory, for her clothes did shine like 'the sun, and the rock on which she stood was struck with splendor and ap-pear. ed like a bracelet of precious stones, and the earth shone like a rainbow. The mezquites, nopals, and other different bushes that are usually there seemed like emeralds, their leaves like fine tur-quoises, and their branches and thorns did shine like gold. Juan bowed down before her and beard bet word, very gentle and polite, as. that of one who is. very attractive and much esteemed. She said to him, "Juanito, thou smallest of my sons, .where art thou going?" He replied, "Lady and my Child,.I .must g9 to thy house of Tlati-lolco to attend to divine matters that our.priests, the delegates of our Lord, give and teach us." Then she spoke to him and told him her holy will~ saying, "Know thou and understand, thou "the least ll~t May, 1955 " EMPRESS OF AMERICA of my sons, that I am the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, by whom we live; of the Creator by whom all things have their 'being; of the Lord of heaven and of earth. Know thou that it is my strong wish that a church be built here for me, in order that I may manifest and bestow all my love, compassion, aid, and protection; for I am thy loving mother, thine, and .mother of all them that dwell in this land and of those others who love me, call upon me, and trust in me. For it is my will to listen to their cries, grief, and sorrows. Wherefore, in order that I may accomplish this my wish, thou shalt go to the palace of the Bishop of Mexico and relate to him that I send thee to manifest to him this strongest de-sire of mine, that he should build a church for me here; and thou shalt relate to him exactly all that thou hast .seen and admired, and that thou hast heard. And know thou that I will be grateful to thee and will repay.thee, for I will make thee happy and thou wilt deserve much that I should reward the work and trouble by which thou wilt obtain what I ask of thee. Take care that thou hearken to my command, my smallest son. Go and strive with all thy might that thou brin~' it about." He then did reverence before her and said, "My Lady, I go now to fulfill thy command; I leave thee for the present, I thy humble servant." Then he went dowh tO do her command, and he went by the road that leads straight to Mexico. Entering the City, he came straightway to the palace of the Bishop, who was the prelate ~hat had newly arrived and who was called Fray Juan de Zumarraga, being a religious of St. Francis. Scarcely had Juan Diego arrived, when he tried to see the Bishop, asking the servants to go and announce him; who after a good while came to call him, for their Lord Bishop had given order that he should enter. And when he had entered, he bowed and genuflected before the Bishop; immediately he gave him the message of the Lady of Heaven, relating.to him all he had admired, seen, and heard. The Bishop, after he had heard all his words and message, seemed not to believe him, for he ar~swered him thus, "Thou wilt come again, my son, and I shall hear thee more slowly, and I shrill con-sider all from the very beginning and shall ponder the desire and wish with which thou hast come." So Juan went out and grew sad, fbr his message had not been in any way accomplished. Now, on the same day, as Juan returned to the summit of the hill, he came upon the Lady of Heaven, who was awaiting him in the very place where he had seen her the first time. Seeing her, he 115 EMPRESS OF: AMERICA Reoiew for Religious prostrated before her and said, "Lady, thou the smallest of my daughters and my child, I went where thou didst send me to carry out thy cofnmand; with difficulty I entered where the Bishop dwelt; I saw him and presented thy message as thou didst tell me. Sure enough, he received me kindly and listened to me attentively; yet, from what he replied, it appeared to me that be did not believe me. He said, 'Thou wilt come again. I shall listen to thee more slowly. I shall examine from the very beginning the desire and wish with which thou hast come.' I understood perfectly by his manner of answering me that he thinks that it may be I made up myself the story that thou dost wish a church to be built here, and that perhaps it is not thy order. For this reason, I earnestly beg of thee, my Lady and Child, that thou entrust tby message to those who are important, well known, respected, and esteemed, so that he may be believed. For I am dust a little man, a string, a little ladder, jus~ a tail, a leaf, a nobody; and thou, my Child, the small-est of my daughters, Lady, art sending me to a place where I never go. Forgive me for causing thee great sorrow and for falling into thy displeasure, my Lady." The most holy Virgin answered,him, "Listen, my smallest son, and understand that many are my servants and messengers whom I can summon to bring my message and do my will. But it is quite necessary that thou thyself should ask and help, and that my will be carried out by thee. I beg of thee, my smallest son, and I strongly command thee, to go again tomorrow to see the Bishop. In my name tell him my will: that be must build the church that I ask. And remind him that it is I myself, the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, who send thee." 3uan Diego rel~li~d, "My Lady and my Child, do not be grieved. I shall gladly go to carry out thy command. I shall not fail in any way to do it, nc,r do I think the way is difficult. I shall go to do thy will; now it may be I shall not be heard agreeably; or if I am heard, it may be I shall not be believed. Yet, tomorrow evening, when the sun is setting, I will come to give an account of tby, message and the Bishop's reply. Now I leave thee, my smallest daughter, my Child and my Lady. Meanwhile, sleep well." And he went to rest in 10is own house. On the following day, which was Sunday, very early in the morning 3uan Diego left his house and came straightway to Tlati-lolc6, that he might be instructed in divine things and there be pres-ent for the roll call, and later go to the prelate. After Mass, the 116 Ma~l, 1955 EMPRESS OF AMERICA roll call having been completed., the people dispersed. Juan Diego immediately went on to the palace of the Lord Bishop. Scarcely had he arrived, when he exerted every effort to see him again, but he saw' him only with much difficulty. Juan knelt at his feet, mourning and weeping as he related the command of the Lady of Heaven. Would that the BiShop would believe his message and the will of the Immaculate One to build her church wh~re she said she wanted it. The Lord Bishop, that he might gather more inl~orma-tion, asked him many things: where Juan had seen her and how it had come to pass; and he told the Lord Bishop everything per-fectly. But though he explained exactly how she had appeared and how mu~h he had seen and admired, and that she had revealed that she was the ever Virgin, the most holy Mother of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ; nevertheless, the prelate did not believe him,, replying that he would not have it to be done on his word and petition alone, but that some sigma was necessary for him to be able to believe that the very Lady of Heaven was sending Juan' Diego'. Hearing this, Juan Diego replied to the Bishop, "My Lord, think of what must be the sign that thou dost ask, for now I shall go "to ask it of the Lady of Heaven who sent me hither." The Bishop, seeing that Juan held to all things without hesitation and retracted no.thing, dismissed him. 'At the same time he com-missioned some men of his house, in whom he could trust, to follow "Juan and watch whither he might go and whomever he might see and with whom he might speak. And this is what came to pass. Although Juan Diego made his way straight and followed the road, those who came behind him lost track of him, where the ravine passes near the bridge of Tepeyacac, and though they sought him every- 'where, they did not see him. Wherefore they returned, not only because they had grown weary, but also because their purpose had been blocked, and this caused them anger. They went to report to the Lord Bishop, urging him not to believe Juan, and saying that :he was but a deceiver and had made up the story, or that he was only dreaming what he had said and asked. Finally they suggested that if Juan should return, they might take him and punish him severely, so that he would never again lie or deceive another. Meanwhile, Juan Diego was with themost holy Virgin, r~lat-ing to her the answer that he brought from the Lord Bishop. And she, having heard, said, "It is' well, my little son. Thou wilt re-turn here tomorrow to bring the Bishop the sign that he has asked. With this he will believe thee, and about this request he will no longer 117 EMPRESS OF AMERICA "Ret~iew .for Religiou, doubt nor suspect thee. And know, my little sonl that I shall repay thy care and the work and weariness that thou hast undergone for me. Well, then, I shall expect thee here tomorrow." But on the following day, Monday, on which Juan" Diego was to bring a sign in order that he be believed, he did not return. For when he arrived at his house he found that his uncle Juan Bernardino had been taken very ill. Straightway he went to summon a doctor and some help. But there were no free moments now, for the ill-. heSS was indeed great. That night his uncle besought him to leave early in the morning and come to Tlatilolco that he might call a priest to come and hear his confession and make him ready, for he was very certain that it was his timeto die and that he would never arise nor be strong again. Early in the morning, Tuesday, Juan Diego departed from his house for Tlatilolco to summon the priest. When he reached the road that was at the foot of the hill'of Tepeyacac, toward the west, where it was his custom to go by, he said, "If I make my way straight, it may be the Lady will see me and will surely stop me so that I may bring the sign to the Bishop as she told me. First, however, let us care for the trouble in hand; wherefore, I should call the priest quickly, for my poor uncle is-surely waiting for him." Then turning to the hill he climbed it and passed over onto .the other side toward the east, so that he might reach Mexico quickly and that the Lady of Heaven might not cause him delay. For he thought to avoid the eyes of her to whom all things fire present in sight. He saw her descending from the hill and with her gaze fixed upon him before even he had seen her. And she came up to meet him at a side of the hill and said to him, "What is it that troubles thee, my smallest son? Whither art thou going?" He was saddened somewhat, or perhaps ashamed or frightened. He 'bowed before her and saluted her saying, "My Child, the smallest of my daugh-ters, my Lady, I hope thou art happy. How art thou this m.drning? Art thou in good health, my Lady and my Child? For I shall bring thee sorrow. Thou knowest,.my Child, that my uncle, thy poor servant, is exceedingly ill. He is stricken by the plague and is on the point of dying. I am now hastening to thy house in Mexico to call one of the priests loved by our Lord to come and hear his confession and make him ready, for we who are born do all await the hardship of our death. And though I am departing to do this thing, yet will I afterwards return hither and bear thy. message, my Lady and my Child. Forgive me. Be, patient for a while. I EMPRESS OF: AMERICA will not deceive thee, my smallest daughter. Tomorrow I shall come and in great haste." After hearing the words of Juan Diego, the most loving Virgin made her answer, "Listen and understand, my smallest son. That Which troubles and afflicts thee is nothing, Do not let thy heart be saddened. Do not fear this illness nor any other illness or anxiety. Am I not here, thy Mother? Dost thou not stand under my shadow? Am I not thy health? Dost thou not rest on my lap? What else then dost thou need? Let nothing make thee troubled or unhappy. Be not afflicted by thy uncle's illness, for he will not die of it at this time. For know that he is already well." (And then it was that she healed his uncle, as was discovered afterwards.) Now, when Juan Diego had heard these words of the Lady of Heaven, he felt a deep consolation and happiness, and asked that she send him without delay to see the Bishop and bring him some .sign and proof, so that he might believe. Then the Lady of Heaven told him to ascend the summit of the hill where he had seen her before. "Climb up, my smallest son," she said, "to the top of the hill; where thou didst see me and I gave thee orders thou shalt find different flowers. Cut them and gather them. Then come and bring them to me." Juan ,Diego straightway climbed the hill; and, when he reached the top, he was astonished to find that thebe had blossomed before their season so great a number of various exquisite roses of Castille; for at that time of the year the ice was very severe. The roses ~ave off a great fragrance and were filled with the dew of night that seemed like' precious pearls. Forthwith he began to cut them, joining them togdther and putting them into his cloak-fold. Now, the top of the hill was not.a place where any flowers grew, for it had many rocks, thistles, thorns, nopales, and mezquites. And even if there had been little plants, at that time it was the month of December in which the frost eats and spoils everything. He clambered down without delay and brought the Lady of Heaven the various roses that he had gone to cut. When she saw them she gathered them in he~ hand and again placed them in his bosom saying, ~'My sr~all-est son, these roses of various kind are the proof and sign that thou wilt bring the Bishop. Thou wilt tell him in my name to see my will in this sign and to carry it out. Thou art my ambassador, worthy of confidencd. I strictly order thee to unfold thy mantle and show what thou art bringing before the Bishop alone. Thou wilt relate everything. Thou wilt say that I told thee to climb to 119 'EMPRESS OF ~IMERICA Review for R~ligious the stimmit of the hill to cut flowers, and all that thou didst see and admire, that thou mightest persuade the prelate to lend his hand in the building of the church which I have.requested." After the Lady of Heaven had given him her charge, be started on the way that leads straight to Mexico, happy and sure of sucdess, carefully bearing his burden in his bosom, so that notbng would fall from his hands, and enjoying the fragrance of the various kinds of beau-tiful, flowers. When he had arrived at the palace of the Bishop, the majordomo and other servants of the prelate came out to meet him. He asked them to tell the Bishop that he wished to see him. Yet none of them was willing and acted as if they had not heard him, because it was very early; or perchance they had recognized him and thought him a nuisance. .Besides, they had h~ard from their dompanions how they lost sight of him when their had followed him the day before. Hence, Juan Diego was there many hours waiting. Afte~ a time they noted that be bad been there a long time, standing, downcast, doing nothing. Noticing that he seemed to be carrying something in his bosom, they came near t6 see what it was and to satisfy them-selves. Juan Diego saw that he could not hide his burden withou~ their molesting and manhandling or beating him; so he opened his mantle a little and showed that it contained flowers. They, perceiv-ing that there were various kinds of roses of Castille and re~ilizing that it was not then the season for them to bloom, were greatly taken aback, especially because the flowers .were very fresh, in full "bloom, fragrant and precious, They wanted to take some, but when they dared to touch them they met no success; for when their hands drew near, they saw no true flowers but what seemed to have been painted or'engraved or sewed on the mantle. They went thereupon to tell the Bishop what they had seen and that the little Indian who had come so many times now desired to see him and that be bad been w~iting a long time. Hearing this, the ,Bishop thought that this would be the proof to certify a'nd carry out what the Indian asked. Immediately he ordered Juan to come in. When he entered, Juan did reverence before the Bishop as he had done before, and again relating everything that he had seen and admired, he delivered his .message. "My Lord," said he. "I did what thou didst order me. I went to tell my Mistress, the Lady of Heaven, Holy Mary, the precious Mother of God, that thou didst desire a sign that thou mightest be able to believe me before thou were to make the church where she requested it. I told her 120 May, 1955 EMPRESS' OF ,AMERIC,~ besides that I had given thee my word to bring some sign and proof of her will, as thou. didst demand. She received thy message and kindly granted what thou dost ask, a sign and proof that her will be done. Very early this morning she told me to come again to see thee~ I asked for,the, sign so that thou mightest believe me, which she promised she would give. Immediately she fulfilled the promise: she sent me to the summit of the hill, where I had seen her before, to cut various roses of Castille. And after I went to cut them, I brought them down and she gathered them in her hand and .again put them into my bosom for. me to bring to thee in. person. For, although I knew that at t~e top of the hill there is no place where flowers grow, for there are onl~ rocks, thistles, thorns, nopale~, and mezquites, .I did not doubt. And when I had reached the summit, I saw that I was in a paradise where were all the varied and exquisit~ roses of Castille, sparkling with dew, and these I began to cut. She told me to give them to thee. And so I now" do, so that thou mayest see in them the sign that thou askest and mayest carry out her will,. and-so that the" truth of the words of my message may be made manifest. Here they are; do thou receive them." Then he unwrapped his ~¢hite maiatle which held the roses in its fold. As they were scattered on the floor, all these differentroses of Castille, suddenly there appeared drawn on' the mantle the precious image of the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, as it,exists and is preserved today in bei- church of Tepeyacac, which is .called Guadalupe. When the Lord'Bisbop bad seen this, be and all w.bo were there knelt down and greatly admired it. And when they arose they were sad and grieved, for they had gaZed upon the image with their whole heart and mind. With tears of sorrow the Lord Bishop earnestly begged pardon for not baying carried out our Lady's will and command. When he had arisen he loosed the garment from 3uan Diego's neck, the mantle on which appea~ed the image of the Lady of Heaven. And taking it he Went' to place it ifi hi~ oratory. 3uan Dieg6, therefore, at the Bishop's command, remained one day more in the Bishop'~ house. The next day the prelate said, "Now show where it is the will of the Lady of Heaven that her church be built." And im-mediately he invited all to take part in the building. '3uan Diego had hardly indicated where the Lady.of~ Heaven had Ordered that her church be built when he asked permission to leave. Hewished now to hasten home and see his uncle 3uan Ber-' nar~tino, who had been very ill when bedeparted for Thtilolco to 121 EMPRESS OF AMERICA call a priest who might hear his confession and make him ready, on that day when the Lady of Heaven told him that he was already made well. Yet the people did not permit 3uan to return alone, but accompanied him to his house. And when they arrived they saw his uncle, who was very cheerful and felt no suffering. He was very much surprised that his nephew arrived surrounded and honored, and he asked him the reason why they were acting so and doing him such reverence. His nephew replied that when he went to call the priest to hear his confession and make him ready, the Lady of Heaven had appeared to him in Tepeyacac, that she told him not to be distressed, for his uncle was alrea~ly well, and that he had felt much consoled. She had sent him to Mexico to see the Lord Bishop in order to have a church built in Tepeyacac. His uncle re-lated that he was certain that it was she who had healed him at the moment, for he had seen her in the same way in which she appeared to his nephew, and had learned from her that she had sent him to Mexico to see the Bishop. Then had the Lady also told Bernardlno that when 3uan went to see the Bishop he should reveal what he had seen and the miraculous way in which she had cured him; and that he should tell the Bishop to call her (for it was fitting that her blessed image be so called) the ever Virgin Holy Mary of Guadalupe. Then they brought 3uan Bernardino into the presence of the Lord Bishop, to come and tell the story and give testimony in his presence. The Bishop received them both as guests iri his house several days, until the church of the Queen was built in Tepeyacac where 3uan Diego had seen her. The Lord Bishop also brought the holy picture of the beloved Lady of Heaven to the principal church, removing it from the oratory of his palace where it had been, so that all the people might see and admire the blessed likeness. The entire city was moved and came to see and admire the pious image and offer prayers. They were astonished that it had appeared by a divine miracle, for no person in this world painted her precious image. SURSUM CORDA Sursurn Corda is a new review for priests and religious, published by the Fran-ciscan Fathers. Its second number (February, 1955) contains the Address of His Excellency the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Carboni, to the First Congress of Religious Women of Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania, held at Rose Bay, Sydney, N.S.W., January 18, 1955. The editorial and business address is: 45 Victoria St., Waverly, N.S.W., Australia. 122 ' Pope Plus XII and !:he Religious Lil:e [EDITORS' NOTE: This valuable compilation of papal texts was made by Joseph F. Gallen, S.3. The first installment was published in our January number, pp. 3-11 ; the second in March, pp. 85-92. In his own iintroduction, Father Gallen ex-plained his selection of texts and his methods of reference. To facilitate reading the present installment, it is sufficient to recall that statements preceded by an asterisk were not made directly and ex.plicitly to or of religious and that all paragraphs ex- ¯ cept number 39 are taken from the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, the first number being the volume, the second the year, I~nd the third the page.] IV. THE VOWS 47. Pouertg. "The law of life itself demands the union of the old and the new that life may be ever the same and yet ever vigorous. Therefore, preserve fully and exactly, that form of religious life for whose observance and expression you have arisen in the Church. Certainly that which your glorious predecessors proposed to them-selves and to their" fellow-religious, also of the future, to be guarded with the utmost exertion, was evangelical poverty according to the law and example of the patriarch of Assisi. What an offscouring .of evils has arisen from the accursed thirst for riches! It is thee cause of wars, seditions, hunger, weakening of morals, of destruction. The abnormal disparity between those of excessive, wealth and those wasted by misery and want gives rise to fatal sources of cor-ruption. An admirable remedy for this calamity and corruption is the example of evangelical poverty. This is the attendant from heaven of the precept of labor, the friend of virtue, the teacher of nations, the protection and glory of the Kingdom of Christ, the most faithful preserver of a better hope. Its glorious standard has been entrusted to your hands; preserve it unstained. It is dishonorable to profess poverty in the dissimulation and fallacies of word and to destroy it in fact. Individual religious institutes, due to their growth and increase, may need more and larger houses. It is licit to secure these, but proper moderation and proportion are to be observed. Do not permit the beauty of poverty that is mani~fest in your habit and clothing to be lamentably clouded by sumptuous dwellings and delicate pleasures and comforts of life nor that your conduct contradict your words." Allocution to Fathers of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, 40-1948-551, 552. *48. "But even here a 'due measure and discretion' is to be ob- 123 POPE PlUS XlI Religious served, lest it ever .happen that those [seminarians] who must be trained 'tb 's~lf'-d£ni~aF and evangelical virtue live 'in palatial houses and luxurimls ease.and comfort. Apostolic Exhortation, "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-685. *49. Chastit~l. "The pries.tly office demands from you,'We might say, exceptional sacrifices, and of these the: most outstanding is the complete sacrifice of one's self in al'legian~e to Christ by celibfic}. You must examine yourselves! If any find that they are incapable of:'observing .celi~ac3(,, We beseech them to leave the seminary and to devote themselves to another calling i~. which they will achieve a morally upright and fruitful life, impossible for them in the sanc-tuary without danger to their own eternal salvation and of dishonor for the Church." Address to theStudents o[ the Roman,Serninarie.s, Colleges, and Institutions, 31-1939-249, 250. ,. 50. "In tl~is earthly exile nothing indeed is more b~autiful, nothing more lovable than the immaculate splendor of virginity that shines from the face, the eyes and the affections and gently excites directs others to heavenly 'things. If the flame of divine charit-y is added to the brightness of this unsullied integrity, the resul{ 'i's something .that deeply moves the minds of men, powerfully attract~ their wills and inspires'them to the noble deeds that Christian virtue alone Can effect." Carbonization of B. M. Capitan,'o and C. V. Gerosa, 42-1950-418. '51. "Watchful and attentive care must be taken to make~sur~ that recruits for the sacred militia have great esteem for chastity, love and preserve it, since it. is one of the' main reasons why they have Chosen this.type of life and" persevere ih this vocation. The faci that in the course of human contactS this virtue is exposed to such great dangers demands that in those Who are to take upon them! selves the dignity of the priesthood purity :should "be of long stand'-:" ing anddeeply rooted. Hence, not only should clerics be ~ad~ aware at the proper time of the meaning of priestly celibacy and of tl~e chas~ffy they must practice, as well as of the obligatiotis entails, but they should also be warned of the dangers they ma~ encounter. Seminarians should likewise be urged to avoid from their earliest years all dangers to purity b~" recourse to those method~ of restraining the passions that are recommended by the masters of the spiritual life. Their progress in other virtues and the richnes~ of the fruits of their priestly zeal will be in proportion to the firmness and constancy' of thei'r control of their passions. Should h young 124 Ma~!, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE cleric prove to have a tendency to evil and be unable to break off his bad habit after a suitable time of trial, he should be obliged to. withdraw from the seminary before receiving sacred orders." Apos-tolic Exhortation, 'Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-690, 691. 52. "Therefore this modesty is not to be construed as equi'valent to perpetual silenc~ on matters of chastity nor to forbid in the train-ing of character that a temperate and pru'dent word be ever spoken on this matter. In these things youths are to be instructed with suitable counsels, they are to be permitted to manifest their' problems, to ask questions freely, they are to be given sound, clear answers and an explanation sufficient to impart both light and confidence." Allocution to Teachers of the Order of Discatced Carmelites, 43- 1951-736. 53. "Chastity and virginity (which implies also the interior re-nunciation of every sensual affection) does not make the soul a stranger to the world. It rather awakens and develops the energies for greater and higher duties that surpass the confines of individual families. There are today many teaching sisters and sister nurses who, in the better sense of the word, are closer to life than the or-dinary persons of the world." Apostolic Exhortation to the Inter-national Conoention of Teaching Sisters, 43-1951-741. 54. "Today We wish to speak only to those, whether priests or laymen, preachers, public speakers and writers, who have not a word of approval or praise for virginity vowed to Christ, who for years past, contrary to the warnings of the Church and in oppo-sition to her thought, have in principle given marriage the prefer-ence over virginity and who have gone so far as to present marriage as the only means capable of assuring its development and natural perfection to the human personality. Those who speak and write iri this manner are to take cognizance of their responsibility before God and the Church. They are largely to blame for.a fact that We can mention to you only with sadness. Today more than ever there are repeated requests for Catholic sisters from the Christian world and from outside it, and one after anothe¢ they must be given a sorrowful refusal; at times even works of long standing, hospitals and educational establishments must be abandoned--all because vocations are not sufficient for the needs." Address to the Congress of Mothers General, 44-1952-825. *55. "Here We must add, as the holy fathers and doctors of the Church have so clearly taught, that virginity is not a Christian 125 POPE PIUS XlI Review for Religious virtue unless embraced 'for the kingdom of heaven,' that is, unless its motive is to devote oneself more readily" to divine things, greater security in the attainmefit of eternal happiness and finally greater freedom for a zealous devotion also to the eternal salvation of others. They cannot claim the honor of Christian virginity who abstain, from marriage from excessive selfishness,, or to escape its obligations . . . or to make a proud and pharisaical boast of the integrity of their bodies, : . . a virgin is not to refrain from mar-riage as something ugly but because of the beauty and sanctity of virginity . Accordingly, this is the primary motive, the principal reason for Christian virginity: to strive only for the things of heaven and to direct the mind and heart to divine things, to please God in everything, to meditate on Him deeply, and to consecrate body and soul to Him entirely . It is evidently the love of Christ that persuades the virgin to flee to the cloisters of the mon-astery and to remain there forever that she may more freely and easily devote herself to the contemplation and love of her Divine Spouse; it is the love of Christ that profoundly moves her to un-dertake with all h~r strength and even to death works of mercy for her neighbor." Enc~tclical Letter on Sacred Vlrginit~t, 46-1954- 164, 165, 167. *56. "Before entering on such a very narrow path, all whose experience has shown them that they are very weak in this matter shall humbly heed the warning of Paul the Apostle: 'But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burnt.' There are many for whom the burden of per-fect chastity would evidently be so onerous that it could not be counselled to them. In the same way, priests who have the serious duty of counselling youths who say that they feel drawn to the priesthood or religious life are to urge them to give the mattercare-ful consideration, lest they enter on a way of life that they cannot hope to travel constantly and successfully to its end. Such priests are to give prudent thought to this suitability and, if judged ex-pedient, shall seek skilled advice. If a serious doubt remains, espe-cially if founded on the facts of their past lives, priests shall oblige such candidates to give up the intention of entering on the state of perfect chastity and forbid them admission to sacred orders or religious profession." Enc!jclical Letter on Sacred Virginit~l, 46- 1954-180, I8i. 57. Obedience. "Another effect will be that your obedience will 126 May, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE be established on a perpetually unshakeable foundation. Your stan-dard, your glory, your strength is your obedience. This above all must make you completely docile to the will of your superiors, with-out complaints, without murmur, without that reprehensible criti-cism, the disease of our age, which enfeebles the strength of men and renders their apostolic efforts sluggish and fruitless. The heavy burden imposed by your austere obedience will become light if you are motivated by charity. If charity is present, God is present, be-cause 'God is charity.' Therefore; let there be in you 'charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith.' " Atlocution to the XXIX General Congregation of the Societ~t of desus, 38-1946-383, 384. 58. "Indeed some praise as the real peak of moral perfection, not the surrender of liberty for the love of Christ, but the curbing of such surrender. The norm therefore to be preferred in the forma-tion of a just and holy person would be this: restrict liberty only where necessary; otherwise, give liberty free rein as far as possible. We transmit the question whether this new foundation 6n which some are trying to erect the edifice of sanctity will be as effective and as solid in supporting and augmenting the apostolic work of the Church as was the one which through fifteen hundred years has been provided by that ancient rule of obedience undertaken for love of Christ . No one is obliged to choose for himself the counsel of perfect obedience, which essentially is a rule of life whereby one surrenders the control of his own will . But words must be understood and accepted according to their obvious meaning, and if this norm is compared with the vow of obedience, it surely does not possess the same supreme value, nor is it an expression of the wonderful example recorded in Holy Scripture: 'He humbled Him-self becoming obedient unto death.' Therefore be is deceived him-self and deceives others who, forgetting the propensities of the soul and the inspiration of divine grace, offers as a guide to one seeking advice about entering the religious state only that new norm. Hence if it is clear that the voice of God is calling someone to the heights of evangelical perfection, without any besitatior~ be should be invited for the attainment of this lofty purpose to offer freely the sacrifice of his liberty as the vow of obedience demands, that vow, We proclaim, which the Church through so many centuries has weighed, has put to the test, has properly delineated and has ap-proved. Let no one be compelled to this self-consecration against 127 PoPE PlUS XlI Review ~:or Reliyfous his will; but if be.does will it, let'no one counsel him against it; above all, let no one hold him back." Address to the Genera[ Con-gress or) the States of Pe.rfectfor), 43-1951-31. 59. "It is certainly of supreme importance that supernatural obedi-ence, motivated by an ardent love of God, should be firmly, insist-ently and fervently fostered, and prevail, according to the norm of their laws; in religious houses. Doesn't the solid support of re-ligious discipline and life have its foundation here? Isn't the past or future success of the great undertakings that religious have and will accomplish to be .attributed solely to the un'iOn of tbeir force's by obedience? You must therefore recognize, r~spect and gladly accept the salutary yoke of obedience as the burden of the brave. However, in our day, in which the machine holds universal sway, wben the mechanical arts bare penetrated everywhere, absorb us and fashion everything to their image, superiors are to be careful not to treat their subjects almost as merchandise or parts Of a ma-cbine but they are always to respect the human person." Allocution to Teachers of the Order of Discalced Carmelites', 43-1951 - 736. V. PARTICULAR VIRTUES 60. Necessity of it)terror life. "But this also, as far as you can, you sbould accomplisb. . . tbat all wbom you can reacb are to be taugbt that notbing is preferable, nothing more necessary than that all should adorn their souls with heavenly virtues and especially that they should foster the divine life from which such virtues arise and grow. Whoever neglects this interior and supernatural life, v~hicfi is nourished by divine grace, whoe~'er devotes himself only to ex.- ternals, even if praiseworthy and adapted to the times, sooner or later realizes that he has given himself to a sterile and perishabl~ work. You know that 'every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights'; therefore, everythin~g also appertaining to the apostolate will be vain and empty unless moved b'y the spirit that is from God." Letter ob the Fifth Centenar~t of the Death of St. Colette, 40-1948-105, 106. 61. "With the same devotion that you cherish religious poverty in external matters you are to accumulate the v~ealth of a true in-terior life and to acquire spiritual riches: love of God and your ~aeighbor, real penance, a knowledge of sacred sciences, and a burn-ing desire to extend the Ki.ngdom of Christ. It is your duty to be conspicuous by a simplicity of conduct, a splendor of goodnesS, a brightness of holy joy, in your sacred ministry humbly to serve 128 May, 1955 "~HE RELIGIOUS LIFE the humble, especially the poorer, whom now evil men by so many evil arts strive to bind to themselves, to favor and assist." Allocu-tion to Fathers of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, 40-1948-! 552. 62. "The most active zeal can be closely allied with the quest for the riches of the interior life . An eager external activity and the cultivation of the interior life demand more than a bond of fellowship; as far at least as evaluation and willed effort are con-cerned, they demand that they should march along together step by step. With the growth of devotion~ to exterior works therefore, let there shine forth a cor~espdnding increase in faith, in the life of prayer, in zealous consecration of self and talents to God, in spotless purity of conscience, in obedience, in patient endurance of hardship, and in active charity tirelessly expend.ed for God and one's neighbor . The Church insistently demands of you that your external works correspond to your interior life and that these two: maintain a constant balance." Address to the General Con-gress on the States of Perfection, 43-1951-32. *63. Charity. "But legitimate and well-ordered love of our native country should not make us close our eyes to the all-embracing nature of Christian charity, which calls for consideration of others and of their interests in the pacifying light of love." Encyclical Letter, "Sumni Pontit~catus," 31-1939-549. *64. Prayer. Its necessity. "Your divine vocation is to prepare the way in the souls of men for the love and grace of Jesus Christ. This cannot be accomplished unless you yourselves are already im-bued with that love. Enkindle the love of Christ in yourselves by union with Christ in prayer and sacrifice. By uhion, We say, in prayer. If you ask Us what word We have at the beginning of Our pontificate for the priests of the Catholic Church, We reply: pray, pray more ~nd more, and more insistently! By union also in sacri-fice: in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but not only in the Eucharistic Sacrifice but also in a certain sacrifice of one's self. You realize that one of the effects of the Most Holy Eucharist is to confer strength to sacrifice and deny themselves on those who assist and receive. The various forms of Christian asceticism may continue to differ with regard to many secondary principles but none of them knows any way to the love of God that does not demand sacrifice also of one's self. Christ demanded this of His followers when He said: 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up 129 Reuiew for Religious his cross daily, and follow me.' In explicit language He defined the way to the love of God as the observance of the divine ~com-mandments. Finally, especially to His apostles He addressed that wonderful sentence: 'Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat failing into the ground die, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' " Address to the Students of the Roman Seminaries, Colleges, and Institutions, 31-1939-249. *65. "For such a formation of spirit We recommend prayer above everything else, as We have already said to the students of the sanc-tuary in their first gathering before Us. Pray, pray, pray; prayer is the key of the treasures of God; it is the weapon of combat and of victory in every struggle .for good and against evil. What can-not prayer accomplish by adoration, propitiation, petition, thanks-giving?" Address to Italian Catholic Action, 32-1940-368. *66. Necessity of mental pra~ter. "Genuine and real piety, which the Angelic Doctor calls 'devotion,' and which is the principal act of the virtue of religion, that act which correctly relates and properly directs men to God and by which they free!y and spontaneously give themselves to everything pertaining to the worship ~f God, needs meditation on the supernatural realities and spiritual exercises if it is to be nurtured, stimulated, sustained and is to prompt us to a more perfect life . Since our hearts, disturbed as they are at times by the lower appetites, do not always respond to motives of love, it is also extremely helpful to allow consideration and con-templation ~)f the justice of God to excite us on occasion to salutary fear and guide us thence to Christian humility, repentance and amendment." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39-1947-534, 535. *67. "First of all, the Church exhorts us to holy meditation, which elevates the mind to things of heaven, draws our thoughts to the supernatural and, once our soul has been inflamed with the desire of God, directs it to Him along the path of right reason . Now it is absolutely essential that sacred ministers should most diligently reproduce in their own lives these examples from the Gospel and the virtues of our Divine Redeemer. But just as bodily food does not nourish, sustain and increase life unless it is digested and be-comes part of our own substance, so also unless the priest by medi-tation and contemplation on the mysteries of our Divine Redeemer --who indeed is the supreme and absolute Exemplar of perfection and the inexhaustible fountain of holiness--lives the life of this same Redeemer, he cannot gain control over himself ~ind his senses, 130 Mag, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE purify his soul, strive for virtue as be should, nor lastly discharge his sacred duties faithfully, zealously and fruitfully . Where-fore, in all truth must We assert that the special efficacy attached to meditation cannot be supplied by any other means and conse-quently that nothing else can replace the practice of daily medita-tion." Apostolic Exhortation, 'Menti Nostrae,' 42-1950-672. *68. Efficac~t of private pra~ter. "There are others who deny any impetratory powers to our prayers and spread abroad the idea that prayers offered to God in private are of little value. Public prayers, that are made in the name of the Church, are those that really avail, since they come from the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. Such an opinion is false; for the Divine Redeemer maintains closest union not only with His Church, which is His beloved Spouse, but also with each and every faithful soul in it, and He longs to speak with them heart to heart, especially after Holy Communion. It is true that public prayers, since they are offered by Mother Church and because of the dignity of the Spouse of Christ, excel any other kind of prayer; but no prayer, even the most private, lacks its own dignity and power, and all prayer is immensely helpful to the en-tire Mystical Body." Enc~tclical Letter, 'Mgstici Corporis," 35- 1943-235, 236. 69. "But here also there can be a sin of excess. There are some whose extravagant praise of the liturgical forms of the ancient ages easily leads them to a confempt of those of the later centuries and to despise private and popular prayers. Liturgy, which means all forms of worship established by ecclesiastical authority, is something last-ing and living that grows through the cefituries. An attraction for the youthful years must not result in a contempt for the older years . The essential thing in divine worship and the care of souls is always that the followers of the Gospel in the innermost depths of a good conscience seek God, reverence the majesty and the law of the celestial Godhead, do penance for their sins, confess their sins with sorrow and wash away their punishment with works of mercy, acquire grace and live rightly that they may live forever and happily. There are some who eat solid food and some are nour-ished on milk." Homil~t on the Fourteenth Centenar~l of the Death of St. Benedict, 39-1947-455,456. *70. Individual inclinations in praver. "Many of the faithful are unable to use the RomanMissal, even in their native language; nor are all capable of understanding correctly the liturgical rites and 131 POPE PIUS XII Review [or Religious formulas. So varied and diverse are me6's talents and temperaments that it is impossible for all to be moved and attracted to the same extent by community prayers, hymns, and liturgical services. More-over, the needs and inclinations of all are not the same nor are they always constant in the same individual." Encyclical Letter,. "Mediator Dei," 39-1947-561. "71. Multiplicity of prayers. "Above all, do not cease to incul-cate into the minds of all that the Christian life does not consist in the multiplicity and variety of prayers and exercises of piety but rather in their helpfulness towards spiritual progress of the faithful and constant growth of the entire ChurCh." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39-1947,587. *72. "But it should be noted that piety and genuine and ardent zeal for prayer are worth more than a mere multiplicity of prayers." Apostolic Exhortation, "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-673. *73. Spiritual routine. "When young men perform the same exercises of piety according to a practically unchanging daily rou-tine, we can fear that their interior spirit may not be entirely in harmony with the external practices of religion. By force of habit this can happen to them all the more easily and even grow worse when they leave the seminary and are engrossed frequently in the necessary performance of their duties." Apostolic Exhortation, "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-689. *74. Externalism. "It is not merely a question of recitation or of singing [the divine office] which, however perfect according to norms of music and the sacred rites, only reaches the ear, but it is especially a question of the ascent of the mind and heart to God so that, united with Christ, we may completely dedicate ourselves and all our actions to Him." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39- 1947-574. *75. Ritualism and Formalism. "But the primary element of divine worship must be interior. For we must always "live in Christ and give ourselves to Him completely . This recommendation the liturgy itself is careful to repeat as often as it prescribes an exterior act of worship. Thus we are urged, when there is question of fast-ing, for example, 'to give interior effect to our outward observance.' Otherwise religion clearly amounts to mere ritualism and formal-ism . It should be clear to all, then, that God cannot be honored worthily unless the mind and heart are elevated to Him in quest of 132 May, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE the perfect life." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei,' 39-1947-531, 532. *76. "Besides, sin~e they [non-liturgical practices of piety] de-velop a deeper spiritual life in the faithful, they prepare the faith-ful to take part in sacred public functions with greater fruit and lessen the danger of liturgical prayers becoming an empty ritual-ism." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39-1947-584. *77. Humility. "Let the priest not trust in his own strength, find undue satisfaction in the contemplation of his talents, go search-ing for the esteem and praise of men or eagerly long for higher positions. Rather let him imitate Christ, who 'has not come to be served but to serve'; let him deny himself according to the law of the Gospel and be not inordinately attached to the things of earth, that he may the more easily and the more readily follow the Divine Master." Apostolic Exhortation, "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-662. *78. Necessity, motive, and purpose of detachment. "He g~ce himself to God and to souls entirely, forever, with no hesitancy, with no reserve. Here is the secret of his heroic training for the supreme victory. To give himself completely, he renounced every-thing . It would be folly to renounce everything and oneself only to make a desert bf oneself. This is not what is done; no one has the right to do it. The motive of renunciation is a greater and holier love. Of this you must be deeply convinced, beloved sons of the Institute of th~ Foreign Missions: for love of God, for love of souls your fellow-member was detached from everything and from himself. This detachment and motive are evidently com-mon to all true apostles, but such love is of varying degree accord-ing to the temperament, charactgr, and natural and supernatural gifts of each." AItocution on the Beatification of Alberico Cris-citelli, 43-1951-165, 167. 79. Penance and mortification. "Not all, particularly in our day, understand as they should this kind of penitential life. Many to-day consider it either of little value or wearisome and neglect it entirely. However, we are not to forget that the lamentable fall ¯ of Adam has infected all of us with the hereditary blemish and inclines all of us readily to the allurements of sin. Penance, there-fore, is.absolutely necessary for us, according to the words: 'but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish.' Nothing is of greater force in restraining the disordered passions of the soul and in subjecting the natural appetites to right reason. When we 133 POPE PIUS XII Revieto for Religious emerge victorious from this struggle, even though we must follow constantly in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and in a certain manner crucify our own flesh, we shall even in this life possess those heav-enly joys and delights that surpass the pleasures of earth as much as the soul does the body and heaven the earth. Holy penance and voluntary mortifications have their own heavenly consolation that the perishable and fleeting pleasures of life cannot give." Canoni-zation of Marianna of Jesus of Paredes, 42-1950-611, 612. *80. Correspondence with grace and self-effort. "Very truly the sacraments and the sacrifice of the altar, being Christ's own actions, must be held to be capable in themselves of conveying and dispensing grace from the divine Head to the members of the Mystical Body. But if they are to produce their proper effect, it is. absolutely neces-sary that our hearts be rigbly disposed to receive them . Em~ phatically, therefore, the work of redemption, which in itself is in-dependent of our will, requires a serious interior effort on our part if we are to achieve eternal salvation." Encgc[ica[ Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39-1947-533, 53.4. VI. MISCELLANEOUS "81. Government. Excessive bureaucraqt. "Finally We wish you to consider a thought that should guide and illumine all your pas-toral act, ion. Dedicate yourselves to it with all your souls. Give to all your activity the personal character of your spirit and your heart. We mean by this that you should be on your guard against an excessive bureaucracy in the care of souls. It is true that the proper management of the parochial office is strictly necessary. Your parishioners, however, must always and in all circumstances sense the kindness and paternal affection that beats in the heart of the pastor. Each and every one of your faithful should feel it, should be able to approach you easily and find in you the help and pro-tection that will fulfill the expectation of his trust." Allocution to Roman Pastors and Lenten Preachers, 43-1951-116. 82. Maternal government. "And now, dearest daughters, We pass on to give you two pressing exhortations. ;Fhe first is that of maternal affection in the direction of your sisters. It is undoubt-edly t~ue, as the psychologists maintain, that when in authority it is not as easy for woman as for man to find the exact balance between severity and kindness. This makes it all the more neces-sary to cultivate your maternal sentiments. Remember that for 134 Mar , 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE your sisters as well as for yourselves the vows demand a great sac-rifice. They have renounced their families, the happiness of mar-riage and the intimacy of family life. This is a lofty sacrifice and of decisive importance for the apostolate of the Church, but it is none the less a sacrifice. Sisters of greatness of soul and delicacy of sentiment feel this detachment most keenly. The words of Christ, 'He that putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back is not fit for the kingdom of God,' find their full application here, also today, and without reservation. But the order should replace the family as much as it can, and on you, the mothers general, falls primarily the duty of breathing the warmth of family affection into the common life of the sisters. You must be motherly in your ex-ternal conduct, in your words arid writings, even when this de-mands self-mastery. Above all, be maternal in your inmost thoughts, your judgments and, as far as possible, in your feelings. Beg Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our own Mother, every day to teach you to be maternal." Address to the Congress of Mothers General, 44- 1952-825, 826. 83. Union. Federation of independent houses. "The prolonged actual living and experience of a confederation can convince you of the great wisdom of the Supreme Pontiff, Leo XIII, in procuring that the various Benedictine families, commonly called 'black Bene-dictines,' be united by the bonds of a brotherly confederation, with-out injury to their own institutes or norms. By the realization of this plan, the autonomy or faculty of living according to their own laws, the original norm that g'uided your monasteries, was in fact adapted to modern times in a salutary and provident manner, since it was demanded by the changed circumstances and the common good. In ancient and medieval times, when communications were more confined, the care of the faithful restricted to lesser necessities and the pursuit of. learning less extensive, such autonomy was more consistent. Aren't the very congregations of Benedictine religious that have arisen in the course of centuries an evident argument that a.fraternal union of effort is desired for the strengthening and per-fecting of discipline? Isn't this proved also by the wider associa-tions that were formed, for example, of Cluny and Bursfeld? If the individual monasteries had remained entirely alone, the Maurine Congregation of Benedictines could not have acquired such high renown for advancing sacred sciences, and elsewhere also the luster of your outstanding fictixiity and solid honor would have been dimmed. POPE PlUS XII Review for Religious In this age, the greater facility of communications, the will that is found everywhere more prone to united efforts, the desire for wider learning, for counsel, the instriaments of zeal necessary for priests and also for missionaries to fulfill the expectation placed in them require federations, demand union. If autonomy is unreason-ably retained, there will be found perhaps monasteries that are unequal to their purpose because, of the small number of religious, and the discipline of the observance of rule can also be weakened and even dangers can gradually creep in." Homily on the _Four-teenth Centenar( of the Death of St. Benedict, 39-1947-454, 455. 84. "For the circumstances of our age, with its much greater facility of communication, the increase in the sacred duties and the greater learning required of ministers of the Church seem to de-mand a union of members. Indeed, the J~enedictine Congregations erected in the past are a proof that the progress of the religious life demands that brothers unite their labors with their brothers." Approual and Confirmation of the Constitutions of the Confeder-ation of the Benedictine Monastic Congregations, 44-1952-521. 85. "In view of changed circumstances there are now many con-siderations which make it advisable and sometimes even necessary to confederate monasteries of nuns." Apostolic Constitution, "Sponsa Christi," 43-1951-13. 86. Centralization. "When the number of houses had so in-creased, the discerning superioress perceived clearly that it is most difficult to attain a unity of religious spirit and to preserve for any length of time union between different houses completely subject to the ordinaries of the" individual places. She realized that no small utility would accrue to the entire congregation i~ it were ruled by a common and uniform government, in which the strength of any institute and the life of religious discipline almost consist. For the attainment of this purpose nothing seemed to her more oppor-tune and suitable than to subject all the houses, whether already founded or to be founded in the future, to the house at Angers and to place a mother general over th~ entire congregation. This intention, although approved by the Bishop of Angers and other very prudent men, gave rise to a serious controversy . These dissensions could not but greatly sadden Mary of St. Euphrasia but were powerless to break her spirit or weaken her constancy. ¯ . . The Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, on Janu-ary 9, 1835 . approved the intention of the servant of God, 136 May, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE and Pope Gregory XVI, of happy memory, deignedto confirm this decree in all respects . This same Predecessor of Ours, after the matter bad again been subjected to a thorough examination . solemnly confirmed that decree." Decretal Letters of Canonization of St. Mary of St. Euphrasia, 33-194.1-141. 87. Nuns. Introduction of solemn vows. "All monasteries [of nuns] in which only simple vows are taken shall be entitled to ask for the introduction of solemn vows. In fact, unless there are serious reasons to the contrary, they shall take steps to return to the solemn vows." Apostolic Constitution, "Sponsa Christi," 43- 1951-16. 88. Necessity of at least minor papal cloister. "Papal cloister, either major or minor, is to be regarded as a necessary condition not only that solemn vows may be taken but also that those monas-teries in which simple vows are taken may hereafter be considered true monasteries of nuns according to can. 488, 7°." Apostolic Constitution, "Sponsa Christi," 43-1951 - 17. 89. "If however it appears with certainty that in any monas-tery [of nuns] even the minor cloister cannot regularly be ob-served, that monastery is to be converted to a house of either a congregation or a society." Apostolic Constitution, "Sponsa Christi," 43-1951-17. 90. Unity among rebgious institutes. "Harmony and generous agreement between the different religious families can be very favor-able in attaining such a desirable outcome. Mutual knowledge and encouragement, a holy rivalry cannot but be of mutual advantage. Splendid initiatives are already apparent in this respect; it remains only to perfect them." Apqstolic Exhortation to the International Convention of Teaching Sis'ters, 43-1951-743. 91. Praise of Religious Women. "How could the Church in later and more modern times have fully accomplished her mission with-out the work of the hundreds of thousands of religious women per-formed with such great zeal in education and charity? How could she accomplish it in our day? May your dedication, love and sac-rifices, so frequently hidden and unknown but suffered for love of ¯ Christ to benefit youth, produce in the future, as in the past, a hundred-fold of good! May the Lord reward you for it and pour out on you the abundance of His divine favors!" Apostolic Ex-hortation to the International Convention of Teaching Sisters, 43- 1951-739. 137 POPE PIUS 92. Clerical and religious states. "It is a distortion of the truth to say that the clerical state as such and as of divine law demands .either by its very nature or by some postulate of that nature that the evangelical counsels be observed by its members and that for this very reason it must or may be called a state of achieving evan-gelical perfection . So too, the fact that the priests of the Latin rite are bound to observe holy celibacy does not remove or lessen the distinction between the clerical and the religious states. More-over, a member of the regular clergy professes the state and condition of evangelical perfection not inasmuch as he is a cleric but inas-much as he is a religious." Address to the General Congress on the States of Perfection, 43-1951-29. 93. Exemption. "Again, the exemption of religious orders is not contrary to the principles of the constitution given to the Church by God nor does it in any way contradict the law that a priest owes obedience to his bishop. For, according to canon law, exempt religious are subject to the authority of the local bishop so far as the administration of the episcopal office and the well-regulate~d care of souls require. But even putting aside this consideration, in the discussions of the past few decades concerning the question of exemption perhaps too little attention has been paid to the fact that exempt religious, even by the prescriptions of canon law, are always and everywhere subject to the authority of the Roman Pontiff as their supreme superior and that they owe obedience to him precisely in virtue of their vow of obedience . It is there-fore clear that the primary law of God whereby the clergy and the laity are subject to the rule of the bishop is more than sufficiently observed as regards exempt religious, as it is no le~s clear that both branches of the clergy by reason of their parallel services conform to the will and precept of Christ." Address to the General Congress on the States of Perfection, 43-1951-28, 29. *94. Adequate support. "What is more, Venerable Brethren, We heartily commend the plans that you will discuss to insure that priests be provided not only with means to meet their daily needs but also with assurances of assistance for the future--as We are happy to see done in civil society--particularly for cases in Which they may fall ill, be 'afflicted with chronic ill health, or be weakened by old age. Thus you will relieve them of all anxiety for the future." Apostolic Ex-hor. tation,. "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-698. .138 Through I-lis Blood Joseph H. Robling, C.PP.S. IF variety is the spice of life in general, it is also, in a sense, the spice of our supernatural life. If, for example, we have been considering certain revealed truths from the selfsame aspect so long that they scarcely impress us any more, it is helpful to con-sider them from some other aspect for a while. Many such variations are possible. Among them is the con-sideration of the truths of faith from the aspect of the precious blood of our Lord. This aspect was adopted very notably by St. Gaspar del Bufalo, who was canonized on June 12 of last year. He is called the Apostle of the Precious Blood, not only because he founded the Society of the Precious Blood in Rome in 1815, or because he fostered the pious union of the same name, but also be-cause in his very effective preaching of missions and retreats in the Papal States over a period of more than twenty years before his death in 1837 he frequently focused the attention of his hearers on the precious blood and from that vantage point drove home his message of instruction and exhortation. For this purpose during his sermons he sometimes held a large crucifix portraying the figure of the bleeding Savior and wore on his breast the now familiar mis-sion cross showing our Redeemer in the act of sacrificing even His own blood for sinners. Considering revealed truths from the aspect of the precious blood, we may profitably reflect, for instance, that no grace whatever comes to us independently of the sacrificial blood of Christ; for no grace is given to fallen mankind except that merited for us by the bloody sacrifice of our Redeemer on the cross. This same sacrifice was fore-shadowed and foretold in the Old Testament and is renewed and perpetuated by the holy Mass in the New. Furthermore, since we receive no grace independently of the precious blood, we also would have no means of grace without it--no Church, no priesthood, no sacraments, no sacramentals, no fruitful prayer. Again, since no one can be saved without grace, we can truthfully say that without the precious blood there would be no saint in heaven nor any soul in purgatory, nor even any just man on earth. Without it there would be neither justification nor salvation for any human .person. The blood of Jesus speaks better than the blood.of Abel (Heb. 12:24). It speaks of our Savior's lo,¢e and foFgivenes.s, of the ~13_9 JOSEPH H. ROHLING reality and extent of His sufferings, of the sacrifice He offered and the price He paid, of the tangible evidence and measure of His love for souls, of the mercy and pardon He holds out to repentant sin-ners, and His nourishing of souls in Holy Communion. It teaches the value of an immortal soul, for with St. Paul every human person can say, "He gave himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20), that is, He sacrificed even His own blood for me. And if our own soul., is so valuable in His sight, so is the soul of every other human being. Therefore, it teaches us zeal for souls and forms a powerful motive for missionary undertakings. It also teaches us the value of suffer-ing. If Jesus was willing to go to the extreme limit of shedding His own blood for me, how can I refuse Him the lesser sufferings and inconveniences and sacrifices He asks of me? Modern man tends to regard suffering as the greatest evil. The precious blood, on the other hand, teaches us that sin is a greater evil, because the Son of God was willing to undergo even a bloody death in order that sin might be taken away. The precious blood also supplies us with important motives for contrition and. amendment, for by sin we offend Him "who has loved us and washed us from our sins in hi~ own blood" (Apoc. 1:5). By committing mortal sin we lose all the sanctify-ing grace purchased for us at the price of our Redeemer's blood. Baptism an'd penance cleanse us from sin and punishment insofar as ¯ they infuse sanctifying grace and thus apply the merits of the pre-cious blood. The sacramental anointing with holy oil in confir-mation and 'extreme unction give supernatural strength to the soul because they apply these same merits in their specific way and for their specific purposes. Holy Orders and matrimony give the special graces for which they were.instituted and in'that way apply the merits of the blood of redemption to the recipients to enable them to fulfill the obligations of their respective states of life. The Holy Eucharist nourishes the recipient on the very blood itself that he may have everlasting life and be raised up on the last day (John 6:56). These examples will suffice to illustrate the manner in which 'we can regard the eternal truths from the aspect of the precious blood. For those who have not been using this approach, it may serve as a welcome variation in their prayer and meditation. St. Gaspar del Bufalo used this approach to great advantage. God blessed his efforts. By canonizing him the Church proposes him as a model for all of us. May we benefit by his example! 140 Community Lit:e Bernard I. Mullahy, C.S.C. yOU often hear it said that one of the principal reasons why there are not more vocations to the religious life is that young people find it hard to give up their social life, or that one of the things young women find most difficult in the convent is the lack of social life. Everyone understands What is meant by this, of course; yet, to suggest that in reality the religious life means a denial of social life is to misunderstand either the nature of the religious life or the true meaning of social life or, more fundamen-tally, the nature of the Christian life and its relation to the re-ligious life. The religious life is not something apart from thi~ Christian life, not even something added on to it; it is the Christian life lifted to its maximum dimensions. The religious life is simply a state which provides the best conditions for living the Christian life in the fullness of its perfection and beauty and splendor. Our religious vows are buta fulfillment of our baptismal vows; and perhaps the fact that so many of us have the habit of renewing our religious vows frequently while .hardly ever thinking of renewing our bap-tismal vows is an indication that we do not appreciate clearly and explicitly enough the vital relation between what happened to us on the day of our profession and what happened to us on the day of our baptism. Religious vocation is a flowering of our original vocation to be Christians, and we would surely have a deeper un-derstanding of the implications of our religious life if we had a fuller and clearer appreciation of the meaning of the Christian life. Now the Christian life is essentially a social life. It is a par-ticipation in the communal life of the Trinity and of the Mystical Body. And it goes without saying that this is the most intimate and intense social life conceivable. If then the whole meaning of religious vocation is to lift the Christian life to full perfection, it follows that one of the main purposes of the religiou's life, particu-larly in its cenobitic form, is to enal~le the Christian to live the sociai life of the Mystical Body and of God Himself in the fullness of its intensity and intimacy. This, it would seem, is the inner meaning of our community life. If we are not sufficiently conscious of this inner meaning, the reason may be that we are in the habit of viewing community life 141 BERNARD 1. MULLAHY Revietv {or Religious too much as a purely disciplinary thing, as something which rigor-ously rules out all singularity; every tendency to withdraw from community recreation and other community functions, every infrac-tion of the common life which might offend poverty in any way: we do not view it in the whole context of the Christian life, nor do we trace it back to its doctrinal and sacramental sources. There are three principal aspect~ of the Christian life: doctrine, worship, and moral action; or, in other words, the three C's: creed, cult, and code. In the spirituality characteristic of our times, there has been a tendency to stress code and moral action in isolation from creed and cult, from doctrine and worship. When this is done the Christian life and the religious life are viewed primarily in terms of asceticism, in terms of spiritual practices which are seen less as acts of divine worship than as exercises to perfect the soul. There is a concentration on sanctifying the will by a pattern of ascetical rules without at the same time illumining and enriching the mind with the doctrinal wellsprings of the Christian life. This tends to make the Christian life a kind of ethical and legalistic thing. Perhaps we have been in the habit of thinking of community life too much from this point of view. Perhaps we have seen it too much in terms of code, and not enough in terms of creed and cult; and it might be helpful for us to try to situate it in its proper context of doctrine and worship. To try to get at the doctrinal source of community life is to ask the question, Where is community life lived in its fullest and most perfect form? The answer, as we have already suggested, is: the Blessed Trinity. The life of the Trinity is essentially a com-munity life. G6d not only has community life, He is community life. He is a community of three Persons whose life,consists in an eternal, mutual outpouring of light and love, an outpouring that is so intense and so utterly altruistic that it constitutes the very per-sonality of the members of the community. Here is community life in its perfection: the personality of each of the members consists in being a living relation to the other members, nothing more, nothing less. Here is the common life in its fullest dimensions: none of the members possesses-anything absolute, anything at all, by Himself alone; everything absolute is shared in common. Here, as in a re-ligious community, the common life is founded on poverty, that mysterious, infinitely rich poverty of the three divine Persons which make it impossible to possess anything absolute as belonging to them personally. 142 Mag, 1955 COMMUNITY LIFE Our religious vows meant an entrance into a community life. So also did our baptismal vows. At baptism a real participation in the infinitely altruistic, communal life of the Trinity was put into our souls; and we were caught up in the intense and intimate social intercourse of the three divine Dersons. From then on we were des-tined to live the community life of the Mystical Body of Christ. From then on our vocation was to live not an isolated or insulated or introverted life, but a life of perfect altruism. This meant that our Christian personality would have to have something of the per-sonality of the three divine Persons; we wduld have to become a living relation to others: our joys, our riches, our prayer would have to be theirs; their poverty, their sorrows, their sufferings would have to be ours. The community life of the Mystical Body is a thing of vast proportions, for it embraces the whole Communion of Saints: the Church militant and suffering and triumphant. The proportions are so vast and the states so different that it is difficult for us while in this life to realize its far-reaching implications. Even if we limit our view to the Church militant, the distances are so great, there is such a lack of immediate contact, and there are so many differences of national traits and cultures and backgrounds, so many divisive forces, that it is not easy for us to have the sense of achieving close social intercourse. The parish is, of course, the natural communal unit in the Mystical Body; but here also differences of backgrounds and occupations and many other things seem to put a limit upon the intimacy and intensity of the social relations. The family, too, has its drawbacks, such as the immaturity of the children, for ex-ample. But in the religious community all these limitations dis-appear; and perhaps we may be permitted to think that one of the principal reasons why God brought religious communities into ex-istence was to provide a state which would have the ideal condi-tions for living the communal life of the Blessed Trinity and of the Mystical Body with the fullest intensity with which it is pos-sible for man to live it here on earth. In the religious state ~ire found the most perfect conditions for reflecting the social life of God. Here everyth{ng is possessed in common, and what belongs to one belongs to all. Here the barriers, the divisive influences, and the differences in interests and o.~cupations so often found in the world disappear. All are inspired by the same common purpose; all are governed by the same religious rule; all are formed in the same spiritual life and .participate in the same spir~ BERNARD I. MULLAHY itual exercises. Here we should expect to find the fullest achievement of social life, the highest form of altruism, the most perfect self-lessness, the least degree' of spiritual introversion. Nowhere should social consciousness be more delicate and strong, more sensitive and refined. Here, as in the community life which is God, there should be a constant outpouring of light and love upon others; and, like a reflection of the members of that divine community, each religious should' be a kind of living relation to all the others. In a word, since the Christian life is essentially a social life and since the purpose of the religious state is to bring the Christian life to its full devel-opment, we should expect to find nowhere more than in a religious community the perfect answer to the prayer of Christ after the Last Supper: "That they all may be one even as thou, Father, in me and Iin thee; that they also may be one in us. I in them and thou in me; that they may be perfected in unity." That this ideal is not always fully realized hardly needs to be mentioned. Everyone knows that, even in the extremely favor-able conditions for social life provided by the religious state, social .maladjustments and social tensions can and do exist, that not in-frequently individualism and spiritual introversion are developed to a high degree. There are undoubtedly a good many reasons for this. But may not one of the principal reasons be, as we have already sug-gested, the tendency to stress the code of the religious state in iso-lation from the whole context of the Christian life? When the religious life is viewed principally in terms of asceticism and dis-ciplinary regulations, when more insistence is placed upon the moral virtues than upon the theological virtues, when the various practices which go to make up the spiritual program are viewed more as exer-cises of the spiritual athlete than as acts 0f divine worship, and when there is more insistence upon self-perfection than upon charity as the goal of the spiritual life, it is hardly to be wondered at if some religious succumb to the temptation to turn in upon themselves and to become spiritually introverted. And, when the official prayer life of the Church suffers at the hands of spiritual individualism and private devotions, when the liturgical life is not lived fully by the religious, and when his community life does not find i~s full and natural expression in the communal worship of the Mystical Body, it seems inevitable that the social implications of this community life will not be brought to fulfillment. Since the Christian life is essentially a social life, it is only natural that the official prayer lif~ of the Christian, the liturgy, 144 May, 1955 COMMUNITY LIFE should be essentially a social worship. And, if the purpose of the religious life is to. bring the Christian life to its ~perfection, are we not entitled to expect that, while each religious society will natur-ally want to insist on its own proper spirituality and spirit, the official social worship of the Church will also be brought to ful-fillment in it? May we not be permitted to suspect that one of the purposes God had in mind in raising up religious communities was to bring about the best conditions for communal worship? It seems incongruous and inconsistent to insist on community life without insisting on communal worship. Yet there are religious congregations which make much of community life in all its minute disciplinary details all the way. along the line (and not infrequently in an all too univocal way which confuses unity and uniformity) until it is a question of worship, and then individualism and sub-jectivism take over, at least to a large extent. We even find paradoxical situations in which private prayer is made public and public prayer private. Nothing could be more. personal and intimate than mental prayer. Yet it is not uncommon to find it turned into a kind of public exercise, with the same subject for meditation read out for the entire community the evening before, and all the same points read out in public during the meditation period the next morning. On the other hand, the greatest public act of worship, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is often treated like a private devotion. It seems, therefore, that the community life of religious needs a rich doctrinal source in the dogma of the Church and a rich sacra-mental source in the liturgy of the Church. And, of course, the sun and center of the whole sacramental background of corhmunity life is the Eucharist. The Blessed Sacrament is the basic foundation for the common life because, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out, it contains substantially the common good of the whole Church. The community, life of a religious congregation will depend in lar, ge measure upon the way in which the Mass is understood and loved by the religious and upon the way it is participated in by the com-munity. In a very particular way, community life will depend upon the attitude of the religious towards Communion. In modern times there has been a very paradoxical attitude among Catholics. Some, re-alizing that Communion is not necessary to fulfill the obligation of hearing Mass on Sunday have come to look upon it as a purely external addition to the Mass. Others have made it the focal point 145 BERNARD I. MULLAHY Re~ieu] ~:or Religious of the whole Mass, as though the Mass were a Communion service rather than a Sacrifice. This latter attitude is the more common among religious. Comr~union viewed as an intimate personal union between the individual soul and Christ is made the center of at-tention; and, with the notion ~of sacrifice pushed far into the back-ground, the part of the Mass which precedes Communion is spent in a personal preparation for the reception of Christ; and the part afterwards, in a personal thanksgiving. It has not been unknown for religious communities to receive Communion regularly every morning before Mass so that the religious might spend the entire Mass in making a private act of thanksgiving. Fortunately, this sort of thing is becoming more and more rare. Communion can play its proper role in our community life only when it is viewed in its proper relation to the whole Mass, and the Mass in turn is viewed in its proper relation to the whole liturgical life of the Church. Then Communion xvill be seen as a social, sacrificial banquet in which the members of the Mystical Body corporately share in the Sacrifice and by feeding upon the Victim make of themselves one corporate sacrifice with Him. As Thomas Aquinas and other theologians have insisted, Com-munion does not mean merely a personal, private union between the individual soul and Christ: it also means a union of the mem-bers of the Mystical Body. Its proper effect is not merely something personal and individual, but something social and communal. Its purpose is not simply to give spiritual nourishment to tl~e individual soul, but to strengthen and intensify and revivify the manifold social bonds by which the members of the Mystical Body are made .one in Christ. Communion is directly related to the Christian community as a community. And for the religious, Communion is directly related to living the community life. If, as day follows day, the Communion of the religious is not gradually bringing about greater and more .sensitive social consciousness, a fuller and more perfect participation in community life, a stronger and more delicate exercise of fraternal charity, a more mature forbearance of the faults and failings of others, a greater capacity to cope with the misunder-standings and tensions which tend to creep into even the best com-munities, and a more generous acceptance of the many trying crosses which the common life always involves, something is wrong. Dhily Communion sometimes goes on for years withotit mu~b evidence of that growth in sanctity which would normally be ex-pected from° such frequent and intimate:contact with the source 146 ,~la~, 1955 COMMUNITY LIFE of all sanctity. As we have suggested elsewhere,1 one of the chief reasons for this phenomenon might very well be a lack of proper appreciation of the direct and essential relation between Com-munion and community. Because of this relation, any failure to live community life in its fullness will be an obstacle" to the full effects of Communion in our lives. It is not uncommon to find members of communities who by certain standards are considered excellent religious, and yet who seem never to have realized the social implications of their religious vocation. They are faithful to their rule, but in a very legalistic way. They are meticulous about every disciplinary detail; they are generous and sometimes even heroic in the practice of asceticism; and they are obedient enough when any of the obligations of com-munity life are pointed out to them; yet, intent upon their own spiritual life, the goal of which they conceive to be their own personal perfection rather than charity, they live a very individu~l-istic and insulated life. They never seem to enter fully into com-munity life nor to have any spontaneous contribution to make to it. They are socially cold and unimaginative. Just as demanding With others as they are with themselves, they find it difficult to under-stand and to sympathize with certain weaknesses of their fellow religious. Their fraternal charity is a kind of practised, artificial thing, lacking in warmth and mellowness. They are without social sensitivity and find it hard to enter into the feelings of others, to anticipate their wants. They are not thoughtful: and, when others are in need of help or there is some kind of community project to be taken in hand, they are usually busy with other things. All this may very well be due, at least in large measure, to a failure to understand and appreciate the doctrinal and liturgical background of community life in general, and to a wrong attitude towards Holy Communion in particular. These religious have never been made to understand clearly the social implications of Communion and have habitually viewed it only as a personal experience, an exquisitely close and intimate contact between Christ and their soul. Communion is thus but a part of their whole spirit-ually introverted program. It was the social virtue of fraternal charity that Christ gave as the distinguishing mark of the Christian. And, if the purpose of the. religious life is to bring the Christian to his full stature, in plenitudinern Christi, this social virtue should surely shine forth 1 Cf. "The Common Good," Worship, XXVII, No. 7, 345. 147 BERNARD I. MULLAHY Review ~o~ Religious in religious in all its splendor. This is the whole meaning and pur-pose of their community life. .In a sense, community life makes fraternal charity more difficult.because close living together seems to accentuate the many faults and failings of human nature which are often so hard to put up with; but at the same time it provides the most perfect conditions for living fraternal charity in its fullest dimensions. Religious are often anxious, especially at the time of retreats, to find some norm whereby they may assess their spiritual growth. The measurement of spiritual progress is a very complex and an easily deceptive thing, and it is difficult to find a reliable norm to go by. But insofar as there is any reliable standard at all, it is surely the social virtue of fraternal charity. "By this will all men know that you are my disciples." And it is principally in terms of their social life that religious will be judged at the end. "In the eventide of life," says 3ohn of the Cross, ."they will examine thee in love"; and he is merely paraphrasing Christ's own description of the last judgment in which everything is made to depend upon social life: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat." Rooting the idea of community in its proper doctrinal and liturgical sources will help to avoid some of the misconceptions and excesses which not infrequently accompany the common life. One of the most ordinary of these is the confusion between unity and uniformity. The common life is viewed all too often in a perfectly univocal way and any lack of uniformity even in the smallest de-tails is considered a breach of unit~. There results a kind of lock-step existence; short shrift is made of personal initiative and re-sourcefulness, "and the religious "with ideas" becomes suspect. Even in minutiae the religio~s are expected to do only what their elders have done and are doing, and woe to the one who suggests that there might be a better way. Regulations multiply and accumulate in an attempt to organize the life of the religious down to the slight-est detail. Customs which .once made sense because of special cir-cumstances of time or place but which have long since lost their significance and propriety are held 'as sacred and inviolable. The accumulated weight of regulations and customs crushes and stifles' "the liberty of the children of God" which the religious came to the community to find. Community life becomes top-heavy: all initiative comes from the top; local superiors must get directives from higher superiors even in relatively trivial matters; and within the local house all new ideas, if they are to have any value, must orig- 148 Magl, 1955 COMMUNITY LIFE inate with the superior. Such a program is well calculated to pro-duce a standard product, a religious whose.chief characteristics are neutrality, passivity, and automatism. This description is undoubtedly sbmething of a caricature, but does it not point up a real problem? And is not the only adequate solution that broad and, beautiful vision of the corporateness of. the Mystical Body and of the liturgical life of the Church? Here is the closest and most intimate unity, but at the .same time the greatest variety and flexibility. Here is a structure that is not me-chanical and rigid, but organic and supple. Another difficulty in connection with community life is that it often tends to cut the religious off from participation in a broader communal life and thus, paradoxically, to create a kind of com-munity individualism. To what extent non-cloistered religious can and sbould participate in'the communal Christian life of the parish in which they are stationed is a. question that is too complex and too delicate to be treated here; but it is a question which sbotild be faced. For the most part, the community life of the religious cuts them off and isolates them from corporate parochial life, and perhaps it would not be im13ossible.to find ways and means of enabling them .to partidpate, to some extent at least, in the com-munal worship of the parish, which is, after all, the natural social unit of the Mystical Body. The paradox of community" individualism is also found fre-quently in an exaggerated esprit de corps which develops a kind of sectarian spirit among religious. It is perfectly in order for a re-ligious to be proud of the traditions and the accomplishments of his own congregation and to prefer its characteristic life and spirit to that of any other community. All that is part and parcel of his vocation to that particular sodiety. And there is such a thing as a holy rivalry between communities. But it is also possible for a com-munity spirit to become excessive, to canonize too easily the tra-ditions and methods proper to the congregation, to develop a false pride which in many subtle and implicit ways looks down upon other communities and which closeq the congregation in upon itself and makes it impervious to good influences which might come to it from others. Here, as elsewhere the only remedy is that total view of the communal life of the Church found in its doctrine and its .liturgy. St. Augustine's dream of the reign of Christ's love upon earth which prompted him to say, "And there will be one Christ loving 149 c. A HERBST Review For Religious Himself," should find its fullest realization in the community life of religious. Christ is living in each religious; and, when the com-munity is bound together in fraternal charity, there is but one Christ loving Himself. No one can sing the hymn "Ubf Caritas'" with greater truth and meaning than the religious. "Congregat2it nos in unum Christi amor.--It is the love oL-Christ that has brought us together and made us one." The. Third Mode of blumili :y C. A. Herbst, S.3. EACH master of the spiritual life has certain ideals whic.h are distinctive and which he considers of the utmost importance ~n his plan for achievirig perfection. For St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Third Mode of Humility is one of these. He thus pre-sents it in the Spiritual Exercises: "The third is most perfect hu-mility; namely, when--including the first and second, and the praise and glory of the Divine Majesty being equal--in order to imitate and be more actually like Christ our Lord, I want and choose poverty with Christ poor rather than riches, opprobrium with Christ replete with it rather than honors; and to desire to be rated, as worthless and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world." In order right in the beginning to get a better understanding of this, it will be well to present a fuller expression he gives in another place. "They must diligently observe, esteeming it of great import-ance and of the highest moment in the sight of our Creator and Lord, how much it helps and contributes to progress in spiritual life, to abhor wholly and not in part what the world loves and embraces, and to accept and desire with their whole strength what-soever Christ our Lord loved and embraced. For as worldly men, who follow the things of the world, love and with great diligence seek honors, reputation and the credit of a great name upon earth, as the world teaches them, so those who are advancing in spirit and seriously follo'w 'Christ our Lord, love and earnestly desire things which are altogether the contrary; that is, to be clothed with the same garment and with the livery of their Lord for His love and reverence: insomuch that if it could be without offence of the 150 Ma~l, 1955 THE THIRD MODE OF HUMILITY divine Majesty and without sin on the part of their neighbor, they would wish to suffer reproaches, slanders and injuries, and to be treated and accounted as fools (without at the same time giving any occasion for it), because they desire to imitate and resemble in some sort their Creator and Lord Jesus Christ, and to be clothed with His garments and livery; since He clothed Himself with the same for our greater spiritual good, and gave us an example, that in all things, as far as by the assistance of God's grace we can, we may seek to imitate and follow Him, seeing He is the true way that leads men to life." (Examen Generale, IV, 4.) We should know what the other two modes .of humility are in order to understand the third. I have the first when I so subject myself to God that I am ready to give up everything, even life it-self, rather than commit a mortal sin. I have the second when I so subject myself to God that I am indifferent to created things and am ready to give up everything, even life itself, rather than commit a venial sin. Subjection to God is the note common to the three; but the third is so different from the other two that there is a dis-tinction not of degree only, but of kind. The idea behind the third mode of humility is perfect imitation of Christ "Who, having joy set before him, endured the cross, de-spising the shame" (Heb. 12:2). We want to imitate Christ per-fectly. We want what He had, even, especially, the hard things. The early Christians ambitioned, and often attained, actual perse- ¯ cution and death. But, when peace came to the Church in the Ro-man Empire after 312 A. D., they could no longer look forvOard to martyrdom. What were the.y now to ambition as the apex of their spiritual ascent? Thence stemmed the doctrine of bloodless martyrdom in asceticism and the religious life. From this stream of spiritual development, the author of the Spiritual Exercises drew his ideal of self-renouncement for Christ. The driving force in fervent souls is to "get to Christ." We have a splendid example of this in St. Ignatius, martyr and apos-tolic father. His motto was: "My Love is crucified." When on his way to martyrdom he wrote: "I am now beginning to be a disciple; may nothing visible or invisible prevent me from reaching Jesus Christ. Fire and cross and battling with wild beasts, their clawing and tearing, the breaking of bones and mangling of mem-bers, the g~ind!ng of my whole body, the wicked torments of the devil--let 'them all assail me, so long as I get to Jesus Christ." (Ad Romanos~ 5; Father Walsh's translation.) "Ignatius of Loy- 151 C.A HERBST Review for Religious ola sensed, so to speak, his spiritual affinity with this man of the early Church when, in honor of this Saint, he changed his name from Inigo to Ignatius and in one of his letters styled him 'that glorious Saint for whom I have in Our Lord, or wish to have, a very special reverential devotion.' " (Rahner, The Spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola, 59-60.) We might be inclined to think the third mode of humility as beyond our reach, as heroic. Is it heroic? Perhaps. Surely not in the sense explained by Pope Benedict XIV in his great work on the canonization of saints. But it may be heroic in a general and popularly accepted sense of the word. One who gives his life in a cause is commonly considered to be h~roic. A soldier must be ready tO die for his country. This is expected of every soldier. Yet, if he actually die, he is considered a hero. Sainted martyrs gave their lives rather than offer incense to false gods. In that they did only what they were obliged to do; yet they are considered God's heroes, heroic. At confirmation the bishop gives every Chris-tian a slight blow on the cheek to remind him that he must be ready to suffer anything, even death, for the sake of Christ. This sounds as though it is asking for heroism which, however, is pre-sumably within the reach of all. In the same way the heroism of the third mode of humility might reasonably be expected of those who are professionally travelling the high road of perfection. It almost looks as though a religious in making his profession has deliberately chosen as his way of life the third mode of humility. When he says, "I vow poverty," he says, "I want and choose pov-erty with Christ poor rather than riches." By taking a vow of chastity, he may be calling upon himself the disapproval of "worldly men, who follow the things of the world." By the vow of obedi-enc~ be is laying aside his own will by vcbicb be might push on to wealth, honor, and power. By pronouncing his vows, a re-ligious. has professionally taken on that foolishness of God which is wiser than men and that weakness of God which is stronger than men (I Cot. 1:25). He has/aid himself open "to be rated as worth-less and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world." ~The third mode of humility is a habit of mind, an habitual disposition of heart. A" striking act of self-abnegation now and then or even a spurt of fervor occasionally is not sufficient. It must become a way of life with us, a place in which we live. Father Considine puts it well in "A Question as to Ideals" when he says: 152 Mav, 1955 THE THIRD MODE OF HUMILITY "Within this region the Saints . . . have occupied sumptuous man-sions, in central and commanding positions, whereas the modest dwelling of any one of us may be no better than a poor cottage on the outskirts. But, poor as this dwelling may be, it must be within the border." (Woodstock Letters, 1908, 363.) Even of our miserable little hut on this high plateau we might say: "Better is one day in thy courts above thousands. I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the taber-nacles of sinners" (Ps. 83:11). How I can come to live there is what should be of great con-cern to me. There is close approach to, or passive practice of, the third mode, if we make "acts of sincere th.ankfulness, as often as any little share of the cross falls to our portion. Even supposing that, on one occasion.or another, we have brought some humiliation on ourselves by our own imprudence, we may, while most heartily regretting the fault or error of judgment, no less heartily thank God that we have at least some opportunity of making up for the fault or error, through the patient endurance of discomfort or even (it may be) the contempt which it has brought on us." (Woodstock Letters, 1908, 372.) We need not search far to find ample matter for living this life with Christ, "despising the shame." "The life of a religious is full of occasions in which he is blamed, or forgotten, or scorned, or ridiculed, or humiliated . We must expect little humiliations that fall upon us at any time and in any place--in the form of failure, lack of consideration, disapproval and small acts of ingrati-tude; we must suffer the offense of angry words, words that hurt, words of ridicule; we must bear outright and thinly veiled refusals; our cross may consist in lack of approval, lack of sympathy, scorn or contempt expressed by a look, a gesture, an attitude, or in being left alone while another is made much of; we may be faced with open or hidden criticism which we surmise or discover by accident ¯ . . our meager talent, our character, our health, our appearance." (Vermeerscb, Miles Christi Jesu, 151, 154.) Thomas ~ Kempis says: "What pleaseth others shall prosper, what is pleasing to thee shall not succeed. What others say shall be harkened to; what thou sayest shall be reckoned as nought. Others shall ask and shall re-ceive; thou shalt ask, and not obtain, Others shall be great in the esteem of men; about thee nothing shall be said. To others this or that shall be committed, but thou shalt be accounted as of no use." (Imitation, III, 49, 4-5.) 153 C. A HERBST Reuiev3 for Religious I offer myself to our Lord for all these things. This m~y be .a general offering of futurables but they may be actuated at any mo-ment. Perhaps I am living with some of them right now. At any rate this offering shows a habitual disposition consonant with the third mode of humility, and there lies hidden in it not a little faith and love. When I am passed over or slighted or snubbed, I hope I may be able to bear it at least patiently. I make a great advance when I come to accept such things willingly and even with love for the love of Him who "loved me and delivered himself for me." Wl'ien I come to accept them with joy and even enthusiasm, glad that the Father has placed me with His Son, I 'have travelled far. This offering of myself for humbling things and the patient, loving, joyous acceptance of them should lead me to have the wish to have the desire for humiliations. "For though I burn not with so great desire as Thy specially devout servants, yet, by Why grace, I have a desire of this same greatly inflamed desire, praying and wishing that I may be made partaker with all such fervent lovers, and be numbered in their holy company." (Imitation, IV, 14, 3.) From the desire of the desire we ought, by God's grace, soon to pass on to "desire to be made little of, neglected, passed over, have little influence, even be regarded as suspect, be criticised, reproved, ridi-culed. We ought to have no desire for first place, for the higher offices . . . association with the more wealthy, the more aristocratic, or the leading men, no desire for the larger cities." (Coemans-Germ-ing, Commentartj, n. 251.) This, in a small way, is "to desire to be rated as worthless and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world." No motive but love is strong enough to carry one through to the attainment of so high an ideal. Without love even martyrdom of blood is to no purpose. "And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profit~th me nothing" (I Cor. 13:3). It is the same with bloodless martyrdom. And it must be a love of imitation and companionship. "With Me," Christ the King invites. "With Christ I am nailed to the Cross" (Gal. 2:19). "In what place soever thou shalt be, my lord, O king, either in death, or in life, there will thy servant be" (II Kings 15:21). Love always finds a way. I surpass desire when I am on the watch for opportunities and actually seek out occasions for practicing the third mode of hu-mility. There are always the humbler tasks to which no one pays 154 Ma~!, 1955 MARY AND JOSEPH FIND ,JESUS' any attention and to which are attached no praise or glory. Others will gladly let me have them. I can deliberately pass by positi6ns of influence and authority. I can accuse myself of my faults in a loud and clear voice. It may be more humbling dutifully to tell another his faults than to be told my own. The dependence ~ind humility implied in ~sking a permission, especially when I may be refused, is precious. It is sometimes all right deliberately to fail to show off my superior knowledge or ability. Letting others have the nicer place or things and allowing them to pass ahead of me is Christlike, too. In confession I can mention circumstances and motives connected with my faults that will be very humiliating. And so on. Love will find many other ways. This is the positive, aggressive, strong, earnest, eager, enthusiastic way "to be clothed with His garments and livery." Mary and ,Joseph Find ,Jesus Paul Dent, S.d. EVEN Mary and Joseph cannot find You when You choose to be hidden from them. But You mercifully choose to let them find You, too, lest I despair of ever seeing You face to face, 0 Jesus. Mary leaves Joseph for the women's court, thinking prayerfully, "Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine. Concupiscit et del~cit anima roea in atriis tuis.'" A mother passes by, followed by her boy. How like Jesus he is! Mary looks around at her side to compare the two, and He is not there! Disappointed, she thinks immediately, "He must have stayed with Joseph this time. How fortunate Joseph is to have Jesus with him! How unworthy I am to have Jesus with me! With all my heart I want Jesus with me, but still I do not want Joseph to be without Him. I shall be patient and spend the day in loving hope of seeing Jesus at the end." Thus the day passes in loving hope, and it ends in disappointment. For Jesus is not with Joseph either, and now they both bare lost Him--neither of whom had ever lost Him before! But Mary loses no time in self-pity, much less in blaming Joseph. For quite simply Joseph would not be careless about Jesus. Mary realizes at once she is confronted with a deliberate act of God, a 155 PAUL DENT mystery she does not now understand but which God will make dear to her when He wills. Meanwhile they must go immediately to look for Jesus, calmly, hopefully, not frantically. They must go prayerfully, too. God guide their footsteps. Then there come three days, and perhaps nights, too, of looking for Jesus; and it is a search that is con[ident. For He knows of it and will reveal Himself to them when God wills. Mary and Joseph seek Jesus humbl: , too, realizing they are not worthy to find Him, much less to keep Him with them in their own home. They are persevering also in their search, for Jesus, for duty and love drive them on continuously. Duty obliges the world's best parents to give the world's best care to the world's best Child. The love driv-ing them on is that of creation's greatest lover--Mary Immaculate! --and that of her all but equal--glorious St. Joseph !--for Jesus Christ Himself, beloved Son of God. "'Nec lingua valet dicere, nec littera exprimere, expertus potest credere quid sit desum diligere." Or, as convert Father Caswall worded it, "Nor tongue nor pen can show the love of Jesus. What it is, none but His loved ones know." So Mary and Joseph, who have experienced more than others what it is to love Jesus, seek Him lovingly, so lovingly that all they think, choose, say, do, or suffer is just one thing--seeking Jesus lost. If all I think, choose, say, do, or suffer is just one thing, the one thing necessary--a seeking of Jesus lost or of Jesus never even heard of amid the dust and turmoil of the incalculable billions of thoughts, choices, words, actions, and sufferings of the innumerable billions of human beings of the past, present, and future--then truly I am in the company of Mary and Joseph; truly we three are seeking Jesus, and truly not only we three, but very many others whom we help, will find Jesus foreveL Then we shall all sing forever with new understanding and inexpressible joy "'quid sit desum diligece--what it be to love Jesus!" And those other words of this great and tender hymn of the Ages of Faith, this "'desu Dulcis Memoria," will resound forever as our arisen and immortal voices sing sweeter than earth's loveliest ~ing-ing, "Quocumque loco fuero JESUM MECUM DESIDERO! Quam laetus cure int;enero! QUAM FELIX CUM TENUERO~.--In whatsoever place I be, Jesus, I want You there with me. When You I find, how happy I! How blessed when I have You by!" 156 THE APOSTOLATE OF CHASTITY. By Ferdinand Valentine, .O.P. P ). 245. The Newman Press,.Westm~nster, Maryland, 1954. $3.25. ; The vow of chastity is a subject which comes in for much dis-cussion in modern ascetical literature. This interest may be con-trasted with an attitude which prevailed in days gone by that the vow of chastity needed no explanation. The need for an explana-tion of the vow of chastity may differ from age to age and place to place; but there is no doubt, I believe, that religious may profit from a thorough and competent treatment of chastity such as Father Valentine offers. The A)ostolat'e of Chastit~l is both broader and narrower in scope than its ~itle would indicate. It is narrower in that it treats only of the apostolate of religious women. It is broader in its con-cern with other aspects of this vocation. The first chapter, for in-stance, deals with the problem of prcJmoting vocations. Superiors will find some very prudent suggestions concerning the pr.oper at-titude to be taken .toward vocations. The second chapter then deals with some problems of psychological fitness. The rest of the first section goes on to discuss the problerfi of religious adaptation tO modern times. The author dbes not take .up the problem 'of chastity proper until the beginning of the second s.ection of the book. He intro-duces this section with a catechetical treatment of the vow and" virtue of chastity,; and then goes on to what appear~ .tO be the heart of the book--a treatment of the apostolic aspqct. "9.f .chastity. The theme of this section ,would seem to be' that 't.,h~ ~orfian will find in virginal chastity "not an asceticism which rFstrains and represses her natural gifts as woman and mother, but rat~er'.their spiritual elevation and fulfillment . " This is certainly a healthy and a positiye attitu,d,e toward chas-tity, and one which it would be well for religious .women to .under-stand clearly. But there is a tendency among.modi~rn authors to justify virginity by try!.ng to make it look as much like ma~rri.age as possible. There is certainly room for analogy" between perpetual chastity and marital chastity, but there is also a danger to be re.ck-oned with. perpetual chastity, from whatever angle you .yiew it, 157 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious involves the renunciation of marriage and haarital privileges. There is a certain negative.aspect of religious chastity, then, which cannot be overlooked, and which it would be foolhardy to ignore. There are forces for which the religious life offers no outlet whether direct or by ways of so-called sublimation. Herein lies the sacrifice of the religious. So, while one must condemn the morbid fear of sex and sin which cripples the apostolate of some religious, one must leave room for a healthy fear. This fear will be based on a clear under-standing of the religious renunciation and the difficulty of controll-ing the forces thus held in check. Such fear, far from doing damage, will protect religious chastity and set a safe limit to the love that may be practised in religion. I believe that the author was aware of all this, but it may be that he thought it beyond the scope of his work to stress it. But religious women will find the book inspiring and stimulating, though at times difficult .reading.-~JOHN R.CONNERY, S.J. FATIMA IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY. By Costa Brochado. Translated and edited by George Boehrer. Pp. 231. The Bruce Publishing Com-pany, Milwaukee, 1954. $4.50. With rare common sense the author of this latest book on the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima has limited himself to historical analysis, and left supernatural elements to the competence of trained theologians. The translation is lucid and forceful and makes intensely interesting the somewhat tedious chronicle of Portugese history. With inspiring results, the unconquerable Catholic heritage of the country is traced th, rough centuries of political and religious up-heaval. The tragic, yet factual and objective, narration of the havoc initiated by the Marquis of Pombal, and forwarded by the anti-religious iddals of Masonry, reveals a tremendous need for the spir-itual revitalization of Portugal which providentially succeeded the apparitions of Our Lady of the Rosary. Pombal, Mr. Brochado as-serts, was ultimately responsible for shatteiing the religious unity of the country. By such planned offensives as the banishment of the Sbciety of Jesus, severance of relations with the Holy Se~, and open-ing the country to the destructive forces of Protestantism and Latin Masonry, Pombal made it possible for the Triangle to supplant the Cross in Portugal. Assaults on Churches, exile of prelates, state control of religion, secularization of schools, profanations, robber-ies, arson, murder--this is the pitiful picture of the country as it agonized and labored to preserve its Faith against the .enemies of 158 Mag, 1955 BOOK REVIEWS God and all things Catholic. And yet, the influence of the Blessed Virgin was never absent. Two centuries before the definition of the dogma, Portugal had consecrated herself to the Immaculate Conception and had taken a solemn oath to defend and propagate belief in Mary's perpetual sinlessness. Furthermore, the rosary had been for centuries the lead-ing Marian devotion of the portugese people, culminating in a ver-itable "crusade of the Rosary". in the midst of,frightful persecutions immediately preceding the apparitions of 1917. Portugal had not abandoned her patroness in the hour of trial, and our Lady did not forget her heroic fidelity. Since the events of Fatima, the Church's enemies have suffered great defeats in Portugal. The rapid revival of faith and hope in the hearts of the Portugese people is perhaps the surest sign that the Virgin has again triumphed by crushing the head of the serpent. .The reader of this book may feel, however, that Mr. Brochado has taken too local a view of the significance of Fatima. Despite his purpose, as stated in tbe translator's preface, " to "place those events [the apparitions] in their historical setting and to consider their efl:ects on subsequent bistor~l,'" (italics mine) Mr. Brochado barely hints at any world implications. He deliberately avoids all reference to subsequent developments, such as the state-ments of Lucia which involve our Lady's desire for devotion to her Immaculate Heart, the First Saturdays, the conversion of Rus-sia, or the vision of hell with its threat to sinners the world over. Are these developments sufficiently historical to merit mention? The question is admittedly disputed. But inthis reviewer's opinion, the Holy Father's consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart in 1942 and of Russia in 1952 has far-reaching repercussions, at least implicitly connected with the events of Fatima, which should not be ignored. It is noteworthy that Manoel Cardozo, in his pref-ace to Mr. Brochado's book, also seems to have sensed this lack of perspective: "Fortunately for us, Our Lady did not appear for the exclusive benefit of the Portugese (though they were favored above all others)."--VINCENT J. FORDE, S.J. SO SHORT A DAY. By Sisfer M. Eulalia Teresa, S.N.J.M. Pp. 281. Mc- Mullen Books, Inc., New York, 1954. $3.00. This book is the story of Mother Marie-Rose, the foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. Into the texture of this biography is woven the. inseparable 159 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Reuiew for Religious story of the beginnings of the congregation of Mother Marie-Rose and-i~s first.establishment at Longueuil, Quebec. It has been said that the most objective history, and consequently the best, is written by an author who is indifferent to his subject. Obviously, Sister M. Eulalia Teresa is not indifferent to the.subject of her book. (we would be disappointed if she were) ; and it is al-most as obvious that in places she lets her heart supply for his-" torical documentation. This, it seems, is the chief temptation of hagiographers. It must be said, however, that an indifferent author could not have caught the spirit of this foundress, could not have made it come alive as the author does. If the picture is overpainted in places, it is withal a vivid and inspiring picture. If ~he book is slow to take the reader's interest, it could well be due to the character portrayal and absence of conflict in the firs~ sections. The characters, are almost all painted in the same bright superlatives, and the st6ry lags for want of that conflict, internal or external, from which great souls emerge. Patience on the reader's part in waiting for character portrayal of deeper colors and better perspective is well rewarded. There is a new and welcome candor in the descriptions of the young pioneer sisters whom God called to the congregation of Mother Marie-Ros~ in its early days. Neither can it be said that the second part of the book is v~ithout conflict and the impact of drama:" The trials and persecutions to which the nascent coflgregation was subjected and the vibrant faith by which they were met are the heart of a ver~ real drama. So Short a Day makes this drama, enacted over a hundred years. ago, come back to life. The accomplishment of making history live again, of capturirig the pioneer spirit of this congregation and its saintly foundress is to be highly praised. Mother Marie-Rose died on her thirty-eighth, birthday, only six years after her congregation had been born. To:day her spirit. lives on in the 3,725 professed religious of her congregation and the 252 schools which her sisters direct. So short~ a day, so great a legacy.--JOHN POWELL, S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS BEAUCHESNE ET SES FILS, 117 Rue de Rennes, Paris. Initiation a. l'Oraison. Par Piere Brunet. His long experience BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS as ' professor at ,the seminary at Nancy has convince~l the author that most books on prayer do not meet the particular .problems,of seminarians fihd the secular clergy since they are written by and for religious. This book embodies his efforts to remedy that situation. Secular priests should find the book particularly helpful since it is written by one who knows their needs and problems. Pp. 326. THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin. The Catholic Church and You. By William 3. Grace, S.d. 7Fhe Inquiry Forum at the 3esuit Church in Milwauk'ee, begun in 1945, has attained something of an international reputation for the large mea